1. Learn how to stop guessing and start growing your business using your numbers.
2. Discover Serena’s monthly “money date” habit that keeps your finances on track.
3. Get tips on maximizing productivity with financial admin through batching.
4. Hear how ChatGPT can help interpret your financial reports—even if you hate numbers.
5. Gain access to Serena’s free bookkeeping checklist tailored for online entrepreneurs.

Serena's Valuable Free Resource (VFR):

https://www.ofcoursebookkeeping.com/guide

Corporate CPA turned bookkeeping CEO Serena Shoup shares how entrepreneurs can stop avoiding their numbers, build money confidence, and boost business profits. Learn simple, actionable strategies - from money dates to mindset shifts - all in just 7 minutes.

02:30 Ideal Client: Online entrepreneurs who DIY their bookkeeping or are scaling and want to understand and grow their numbers.
02:55 Problem Solved: Helping business owners stop avoiding their numbers and make bookkeeping actionable, not overwhelming.
03:29 Valuable Free Action (VFA): Schedule a monthly “money date” to review finances; use ChatGPT to interpret financial reports for clarity.
05:00 Valuable Productive Action (VPA): Tie tasks to outcomes for motivation and batch financial admin to save time and reduce context switching.
08:30 Bonus Material
09:48 Valuable Free Resource (VFR): Get Serena’s free monthly bookkeeping checklist.

(Note, this was transcribed using transcription software and may not fully reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Welcome to the Goalbusters Expert Peak Productivity Tips podcast, where top business experts get just seven minutes to answer five rapid fire questions about what they do and how they stay productive.

Each episode is packed with actionable insights to help boost your efficiency and achieve your goals. Let's dive in and unlock the secrets to peak performance.

00:22 ROBIN

Well, hello, everyone. My name is Robin J. Emdon, and I'm the creator and author of the GetResultsology system and a dedicated accountability coach. My mission is to empower solopreneurs to unlock their true potential, boost their income, and achieve extraordinary success by maximizing productivity, streamlining their businesses, and aligning their goals with their authentic vision and purpose.

If you're ready to turn ambition into action and transform your goals into reality, you're in exactly the right place.

And speaking of being in exactly the right place, I am delighted to welcome our guest expert today, Serena Shoup. Serena is a corporate CPA turned bookkeeping business CEO, mentor for other bookkeepers, accountants, and mom of three. Serena built her business as a side hustle to motherhood when she left corporate to have her second daughter. She's passionate about helping business owners become CEOs and take control of their money through her company, Of Course Financial.

And she hosts the ambitious bookkeeper podcast dedicated to elevating the bookkeeping and accounting profession.

Serena, welcome to GoalBusters!

SERENA
Hello, Robin. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you.

ROBIN
You're very welcome. And whereabouts in the world are you, Serena?

SERENA
I'm in Arizona, in the United States, in Northern Arizona. A lot of people are like, oh, it must be so hot. And, actually, no. I'm in the mountains. We get snow and all four seasons, so it's not blistering hot desert.

ROBIN
Oh, no. You've just exploded the myth that was in my mind as well. Thank you for clarifying that. I didn't I didn't even know Arizona had mountains.

That's how ignorant I am about your about your country. Oh, dear. That's embarrassing. Alright. Shall we do the questions instead?

SERENA
Let's go for it.

ROBIN
Alright. I'll get the clock up on the screen, and there we go. Serena, could you tell me, please, who is your ideal client?

02:30 SERENA – Ideal Client
My ideal client is an online entrepreneur either DIY’ing their bookkeeping or starting to grow and scale who wants to understand their numbers so they can grow their numbers and increase their profits and impact.

ROBIN
Alright. That's very succinct and clear, and it's what I would expect from an accountant. So what exactly is the problem that you solve, please, Serena?

02:55 SERENA – Problem Solved
Well, we help business owners stop avoiding their numbers mainly. That is a trend that, just a lot of entrepreneurs either feel overwhelmed by their finances or they aren't really sure how to use their numbers to grow. So we try to make bookkeeping approachable and actionable so that they can stop guessing and start growing their business and strategizing.

ROBIN
Excellent. Thank you. And so what is one valuable free action that the audience can implement that would help them to solve their bookkeeping problems themselves?

