Copy link
With Shoeboxed there has never been one “best” way to use our service to stay organized. And after scanning millions of receipts and business cards since 2007, we say that from years of firsthand experience!
Shoeboxed takes enormous pride in serving clients from around the country and across the globe, all of whom use our service in a myriad of ways to fulfill a whole host of organizational needs in both their personal and professional lives.
With that in mind, Shoeboxed is both pleased and honored to launch a series that spotlights our wonderful users, their success stories and countless ways satisfied Shoeboxed customers worldwide are utilizing our service to stay organized.
Helping Others Help Themselves: Kevin Mohler
“Shoeboxed is one of those companies that takes the headache out of being a business owner.” – Kevin Mohler
Introducing: Kevin Mohler
Profession: Legal Shield Associate and Professional Development Coach
Location: Silverhill, Alabama
Twitter: @Kevin_Mohler
LinkedIn: Kevin Mohler
Websites: www.YourLegalShieldBenefits.
Shoeboxed: Tell us a bit about yourself.
Kevin Mohler: I did construction for several years, even ran a construction crew at a young age, but I was miserable. I was tired of that industry and was looking for something different, so I decided to go to college to get an Architecture degree. I was going to school at night, but I still had to work full-time during the day to get by financially. I was just struggling paycheck to paycheck, working extremely hard and having very little to show for it, and that’s when someone gave me some information on LegalShield.
When I saw the service that this company provided, I thought “This is something that I would want!” Initially I started out just to generate some additional income, but what happened was that good news spread fast, and by the end of seven months I was fortunate enough to be able to walk away from construction to do this business full-time, and that’s what I’ve done for the last four and a half years.
SBX: So you started pretty young?
KM: Yes, I started at age 20.
SBX: You also do personal development work?
KM: I don’t do that as a business. I do that as a personal calling, something I enjoy doing. I am developing a Personal Development website that could develop into a profitable business, but for right now it’s just more of a hobby.
SBX: How did you get started doing that? What sparked your interest in personal development?
KM: When I started in business, one of the first things that was made clear to me was that I needed to start on a path of personal development. Outside of college and High School, you could say that I had never really read a book. But then I met some very successful individuals who told me “Kevin, you need to read some of these books.” Now, they were making more money in one month than I was making in a whole year working in construction, so naturally I listened. That’s how I got started on my own path of personal development.
Today, one of my passions in my line of business is training. I do a lot of training in Alabama and all over the country either by a conference call or in-person, and personal development is an important part of that.
SBX: So where do you see yourself in ten years?
KM: It’s difficult to say, because materially I have all the things I really want. There are nicer cars and houses, but I am pretty content. Ten years from now I would like to be married, with a young family, and I want to have literally 100% freedom. I will still be working because I am passionate about what I do, and still want to affect the lives of other people. So, I want to be working every single day as a calling, and living life on my own terms. So, if I want to drop off my kids in school and pick them up, spend the day with my wife, I can do that.
SBX: How did you find out about Shoeboxed?
KM: I have a benefits plan through LegalShield where they offer or recommend certain services. I saw the one for Shoeboxed and I remember seeing the name and the logo and thinking “What the heck is this?” So I clicked on it and watched the video and I freaked out. I started calling some people that I knew and started telling people about it right away.
You see, I hate tax season. I hate having to dig through boxes and boxes and bags of receipts and having to figure out “This one is for 2010, this one is for 2011;” and then you have to sort them out by year, and sort them out by categories, and you have to go calculate everything and add it up, and then you have to run the numbers again and calculate them in case you made mistakes… I am not a procrastinator; I am the kind of person that likes to get things done, but with taxes I procrastinate because I can’t stand doing them.
So when I saw that Shoeboxed gave me the ability to send my stuff in and have it professionally scanned, organized and put into an online database, I thought this would be a great way to keep up with my documentation responsibly, as I have always done, but have a third party do all the actual work of sorting and scanning.
As soon as I saw that, it was a light bulb moment. I actually signed up on the spot, got my whole family to sign up on the spot, and it has been great!
