Running the Business and Keeping the Books Accurate with Paula Paisley

Liam Dempsey: Welcome to Start Local, where we talk with business owners, leaders of nonprofits, and other members of our community focused on doing business in and around Chester County, Pennsylvania. Each episode will provide insight into the local business scene and tell you about opportunities to connect with and support businesses and nonprofits in your local area.

Joe Casabona: The Southern Chester County Chamber of Commerce promotes trade, commerce, industry, and sustainable economic development while supporting a diverse and growing marketplace. The Chamber is proud to partner with the Start Local podcast to raise the profile of businesses and nonprofits throughout Chester County. Learn more about the chamber at scccc.com. That’s scccc.com.

Erik Gudmundson: Hello, and welcome to Start Local, where we connect with local leaders to support local businesses and nonprofit organizations in and around Chester County, Pennsylvania. I’m Erik Gudmundson, and I’m here with my co host, Liam Dempsey. Liam, how are you doing today?

Liam Dempsey: Super fantastic, Erik. Super fantastic. Really glad to be here.

Erik Gudmundson: Excellent. Today, we welcome Paula Paisley. She’s the Founder and President of Paisley Solutions, a bookkeeping service provider based in Kennett Square. Paisley Solutions has been in business for about 28 years, providing both on-site and remote bookkeeping services. And, it’s a, that’s a lot to keep track of these days, particularly as we approach tax season here. So welcome, Paula.

Paula Paisley: Thank you. I’m glad to be here, guys.

Liam Dempsey: Paula, we’re so glad that you’re here today. Thanks for taking the time. We know you keep a busy schedule, especially with tax season underway. Thank you.

Paula Paisley: Yes.

Erik Gudmundson: You started the business in 1996, if I did my Math right, and you previously shared with us that your company was an outgrowth of some side work that you were doing. When and how did you realize that your side work could be your only work, a true full time business?

Paula Paisley: Well, I started out with, I was working with a CPA firm, and we did some transitions of manual bookkeeping systems to automated bookkeeping systems on different software. So, I got some experience with it there and, decided to leave the CPA firm, was looking to transition into something else and wondering what that was for me. 

So, I connected with a CPA who had an opportunity for me to bring one of their clients from a manual system into QuickBooks. And I said, Sure, I can do that. And then when I hung up the phone, I said, What’s QuickBooks? Because I hadn’t used that yet. 

So, but you know, it was software, I figured I could figure it out. And as I was continuing on, I picked up a part time job, but I continued seeing how much QuickBooks could really help small business, and that there was an opportunity there. And I just really enjoyed the whole process. So, that’s how I stumbled into it.

Liam Dempsey: Bigger companies and organizations, Paula, will likely have their own in house bookkeepers and finance staff. Individuals just starting their own new business or an entrepreneur’s or maybe even somebody opening up their nonprofit to help focus on a cause in their area, they might be doing their own books. There’s a sweet spot in between. What’s your advice for when that entrepreneur or business or nonprofit leader might want to start to think about outsourcing their bookkeeping? How do you approach that?

Paula Paisley: Well, I think it’s the point where they do not have the information that they need to make good business decisions. So at that point, they can look at it and say, okay, my bookkeeping is not timely. It’s not accurate. I, as the owner, I’m too busy to continue doing it, or even they have someone doing it who is the wrong person. So at that point, I think they need to look at it and say, what do I do different?

Erik Gudmundson: What would you say are steps that a business or nonprofit leader can take to maximize the value they get from their outsourced bookkeeper and accountant once they decide they they truly do need to outsource those services?

Paula Paisley: I believe that we should always start at the end with the results that you’re looking for, and then work backwards into the scope of work, what needs to be changed, what needs to be done differently, or not done at all. And, I think from that scope of work, which you have to build together, you need to decide on what the deliverables are gonna be and what the expectations are gonna be. This is never productive if you’re not doing what they’re expecting you to do.

Liam Dempsey: In a previous conversation that Erik and I had with Kathy Wileczek of Umbreit, Wileczek and Associates, Kathy’s a CPA. Erik and Kathy were joking that both the county and the IT team know where the bodies and the skeletons are kept. So I have to ask you, Paula, are the bookkeepers in on those secrets as well?