03:29 SERENA – Valuable Free Action (VFA)
Yeah. So I actually had been list with a few of your past episodes, and one recently, your LinkedIn expert was talking about, watering the money tree. And mine is similar in that I don't use that metaphor, but maybe I'll borrow it in the future.

But I like people to schedule a monthly money date with themselves. So during that time, review your income, your expenses, your cash flow. Even just thirty minutes a month can give you a better pulse on your business and help you spot opportunities or problems early on. 

And my bonus tip there is to take your financial reports and pop them into ChatGPT and ask ChatGPT to interpret and explain your reports like you're not an like you're not a numbers person. So that's my little my little bonus tip there.

ROBIN
Oh, excellent. And that's a really good tip. Although my extra tip that I would add to that is always get ChatGPT to just double check itself.

SERENA
Yes.

ROBIN
It has been known to make mistakes.

SERENA
It tends to make math mistakes, so I wouldn't rely on it heavily, but at least it can pinpoint some areas you wanna.. focus on.

ROBIN
Yes. You're not suggesting ask it to do your bookkeeping. That's going too far.

SERENA
No.

ROBIN
Alright. So now that we have a better understanding of what you do, Serena, could we could let's have a look at diving into GoalBusting itself focusing on how to maximize productive time to achieve business goals. Could you share any tips or advice for someone looking to improve their productivity habits, please?

05:00 SERENA – Valuable Productive Action (VPA)
Yeah. I guess when it comes to really any productivity, but in this context, we're talking about numbers and bookkeeping. I always like to tie your tasks to outcomes to outcomes. So it's kind of a mindset shift, but also productivity hack. So instead of saying, like, I need to work on my bookkeeping, shift the focus to why and say, I'm reviewing my financials so I can make informed decisions and hit my revenue goal, and that mental shift does create more purpose and momentum.

And then also batching your financial admin tasks like client invoicing, reconciliations, or your budgeting, or just looking at your bank account. Batch all that together because it's gonna save time and reduce context switching, which I'm sure you've talked about, in productivity. So, so, yeah, that's my big one there.

I also personally like to plan out my entire week, just weeks at a time. I will look to see what's on my calendar for the week ahead and put it in my paper planner and really figure out, like, how much time I actually have to do the tasks and the related to the goals that I have. So, that's my personal little productivity hack.

ROBIN
Yeah. And and never underestimate the power of pen and paper as well. Everything being done on computers and phones these days, I hate it personally. I understand the value of it sometimes, but other times, you need to be able to see it in your own scribble, on your own scrappy bits of paper or beautiful notepads that you buy for yourself. It's really helpful.

SERENA
Absolutely.

I still I mean, I live and die by my digital calendar. Everything goes in that, but I sit down once a week. I write everything down in my weekly spreads so I can just, at a glance, see my entire week. And just the act of writing something down does something with your subconscious that kind of solidifies it in there so that you remember what's going on a little bit better.

ROBIN
Absolutely. I still do that every single day. I write down what I wanna get done today on paper on, and it definitely goes in a lot more than if I have it written down on the screen. Yeah. Perfect. Now before I ask you the final question, I have an extra question for you regarding what you do.

When you're talking about bookkeeping, you I noticed that you don't mention tax because that would be very region centric. That depends on what state you're in, what country you're in, what continent you're on. I presume you do that, but what I've heard you talk about is just looking at the financials of your business, which would be universal. Am I right about that?

SERENA
You are right on that. We do offer sales tax, which is very specific to the United States. All of our clients are based here, but I usually partner with another firm or other multiple firms to offer income tax. So, I'd I don't do taxes necessarily - just sales tax.

So I'm the way I'm hearing that is that you are you can offer a global service because the taxing is very much a local thing.

SERENA
Yeah.

ROBIN
But the rest of it is just it doesn't matter what part of the world you're in. The numbers are the same.

SERENA
Numbers are numbers.

ROBIN
That's right. Yes.

Unless you're into, some kind of super physics. Yeah. We won't go there. Right. So finally, what should I have asked you today, Serena, that I didn't and your answer, please?

08:30 SERENA – Bonus Material
I would say what's the biggest money mindset shift that changes how people grow their businesses?

