Latest / Founder Unfiltered - What Founders Think But Never Say / From $7 an Hour to the Inc. 5000: How Natalia Zacharin Built a $3M Firm in 5 Year

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From $7 an Hour to the Inc. 5000: How Natalia Zacharin Built a $3M Firm in 5 Year · Founder Unfiltered - What Founders Think But Never Say

0:00
Welcome to another episode of 6 Figure Secrets for Fractional
0:04
Experts. My name is Bradley Jacobs.
0:06
I'm your host and the founder and CEO of my lands.
0:09
Today, I'm joined by Natalia Zacharin, the founder and CEO of
0:14
Zacharin Consulting, a firm dedicated to helping business
0:17
owners make better financial decisions and scale their
0:20
business through insightful accounting and fractional CFO
0:23
services. Natalia, welcome to the show.
0:26
Thank you, Bradley. I'm I'm really excited to be
0:28
here. So we're having you on because
0:31
you started out on your own and you've grown this business to
0:35
you said 15 of you now, right? Yes.
0:38
Amazing story. Let's talk about where you are
0:41
today. What kind of engagements does it
0:42
look like? If you're willing to share any
0:44
revenue numbers, I know you're 15 people Like tell us what it
0:47
looks like today. My revenue numbers are actually
0:49
out there because we're on the Inc 5000.
0:52
So I started on my own in 2019. We hired a 15th person today
0:57
actually to starting today. Congrats.
0:59
We're tracking to hit 3,000,000 this year.
1:03
For an accounting firm, that's pretty big.
1:06
I think the growth's been, it's been over 100% year over year
1:10
and it's changed dramatically throughout the years, as you can
1:14
imagine. And we started out with just
1:16
bookkeeping, then we added fractional CFO services because
1:21
when I was doing a lot of the sales calls, the question kept
1:25
coming up, yes, I need bookkeeping help.
1:27
But I don't understand my numbers.
1:28
I don't know what how to interpret them.
1:30
I don't know what to use in this information to make my situation
1:34
better or to, you know, achieve my goals.
1:36
So fractional CFO services started officially in 2021.
1:41
I think before that I was probably giving free advice,
1:43
which a lot of us do. And then I created an actual
1:47
process and system with deliverables.
1:50
And that system is still being built out because now we have to
1:53
add on more CFOs, more fractional CFOs to the, to the
1:56
journey. And it's just been over the
1:59
years of whatever is needed by the market that makes sense for
2:03
us. Even sometimes I felt like it
2:05
didn't necessarily make sense, but we were forced into it.
2:08
We've been changing it. So we now have a payroll
2:11
specialist. We don't have bookkeepers
2:12
running payroll. We actually have a payroll
2:14
specialist that we do payroll resolution set up for payroll,
2:18
run payroll for I think about 60-70 clients.
2:21
So hundreds of employees. That was because we couldn't
2:25
find a good solution and we couldn't control the client
2:28
experience. And now for 2026, we're rolling
2:31
out tax planning and tax prep because again, we can't find a
2:35
good solution for our clients. Wow, amazing.
2:38
So to get to $3,000,000 in revenue, right, it's always kind
2:42
of the question of where do the clients come from?
2:45
There's a lot of bookkeepers out there, a lot of tax people.
2:48
How do you differentiate and where?
2:50
Where do your clients come from? I have people that constantly
2:53
tell me, because we do fractional CFO services with,
2:56
with clients. So we're always talking about
2:58
their revenue and their growth also.
3:00
And the common misconception is, oh, I'm in an industry that's
3:04
over saturated. Well, I'm, I'm in an industry
3:07
that's over saturated. So there's no excuse there.
3:10
Literally anybody with a computer anywhere in the world
3:13
can say they're a bookkeeper. And so that's what we compete
3:16
with. Every street corner has ACPA
3:19
office, that's who we're also competing with.
3:21
But we're different in a lot of ways.
3:23
So unfortunately for my industry, but very fortunate for
3:26
us, the industry is rife with bad communication, not getting
3:31
back to people and not charging appropriately, which is really
3:34
important for any business because if you don't charge
3:36
appropriately or if you go out of scope, then you can't hire
3:40
the right people. You can't give your client a
3:43
good experience because you're inundated with too much work.
3:46
So that's very typical in the accounting industry.
3:50
We're also very modern tech forward, make it a lot easier on
3:54
the client. We white glove the entire
3:56
situation. We know they're busy, we know we
3:59
have their attention. Very short period of time in the
4:01
beginning and then we need to train on their information as
4:05
much as possible and get everything that we can work as
4:08
independently as possible and run with it and streamline and
4:11
automate. So I think that's what sets us
4:13
apart is the the white glove services and also the fact that
4:17
we do fractional CFO services. Amazing.
4:20
So that's how you differentiate. I'm so glad you called out.