Paula Paisley: We are. Sometimes even more than the CPAs and the IT folks. And, it’s especially when we see business owners who are running personal expenses through the business, sometimes you just see more than you really want to know.

Liam Dempsey: So that’s in…Oh, sorry, Erik. I just had a quick follow-up. So, let me ask you about that. How does that work in kind of a business ethics? Right? You know, you’re not the CPA, so you’re not filing the tax reports. But presumably, you’re putting into the right chart of county, if that’s the right phrase. You say how we’re gonna record this expense. How does that work? Yeah. How does that work?

Paula Paisley: Okay. From our perspective, we’re not doing the tax return. And with most CPAs, generally, they take what the business gives them as the true gospel of what is their business income and expenses. So generally, we would caution the business owner, you really shouldn’t be doing this, it should be done this way. But from our perspective, if they tell us it’s a business expense, then we record it as a business expense.

Liam Dempsey: Yeah. That makes sense. You’ll leave the responsibility with the business owner or the nonprofit leader.

Paula Paisley: Right.

Liam Dempsey: Go ahead, Erik. Sorry.

Erik Gudmundson: No. I think all of us in this conversation, I hate to admit it, but we’re all old enough to be, have been working long before the age of computers on every desk in every business, even small businesses. Paula, you mentioned that your career took a big leap forward when you helped a business transition from paper bookkeeping and other systems into QuickBooks. Would you talk more about that process and what it looked like then versus what it looks like now?

Paula Paisley: Well, like you said, this was 1996, so things have changed a lot.

Erik Gudmundson: Certainly about five years ago. Right?

Paula Paisley: Right, exactly.

Erik Gudmundson: Okay, just checking.

Paula Paisley: So, we were working with a retailer that had four stores, and it was first setting up the process of here we have paper documentation, paper processes, where does this go to be able to transition to the automated system. 

And we did one company at a time, made sure it worked, trained the staff, and then from there we just went on to the other companies. And then it becomes a point of letting the business owner see how much different access to information they have, I guess, in being able to point and click for reports.

Liam Dempsey: With all three co-hosts of our show working in technology, Erik, Joe, and me, Paula, you know we’re gonna have at least one tech focused question a little bit more than talking about the early days of transitioning paper systems to QuickBooks. Although I really liked your approach. What’s QuickBooks? I love it. I love it. Figure it out. Move forward. But the point I wanna go down is that software was a way for you to grow your business in those early days. And now you’re twenty eight years down the road. You’ve got a number of employees, and you’re a very well established bookkeeping firm. How else have you embraced technology? And maybe even you were ahead of the curve to give your business an advantage.

Paula Paisley: Well, I think it’s in addition to the accounting software, which is a tool, we have much better communication with clients, easier to access information over the Internet or get clients to send us information as opposed to the old days of snail mail or drop it by the office. We really can provide real time assistance when clients have needs right away, with a lot less travel time involved, and we really don’t have any geographic boundaries now. 

But I do think that one of the most critical things about technology is that we try to get the business owner to understand that they have something that’s important to protect, and we like to suggest that they’re working with top notch IT providers to make sure that they’re secure. It’s a big issue for us. It’s a big issue for all businesses and organizations, even individuals. But, I think it’s more important than insurance that they’re on top of their security.

Liam Dempsey: For those listening at home, rest assured that Erik’s head is nodding up and down in firm agreement.

Erik Gudmundson: So, and nor did I pay Paula to say that. So but I’m glad I love it when people do say that. So we encourage people certainly to have good IT cybersecurity and good cyber hygiene, but and also insurance, because you need multiple layers of defense. No doubt about it.

Paula Paisley: Absolutely.

Liam Dempsey: Paula, I wanna ask a follow-up question. So much of interacting with our financial service providers, bookkeepers and CPAs, is all about cloud computing. Right? You were just touching on easier to share information. Do you, does Painsley Solutions have its own client portal that folks can upload data to, or do you rely on the clients and you access that? Do you have a preferred way to approach? How do you approach that important security issue with sharing sensitive financial information?

