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Episode Summary
Alicia Katz Pollock, CEO of RoyalWise and QBO Rockstar, joins Dawn for this week’s episode of the DM Disruption! Listen now to learn how Alicia went from a 7th grade substitute teacher, to being a successful business owner, and one of the top QBO teachers in the country!
Show Notes
Alicia’s Beginnings
Business owner, QBO Rockstar, and bass player extraordinar, Alicia Pollock begins her conversation with Dawn by talking about her experience as a 7th grade substitute teacher. Alicia says she’s always had a love for teaching, but quickly learned that teaching middle was not for her. She then moved over to teaching GED classes at her local community college, and took pride in knowing that she was helping people reach their goals.
Alicia also talks about how she’s always had a love for technology and was always keen on learning what new gadgets had to offer. She recounts a story where, at the age of 13, she learned how to use AppleWorks and created a patient database for her father’s Dentistry business.
Alicia’s Introduction to QuickBooks
Alicia owned her own jewelry company early on in her career and started to learn QuickBooks as a way to help manage her business. She found she had quite the knack for it, and became the go-to person in her area to help other business owners understand QuickBooks. This small interest in QuickBooks eventually led her to creating her own software teaching business, RoyalWise, and runs the business with her husband Jaime. She became so successful that she ended up selling her jewelry business in 2015.
Alicia’s Accomplishments
Alicia is also a member of the Intuit trainer-writer network, and is even on the national training team. If you take any QB Training Events or Intuit’s training sessions, there’s a good chance that Alicia will be one of your teachers!
In addition to training, Alicia is also an accomplished writer and has several QBO training books available to purchase on Amazon.
Alicia also talks about the success of her business, RoyalWise—a company devoted to teaching QuickBooks, Microsoft, and more to a variety of individuals.
How Alicia Finds Motivation
Dawn asks Alicia where she finds her motivation, and Alicia shares that she was very inspired by the book “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz.
“It’s kind of both our family Bible, and we give a copy to all of our employees,” says Alicia.
Alicia also shares that she finds motivation through her work, and knowing she is helping people achieve their business and personal goals makes her very happy.
Alicia also shares that she initially found much of her motivation from Dawn, as Dawn was the first speaker she saw when she first attended QuickBooks Connect.
Connect with Alicia
Visit RoyalWise
Check out Alicia’s books on Amazon!
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Transcript
Dawn Brolin 0:05
Canopy is an awesome tool if you’re doing tax returns or tax representation either way. What it allows you to do is pull transcripts from the IRS, they have an integration certified by the IRS to pull transcripts. What I love about it is I log in one time, I connect my E services account. And I can go into Canopy and pull transcripts, I don’t have to continue to log into the E services, put in my password, get my code and get in and finally just get through E services, it’s so cumbersome. So I use Canopy as one time connection, let me give you a couple tips. Number one, I like to pull transcripts for some of my clients who make estimated tax payments, maybe they don’t provide me a copy of the estimated tax payment, I want to make sure I know the correct date of those estimated payments, okay. So I will go into Canopy pull an account transcript for my client, and be able to see what dates they made their estimated payments just solves for a lot of problems, there’s no notices maybe I thought they did four or $5,000 estimated payments, when really, they only did three, they told me that it board they only did three, a notice comes in because they didn’t pay enough in tax. And now they’re saying you do the tax return wrong. That happens all the time. So to eliminate that pain of that process, and that, you know, customer integration or customer experience, right? We want to eliminate notices and all costs. So that’s one really key thing. The second one is when you’re not sure, if the clients giving you all of their documents, maybe there’s a 1099R that they had from the year before. And for whatever reason, they don’t think they can find it, I can pull a trans- a wage and income transcript, pull down all that information. So at least I had the federal information on that 1099 If it’s applicable if they received one for that year. And it eliminates again, the whole concept of notices. So I find it really important as I’m preparing tax returns to have this tool in place. And so I love using it. So as a tax preparer, those are a couple of tips, how you can use Canopy in your practice. Thanks for listening.