4:23
It's like such a common expertise, right?
4:27
And so you have to find ways to stand out.
4:29
And that's probably true for almost anybody.
4:32
I don't, it almost doesn't matter what industry of your
4:33
data science or your marketing or an operations product.
4:36
I mean, there's millions and millions of people out there.
4:38
So I love the call out of what makes you different.
4:42
And I'd love to really hear where are the clients come from?
4:44
Like how do you get to $3,000,000?
4:46
So the other thing I would say it is really up to the founder
4:50
in the beginning, especially to set the pace of sales and lead
4:54
generation. So if you're starting out and
4:57
you don't have like AC suite of people, you should really be
4:59
doing a lot of your own sales up to about $1,000,000 in gross
5:03
revenue. And then, and then it's a good
5:04
time to start hiring. So the founder has to get good
5:07
at sales. The way to get good at sales is
5:08
to do them. The way to find the leads is to
5:12
leave no stone unturned. That's the way I, I keep telling
5:15
myself that that's, that's the message I, I give myself.
5:17
Leave no stone unturned. I tried everything.
5:20
Some things don't work. Some things don't work because I
5:22
actually are a waste of time and some things don't work because I
5:25
my approach was incorrect. So there's a difference and you
5:27
need to understand what that difference is and and reiterate
5:30
and try to make things work out. Networking events work.
5:34
Sometimes it depends on the event, it depends on the group.
5:38
So I did some of my first lead generation through a great
5:43
women's only group, which was fantastic.
5:46
I didn't want to be locked in where I had to meet every month
5:50
or every couple weeks on A on a specific schedule like B and I,
5:55
you have to, you have to meet on a specific schedule, you have to
5:58
bring more leads. That's not something that I was
6:00
able to do because I was running around trying to build the
6:03
business and and not something I'm interested in doing.
6:06
I know it works for some other people, but networking with some
6:09
of it, LinkedIn outreach, especially back in 2019, 2000
6:14
and 2021, it works really, really well.
6:17
I still think it works. It's just inundated with a lot
6:21
of noise. So you have to stand out from
6:22
the noise. But LinkedIn does work.
6:24
Webinars, people really just like putting on webinars, but
6:29
people like attending webinars. So those are possibilities of
6:32
leads and I don't suggest this for anybody under $1,000,000 in
6:36
sales or under 750,000 in gross revenue.
6:39
But once you get to that point, it starts making sense to run
6:43
ads. So we run ads on Meta and we
6:47
might start running ads on Google.
6:49
Haven't done that yet. But all of those different
6:52
avenues, those channels are very different and those are
6:54
different people also or different specialists or
6:57
different things that you have to learn.
6:59
Yeah, amazing. Thanks for sharing all that.
7:01
And what about LinkedIn content? You talked about outreach.
7:03
What's the role of LinkedIn content that plays in your
7:06
business? So before it was just connecting
7:08
with people and messaging a friendly message, not an
7:11
outwardly salesy message. And no one wants a paragraph of
7:14
what you do. So like, don't start selling
7:18
people immediately. It actually irritates me when
7:21
people connect with me on Facebook and then and then
7:22
message me on Facebook because that's not even my business
7:25
page, that's supposed to be personal.
7:27
That irritates me that they don't even know anything about
7:29
me and bam, they want to sell me.
7:32
And I'm a salesperson by trade. So if that irritates A
7:36
salesperson, if you could imagine someone else, it's
7:38
probably very irritating. So I reach out to people, I
7:41
still do this, and I connect with them and ask them how
7:44
they're doing. How's business going so far this
7:45
year for you? And a lot of people don't
7:48
respond or they just respond and say I'm doing really well.
7:51
And so the only thing I'm looking for with LinkedIn is the
7:54
connection and for them to see in my headline what I do.
7:59
And then hopefully they'll start seeing my, you know, what I'm
8:02
posting and then they will come back to me.
8:05
So it's a slow burn. It takes it takes time, just
8:09
like e-mail campaigns do as well.
8:11
I used to do more of a direct outreach with like a four part
8:14
messaging series, but no one wants that now.
8:16
You have to remember that things have changed and you have to
8:19
change with how people buy. Yeah.
8:22
So what I'm hearing you say is you're connecting with someone
8:25
who could be a customer and you're sending a friendly
8:27
message, right? You have your profile optimized
8:31
for here's what we do. And then you are leaning into
8:34
content to basically have them get to know you right through
8:38
the content, build some trust, build some legitimacy there, and
8:42
then go back to them after that kind of trust, the relationship
8:45
has been built or they come to you.
8:47
Yes, exactly. So if you're looking for a fast
8:50
sale, that's not it. That's going to be more direct
8:54
outreach or or even networking or, or ads.
8:58
So this is more of a slower sale.
9:00
And I feel like you need to do all of those.