Paula Paisley: Several different ways, actually. It depends on the client. So if we’re using something like QuickBooks online or cloud based software like that, we can have direct feeds in for the bank information, credit card information, which really saves a lot of time and is very helpful. If we’re talking about documentation like vendor invoices or customer invoices, that sort of thing, we have a cloud portal that we request files from, and they can upload the files there. And then some clients, we do actually log remotely into their systems to be able to work, so that we have access to files, documents that are already on their system.

Erik Gudmundson: One of the exciting things we have the pleasure of doing on this podcast is talking with business leaders whose businesses are growing. And it’s been fun because I’ve personally known you for many years, and your business has grown and my business has grown, and it’s been fun to sort of, you know, all grow up together, essentially. And so now your business, if I’m not mistaken, has nine employees plus yourself. So how has your role in the business changed as you’ve taken on new staff? Do you enjoy managing that team as compared to working directly with clients, or do you still get to do a little bit of both?

Paula Paisley: I still get to do a little bit of both. I love, we have an awesome team, by the way. I’m blessed. And, I love watching them learn and watching them work together as a team. So, that’s awesome. But, I do get to do usually what I call onboarding with new clients. So I get in there first, I see what we have to work with, where we wanna go, and get my staff pointed in the right direction. So, I really enjoy being able to look at their systems and say, okay, here’s what we can do better, and go from there.

Liam Dempsey: For bookkeeping to provide meaningful value to either a company or a nonprofit, it has to be accurate and consistent. I’m speaking from experience here. Paula, you and your colleagues are not always on-site, and you are definitely not employees of your clients. They work for you. You’re your own business. How do you ensure quality and consistency, particularly over time, as your team handles a particular client’s books?

Paula Paisley: Internal processes. So we learned early on as we began to grow that for us to have a consistent output, we needed to have our own internal processes and training systems to be able to provide the same information in the same format no matter who’s, which client we’re working with or what CPA they might be using. So that was important for us to build that, and we keep working on improving that.

Erik Gudmundson: A few months ago, you delivered a presentation at a network at noon event for the Southern Chester County Chamber of Commerce. In advance of your talk, a number of folks shared with us that they came to your networking or came to that networking event specifically to hear you speak. And they said you they always deliver a meaningful opportunity to learn. And I’ve seen you speak many times, and I would absolutely echo their sentiments. So we were in the audience that day, and you spoke almost nothing about your business or its services. So from a chamber perspective, what did you present, and why did you not talk about your business?

Paula Paisley: The presentation was focused on four ways to increase revenue, which is, I think, would be a topic of interest to all parties in the audience, and thank you for attending, by the way. 

So, bookkeeping is an accumulation of data, and we use it for taxes, but we also need to be able to use it for making good business decisions. And that’s my focus. I’m more interested in making sure my clients have the information they need to make good business decisions. 

The numbers tell a story, and I want the audience to walk away with something that’s gonna help them grow and be sustainable. So in, what I’m trying to show in the presentation is a connection between good bookkeeping and success. And that’s definitely more interesting than debits and credits. So we’re trying to showcase our expertise and how we can help by helping them.

Erik Gudmundson: Well, personally, I love nontraditional chamber events or educational chamber events. They’re the ones that get me excited to go to register. And your events have always definitely been educational. 

And for me, it’s always been fun to watch people in the room because, you know, they’re kinda used to, like, you know, eating some stale cheese or some wine or something like that and kind of, you know, talking about the weather with other folks. But sometimes you give them homework or at the very least a worksheet of here are some things to get you thinking of different ways about your business that maybe if you’re a passionate business owner, you have overlooked a few things on the finances that are really important. And to see those light bulbs go off and to see people realize they wanna run out of the room when it’s done because they have some work to do to clean up a particular thing that they just learned about. That’s really exciting. So thank you for delivering that service to the chamber community.

Paula Paisley: Yes. Thank you for coming.