Okay, well hey, everybody, welcome back to the DM Disruption. So excited to have Alicia Pollock on with me today. We have known each other for a wicked long time. So from New England, I can say wicked, wicked long time, but we’ve never really and we agree we’ve really not had a lot of time to spend together. Just us as you know, we go to conferences and like nobody…. You’re like, what is the crossing of the night or something like that, or whatever it is. But, but I’m excited to have have you on today, Alicia. So tell us a little bit about yourself. And you know, you’re out there educating and training and teaching and you have just a passion for it. So tell everybody what you’re up to.
Alicia Katz Pollock 2:53
Yeah, well, so my name is Alicia Katz Pollock. And my actual official job title is QBO rock star. And it’s not just because I’m really good at QuickBooks, which I am. But I also play music as well. So…
Dawn Brolin 3:06
Oh cool! I didn’t know that. What’s your favorite instruments? Your instrument?
Alicia Katz Pollock 3:09
I play bass. I play bass.
Dawn Brolin 3:12
Yeah. Without the bass. We got nothing. By the way.
Alicia Katz Pollock 3:16
It’s all about the bass, no drummer.
Dawn Brolin 3:19
Yeah, exactly.
Alicia Katz Pollock 3:21
Yeah. And, um, I actually have a master’s in teaching. And I started my career as a seventh grade English teacher. And that lasted like literally about six months as a substitute teacher. And I realized that the kids were there because they had to be there. And you know, and when you’re in seventh grade, you know, it’s all hormones and social and like, teaching, you know, how to, you know, Charles Dickens was the last thing that they cared about. And so I moved over to the, the GED program at a community college. And so I started teaching adults because adults are there because they want to be there. They have a goal. They want to meet it. They might not know how, but they’re motivated. And so I started teaching adults, and I’ve been a computer geek, like my whole life. When I was a kid, the very first like, when the first home computers came out my apple two? My dad was a dentist and his base-, his office was in our basement. And so I went down to the computer and Appleworks was like the first database program, so I figured out how to use Appleworks and I created a database, and it took all of his paper records, and they put them in the computer so that we could write so that we could send postcards for their dental cleanings every six months. And so that was my first job at the age of 13 was programming the database.
Dawn Brolin 4:42
That’s so cool!
Alicia Katz Pollock 4:44
I’ve been a computer geek absolutely forever. And so Microsoft Office, Word, Excel, I was teaching in business schools, how to use comp apps, and I had a jewelry company and I learned how to use QuickBooks for my jewelry company. And it just started dovetailing with all the computer stuff that I would sit down and do a computer consult and people would say, well, you know, what about the, you know, can you help me with QuickBooks and so I kind of got up to speed on it, and I started doing it. But I would run everything I did through a bookkeeper to make sure that I wasn’t mucking them up. And she told me that actually, not only was I doing a good job, but like, my books were kind of bomb proof. And so the QuickBooks part of my business just start growing and growing and growing to the point that I started handing off all of my Apple clients, to my husband, who became my business partner. And that’s when we formed RoyalWise, so now he does all the Apple consulting, we still do a little bit of Microsoft Office, but not so much. And now I’m QuickBooks 24–almost literally 24/7.
Dawn Brolin 5:57
My goodness, you obviously what a great experience. I think a lot of people who started to learn QuickBooks and became you know, amazing people like you who are out there teaching people had their own business, and they were just like, oh, I figure this out. And then they fell in love with that, as opposed to your jewelry business right? You still have that?
Alicia Katz Pollock 6:15
I sold it in 2015 because I couldn’t do both of them.
Dawn Brolin 6:19
Yeah, it’s kind of like, okay, which direction am I gonna go. And so now you have a passion, of course, for teaching. You had a passion, right for a long time ago. But now you have a passion for teaching people QuickBooks and tell them like you’re doing that at like an exponential level. Tell us about that.