9:04
You don't have to do them all right away, but and you have to
9:06
get good at each one individually, but you but doing
9:10
all of them eventually is something that should be a goal.
9:12
Yeah, I think it makes sense. And what I'm hearing you say is
9:15
there's kind of a, a stacked approach, right?
9:17
You can get really good at 1:00 and then maybe once you've
9:20
mastered that, then you can move on to the next channel that's
9:24
effective. Yes, that's what I believe in
9:28
and things will change. So LinkedIn has changed
9:30
dramatically over the last couple of years.
9:31
I think Instagram has also changed.
9:34
So you have to kind of see what the changes are like.
9:37
There are a lot of great books. I read a lot.
9:39
Still, one of my favorites I highly recommend is Endless
9:43
Customers by Marcus Sheridan. It's about living in the world
9:46
where attention is now a deficit.
9:48
There's just we're getting bombarded so much that people
9:52
don't trust anybody anymore. Everybody says they're the best.
9:54
Everybody says they do something that someone else doesn't do, so
9:57
it now falls on deaf ears. Yeah, which is even more so.
10:01
Why the trust? And frankly, it's one of the
10:04
reasons that we do this podcast. I want people to see that I'm a
10:07
human being that's smart, working hard, cares a lot, has a
10:12
vision of supporting people. I'm not just some random person
10:16
online that's trying to make money, right?
10:18
I'm here, I care. I'm here to add value.
10:21
And I want you to see that and feel that and hear my voice and
10:24
build that trust because it's real.
10:27
It's not, it's not bullshit. And your content does that too,
10:29
right? Exactly your content, your
10:33
Instagram reels, your everything and they want to see that you're
10:36
human. So if you have like a hobby,
10:38
that's not a bad thing to interject that every once in a
10:40
while or talk about that or talk about your thoughts on the
10:44
economy or thoughts on on business or thoughts on
10:48
something as long as you keep it.
10:50
I don't believe in putting politics out there because it
10:53
polarizes who comes to you. Unless you unless you want to do
10:56
that, I don't care to do that. I'd rather have everybody from
10:59
every side that comes that we can help.
11:01
I couldn't agree with you more, but I love the human element,
11:04
right? It's like, yeah, share an
11:06
anecdote about your family or share a trip that you took on
11:08
something that happened there. Or as you said, a hobby's great.
11:12
Just like the human element. Like, we're human, right?
11:14
And people, humans hire other humans.
11:16
Yeah. It's like business to business,
11:17
but it's really not. It's like an individual person
11:21
who wants to enjoy working with you, who doesn't want to make a
11:24
mistake in hiring you, who wants like that, that personal
11:27
connection, like we all for human beings, we want that.
11:30
Yes, especially now more and more as AI is becoming more of a
11:34
thing, I think we're we're turning back to wanting more of
11:38
a human connection. We got all excited that
11:40
everything was virtual. We could do all of our meetings
11:43
on Zoom, but now people want to go back to the office and now
11:46
people want to have in person events and now people want to do
11:50
business with people because I think that we've lost that
11:53
connection, so we're turning back to it.
11:56
Yeah, I can agree with you more. And it's one of those things
11:58
I've actually made a real attempt to meet more people in.
12:01
I live in Austin Friday mornings for coffee.
12:04
I try to meet a new person every week for coffee just in person
12:08
because I can sit on Zoom at home all day or in my office and
12:11
it's like I got I want to meet people in person.
12:13
Like we're not just like, pooping anymore.
12:15
I actually did that a lot when I first started out.
12:17
I would meet people, I'd see them at an event and then I'd
12:20
get their information and ask them out for coffee or lunch or
12:24
something, usually coffee. And I got a lot of clients that
12:27
way. Amazing, right?
12:29
It's again the connection, right?
12:30
It's all about connection and trust and relationship, which
12:34
we've lost sight of in the world of AI and digital.
12:38
And just like spamming people with all these messages.
12:41
Yes. Oh yeah, the spam.
12:42
And like you said, it needs to be value and content or or about
12:47
yourself and it has to be something that you wrote and not
12:51
obviously AI wrote. But actually you don't even have
12:53
to write it. I do have ghost writers and I do
12:56
have people create my content for For the Firm, but they're
12:58
really, really good and they're humans also.
13:01
Yeah, I see it both ways, right. I see.
13:02
There's like the ghost writing or writing it yourself, or you
13:05
can use AI to make a draft, but then you got to go in and make
13:09
it yours. Like 100%.
13:11
Like we're not posting AI content here.
13:13
You just can't. You just can't do it.
13:14
People are picking up on that too much now.
13:16
OK, so I really want to get into your journey, especially as a
13:20
female business owner. There's lots of women listening
13:23
to this and that are inspired by you in building this business.
13:26
The cards can be stacked against you.
