You Don't Have to Do This Alone

It doesn't matter if you're brand new, running your own firm, working at a big firm, or working in corporate. Seek out mentorship and community early on. And if you're a woman in this industry, I'd say it twice.

Last month we celebrated 25 years of The Dancing Accountant. Over those 25 years, there were so many times I felt like I was floundering. Even when I met someone I knew could help me, I didn't ask. I was too uncomfortable. I thought asking for help showed weakness. I thought it meant I wasn't a real businesswoman, because a real businesswoman would already know what she was doing.

I wish someone had told me sooner that none of us really know what we're doing.

This guide is about getting comfortable asking for help, so you don't spend years figuring things out on your own like I did.

We learned accounting, not how to run a business

Most of us came into this profession with technical training. We learned bookkeeping, tax, or advisory. What we didn't learn was how to run a business.

So there will be things you don't know and things you aren't good at. That isn't a personal failing. It's what happens when you're doing something nobody trained you for.

Once you accept that, asking for help stops feeling like an admission. It just becomes part of how you get better.

There are very few gatekeepers in this industry

In my experience, people in accounting want to help. I've met very few gatekeepers.

That means help is often closer than you think. It could be:

• Someone on LinkedIn whose posts have inspired you
• A vendor who has impressed you
• A speaker at a conference who said something that stuck with you

Go up to them and tell them what you're struggling with. Even if they don't know you, chances are they'll be willing to help.

I think part of the reason for this is that there's plenty of work to go around. People keep saying AI is going to take our jobs, and I don't believe it. Money is emotional and personal. AI can help us do our jobs better and give clients more valuable information, but clients still need the personal relationship. Right now there aren't enough of us to meet that need, so we don't have to see each other as competition.

When we collaborate, we all do better. A rising tide lifts all boats.

Get honest about your strengths and weaknesses

You can't ask for the right help until you know where you need it.

That means being honest with yourself about what you're good at and what you aren't. It also means letting that answer change over time.

For years I thought operations was one of my strengths. Eventually I realized it isn't my zone of genius. Once I stopped pretending, I could let that recognition shape my role and the direction of my career.

Your strengths at year three may not be your strengths at year fifteen. That's normal. Keep checking in with yourself.

Ask your team for help

This is the piece people resist the most, especially firm owners.

Your team already knows your strengths and weaknesses. So do your colleagues and friends in the industry. There's no point in hiding them.

One of the tenets of empathetic leadership is vulnerability. That means not trying to hide the things you aren't good at. And there's a bonus: when you're open about your gaps, the people around you can fill them.

This applies to everyone:

• If you own a firm: ask your team where they can take something off your plate
• If you're on a team: ask your colleagues and leaders for support where you need it
• If you're a solopreneur: lean on the communities you belong to

Stop saying "just"

I hear this all the time. "I'm just the manager." "I'm just a bookkeeper."

Years ago I met a woman at a conference who described herself as "just" the manager of the firm she was running. I told her to take that word out of her vocabulary. If you're running a firm, you're running a firm, and you should be proud of it. From that day on she was all in, and she has taken off.

Today she's helping me. She built her own firm from scratch with modern tools, and she's helping me bring a 25-year-old firm into the modern era. She's helping me find where our workflows don't line up, where we don't have a single source of truth, and where we never built out proposals or packages because we mostly billed hourly. Part of that work is emotional for me too: deciding what's non-negotiable and where I need to stay open-minded.

I thought of myself as being on the forefront. I was, ten years ago. Twenty-five years in, I'm still asking for help, and the person helping me is someone I once encouraged.

That's what paying it forward looks like.

The same goes for bookkeepers. No one is "just" a bookkeeper. Advisory work doesn't happen if the books aren't right. Tax pros often see a client once a year, while bookkeepers have a relationship with that client at every monthly close. When bookkeepers learn how to make life easier for tax pros, the client is better off and the bookkeeper becomes a favorite referral partner. Everybody wins.

Pitfalls to avoid

The following is general guidance.

• Waiting until you're in crisis: Help is easier to find when you've built relationships before you need them.
• Asking vaguely: "Can I pick your brain?" is harder to say yes to than a specific question about one problem.
• Hiding weaknesses from your team: They usually already know, and hiding them keeps them from helping.
• Only taking, never giving: Communities work when people show up for each other, not only when they need something.
• Treating your strengths as fixed: What you were good at early on may not be where you add the most value now.

You don't have to do this alone. There are so many people out there who want to help you.