Alicia Katz Pollock 6:34
Yeah, so I’m a member of the Intuit trainer, writer network, and I’m actually one national training team. So if you go to QBTrainingEvents.com, and you take any of Intuit’s trainings, and I might be one of the presenters, I also might be one of the little elves behind the scenes typing madly to answer all of your questions. I’m a speaker at QuickBooks connect even coming up in November. So I’ve been a regular with them since 2015. And Scaling New Heights as well, although I’m not going this year. But what I bring to the table that is unique in the industry is that I’m a writer and a trainer. And so I have a book on Amazon that that is actually my notes from my QBO bootcamp that I teach at RoyalWise.com. And so I built this entire training portal, not just like a webinar with some recordings, but I have like a whole organized QBO training system at RoyalWise.com. So it’s got, you know, learning paths, and there’s over 40 videos, there’s probably close to 100 hours of content, I’ve got memberships, I’m doing a boot camp right now. And then all of the books I’m also writing books for Questa Consulting for Doug’s Leaders textbook, like the famous one that so many people learned how to do QuickBooks on it felt to me to rewrite it and modernize it. So in 2021, no 20 in 2020. I rewrote the desktop books, and I’m right now working on converting it to QBO. And this is like, like a 600 page textbook, step by step instructions and quizzes and like the whole the whole nine yards.
Dawn Brolin 8:24
So that’s awesome. So tell me tell me, of course, I’m all about motivation. What motivated you to do to like take that on kind of set it? You said it fell in your lap. But what a monstrous project, okay, I’ve real I wrote a little book this little really tiny. Felt like it took forever. You’re writing me like a manuscript of how to use QuickBooks. That’s a big job. That’s a big job.
Alicia Katz Pollock 8:48
It’s like literally my magnum opus. It’s like big book. It’s like, yes. Because I had this. The book that I wrote, grab a copy of the book that I wrote, that’s on Amazon, I did it in 2015. And, you know, it’s about a 200 pages. And it basically says, here’s the feature, here’s what it does. And this was actually, originally my notes for teaching the class. So when I would teach the class, I had this PDF. And I was spending so many times–so much time like printing it out of my laser writer and hole, punching it and putting in binders and handing them to students. I was like, I think I could publish on Amazon for cheaper than a binder. So made a mass market and it’s actually, like, I’m waiting for the latest version to clear it should be up by the time anybody watches this, the 2020 version should be up. And so but like, I would sit there with this, and it’s like, well, I’m talking like it says create a sales receipt. But it’s not saying click this type this. Here’s what you need to think about this field. And so like I had this dream of writing the big book, instructions, and then Questa approached me and I’m like, “here’s my chance!”
Dawn Brolin 10:01
That’s– you know, and I’ll tell you in the trainer-writer network, which I’m one of the new member committee, people, we really struggle finding people who want to write. And so I find it amazing. So you love to teach and write, which is a kind of rare combination. You know, it really is.
Alicia Katz Pollock 10:19
I mean, there’s a lot of people out there making videos. I like to think that my presentation style is, you know, sets me apart from that, but I’m one of the few people putting pen to paper or keys, keyboard, and think, “Well, books are dead, you know, why would you want something printed out?” But the truth is, is if you’re actually trying to look up something and learning how to do it, there’s something to be said, for having that paper in there.
Dawn Brolin 10:45
Agreed. 100%. Yeah. And so you’re teaching this is are you primarily teaching like new QuickBooks users, bookkeepers that work for companies? Like what do you find to be… or is it a mix?