And my answer would be to stop seeing your numbers as judgment and stop telling yourself that you're bad with numbers because the numbers are simply feedback to what's going on in your business and honestly your personal life as well. You can look at it the same way. And so the sooner that you can look at your finances objectively, the faster you can use them to fuel your growth. And, again, my bonus tip is to take those numbers and put them in ChatGPT and have that explain it to you in an objective fashion and help you pinpoint areas that you can improve with your numbers.

ROBIN
Very interesting. It's always intriguing to hear new uses for AI as well. The media makes that AI is all evil and bad, but not when you're using it for your day to day business, not necessarily the case.

SERENA
Yeah.

ROBIN
But it could be very useful indeed.

Alright. Thank you. So I do have with time is up, and that was beautifully timed. So I do have another question for you, which I always ask at this point, which is a two-parter. How can people get hold of you? And secondly, do you have any, like, valuable free resources that they could reach you with, which is a very good way of finding out more about what you do as well?

09:48 SERENA – Valuable Free Resource (VFR)
Yeah. Absolutely. I would say the best place to find me is my website, ofcoursebookkeeping.com, or Instagram. I like to hang out on Instagram. So I'm at fine at, ofcoursefinancial on Instagram.

And I do have a free resource for anyone that is doing their own bookkeeping or maybe starting a business and kind of confused about where to start with that, if you go to, ofcoursebookkeeping.com/guide, it's a few page PDF with a checklist of what you should be doing with your bookkeeping every month, how to interpret cert certain reports, and, some little bit of, like, tax guidance in there on what you can write off, especially for the online space. So there's some specific things in there. So yeah.

ROBIN
Oh, perfect. And for people that aren't familiar with it, you are not it's not a verbal trip. Your website really is called OfCourseBookkeeping.com. You're not saying, of course it is. So and it's a lovely little play on words, actually. I've looked at your website. It's a lovely play on words about course content and so on and so forth.

So that's really that's really

SERENA
Yeah.

It's great SEO.

ROBIN
Yes. It's great SEO. And, yes, it's not a verbal slip of the tongue. It's genuinely, ofcoursebookkeeping.com. Perfect.

Serena, that has been wonderful. Thank you so much. I found that really interesting.

Particularly, like, using ChatGPT to explain things.

With that proviso, always make sure that you ask it to double check and give you some sources as well if it does double check because otherwise, it could it could lead you on a merry dance, but not if you're careful.

SERENA
Awesome. Yes. Well, thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to share. It was a blast.

ROBIN
It was a blast. It was lovely to meet you. Thank you so much for doing this today. Serena Shoup, thank you, and bye bye.

SERENA

Bye.

OUTRO
Thanks for tuning in to Goalbusters. If you're enjoying it, please subscribe, rate, and review it on your favourite podcast platform.
Your support is very much appreciated!

And if you're ready to boost your online profits, skyrocket your productivity, crush procrastination, and see a positive change in your bank balance all within just thirty days, this is your opportunity

Take my free five day challenge at skyrocketyourproductivitychallenge.com

Robin J. Emdon is the creator of GetResultsology®, The Science of Getting Stuff Done!, a practical system that helps self-starters overcome procrastination, build momentum and follow through on what matters.

Known as The Procrastination Slayer and The Momentum Architect, Robin supports solopreneurs, creatives and no-boss professionals across the full spectrum of productivity challenges. Whether someone is stuck at the starting line or simply wants to move faster with more focus, his work helps turn scattered effort into consistent progress.

Robin began his career in his family’s retail business before training as a life coach in California in 2001. Although he has always been based in South Devon, coaching took a back seat while he raised his two sons as a full-time single dad. The desire to help others never went away. In 2019, a personal turning point revealed just how much procrastination had been limiting his own progress. It had taken him ten years to complete a home-based degree designed to take six.

When the lockdowns began in 2020, Robin immersed himself in the best thinking in neuroscience, behavioural psychology and productivity. From that deep learning, he developed GetResultsology®, built around what he now calls his momentum formula:

Do it today – Profit tomorrow: Repeat!

The formula is easy to remember but harder to live by without the right structure. GetResultsology® helps close that gap by turning daily effort into consistent, meaningful progress that leads to profit, growth and life-changing outcomes.

Still based in South Devon, on England’s scenic southwest coast, Robin now works with clients around the world. From his quiet corner by the sea, he helps people stay focused, take action and get results that truly move the needle.

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