Liam Dempsey: I’m gonna stick with the chamber here. Paula, you’re a member of the Southern Chester County Chamber of Commerce. And as a member, you served for the treasurer for several years. That’s a key role for any chamber, and it requires a lot of volunteer hours and doesn’t receive a ton of public recognition. And I’ll be honest. I have no idea how many hours because the last thing anybody wants me to serve as is the treasurer of anything. But I bet it’s a lot. So we regularly ask our guests why they belong to this chamber or to that one. What does Paisley Solutions get out of being a member of the Southern Chester County Chamber of Commerce?

Paula Paisley: Well, we’re actually members of probably five or six chambers in Chester County, Southern Chester County being our local chamber. And we get out of that just a connection to the business community. We like to get our name out there. Not everyone I meet in the chamber is going to be a potential customer, but they may know of someone. And referrals are critical for us, so primarily it’s that. And as far as being the treasurer, it was very enjoyable because I was sitting in a room with a board full of top notch business people and discussing problems. And in most cases, your problems are my problems. So it’s an awesome way to just get new ideas, to try out things on other people, and just learn.

Liam Dempsey: So I have two follow-up questions, if I may. One, to which chambers, to which other chambers do you belong? And have they heard about your service as the treasurer of the Southern Chester County Chamber of Commerce, and are they trying to recruit you for another significant role?

Paula Paisley: We belong to Western Chester County, Oxford, West Chester, and I’m not sure if we belong to Phoenixville or not. I don’t remember. We also belong to the Women’s Business Connection, which is a women’s networking group. And no, I haven’t been recruited by anybody else yet.

Erik Gudmundson: Give it time. Once they hear on this podcast that you haven’t been asked, you may have some invitations coming. So you might wanna get that answer under your hat. I don’t know. 

One of the toughest things for a service business of any size is to add new clients. And you shared that, you know, one of the ways you gain them is through referrals and from your participation in the different chambers. I’ve also seen a lot of your marketing material over the years from direct mail pieces and tchotchkes to calendars and candy. How do you attract new business other than going to chamber events? And, what method of business development would you say is the most beneficial, and is there anything you’re curious to try here in 2025?

Paula Paisley: So, as you said, we’ve been around for twenty eight years, so we’ve kind of honed in on what actually works for us, and the networking is critical. We’re networking with business owners, nonprofit leaders, CPAs, tax professionals, and it’s more about the follow-up after the initial connection. But that’s how we use the chambers and other organizations, offering these networking opportunities. 

We make that connection, and then we follow-up and use the marketing materials, trying to get face to face time. Sometimes these days, it’s video conference time instead of meeting for lunch. Everybody’s so busy these days, but that’s really the most important thing for us. And, if we’re, you know, talking about doing anything different in 2025, I really feel like it’s going to be getting back to more of that FaceTime because we’ve, over the past few years, have kinda gotten a little bit away from that. And it’s just finding ways to do what we know works, but do it better.

Erik Gudmundson: That makes sense. And I think, yeah, the days of sales and marketing exclusively being a remote thing are probably, you know, over, or I should say, you know, that era is over at this point. And one challenge I’m gonna have to redress is, you know, people always wanna, you know, meet for coffee. Personally, I don’t like coffee. So I’m always trying to figure out what else can I drink if I’m meeting somebody out for coffee? So I’ve had the luxury of not having to think too much about that with so much being remote, but now I suppose I have to go back to that.

Liam Dempsey: You can do afternoon beers, but that might not always be the right approach for new sales.

Paula, I wanna ask a follow-up question while we’re almost on the same line with Erik, in coffee joking is, what does follow-up look like for you? You know, it’s okay. You’ve had a good conversation at a networking event. What are you talking about? What do you, is it just, do you like us? Are you, how quickly are you getting into here’s, how we can help you? How does that potential business relationship unfold organically in ways that, you know, ultimately lead to business for you? What does that look like?

Paula Paisley: We follow-up the original connection with marketing materials. We have designed and redesigned over the years to kind of point to what we do and how it’s different from a lot of other bookkeeping firms out there. 

 think we’re larger than most of the bookkeeping firms in the area, they tend to be one or two person firms. So we’re trying to present that, and we’re trying to present to them our use of technology and our understanding of the need for security, all the things that can make us different than the competition.