Alicia Katz Pollock 10:56
It’s totally a mix. I mean, I started with the business owners, because I was doing the business consulting. And so the way I started teaching was the fact that I was like, teaching the same thing to client after client after client. And I don’t do bookkeeping. I’m not a bookkeeper. I’m doing the setups and the training and the troubleshooting and looking at a messy file and explaining to the business owner what they need to do differently. Like, that’s my favorite thing to do. And so my classes started as the business owners, not the bookkeepers. But of course, like QuickBooks is QuickBooks, there’s certain things that bookkeepers need to know, different right? From business owners. But for the most part, it dovetails and for while I had actually separated it out on my website, like I have a membership program, so that you can subscribe and get access to all of my content, instead of buying it piecemeal. And up until for like, the last few years, I’ve had a business owner track and a bookkeeper track, and I just decided we’re doing a revamp, I’m like, you know, let’s just bring it together. Other than keeping away it’s the same.
Dawn Brolin 12:01
Right? It’s just you’re doing the same thing. You’re teaching a business owner or you’re teaching a bookkeeper, they’re both doing the same thing. So So now how and so how long have you been? Have you had your site up? And how long have you been doing that? Kind of that part of training?
Alicia Katz Pollock 12:15
Yeah, we started the learning management system, what’s called an LMS, back in 2017. So that’s when I started building it. And then after at that point, it was just like, Okay, so I’ve got the core class, what don’t I have? Okay, I need more about reports. I need more about payroll, I need more about all the new features coming out. So I have this thing I do is like “look what I found” wherever it’s just it’s a free course where it’s just like, here’s receipt capture when it came out and tagging when it came out and mileage when it came out. And so I love like finding all the little nitty gritty things like that’s my motivation is I’m using it all sudden, bam, something new pops up, like cool! Let me go play with that now. So that’s what I like.
Dawn Brolin 12:58
And I bet you love the aha moment. I had one this morning. So like, I’m, you know, I’ve got probably 50 clients on QBO you know, at this point, so you know, obviously been working in QBO for a while, and it’s that one thing that you find, so I’m just going to put myself out there I’m going be vulnerable, here goes. This morning, I had a client asking me about an invoice. And I’m like, subtotal. How do I create subtotal item? It because… my brain is just always goes back to that desktop functionality, right? And I’m like, you idiot. It’s right there. In the lower left corner says add a subtotal. But you know, like those of us who are who have been the desktop loving humans that we’ve been for so long. You’re just like, it’s an item? Of course. It’s an item. No, it’s not an item, but it’s right there on the face of that sucker right there staring you in the face.
Alicia Katz Pollock 13:48
Yes, sales taxes aren’t items, assemblies aren’t items…really different.
Dawn Brolin 13:53
It’s so different. And so I love when you like you’re saying, like, when you teach someone, they’re like, “Oh, now I get it!” That’s the stuff you love. And that’s what you were looking for. And those seventh graders who refuse to give that back to you, right?
Alicia Katz Pollock 14:07
Those aha moments where like the light bulb goes off like, “Oh, my God, that just changed everything for me!” That’s what I love.
Dawn Brolin 14:15
And you’re getting that reward. And it’s so like, I do love working with the business owners. And you’re just like, you know, hey, what about this? What about that we tend I tend to bring my clients in, and I’m like, and like you said, you’re not doing bookkeeping, but essentially you are. And I want to say that I really love the fact that you said, “You know what, I work on these books. I’m going to train it but then I’m going to run it by a bookkeeper, somebody who, you know, kind of can see that full picture of things.” And you know, I always talk about it. I had this one staff member who still absolutely the best bookkeeper, in my opinion in the country. Never went to high school didn’t go to college. But you know what, it didn’t matter. She had a passion for wanting to make sure that business owners could read their reports and that they were accurate all the time. And so you know, you say you’re not a bookkeeper. But at the end of the day, you know, you’re giving that same result, you’re actually giving that result as opposed to the process, which I find, like really awesome. And those aha moments where, where you’re solving something that they just never even realized there was a solution for, you know, and so I love that. So, so tell me at some point in your life, right, and I, I’ve read your notes, right? But, you know, somebody motivated you or something that motivates you. And of course, I agree with you, when you get somebody who is like, Oh, that’s awesome, bro. I’m like, I get that now. Makes sense. That fills up your bucket. Right, that fills your glass. Yeah. And says, Okay, I’m doing this right. I’m helping this person. So you say I believe it was your family? You said what you said, oh, when everyone probably says that what people? Not everybody does say that. So tell me about that. Tell me about your family. What What how do they motivate you?
