Bone # 1
How Breeze Business Management came to be, was quite literally out of the closet of one creative entrepreneur (me) whose project failed due to poor goal setting, budgeting, team development and a lack of leadership. Feeling defeated and 22, I was too broke, cheap and irresponsible at the time to pay for the dissolution of a corporation. Instead it sat in a binder and collected dust in a closet I couldnāt afford in Toronto, leaning up against an old guitar. I will spare you the story of my arts career, and how the song with the most āhitsā, is one in which I became an animated elf on It's Christmas! | Christmas Trap Songs for Kids | Toon Bops
It was during this time of my life and journey into entrepreneurship that I discovered a couple of critical things:
š¦“(1) It doesnāt matter what the business is, at least one of your arms must make money. Like writing commercials, or being an elf, any step forward will result in experience, money (hopefully) and a deeper understanding of why youāre in business.
š¦“ (2) Grants do indeed exist out there, but they should absolutely never be relied on for business.
š¦“(3) Titles/credentials both matter, and donāt matter. Itās very challenging to know the situation in which they should be ignored or highlighted.
š¦“ (4) Sometimes, you just get lucky.
š¦“ (5) Itās OK not to be an expert in something, but you should try to better understand the role so you can, at a bare minimum, value the role.
Prior to Breeze Business Management, I worked as the Director of Member Services for The Canadian Independent Recording Artistsā Association (CIRAA) alongside developing a career as a singer/songwriter. My work at CIRAA was rewarding, challenging, paid the bills š¦“(1) and introduced me to so many wonderful people in an industry I was trying to break into. I also remember the feeling of The Title Change. I was moving from Assistant , to Director of Member Services, and this title mattered to me. I was eager to update my Grandpa, LinkedIN, Facebook, Instagram and Resume. I couldnāt help but feel like Dwight Shrute in The Office, caring very much about this tiny change that made such a significant difference. After only a year in the role, the grant revenue stream which funded my position was up in the airš¦“ (2) but the grant-gods werenāt done teaching me my lesson. As the not-for-profit continued to seek out additional funding, I received word that my music project was fully-funded to create a full-length album through FACTORS Juried Sound Recording Program š¦“ (4). With much relief to their budget, I parted ways with CIRAA, threw myself into recording as my full-time job and felt a tiny fist hit my ego when my official Record of Employment listed me as an āassistantā.
Upon the swift and sudden decline of my art project, I sat on the subway in Toronto and saw an advertisement from Metro School of Technology. It stated that if I had lost my job and needed a Second Career, I could apply to The Second Career Ontario Program and complete a diploma. So, I pulled out my Resume and Record of Employment, sat down with an intake counsellor for the program, and was promptly asked āSo Jaime, were you an Assistant or a Director?ā and before I could answer, with warm eyes she informed me that technically, TECHNICALLY, this program is not available to anyone who had ever held a role as āDirectorā. š¦“ (3/4) Second Career still exists by the way, and may be of interest to you or someone you know.
So, what kind of Entrepreneur runs a bookkeeping business? One who understands the challenges of the journey of navigating dreams vs. realities. One who understands intimately the necessity of proper accounting, budgeting and financial management to complete a project. One who enrolled in an accounting program to learn a skill š¦“ (5) that I had either ignored or failed to retain from my youth. One who believes that with proper accounting, management, and team development, a business can achieve its goals.
How This Affects What We Offer:
Every client of Breeze Business Management has a client summary sheet for internal purposes. Here is where I scour your social media for an image of YOU, or ideally, you AND your family, you and your pet, you and your product. I insert a blurb from your website or media about your offerings, I outline critical information to the team about what you expect from us, what weāre trying to achieve, any goals I have discovered you have. We make projections and create targets, we time-track religiously and if we canāt meet your expectations, we discuss it, revise it, provide transparent options to you for how we can continue to work together. We do this because I never want my team to forget WHO weāre helping. Itā s so easy in a virtual environment to feel disconnected from the client so I do everything in my power to remind the humans working on the file, that we are working on behalf of another human, who has goals, and dreams, and deadlines, and a budget.
š¦“Coming Up On The Bone Storyš¦“
Heaven Forbid A Client Walks In