And from there we just try to get some FaceTime, whether it’s video FaceTime or face to face time, which is the best. And after that, we just keep in touch. If you’re looking for referrals, your name has to roll off their tongue when they have the person in front of them that needs the referral. So, that’s we wanna  be memorable.

Liam Dempsey: Yeah. I get that. Thank you. Before our conversation today, Paula, you shared with me that as a business owner, as a bookkeeping professional, you are seeing fewer people with full charge bookkeeping skills. I wonder if you have any insight into why that might be, and is it creating a hiring challenge for you? And while you consider your answer, I’ll invite you to share with us what you mean by full charge bookkeeping.

Paula Paisley: So full charge bookkeeping is taking the individual source documents, the basic transactions of the company. Did they issue a check? Did they issue an invoice to a customer, or get a payment from a customer? So it’s going from that initial transaction all the way through internally prepared financial statements, and trying to be as accurate as possible with the accounting, which sometimes, oftentimes, we know more than the business owner about what that is. 

As far as why it’s more difficult to find, you know, I think there’s a lot more opportunity out there, particularly for women, which in my experience, a lot of full charge bookkeepers have been women, and I think now there’s maybe some more supposedly glamorous jobs like in tech, healthcare, that sort of thing. I don’t really have a good answer for that, but it does seem to be the case.

One of my concerns is that QuickBooks marketing, it kind of indicates that, hey, anybody can do this. And anybody can plug transactions into QuickBooks. That doesn’t make them a bookkeeper. It doesn’t mean they understand the actual science behind it. And if they don’t get it correct, then their financial statements are not correct, and they’re trying to make decisions with bad information.

Liam Dempsey: I’m just gonna second your voice on just because you know how to log into QuickBooks doesn’t mean you know how to add this charge or that transaction to the right chart of accounts or document some kind of new type of charge or payment. So, yeah, I have done some bookkeeping for myself over the years, I second your statement. Thank you for that.

Erik Gudmundson: Paula, in your answer there, you made an interesting comment. You said that sometimes you and your employees, you know, know more than the business owners, the clients that you’re working with particularly when it comes to their books specifically. And, I imagine that creates an interesting situation for you and your colleagues there in the sense that how do you tell a business owner that’s very energetic and passionate and knows their subject matter field very, very well that they’re wrong about something with finances? Because I know in IT, you know, there’s a really challenging, you know, way that everybody has to show empathy to really understand, you know, what the person is going through. But a business owner who thinks they’re making great stuff, but financially they’re failing, How do you just very politely take them down a peg, to make sure that they can have a better foundation and their business can be grown in a sustainable way?

Paula Paisley: I think it’s helpful for us to be able to show them in black and white where it’s going off the rails, or where we have concerns. And then from that point, you know, we can’t tell them how to necessarily the best way to fix that problem because every business is different. So we can be a part of the team, but we can’t we probably don’t know enough about their business to be able to come up with the best answer. So if we can educate them, understanding the financial statements, understanding where the information comes from, and why we feel there’s an issue. You know, most people get that, and it’s just a matter of being approachable.

Erik Gudmundson: Well, that may be, that sounds like a very rational approach, but sometimes people aren’t rational. They can be downright emotional when it’s a business or something they feel passionate about. Could I put you on the spot and ask you if there’s ever been a situation where you’ve encountered a lot of a negative emotion. I suspect once reason set in, it was probably settled down and they had to come back sheepishly and say you were right. But, has there ever been a situation where you’ve been tossed out of an office because you were a little too right?

Paula Paisley: I don’t ever recall that.

Erik Gudmundson: That sounds like a very political answer, Paula.

Paula Paisley: But I have had to have some difficult conversations about personal expenses, as we were talking about before.

Erik Gudmundson: Mhmm.

Paula Paisley: You know, all I can do is say this is the way it should be, and go from there. But, you know, also, and I try to explain that if you’re looking for accurate financial statements and you’re including information that is not, or transactions that are not business transactions, you’re not looking at the right data. You’re making decisions based on inflated numbers or incorrect numbers.