13:28
And something you said before we jumped on live was that it's
13:31
actually more stacked against you in corporate then as a
13:34
business owner. So we'd love to hear your take
13:37
on that before we get into kind of your journey of starting.
13:40
So I started the business because I wasn't getting
13:43
anywhere in the corporate world. I was in my late 40s working for
13:49
a pretty large company as an invoicing clerk.
13:52
Before that I was a stay at home mom.
13:54
I went through a couple of other very menial jobs.
13:57
I was having trouble finding a job at 42 years old back then.
14:02
I think my first job right out of my divorce was $7.10 an hour
14:06
was really brutal. So I dug out of that.
14:09
I got a a job with a salary, was doing OK, was not lighting up
14:13
the world, but was doing OK. And then suddenly when they
14:17
shifted management and they started changing gears, they
14:20
started reducing people that were employed and I guess I was
14:24
one of them. It had to do with a lot of
14:26
different factors. Age was one of them.
14:28
To be honest. At that point I was getting
14:30
close to 50, single mom. It was hard for me to constantly
14:34
like. I needed some flexibility like
14:36
parent teacher conferences. If my child was sick.
14:39
I always got the job done. I really cared, but I wasn't.
14:43
I guess I wasn't in alignment with what they wanted and I'm
14:47
I'm not mad at it at all because it was actually the best thing
14:49
that ever happened to me. So I knew I was going to not get
14:52
fired, but I was getting demoted and it put me back into poverty
14:57
levels in 2018-2019. So I met my now fiance and we
15:03
were sitting in a coffee shop. I was looking for work.
15:06
I couldn't find anything. And he said, why don't you start
15:08
your own business? I actually thought it was kind
15:10
of silly. He said that I'm like doing what
15:12
I, I kind of laughed at it. And he said, I don't know, like
15:14
accounting is a, is a good industry.
15:16
He was a, a tax person. He's ACPA.
15:20
So I looked into it and I thought, hey, you know, like I
15:23
can learn bookkeeping and do it on the side and make some extra
15:26
money. And he sent me this eight week
15:29
course on how to set up your first business for free.
15:33
He just sent it to me and I started going through the course
15:36
at night, at lunchtime on weekends.
15:39
Like mind you, I'm, I'm commuting, I work full time, I'm
15:42
a single mom. I don't have family in town.
15:45
So I had to do everything when my child was asleep or in
15:48
between things. So you have to be really
15:51
committed and dedicated to do something like that.
15:52
I, I was desperate and very committed to get out of that
15:56
situation. And I, I had no idea what was
15:58
going to happen. I had no idea that when I went
16:01
through this course and it said, now reach out on LinkedIn and
16:04
see people need a bookkeeper. And I did and someone called me
16:08
and that was in January, I think it was January 29th, 2019.
16:13
And I still remember it very well.
16:14
He's still my client. He's.
16:16
Still your client he's. Still my client and he said I
16:20
know my books are a mess. I need your help.
16:23
So he signed up with me. I didn't even have a template,
16:26
an engagement letter, I didn't even take payment.
16:28
I didn't know what I was doing. I agreed to it and I did a ton
16:32
of work for free because I didn't know what I was doing yet
16:34
and I didn't want to charge him for my learning, which is wrong.
16:39
You have to have a lot of integrity to take money for
16:41
something you don't know how to do yet.
16:42
So so I took the money and I started learning bookkeeping.
16:47
He's still a client. The person that was doing his
16:50
bookkeeping was not doing it correctly.
16:51
They were like all these negative balances and I'm like,
16:54
this definitely looks wrong. So I used YouTube to clean up
16:58
his books and to learn how to do bookkeeping and, and, and
17:03
QuickBooks online and, and that's how it started.
17:06
And in August of that year, I quit my job before I even had
17:09
enough money to make my mortgage.
17:11
And by November I had doubled my client load.
17:15
So I think I had 12 clients by November.
17:18
And then by early 2020, I was making more money than I ever
17:21
had in corporate. Wow, what a story.
17:24
OK. So just to reiterate, what I
17:26
heard you say is you frankly didn't build a business in an
17:32
area you had expertise. Yeah, I had no idea.
17:35
You, you learned everything on the fly, which is like takes
17:39
unbelievable courage to just like jump into the unknown in so
17:43
many different ways. Being a business owner, new area
17:45
of expertise, finding clients, marketing and all the things
17:48
that come with running a business.
17:50
I'm so curious because it's such an uncommon path that you took.
17:53
I mean, being a business owner itself is an uncommon path, much
17:57
less like I think and myself included, most of us go after an
18:00
area of expertise. We know and like we got the part
18:03
down. Usually that's the easy part and
18:05
the, you know, the rest of the business is the hard part.
18:07
You had all of it being an unknown and this is not a time
18:10
to be humble. What is it true about you that
18:12
enabled you to jump into all of these unknowns?
18:15
Have the courage to do it, the perseverance to.