Alicia Katz Pollock 15:56
Well, I have…my family is that we call it “the house of love”, that my husband’s and my commitment to each other was that we would have a house of love that no matter what happens, that would be the founding principle. And I don’t know if you’ve ever read The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz…
Dawn Brolin 16:13
I have not!
Alicia Katz Pollock 16:14
It talks about motivators, that book is absolutely amazing. It’s like this thing, I think it’s actually right on right up on this bookshelf. And it’s kind of our both our family Bible, and we give a copy of all of our employees. And the idea with the Four Agreements is that you’re impeccable with your word, you don’t make assumptions. You don’t take things personally, and you always do your best. And so with those four guidelines, we can work anything out. And like, my kids are amazing people, you know, that was our goal was we wanted to raise good people. And so you know, we look at all the you know, some 70 of my kids friends are like, “Oh, my God”, and like, are just awesome. I mean, they all have their moments, obviously. Oh, yeah. But they know that, where’s mom, she’s upstairs writing, or she’s upstairs recording something, you know, they, they know that I’m driven and motivated. And hopefully, I motivating them to take that approach in their lives, as well.
Dawn Brolin 17:13
I love that. I love that. And you know, I was talking to Scott a little bit earlier. And in this guy, Scott, he’s on an earlier podcast. And we talked about how, like, I’m just surprised, my kids are still alive, right? It’s like, they give them to you, they put them in this thing, and they put it in your car and you bring it home with you. And I’m like, you haven’t even done a background check on me. Like, are you sure you want to let these humans come home with me?
Alicia Katz Pollock 17:41
Because this drive cars that they should have apparently.
Dawn Brolin 17:45
Right? And, and I think that that’s fantastic how you approach your relationship with your husband, and how you approach your kids. And I guarantee you and there’s nothing more fulfilling than when a kid says to you, mom, because my kids have said this to me, Mom, you know, I just want you to know that I so respect your worth work ethic. You know, the fact that you’re out there you work till you know that historically I don’t do it so much anymore. But you know, just work work work. Because I’m we’re people pleasers, we want to do the things we want to do, right, which I love that about, about what you said, right? And so how old are your kids? 13 and 1515. And they’re at that age, we’re gonna call it that. And when you can say, you know, people people said this to me a lot. I’m sure people are saying this to you. Oh, the teenage years. Oh, man, how brutal was that? And I say, You know what, I enjoyed their teenage years, we had an open conversation open relationship of, you know, let’s just always be honest with each other, always tell the truth. And you can live by that and be successful in anything you do. If you can keep together those, you know, characteristics.
Alicia Katz Pollock 18:56
It’s really true. It’s it all comes down to that foundation of trust.
Dawn Brolin 19:00
Mm hmm. And so and so what does your husband do in the partnership besides what he’s told? That’s what I tell people. What does your husband do what he’s told, not really, but what is his role?
Alicia Katz Pollock 19:10
Jamie does the same thing that I do with Intuit, but he does it with Apple products, although he’s not doing as much writing but we our whole website has a whole Apple section as well. So we have like another 50 videos on Macs, iPhones, iPads. And so he largely works with seniors just because you know, the people who grew up with it grew up with it, but he helps your parents getting their technology because you know, it makes you crazy like “Mom I told you that six times already!” Jamie’s the person who can tell it the next six times. And and then when Jamie’s not doing all of the Apple stuff, he’s actually the he’s kind of like the mom in the family. He’s the one who’s helping the kids keep their heads on straight and he’s a gourmet cook and so you know…
Dawn Brolin 19:57
All right, you got that nailed down!
Alicia Katz Pollock 19:59
Yeah. Exactly. So he does he does all the cooking and I’m eternally grateful. I think it’s more important than what I do.