Liam Dempsey: I was gonna ask a question if you ever had to inform a business owner or leader that their business was not profitable, but, clearly, they’re gonna know if there’s no money in the bank account. But I guess I would wonder is in kind of Erik’s vein of putting you on the spot. If you’re doing the books every month, every week, whatever the the schedule is, you’re gonna know where the money is and how much is there. Have you ever been in a situation where you’ve looked at your colleagues and said, we may not be getting paid as quickly as we would like. We might need to think about ending this relationship because you would see it probably faster than many of the people who actually work for that company or that nonprofit.

Paula Paisley: Sometimes. Yeah. Absolutely. It can be,  I don’t know that I’ve ever really ended a client relationship. I mean, obviously, we’ve had clients who’ve outgrown us, moved on, or didn’t survive. But there have been a couple that I have ended and, not necessarily because they were doing poorly, but usually there were other issues. So when you’re talking about the business owner, and the business not doing well, a lot of times it’s cash flow as opposed to sales, or over expenses. And usually the issue that we have to discuss is that they’re taking money out of the business that isn’t really there yet, which with a lot of small businesses is a big problem. They’re trying to live off something that they can’t live off of yet.

Erik Gudmundson: And it sounds like these are a lot of the soft skills that you probably have to deal with, you know, from time to time is just an inevitable part of doing what you do and having the knowledge that you have. So with that in mind, as well as everything else you’ve been talking about, tell us about your employee onboarding process. What’s the hardest thing about training new employees in your business, particularly with remote workers? How do you impart your brand, your ethos, and your methodologies to them?

Paula Paisley: Our organization has always had a culture, if you will, that family comes first. And we start with that right in the interview process. Family comes first, and you don’t have to be concerned when you have to approach us and say, hey, I need some time. And we offer out flexibility in the hours so that they can do what they need to know they need to do for their family. And I think that helps us build loyalty a lot. So in the onboarding process, we turn to our internal processes that we’ve developed. We have training through QuickBooks that we can use, and then a lot of it is just hands on. We kind of throw them to the wolves, put them in front of the client information and say, okay, this is what you’re gonna do.

And it’s gonna depend on the level of experience of the person that we hire. But in the end, it’s two things. It’s our internal processes, and us as our management team making sure that everybody understands what they’re doing and are doing it correctly for the client. So before we ever release the year end work to the accountant for the taxes, management always reviews it to see if we have any questions or issues.

Liam Dempsey: That family first approach must be appealing to a lot of people, especially coming out of COVID and all the changes that brought to the workplace, which makes me wonder, Paula. Are you hiring?

Paula Paisley: We’re always accepting resumes. We hire when as we grow, basically. We don’t have a lot of turnover, thankfully, knock on wood. But, as we grow and we’re marketing consistently, we’re looking to grow. So when we see that need start to arise, we have to bring someone on ahead of time to be able to handle that. Because the last thing I wanna do is take on new clients and then turn around and say, sorry. We’re too busy.

Liam Dempsey: So folks are interested in opportunities with Paisley Solutions. Is the best place to go to your website and find the careers page?

Paula Paisley: That would be perfect.

Liam Dempsey: Well,l be sure to include show notes, links to that in the show notes or at [startlocal.co].

Paula Paisley: Thank you.

Erik Gudmundson: To shift gears to a little bit more of a personal note, I know from serving with you on the board of the Southern Chester County Chamber and getting to know you a lot better over the years that you’re a dog lover like me. Absolutely. And I regularly need to apologize to Liam because my dog will run through the recording studio and shake her head or, you know, bark at the mail person or whatever. So, so thank you. And sorry again, Liam, for when that happens, but,

Liam Dempsey: it’s all good. It’s all good. Never a problem.

Erik Gudmundson: And Joe Casabona, our other host, his family just got a rescue dog for Christmas. So, Paula, tell us about the canine friends and your family.

Paula Paisley: Well, over the years, my husband and I have had eight of our own dogs, always dogs, and they’ve all been rescues of some sort, the first two from the SPCA, and after that they just showed up and ended up in my truck going home with me. So, you know, right now we only have one. We have my mom’s dog. We got him when he went into, when she went into the nursing home. So, and if you hear him bark, I’m gonna run because he never barks. So, something’s really wrong.