18:18
I'm sure you got kind of knocked on your face all the time.
18:20
All the time. Yeah, like what?
18:22
What's in you that's different that allowed you to win despite
18:29
the uncommon path that you took? I think I just got tired of
18:33
feeling like I've been stepped on over and over and over again
18:37
in my life. I thought I did everything
18:38
right. I, you know, grew up in a in a
18:40
nice family. I have a college degree, I got
18:43
married. I never cheated.
18:45
I always worked really hard. And I'm like, how did I end up
18:49
in this situation? And my, my marriage was really
18:52
pretty awful. So that's, that's a totally
18:55
other story. But I think that all these
18:57
things happening, they all happened in alignment with where
19:01
I am now. I can almost see the path going
19:03
backwards that it was almost preparing me for today because I
19:07
had a lot of hard things happen. And when you're starting a
19:13
business, especially if you don't even know what the, the
19:15
technical aspect of it, right? If that's not your passion, This
19:18
wasn't my passion. I didn't even know how to do it.
19:21
I wasn't starting something I knew, but I wanted to get out of
19:24
my situation and I really learned how to compartmentalize
19:28
and to break things down into steps and not worry about step
19:32
#2 I only worried about step #1 every time.
19:36
So when it was time for me to reach out to someone and and
19:42
say, hey, do you need help with bookkeeping, I wasn't worried
19:45
about the next step If they said yes, I still kind of do that to
19:48
a certain extent. So now we're opening up taxes
19:51
and I'm like, now I have to learn how to do tax returns
19:54
really, really well. Again, not something I know I am
19:57
better suited for at this point, but I always.
20:01
Take this the step that I need to 1st and figure it out as I
20:05
go. It's almost like when you're
20:07
walking through a foggy forest and there's like a bunch of
20:10
different pathways and the path doesn't really reveal yourself.
20:13
You can only see a couple feet in front of you.
20:14
It doesn't really reveal yourself until you keep moving
20:17
forward. And that's how I feel that this
20:20
process has been for me. And the power, what you're
20:22
saying is that you don't let because you only look directly
20:27
in front of you, you don't let the fear of steps 2345101215
20:33
hold you back from taking that step.
20:35
Yes. I mean, there's definitely fear
20:37
there. There always has been.
20:39
But I would squash it and be like, that's not a thought for
20:43
today. And is that the practice?
20:45
You're like, you have the thought and you're just like,
20:47
not today or how do you what do you actually do in practice?
20:51
Yeah, there have been, trust me, many times where I just wanted
20:54
to give up. I'm like, I don't even know what
20:56
I'm doing. I'm not suited for this.
20:59
You know, the imposter syndrome when people go through imposter
21:01
syndrome, my imposter syndrome was truly, I was an imposter for
21:04
real. So I was like, I'm just, This is
21:07
why am I even doing this? I had meltdowns in between.
21:11
But then I would stop and, and actually my, my fiance would
21:14
say, well, you know, that's fine, but what's your next step?
21:17
Like, what else are you going to do?
21:19
And I was like, I don't know. So I might as well keep doing
21:22
this thing that I kind of do know at this point.
21:24
So I think it was, I just didn't feel like I had any other
21:28
options, not options that I liked so I could go work for
21:32
corporate again and end up in a situation where I didn't feel
21:36
that I was valued and I didn't make the money that I thought I
21:40
should make. And maybe it wasn't bringing the
21:43
value that they wanted at that at that point or they had
21:46
someone else doing it. I don't, I don't really know.
21:48
But I didn't have a good experience in in corporate and I
21:50
never really quite did. I was before that I was in
21:53
sales. Sales is not really corporate.
21:54
It's a little bit different. So I just didn't want to go
21:58
backwards to be in poverty. I've been in poverty a couple
22:01
times before just in my relationship with my husband
22:05
when I was married. That was a really bad
22:06
relationship. So I just, I feel like I just
22:09
wanted to learn from those mistakes and move forward.
22:12
And the path of entrepreneurship was really that moving forward
22:15
for me. Yeah.
22:17
Well, and I have this saying that people only really make a
22:20
change when their current situation hurts enough.
22:24
Yes, right. And that's what I'm hearing you
22:26
say is like, I really didn't want to go back to this.
22:28
I've been in poverty. I've been in pain essentially
22:32
before. And so my only way is forward.
22:36
Yes, and that's very true even for pricing.
22:39
So if you're not pricing correctly or you give a quote
22:43
and then you backtrack and lower it or you're afraid they won't
22:46
pay you. So it's funny because it's
22:49
actually very similar. You won't price correctly until
22:52
you have enough pain. The price correctly because
22:54
because it's a little bit painful.
22:56
Yeah, it's scary, right? You're like, can I really do
22:58
this? All right.