Dawn Brolin 20:06
Oh, absolutely. Filling the belly is extremely important. And, um, so So if you were to look to two to three to five years down the road for Alicia, what is that going to look like for you? Now you obviously you love doing the training and the recording and the writing and things like that. But is there something like coming down that you’re like, you know what, this is one thing, let’s just not even talk about like work. But if there was something that you said, you know, what, five years from now I’m going to make sure I’m doing X or I’m doing z like, what would that be? What would that look like for you?
Alicia Katz Pollock 20:37
Well, I mean, on the on the the work front, my goal is to take these textbooks that I’m writing and get take them out of just the academic world and make them available to the mass market. So that’s kind of my roadmap for like the Nexus, it’s going to take us two years to transform it, but you can buy the book on Amazon, and then you can go to my website and watch all the videos that go with the step by step instructions in the book. So like, that’s my immediate plan. And so you know, finding away from going like, just me behind the desk, to making this a whole training program and getting it out there. So that, you know, making the this kind of mildly entertaining bookkeeping approach. And getting that out there. So like, the professionally, that’s what I want to be doing is like, you know, going as taking it as far as I can, on the personal side, continuing to play music, and actually, not just taking my lesson every week, but you know, maybe other people hear me sometimes would be nice. And, and then of course, I you know, want to travel I want to my, once my kids are out of the house, I want to buy an RV and drive around. And because you know, if I’m gonna be driving for eight hours, I could be in the back doing some more writing well, my husband’s drive, and travel as much as possible.
Dawn Brolin 22:01
I love that. So, so as you’re looking, and that’s one of the greatest things about you know, I mean, you and I, like we’re about, you know, say we’re about the same age, you’re probably younger than me. But back when it wasn’t so popular to be mobile. And now with the full ability and permission to be mobile, that’s a perfect plan. Because now you can work because you love what you do. Right? Some people I love what I do, I can give you an example. So I’ve been working on a civil audit and and this individual, let’s just say it wasn’t really transparent on his tax return as he should have been, right, it wasn’t as honest as he should have been. And so when you get that you get through something like that, and you can minimize their exposure by, you know, getting the auditor what they need, get, you know, doing the things you need to do. And then you get the letter that we finalized it, everything’s good, we accept it, we move on. And they don’t open up other years. That to me is like, that’s what drives me to want to continue, right? It’s that success that win, right? And so for you, your wins, are getting these things published, getting out in front of people, and certainly people subscribing to your website to be able to that you you see them progressing, you see them succeeding. And that’s what you love to do. So I love that goal of mobility. Because you already are mobile, we are all mobile already. But be able to take it and then you know, pull in something that’s more personal, like traveling. Right and be able to do both. Best of both worlds. That’s what I would call it right. Yeah,
Alicia Katz Pollock 23:34
It really is. I mean, I started using zoom with my clients and stopping going on site back in 2017, when there was a snowstorm in Portland, we couldn’t go anywhere and so much technology is out there. And so I did my first screenshare you know, back then. So then when COVID hit and everything got locked down in the beginning of 2020, actually one of the very, very first things that we did is my husband ran and Jamie whose name is Jamie. Jamie ran these Zoom trainings for all of our entire RoyalWise base. So like seniors, my business owners, everybody, and we had like we literally had 80 People over 70 in one in two Zooms. So it was adorable. So you have that whole grid of all these people going like this, like can they hear me? Okay, the mute button is in their lower left, everybody look for a little microphone and click the mute, okay, turn it off, turn it on and it was just an so it was absolutely tremendous. And so because we were already doing training, this has actually been a boom for us because now people are comfortable with going online and virtual training and I’ve been doing in person classes for years you know, right classroom, bring everybody in, set up the projector, I had the screen so that I could record it. And, and all of that, and our production values have been able to go up hugely, because now I have like, I’m in a sound studio, like there’s like foam on my walls.
