How One CPA Added $150,000 in Less Than Eight Weeks & Had More Time to Spend With Her Family
Problems
- Difficulty Making Ends Meet
- Lack Of Knowledge About Effective Marketing Practices
- Not Enough Time
Goals
- Increase Profit Margins
- Gain Valuable Marketing Knowledge
- Improve Time Management Skills
Solutions
- Connect with the right, high-value clients
- Learn directly from other accounting pros & Dream Firm Specialists
- Implement Systems that Save Time
They say that when you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life. But, Enae Jackson-Atkins might have something to say about that. She was investing all of her time and energy in a career that she truly loved and wasn’t seeing returns. Suddenly her dream job, as the owner of her own accounting practice, just began feeling like work, work, and more work.
Enae Jackson-Atkins is the head of Esquire Accounting. Today, she regularly connects with her dream clients and still has all the time she wants to enjoy a family dinner. But, that’s not where she started… Far from it actually. How did she go from mismanaging her time, just getting by to flourishing at her dream accounting firm and pulling in $150,000 in new accounting advisory contracts? With a little help from Dream Firms.
Don’t Ask Me, I Just Work Here
Putting In The Work, But Not Seeing the Dividends
Enae Jackson-Atkins worked in the professional accounting industry right out of college. After spending some time in public accounting firms, she decided to transition to the corporate world, all the while maintaining a bookkeeping side hustle to help pay the bills. She had a passion for her profession and she was putting in the hours, but as her eldest headed off to college she realized that it wasn’t cutting it. And so, Enae decided to make her first move as an entrepreneur and launched Enae Jackson-Atkins Consulting.
“I tried to buy the freedom and flexibility of being able to be with the family.”
At first, she was working with everyone from general contractors and security firms to restaurants and entertainers. But, she quickly realized that her best clients were attorneys and attorney agents, and so decided to focus on a niche market. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t quite be enough for her to build her Dream Firm.
Dream Firms Growth Tip: Focusing on a niche market is a great way to connect with your ideal clients.
Enae found that, despite her best efforts, she still didn’t have enough time to spend with her family or enough money to take care of them the way that she envisioned. Her work was consistent, and she wasn’t having a hard time finding clients, but her accounting and advisory firm was plateauing and she wasn’t reaping the benefits of her hard work. Her passion and hard work weren’t enough for her to break the glass ceiling. For that, she needed a little bit of help changing the way she addressed her accounting firm’s needs so that she could get the results she wanted. And, she eventually found that help in our Create Your Own Dream Firm Program.
Create Your Dream Firm (CYDF) is a one-on-one coaching program by Dream Firms that guarantees at least $50,000 for your accounting business in one year. Gain invaluable insights into digital marketing and building systems to efficiently manage and grow your dream accounting, bookkeeping, tax, or advisory firm fast.
After a little soul-searching and some self-reflection, she realized that she needed help marketing her value and managing her time. She was ready for a big change. So, she began looking for a program to help her do just that. There were some duds and some unhelpful, generic advice to sort through, but eventually, Enae found Dream Firms and in doing so, started to build her own dream accounting firm.
Nothing Succeeds Like Success
Taking Back Your Time & Increasing Profit Margins
“Before working with Dream Firms, I was pretty much overworked, overwhelmed, and overthinking my every move.”
Time Management
Self-admittedly, Enae was struggling big time with time management. And, time management doesn’t just apply to how many hours you spend on something. We focused on making sure that she was spending her time with the right people, doing the right things. For Enae, that meant blocking out her calendar for family dinners and being more selective about which clients she took on.
Enae credits our Practice Ignitor challenge as the secret source of her time management shift. It was here that she learned how to stop wasting time on lackluster clients, define her work-life boundaries, and block out her time for the things that matter to her.
By doing so, she stopped wasting time on things that weren’t financially beneficial for her and her business and was able to focus more on finding and connecting with her dream clients. Sometimes that meant dropping a client that was a time-suck or who constantly questioned the value that they were receiving. But, what came about was a clientele full of business owners that trust her expertise, value her services, and pay top dollar for them. In doing so, she won back her time and was able to invest in the future of her firm.
“I’m not forced, or rather I don’t feel forced, to work with or take on clients or projects that don’t align with my personal and professional core values. Basically, I’m not being led by money desperation.”
Marketing Knowledge
As someone who primarily offers strategic advisory services, Enae’s next challenge was to figure out how to frame her expertise so that her calendar was filled with her dream clients, not with price shoppers. Marketing isn’t just about getting your name out there, it’s also about getting potential clients to realize your value and/or why they need you.
Through our one-on-one coaching sessions, Enae discovered a network of knowledge and accountability. With our support, she began to actively market herself and her business as an indispensable service. Before working with Dream Firms, most of her clients came to her simply looking for a tax package, so she needed to figure out how to make them realize that an advisory package was just as important, if not more so.
“I find my access to Tyler, Marine, and the rest of the highly capable and vetted accounting, bookkeeping, and tax professionals in Dream Firms truly invaluable.”
So she learned to start asking potential clients the right questions… Questions that made her clients realize that they needed answers, answers she could provide. By evaluating her client’s potential problems and showing them that they could not avoid or solve them without her help, Enae made her accounting firm and her advisory services an essential investment.
Once she had a good base for success, Enae found that growing her firm came naturally. By focusing on her advisory services, better articulating her value, and eliminating wasted time she added $150,000 of services to her firm in just eight weeks.
A Dream Firm Come True
We provided the support and proven marketing practices, but as with every Dream Firm Leader, Enae Jackson-Atkins would have never been able to achieve the success she has without her own grit and determination. She was always a hard worker, we just changed how she was working so that she could change
“I had not effectively worked and focused on growing my firm until now…I’m now actually doing something that works and I can perpetuate the success that I’m looking for. ”
After learning how to focus on her ideal type of client and implement efficient systems, Enae has found that not only is she running her dream firm, she also has more time to spend with her friends and family. That means no more work calls in the middle of dinner and no more wasting time on clients that simply don’t value the critical services she provides.
Where is she today? Well, her accounting firm is averaging 32% to 35% of sustainable growth in the last eight months alone and is now home to a talented team, dedicated to supporting this new growth. As for Enae herself, she’s received national recognition for her advisory skills from one of the largest accounting advisory software providers in the country and has all the support she needs to stay focused in her zone of genius. But most importantly to Enae, she has the time she wants to eat dinner with her family and prepare her Sunday sermons. Getting started was hard, she even says so herself, but once she did she quickly realized that she wasn’t just starting a marketing program for accountants, she was starting to build her dream firm.
“Dream Firms has really been the most valuable investment that I’ve made.”
If you want access to all the information that helped Enae elevate her accounting firm, in addition to wisdom directly from Enae herself, it’s yours for the taking. Sign up for our Practice Ignitor Challenge to start revolutionizing the way you work, and get entry to our exclusive Dream Firms Network, where you can learn directly from other accounting pros.
Invest in your firm’s future now, so that you can live the life you want for years to come.
