Men in the Bookkeeping Industry. Q&A with Michael Ly.
Men in the Bookkeeping Industry. Q&A with Michael Ly, bookkeeping and entrepreneur from Vermont.
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Settle down now. No, this post is not about some new merch in the Bookkeeping Side Hustle Store of a 12-month calendar with airbrushed pictures of the hottest men in the bookkeeping industry. But it is still an interesting topic! Keep reading and watching.
I had a great time doing a FaceBook Live stream with Michael Ly of Reconciled on the topic of “Men In Bookkeeping”. To get a sense of the content of this discussion, this was the list of questions that I originally sent to him. We loosely stuck to them in our video chat (below).
- Tell us about yourself, background, company, best accounting joke, etc.
- So, you are man and I looked at your company’s website and it definitely says it is a bookkeeping company. And then I looked at your employees page on your website and it is mostly women. I counted 6 guys out of 26 total employees. So, where are all the brother bookkeepers in your own company?
- In your experience, what is the ratio of men to women bookkeepers overall in the industry? Whatever you say that ratio is, why do you think it is that way? Given the population is 50/50, why is there any divergence from 50/50?
- What are some unique advantages that men bring to this field?
- Conversely, are there any obstacles into and through this career that men face?
- What advice do you have for men wanting to become a bookkeeper? Wanting to grow a bookkeeping firm?
When I mentioned to my husband that this was going to be the topic of our conversation, he looked a little perplexed as to why anyone would want to have a conversation about that. He told me that people go to the internet for two main reasons, to either get information or to be entertained. I think this topic hits right in the middle of those two things. Agree or disagree?
We had some laughs and treaded lightly on what could have been a controversial topic. It is always a risk to discuss stereotypes, but stereotypes often have a reason why they exist, and I wanted to get man’s perspective on MY OWN stereotypes. To me, it seems that the vast majority of bookkeepers are women. Did a man see things that way? Did the Bookkeeping Side Hustle Audience see things that way? Was I off base, only seeing what my mind was errantly prone to seeing? All things I wanted to delve into.
The biographical Michael shared was also quite valuable. He discussed his own path, starting crazy early as a YOUNG teenager growing from data entry in a relative’s business to bookkeeper to even migrating a company from an DOS system to QBDesktop…I didn’t ask if he had many dates in High School, but we can all speculate. 🙂
He said he is proud to call himself a bookkeeper, but also sees himself as an entrepreneur. So he can wear both hats. But he pointed out that there are some folks in the world who want strictly stick to bookkeeping. And there are many other folks from whom bookkeeping is a means to an end of building a thriving business. One personality type is not better than another, just different.
Which are you? To me, I see three broad categories of people looking to get started in virtual bookkeeping —
- Employee
- Solo-preneur
- Entrepreneur
Where do YOU fit? Keep diving in to this website to learn how to venture down these different paths.
Are you a man in this field? Are you a man considering this field? What hesitations do you have? What unique strengths do you bring because you are a man?
So, I hope you found this chat either informative or entertaining! Comment below and keep the conversation going or come drop a question in the Bookkeeping Side Hustle FaceBook group.