22:59
So we talked about how you got your first customer, which was
23:01
just an outreach on LinkedIn. And then you talked about
23:04
relatively quickly you were able to grow the revenue and replace
23:08
your income, pay for your mortgage, all that kind of
23:11
stuff, and get to five 1015 customers.
23:14
Where did those first dozen or so customers really come from?
23:18
Sure. So most of them came from
23:19
LinkedIn and from networking. So this was prior to COVID,
23:24
right? Right before COVID, I joined a
23:26
women's group. So I, several of my customers
23:29
came from there. They were very small businesses.
23:32
So that didn't really didn't really build the revenue that
23:35
quickly because they were very small, but they were still
23:37
clients. So every client for me with a
23:38
was a big win. And trust me, there was there
23:41
were months at a time or weeks at a time where I either had no
23:45
leads or people were saying no to me.
23:48
And there were many times where I just felt desperate.
23:52
I remember once I was feeling like no one's closing, no one's
23:56
closing for a couple months. I had no, no new clients.
23:59
And then suddenly one day I closed 4 new clients.
24:02
So anything can change on a dime when you're an entrepreneur,
24:06
which is you just have to do it long enough and be consistent
24:10
enough at it. So, so networking LinkedIn, I
24:13
went to a couple of other networking events and I think
24:16
that was the the majority. I remember now what else I also
24:20
did. I still do this because it's now
24:23
so ingrained. Anytime anyone would come to my
24:25
house or anyone I would meet that had a business I like, if
24:29
they came to my house to fix the plumbing, I'd be like, do you
24:32
need an accountant? Do you need a bookkeeper?
24:35
Always be selling. Always be selling, yes.
24:39
I love that in the story you just shared about that, you went
24:42
maybe months without a yes and then all of a sudden you signed
24:45
4 clients in one day. Were you keeping the strategy
24:48
consistent even though it wasn't being effective for that period
24:51
of time? And then just one day it all
24:52
came to fruition? Or did you change something in
24:54
that period of time? Or like OK, I'm listening to the
24:56
data, it's not working, I'm going to change something and
24:59
then I got 4 clients. I'm really glad you asked that
25:01
question because it's such a good point.
25:03
I had a script, I think it's actually from Sam Evans or
25:07
someone like that. I had a script with all these
25:09
different questions and how to ask them.
25:12
Because the questions I need to ask a lot of questions so I can
25:14
understand someone's situation so that I can quote them.
25:17
But the questions are also geared so that they feel that
25:20
I'm the expert. But also to give them a little
25:22
bit of FOMO and feel their pain point a little bit more and to
25:25
kind of drill into what is actually happening so that they
25:29
feel some kind of urgency. And every time I would veer away
25:33
from my script, I wouldn't close.
25:37
When I would thought, no, I don't want to follow the script.
25:39
I want to be more intuitive or be more kind or be more
25:43
compassionate or, or anything. I wouldn't close.
25:46
So I had to like a robot. I had my script by 2020, Zoom
25:50
was a thing. So I'd have my script taped to
25:53
my screen and look at my camera and see my script still because
25:57
I didn't know it by heart yet, and just go through the script
26:00
trying, trying to sound normal and not robotic.
26:03
And that is what closed the client almost every single time.
26:08
So what I learned from that was that sales is counterintuitive.
26:13
It's psychological, but it's not intuitive.
26:17
Yeah, So interesting. Wow.
26:19
I'm so glad you got to share that you're now a very
26:21
successful business owner and you employ a bunch of people.
26:24
It's such a success story. And I know not without its
26:27
challenges, right. You said you got told no and you
26:30
had many times you wanted to quit.
26:32
What advice would you give for, you know, the version of you
26:36
that is, you know, go back six years and you're in your first
26:39
year of business and you're figuring it out and making
26:40
mistakes. You don't know what you're
26:41
doing. I mean, what would be the
26:43
biggest advice that you would give that person who's listening
26:46
now, who's earlier on in their journey?
26:49
Sure. I think three things.
26:51
One is to be very consistent and don't give up because it's the
26:56
consistency in the reiteration of the same process.
26:59
It's the boring stuff, not the sexy things.
27:01
It's the boring stuff that closes the client.
27:04
Usually that does the lead generation closes the prospect.
27:07
So it's outreach and things that move the needle, not things that
27:11
are busy work that are going to move the needle.
27:13
So really hone in on what is that that's the most impactful
27:18
and really focus on those things because our brains are going to
27:21
want us to do the easier things that aren't the most impactful.
27:24
So don't delay the impactful things.
27:26
The second is read a lot. They're a great podcast.
27:30
For instance, right, like yours, they're a great podcast.
27:33
There's a lot of amazing information, fantastic books out
27:37
there on running a business, starting a business, mindset,
27:40
sales, marketing, like all the things that you need to know.