SBX: So Shoeboxed essentially did for your business what you would like from life in general. It gave you the freedom to spend time doing what you really want to do instead of having to track down the paper.
KM: Absolutely. Shoeboxed is one of those companies that takes the headache out of being a business owner.
SBX: In your personal experience, from the books you’ve read and people you talk to, what is the key to success in building a business?
KM: Well, there are actually several keys.
- Red hot, burning desire. Individuals have to have something that they really, really want; more time with their kids, paying off debt, traveling, having money to retire. That’s one of the biggest things, because as a small business owner, you don’t have a boss. You don’t have someone telling you “If you don’t get out of bed, you’re fired.” So we have to have something that drives us to keep going.
- Belief that they can achieve that desire. Belief in themselves and belief in the business. No matter whom you talk to, everybody wants something in life. But if they don’t have that belief then they are never going to capitalize on that.
- Being coachable. No matter what you do, there are thousands of people that have come before and done the same thing. In any given circumstance, there are people that have had similar experiences. A lot of people let their ego get to them. A lot of people think that once they become a leader, once things work out for them, they are done learning. But a leader is also always a student – or should be. At the same time that you are leading, you should also always be following somebody. And some people will say “well you can’t really reach the top if you are always following somebody else”. But, you know, Michael Jordan had a coach. Tiger Woods had a coach. Those guys were better than their coach, but the coach still had the ability to look at them, watch how they perform and add value to their performance. And that’s how it is in business.
- Be willing to do the work. A lot of people want to be successful and all of a sudden they find out that success looks like a lot of work, and they get scared. Just as there is no shortcut in life, there is no shortcut in building a business. You have to go out there and lay each brick as you build the business. There is no switch you can flip that just builds an entire building. You have to go out there and work every day.
SBX: What does LegalShield mean to you, personally?
KM: To me, LegalShield means making a living on making a difference. I get thank you calls all the time from people who have the service who have used it to save their home from foreclosure, or to gain custody of their child whose custody they had lost years ago. I could go on, but what the service does in the lives of people is incredible.
And the business model itself allows people to come in as they are. People who are like I was four and a half years ago with no personal development, no positive associations in my life, no roadmap or formula to success. There were so many things that I wanted to achieve in life but I didn’t really have a vehicle to do it. Legalshield gave me not only that platform, but it gave me a path of personal growth, where they are always trying to better my best.
SBX: Final question: Would you recommend Shoeboxed to others? Why?
KM: Absolutely. And I have, several times. I tell everyone that it’s a headache keeping up with all of the tax write-offs. I am in the best tax bracket in the country. Working from home, you are able to write off a lot of things.
Most people who start at LegalShield work part-time. And most people while they are still working somewhere else receive W-2s. So they are spending so much money on taxes, and having a business that works from home can help you maximize how much money you get back.
I tell them just be responsible with your receipts. In the end, you are going to have to go through al your receipts with a CPA. It’s time consuming to sort all that stuff out. Whether you make a lot of money or a little, the time you spend going through all of this paperwork with your CPA for tax season is just a pain. As in any business, people get in business to do business, not to do all the work that is required to stay in business. And tax season is one of those things that you have to do to stay in business, but it is not the craft that you want to be working on diligently, not the thing that is going to help you grow your business. So just having the ability to send my pile of receipts to Shoeboxed and have it categorized so I can just pull the totals from online, man, it’s worth its’ weight in gold!
I just tell them about the process. I tell them how I can take a couple of weeks’ worth of receipts, put it all in a bag, walk outside in my pajamas to my mailbox, put up the flag, and within a few days I have everything scanned in my back office and my receipts are being mailed back to me by Shoeboxed. And I do that just by having a monthly membership, just like you would in the gym or anything else.
SBX: Well, we love helping small business owners do exactly that: Focus on what they want to do and let us do what they don’t really want to do. So, we’re happy that this is working out for you.
KM: It’s been incredible, for sure.
SBX: Aw, shucks! Thanks Kevin!
Are you a Shoeboxed user who has a success story and would like to be featured on our blog? Then we would love to hear from you! Please reach out to Emily at [email protected] for more information.
Until then, stay tuned… and stay organized!