Liam Dempsey: Your statement, right now, we only have one, just begs the question. You’ve had eight dogs. You have one. What’s the most number of dogs if you had living with you at one point in time?

Paula Paisley: Seven.

Erik Gudmundson: Wow. I did not know that trivia fact.

Liam Dempsey: I’m sorry. That was my bad ear, Paula. Could you say seven?

Paula Paisley: Seven. Yes. Seven.

Erik Gudmundson: Oh, that’s intense.

Paula Paisley: We often saw the pack mentality, so I’ve got a few scars to prove that.

Liam Dempsey: Wow. Okay. Wow. Fantastic. Paula, murder mysteries are your go to genre for reading. That’s what you’ve shared with us. Tell us about what you’re reading these days. What book is on your on your bedside table? And what’s one of your favorite mysteries of all time?

Paula Paisley: Oh, gosh. I read so much that I probably couldn’t tell you what my favorite was. I can tell you my two favorite authors. One is Nevada Barr, and her character is a ranger that moves around from 1 National Park to another, and always ends up in some kind of trouble and murder investigation going on. So, she’s one of my favorites. Also, CJ Box, and his character is a game warden in Wyoming, and he’s always getting into all kinds of trouble too. So, that’s mostly what I read, and I enjoy it.

Liam Dempsey: Well, I love that. And following I just wanna share on the show here, Erik. Following our conversation with Chris Manna of the Kennett Library, I am now the proud holder of a Chester County Library library card, and I have checked out both a paper book and an ebook so far. Thank you very much.

Paula Paisley: Very nice. Very nice.

Erik Gudmundson: Paula, how can the local community support you and your business?

Paula Paisley: I think just supporting local businesses in general. The better we all do, the better for each of us. So, also just keeping in mind if you hear of someone who’s having issues, you know, I lost a lot of times as we hear, I lost my bookkeeper, or I don’t think my information is correct, or, I’m constantly bouncing my bank account, certain things like that. You know, we’re happy to just talk to people and see if we can help.

Liam Dempsey: Yeah. I love your focus on local business and staying connected there. Thank you.

Paula, we’ve talked about your membership of a number of different chambers of commerce and the work that you’re doing to support your local businesses through those. Can you talk about a local business or nonprofit that more folks should know about?

Paula Paisley: I would say the chambers of commerce. Surprisingly, you know, there are a lot of businesses out there that don’t even know the chamber exists and what they can do for business, and nonprofit organizations as well. So, definitely I highly recommend the Southern Chester County Chamber and the other local chambers.

But also I think, Liam, you and I discussed, I volunteer for SCORE, which is Service Corps of Retired Executives, and they offer mentoring and educational workshops for businesses and nonprofit organizations, you know, especially for new entrepreneurs. It’s a good way to get some assistance with the part of the business operation that you don’t really have a good handle on. Most people are really good at what they do, why they start their business, and then they find out, oh, I have to do sales, and I have to do bookkeeping, and I have to do marketing. And, so definitely both organizations, I would recommend.

Liam Dempsey: Thank you for those. Paula Paisley, President of Paisley Solutions. Aside from bumping into you at an upcoming networking event, no doubt, where can listeners connect with you and learn more about your business?

Paula Paisley: paisleysolutions.com. That’s an s on the end of that. Paisleysolutions.com is our website. You can link to us and send us a message right through there, or, again, as you said, running into me at a networking event.

Erik Gudmundson: Paula, it was a pleasure catching up with you today. I learned a few more things about you that I didn’t previously know, so, I’m always grateful for that. And thank you again for stopping by the Start Local studio here today.

Paula Paisley: Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Liam Dempsey: And thanks to you for listening to today’s program. We really value your time and attention to the conversation. Thanks for being a part of our community. 

As a reminder, show notes and links to everything we talked about today will be over on our website at [startlocal.co]. As a reminder, we publish every fortnight, so we look forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks. Thanks for now. Bye bye.