Dawn Brolin 25:12
I mean, it’s just, it’s a whole different world than it was just, you know, and I see, the biggest challenge I see are those that just don’t they want to stop it, they don’t want to do it, they don’t want to part of it. And then there’s those people where like, I do a lot of training with firms to teach them how to get in the cloud and, you know, do things electronically. And a lot of times that, you know, one of their first things as well, my older clients, they’re not going to want to do that electronic thing. And I’m like, You know what, I get that, I totally get that out. And I always tell people, I say listen, I meet my clients where they are, if they’re just not ready, then they’re not ready. But I’m always still putting in their ear, hey, listen, you know, you can really, let me just send this electronically while you’re sitting in front of me on your phone, because they all have phones, and let’s let’s see how that works. And that’s what you’re doing your your take your meeting them where they are, you’re helping them take those baby steps. And you know, Alicia, honestly, teaching those older people because of COVID, last Christmas, you probably have positively affected how many people you think between those students, these elderly students who learn how to go on Zoom, were able to zoom with their family during Christmas that they would have never been able to do before.
Alicia Katz Pollock 26:24
Absolutely. You know, and and you know, the numbers, literally hundreds that we’ve been helping seniors, like, know how to use their phones, or buy iPads or buy computers, and we need t shirts that say green share, blue share, you click, you click the blue share button, I say that more than, than anything! But it’s been we’ve been really grateful that we’ve been in this position where we can provide this support to people because a lot of people would have been more lost if they couldn’t meet with their loved ones, or, you know, we have a lot of clients and senior centers and that Jamie has to like go meet outside. And they had no contact with their families. And so we know that we’ve been instrumental on keeping these people, you know, mentally mentally challenged, yeah. Like in a way that they’re being able to stay connected with the world. So that’s amazing. We’ve been in this position where we could have maximum assistance to people.
Dawn Brolin 27:30
So if you thought of it in that context, really before that, hey, listen, we’re actually keeping people more connected than they would have ever been. Imagine the pandemic five years ago, people weren’t learning how to use Zoom, the loneliness we have now, imagine the exponential and would have been if we weren’t able to do things like that, where you are able to affect those people in such a deep way. Like, I didn’t even really think of it when you first said that you guys are doing that. I didn’t really think of it that way. But wow, what an impact. What an impact.
Alicia Katz Pollock 28:02
It’s been huge. We’ve been really grateful for the position that we’ve been in through this big mess that the world is in because my husband and I are already technological. My kids are already tech geeks. So like homeschooling for them was no big deal. We didn’t have any, any tech challenges, just other challenges that came along with it. But like, I’m just grateful that I’ve been in this position to meet have the maximum impact on people as we transition. And you know, I think there’s some definite benefits to the fact that we are now able to work remotely. You know, the amount of time that I spent driving from client to client to client, that’s another two hours of productive time in my day.
Dawn Brolin 28:48
That’s so true. It’s so true. And it was interesting, because historically, Alicia, as you have been and I have been trying to drag people, right, come on, get into the 21st century, join us as we move into a new way of work, a new way of living. And we were doing it before pandemic happened. We were ready. You know. So for those who weren’t ready, I hope that they’re getting it like figuring it out. Like we’re not just saying it for nothing. We’re saying it because it really matters, right?
Alicia Katz Pollock 29:17
Well, one of the things that’s been really funny that’s happened just in the last month or so is that my husband’s getting getting called calls from some of his clients where their technology is getting too old. You know, I joke that computers, age in double dog years that one year and a computer is 14 human years. So from your computer is five years old. It’s 70. Right? It’s like getting ready to retire. And by the time it’s seven years old, it’s 96. And like it can barely do anything. It’s very slow now, and now we’ve got people calling us because now they can’t Zoom. Their operating systems are too old. And the computers that Jamie’s replacing right now are actually the ones that I set up with when I first started in the industry as because I started actually as an Apple consultant, before I was doing QuickBooks, and so he’s now replacing the computers that I set up for people, like 10 years ago!