27:44
If you read 5 books on a subject, you'll start
27:47
understanding the patterns and validate like what are those
27:50
things that work? So reading and listening is
27:53
really important. That's basically like the
27:55
premise of surrounding yourself. You know, who are the five
27:58
people that you surround yourself with?
27:59
Well, they don't have to be your physical people.
28:01
They can be books and podcasts. So I've never heard it phrased
28:04
like that. I love.
28:05
That, yeah, that's awesome. So that's really helpful.
28:08
And to normalize big numbers and normalize success.
28:11
And the last thing is join a mastermind or someone or, or
28:15
work with a fractional person, right?
28:17
Like a fractional CMO or a fractional CFO or I actually
28:21
just hired a sales management team because it's that that's
28:25
not my Forte to, to manage that. And I'm the owner.
28:28
I can't do all these things anymore.
28:30
So there are amazing people out there that can really help your
28:35
efforts and grow exponentially and avoid those pitfalls that
28:41
most of us fall into. I think that's one of the best
28:43
things I did as I joined a mastermind in 2021.
28:46
The mastermind was half the cost of my gross revenue that year.
28:51
So it was a lot, it was not affordable, but it, I knew it
28:56
was going to be a, a good one and I knew if I paid that much
28:59
money, I would follow through and do what they said.
29:02
And so I started out as the smallest business.
29:05
I was a second to smallest business in that mastermind and
29:08
I'm now the large one of the largest.
29:09
So I think those three things were really important for for
29:14
our success. Yeah.
29:15
And I love just, you know, so much in business is this has
29:19
been done before, right? You're not the first service
29:22
based business to go out there and figure this stuff out.
29:24
And the books are written by people that have been successful
29:29
in a certain area, right? And as you said, you read a few
29:31
books or you, you gave 5 in a certain area and you can learn
29:36
from the best of the best, right?
29:38
It's like in a $15 book, you're getting so much value where you
29:44
don't have to make the mistakes because you're learning of what
29:46
already works. Yes, it it really helps you to
29:49
get from where you are now to where you want to go in a much
29:52
straighter line a lot faster. Yeah, amazing.
29:56
What are some of those other books I wrote down?
29:57
Endless customers. Endless Customers are a really
30:00
great one. I love the book Built to Sell by
30:03
John Marlowe. Love that one.
30:04
Yeah. That's a really good one.
30:06
We actually when we're talking about fractional CFO services,
30:10
we always want to talk about the exit strategy because if you
30:12
don't have an exit strategy energy, you are going to exit
30:15
your business one way or another.
30:18
You might as well build a business that is as valuable as
30:21
possible. So that's a really good one.
30:23
I love the book Mindset by Carol Dweck.
30:26
I remember I read that book and I was like, wow, so eye opening.
30:30
And I was like, wow, fixed mindset, open mindset wrote the
30:33
mindset. I was like picking people out.
30:35
I love that book for business. Never split the difference is a
30:39
really good one. Also, so many great sales books
30:43
out there. There's countless sales books
30:45
out there. Endless customers is more of a
30:47
marketing book, but it's it's amazing.
30:50
Building a story brand is another one that's really good.
30:53
And then I love the E myth. It's very similar to built to
30:57
sell. The E myth is a is a great book.
31:00
That's all I can think of at this moment.
31:02
But and I follow a lot of people.
31:04
I have my mastermind. I remember to me in the first
31:08
years, all these very successful accounting firm owners.
31:12
I felt like they were like Greek gods to me.
31:15
They were like larger than life and, and, and now like they're
31:21
my friends and it's really normalized failure and
31:24
normalized success, so. Cool, how much did you pay for
31:28
the mastermind? You said 2021. 50,000. 50 grand,
31:32
so you paid 50 grand, you said it was half your revenue so
31:35
you're making 100K and you said you knew it would be impactful.
31:39
So like clearly they built a lot of legitimacy and trust than you
31:42
to make that investment. But that's still takes a lot of
31:45
courage to make that big of an investment that early on.
31:48
I mean, what gives you the confidence?
31:49
To do that. So they had a lower level for 20
31:53
grand. I made 108,000 in 2020 and in 20
31:57
January 2021, I'm like, I should join this mastermind.
32:02
And then he was my boyfriend. He was in it.
32:04
So that's why I knew he vouched for it.
32:07
That helped. But they had like a $20,000
32:11
level for like a lower level. And I was like, well, what's the
32:15
executive level and what does that mean?
32:17
And like what does that cost? And, and what do I get?
32:20
What's the difference? It was more hands on.
32:23
And I thought, I really just need to bet on myself and invest
32:27
in myself and really make it work.
32:30
Because if I'm going to get in the executive level, how much
32:33
faster will I get to where I want to be and learn much faster
32:36
and get more hands on help. And, and so that's what I did.
32:40
And I remember feeling buyer's remorse.
