There’s a lot to like in Meaghan’s world
Davis business owner leads with clarity, compassion and community
Meaghan Likes calls herself a hustler. I say she’s also an efficient juggler.
The 39-year-old Davis resident and certified public accountant owns Jeff Likes Clean Windows & Gutters and Likes Accounting Co., along with four other businesses. Likes is immersed in the community, even as she spends a good part of her time traveling to deliver keynotes or jetting off to have fun.
Her entrepreneurial spirit makes her an asset to the Yolo County business world.
The six businesses she owns have one thing in common: they make life easier. If you’re a homeowner or landlord, that may mean getting spiffy clean windows, gutters or solar panels. If you are a business owner, it could be help simplifying your bookkeeping and finding ways to boost profits. I love how enthusiastic she is about helping other business owners; her advice helped many of them survive COVID.
Yolo County Supervisor Lucas Frerichs and his wife Stacie are close friends with Meaghan and her husband, Jeff. Frerichs said, “Meaghan really cares about the well-being of all her employees, and she is driven by making the world a better place, whether locally or around the world. So much of that starts from her commitment to community.”
Best of all, her determination comes with vision and clarity. Most of my readers know I try to write succinctly and avoid jargon. Likes is like that too. And that approachable style keeps her calendar full for public-speaking gigs.
She told me about a window-cleaning conference she and Jeff attended in about 2017: “There was this woman talking about QuickBooks, and it was awful. … one of the worst talks I’ve ever heard. ... So I went straight up with all this confidence, to the organizer, and I said, ‘That was terrible. And if you ever want to try again with somebody who can actually speak a language that your audience can understand and that they can relate to, … I’d love to help you.’ And I’d never spoken publicly – ever.”
Last year, she traveled 40 weeks for work and pleasure, and in 2023, she averaged four speaking engagements a month. These days, she’s dialing it back to about a dozen conferences a year, to maintain some life balance.
There have been challenges. A couple years ago, she took over her husband’s business (window/gutter/solar panel cleaning) so he could recover from a mental health crisis.
And her history includes six brain surgeries between 2009 and 2021 for a condition that worsens with stress.
She’s learned to prioritize what’s important, and empower her employees. Efficiency is her superpower.
“I think I have a different perspective than most about making it easier and streamlining it.”
Her mindset is rooted in personal experience. “I never felt like I was gonna make it to an appropriate retirement age, so I just did it backwards. … If I wanted to do something, I would just do it. And I will not put it on the 30-years-from-now list, I will put it on the next year list or the next month list, depending on how badly I want it.”
COVID was good for her public speaking career but she can’t always say yes. When she does, she makes it fun.
She has about 60 keynote addresses prepared, and customizes the talks to the audience. And she teaches one online class a month to her clients. Topics for both include “How to Build a Badass Budget in less than an hour,” “How to save $100,000 in less than an hour,” and “Pricing for Profits.”
She said, “75 percent of businesses fail, and they fail because they don’t know how to price.” They price based on their competition, “but their competitions are going silently bankrupt. … it’s a horrible cycle, so I’m trying to break that.”
She doesn’t need to use her expertise as a certified public accountant to make an impact in financial literacy. “I’m not gonna talk GAAP accounting (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles), I’m not gonna talk big, scary language. … I’m gonna use plain language, casual language, and I’m not gonna stop until I get that light bulb. ... And I 1,000 percent believe that all of them can do it.”
Likes thinks the city of Davis could use a little help in this direction, by making it less cumbersome to open a business or even for restaurants to add a patio on G Street. Her accounting firm was on or near G Street for many years until becoming fully remote this year.
“For a businessperson … you’re wearing all the hats, you’re juggling all the things,” she said. “And for a city employee, they’re just going through their checklist. And you’re like, ‘No, but I need a little translation … or a little bit of exception, or … communication differently.’ ”
Many G Street businesses originally claimed they never received notice from the city about how to apply for a patio, because it was handed out as a flyer. Likes said, “every business owner needed something different. How does a city meet them where they are?”
Likes observed that Davis is like other U.S. economies. It appeared to come out of COVID strong – falsely so. When the extra funding ran out, it got difficult again.
And she should know. She has several more businesses. For years, her primary one has been Likes Accounting Co., which helps businesses manage their books. But she also owns:
Bookkeeping Academy Online, teaching business owners how to do their own bookkeeping in less than an hour a month
Boxed for the Trades, which syncs QuickBooks Online and Service Titan softwares so business owners in the trades have better visibility of their numbers.
Titan Console, a boutique software company that helps business owners interpret Service Titan data into a scoreboard that celebrates wins and helps them recover from losses.
Streak-Free Academy, a one-day training program that teaches people how to clean windows like a pro with $100-an-hour speed.
She founded several other businesses that have either closed or sold, including Fight Club 4 Business, (closed in 2023) a podcast and business owner training company that helped home-service companies through COVID; and CSR Academy (sold in 2023), training admins in the trades to be more successful.
And more are in the works.
Likes has degrees in history and French from UC Davis. She thought she wanted to be an attorney, and was working at a law firm in Sacramento when she took a sabbatical to travel. When she returned in 2007, her job was gone but the firm’s controller had recently left on maternity leave. The partners said they trusted her to learn it, if she was interested. It was her intro to QuickBooks.
She never really loved math but always tested well. But it was her family’s experience with five failed businesses that made her want to focus on finances. Her dad owned an internet cafe in downtown Porterville and her stepmom owned a scrapbooking business across the street, to name two.
Her mother is a longtime teacher and her father turned to teaching after his businesses failed. She thinks of herself as a teacher of financial literacy.
Her dad was a Rotarian, which sparked her interest in public service and travel. She was an exchange student to France. “That’s why I am a Rotarian now … they gave me the best year of my life, and they gave me the travel bug.” She’s past president of the Davis Sunrise Rotary Club.
Likes worked for an accounting firm for a while. She loved the job and the mentorship, but when she wanted to take the summer off to travel to France, they said no. “I’ll never forget the day (where my boss said) ‘If we don’t need you for six weeks, we don’t need you.’ And I was like, ‘That’s a horrible way to treat a long-term employee.’ But in his head that was what was real.”
So, she started her own tax firm. When tax season was too stressful, she focused on bookkeeping, and passing on her tricks to others.
Today, she prides herself in being a good boss. If you train your employees well, you can trust them to handle things while you’re away.
“Life’s precious, be good to your body and don’t wait. And I think we try to teach our employees that too – not to trade time for money. I have constant trainings with our team about how they can make more without working more.” She’s helped employees start businesses, buy homes and get out of debt.
“I just feel like if they can get ahead of it earlier, then they don’t have to go this traditional way of waiting until you retire to live. We have unlimited time off at all our companies. We just ask for notice.”
She said it’s the same with business owners. “Pricing and budgeting are really, I think, my gifts to this world business community. It’s like helping them not be afraid of the money. They all know how to price, they all know what their gut says, they just don’t really know how to value their time. I’m helping them figure (that) out. … So they’re not like my dad, and they don’t go out of business.”
– If you know of a business coming or going in the area – or if you see a typo above – email wendy@comingsandgoings.news. Give a Comings & Going gift subscription here. If you’re on Facebook and Instagram, please like and follow.
Great column today-love hearing about strong, resilient, imaginative women.
Loved this column and the in-depth perspective on a local female entrepreneur!