Dawn Brolin 30:12
That’s wild!
Alicia Katz Pollock 30:13
Isn’t that wild? Amazing. We have this program called the Robin Hoot program, we do everything with with owls, so you can see my owls. And so Robinhood program is that when Jamie helps somebody get a new computer, he does the data transfer. And then we take the computer off of their hands and wipe it back to factory. And if it’s still usable, we take it we send it out to Freecylce.com and we have we just get the computers out into the community to people.
Dawn Brolin 30:40
That’s awesome. I do the same thing. As I also not only do I do that is when we go to conferences, and we get backpacks, you know, sometimes you can leave with three or four backpacks from a conference. And and I’ll repurpose those and when they have the back to school stuff. You know, I have a friend of mine that locally organizes a backpack drive. So we’re able to repurpose them and give them back and you’re right. I had a couple of computers last fall. I was like here, find a couple kids who can use them. Right, right.
Alicia Katz Pollock 31:06
Yeah, we pass out old iPhones, we pass out old Macs, you know, anything that we can get back out into the community.
Dawn Brolin 31:12
I love that. I love that. Well, Alicia, this has been a great conversation, we will try to keep it within 20-25 minutes, so people will keep listening.
Alicia Katz Pollock 31:22
I have one more thing that I need to add–as far as designated motivator goes, I was thinking back when I my first QuickBooks Connect, which must have been like 2015, the very first presentation I went to, yeah, was you. Oh, really? My very first accounting conference, my very first workshop was you, you’re up on the stage, you had little squishies that you were chucking out into the audience and candy or hooking up people. And I love it. And, you know, it was incredibly entertaining, as well as informative. But it was like stand up comedy. And then I went Redmon, who’s it? And hers was like, as throwing as much information at me as possible. And so like, those were my first two workshops, and I came out of those first two going, I can do this. I want to be on this stage. And so that’s like, Okay, I got this, I can do this. And so I started like hunting down Alison Ball and finding out how I can get involved.
Dawn Brolin 32:24
I, Alicia I love that. That’s very humbling, um, you know, certainly to come into your first conference, and then you got this psycho up there. You know, that’s, I’m glad to hear well, I went well, you know, but but that’s, you know, and that’s one of the things like Leslie Kabat, Chetty was my person. I went to an advanced QuickBooks, the first advanced QuickBooks training they had, it was local. I went saw Lesley Kappachetty, and I said, I want to do what you do. She gave me the call this person do this, do that. And that’s how I started and I love that myself and Laura Redmond could be that for you. And what the greatest part is, Alicia, you’re being that for other people now. And that’s there’s nothing more rewarding than having people have success. And that you could be even just if I could be an ounce of a part of that, then that’s very humbling for me. So thank you for, for saying that. And I’m sure that you will have someone come up to you, or chat through to you at QB connect this year, right? That will say, Alicia, you are the first person I saw and you are the reason why I want to do this. And you inspired me so and that’s all we can do as as colleagues as peers, we’re here to help each other. And certainly, I really do appreciate your time. I also love owls. I think owls are amazing. And but we will definitely will have links in the podcast to your website. So if you make sure you send that stuff over to Gaynor because we want to promote what you’re doing and support you in any way we can. And I’m sure I’ll see you soon be in the next year at some kind of conference. And hopefully we can have a coffee and sit down face to face and catch up.
Alicia Katz Pollock 34:00
I will totally look forward to that.
Dawn Brolin 34:02
I would love it. I love it. Alicia again. Thank you so much, everybody for listening to DM Disruption. We’ll see you back here next time. We’re always looking for great people. So feel free to reach out you want to come on the show. Great people like Alicia was helping other people. Thanks again, everybody. Enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you. You’re awesome
Alicia Katz Pollock 34:18
See you in class!
Dawn Brolin 34:19
You’ve got it, see in class, bye bye.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