32:43
I said yes. And of course, like their
32:47
salesperson is saying, I'm like, am I too small to be an
32:50
executive level? And then he's like, no, that's
32:54
probably too small. Amazing.
32:57
Oh man, I mean, I just acknowledge you for so much of
33:00
this and what a what a story you have to tell.
33:03
I'm so thankful to come on here and.
33:05
Share with all. Thank you.
33:06
Yeah, I went from poverty to Inc 5000 in five years.
33:10
Unreal. It's been an insane ride.
33:13
A lot of tears, a lot of like me wanting to throw my computer out
33:16
the window. I always tell people expect to
33:20
get a bad reviews and people that want to sue you, scary
33:24
things happening to you, but be prepared because if you know
33:28
those things might happen, you're going to be prepared and
33:30
they probably will happen. Yeah, such a good lesson for all
33:33
of us. And you, you do keep bringing up
33:35
this fiance was a boyfriend. Sounds like he's been incredible
33:39
influence on you and supporting you and pushing you in the right
33:42
directions and encouraging you. I mean, they don't normally talk
33:46
about people's personal lives a whole lot on the podcast, but
33:48
I'm so curious the role in your eyes that he's played for you.
33:52
Because when we have the right partner, like, holy shit, right?
33:55
I mean, he can make the world a difference.
33:57
It made a tremendous difference. He gave me the idea, first of
34:01
all, and then gave me like this, free.
34:03
Here's how you set up a business.
34:05
We laugh about it now. I asked him not too long ago,
34:08
like, what did you think I was going to do with that?
34:12
And he said, I don't know. I didn't think you were going to
34:14
do anything with it, to be honest.
34:16
It made this situation bearable. So I knew that I was on track to
34:22
be fired and he would cheer me on.
34:25
Yay, you're going to be an entrepreneur, you're getting
34:27
fired. Yay.
34:29
So reframing is is an extremely important skill at
34:34
compartmentalizing. Reframing, like all those things
34:36
are really important for entrepreneurship.
34:38
So he actually was the first person who had been an
34:41
entrepreneur much longer than me.
34:43
And this is his fifth business that he's been in and he's able
34:48
to reframe things for me. Like if you send an e-mail
34:52
campaign and someone tells you to F off, you know, like my
34:56
feelings would be probably hurt, but he'd say, no, this is
34:59
fantastic. That means you hit a nerve.
35:01
And that means that someone else, if there was an emotional
35:03
response, and that's good because someone else had an
35:06
emotional response that was positive.
35:08
So like reframing these things to help you continue on that
35:12
path is really important. And having someone to help you
35:15
do that is also really important.
35:17
And and there were many times where I'd call and be like, I
35:20
can't do this anymore. And he'd say, that's fine, what
35:22
are you going to do next? I love it.
35:25
He's like, yeah, sure, quit, right?
35:26
It's fine. Yeah, he's like, yeah, you can
35:28
quit. And then he'd be like, no, wait,
35:30
that's not what I want to do. Like reverse psychology, Like,
35:33
yeah, sure, yeah. Yeah.
35:35
That's amazing. All right, so we get to wrap up
35:37
here in a minute or two, but we'd love just take a second.
35:40
Where can people find you if they're either inspired by your
35:42
story or want to work with you in in the services that you
35:45
offer with bookkeeping, accounting Now, where can they
35:47
find you? Sure.
35:49
So we actually have a special page for your audience.
35:51
You can find it under www.zachrinconsulting.com slash
35:58
SFS. Okay, we'll put in the show
36:01
notes so people don't. Yes, yeah, for six figure
36:04
secrets, right? And there you'll find 2
36:07
giveaways. 1 is 7 ways to find money in your business.
36:10
Now the other one is the ultimate checklist for financial
36:13
success. Those are just PDFC download.
36:15
And then the third one is a calendar link if you want to
36:18
schedule a free financial consultation to chat with us.
36:22
Perfect. And you're obviously publishing
36:23
content on LinkedIn as well, so people want to follow your
36:26
journey. I'm publishing a lot of content
36:28
now on LinkedIn. I just started about two months
36:30
ago. My story's on there.
36:32
When I was 50 in 2012, I was making 7 bucks an hour.
36:36
In 2025, I made the ink 5000 and like there was a lot that
36:40
happened in between there obviously, but that is part of
36:44
this, the journey. I want people to know that it
36:47
doesn't matter how old you are, doesn't matter your experience
36:49
level, doesn't matter where you are in life.
36:52
Everything else is just an excuse really.
36:54
You can pretty much do anything if you put your mind to it.
36:58
I'm inspired. Natalia, thank you so much for
37:01
coming on the pod, sharing your story and just such an
37:04
incredible achievement and such a short rate of time.
37:07
Yeah, unreal. Thank you so much, I really
37:10
appreciate it. Was fun talking with you.
37:11
I enjoyed it. Always.
37:13
We'll talk soon.