How Carine Scaled Her CFO Business FAST from $14K to $40K/Month

All right, and welcome to this session. So on this session, I have Karine Dumas. She is a fractional cfo, accountant, bookkeeper, business strategist, all things. When it comes to helping you grow your business and upgrade your finances, we have a really quick conversation about what it is and how she's grown her practice, how she's grown her firm, and what that's looked over the times. Karine, why don't you go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you as well for having me. So I'm a fractional CFO. I've been working independently for the past 13 years now. And I was. Before going through profit search, I was struggling, growing my customer basis. I had very good customers, very loyal, and we almost have a routine. But besides my most loyal customers, this is very hard for me to find any new customers. Then I found out about profit search on Instagram. I was looking about what fractional CFO do on the Internet. What do they do to gain more customers, how do they advertise themselves and so on. And on Instagram, I found out about Charles, who was doing a video advertising. And I say, oh, wow. Yeah, Is like giving in, giving me guarantee that I'm able to grow by minimum of 10k and within a very short amount of time, like a few months. I said, well, let me give it a time. I was at the beginning skeptical.

I would say that's an understatement.

Yes, I was. I was. I was very skeptical. But at the. Very quickly I enrolled, I had the chance. I was very skeptical to the point that Charles had to jump on the call, on enduring the first call I had with his sales representant agent. And he said, well, you know what? It's either you believe or you don't believe, but it works. I have a full. I have testimonial from. From a lot of people joining me. And this is for real. So just get a look and see if you're interested. And I liked it. I liked the. The fact that it was very direct. Frank and I think he is always like that. And I looked at the testimonials, and I said, you know what? I'm gonna give it a shot. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't work. Let me try. And from the beginning, like, from the first week, I was just, like, starting to learn about how we can grow our customer basis, how we can switch our mindset, how we can question ourselves as well. And I realize, whoa, I'm outdated. There is a lot of Things I don't know about. I don't know about advertising myself. I don't know about how it's going on, on the market as of today. And I have learned with Charles and his team that the more you can offer customized services, the more you will succeed now and in the future. And as well, I was able to understand that even though I thought I was an entrepreneur, I was not at all. Because with Charles, I learned that, hey, you need to do your cost before jumping into a customer's contract. You need to do the spreadsheet, actually. And I'm an accountant, so I know what he's talking about. I'm just like, oh, wow, doing this for my customer and I'm not doing this for myself. And I was in a session, a training session with Charles and a lot of students and I learned how he did it, how it does it, how to compute the cost before enrolling new customers, and how to make an offer to a customer with range of negotiation. And then I realized I was a consultant, but I'm not an entrepreneur. But I want to become an entrepreneur. So I said, okay, let's do it. Let's follow his path and let's see. And then I went on training session for many months, several times a week. I learned a lot about how I can do things differently, how I can price my services differently, how I can define a niche that will help me gain specific new customers that I would like to work with, that I would enjoy working with. And then I start practicing and opportunities came into my life where there were customers that heard about me from other customers and they contacted me. And what I did is that I applied what I learned with, with Charles and I was able, within less than three months actually to, I would say, triple my revenues. I had revenues of 14k per month. I'm now 40k a month.

That's wild.

Very happy about it. Yes, I'm very happy about it. What I'm mostly happy about is that now I have four employees. Yes, I was able to understand that. You know what you need to work, you need to negotiate a contract with higher prices, but you also need to outsource if you can outsource some of the services. So I have four employees. I'm planning on hiring a fifth one on July 1st. And I'm attracting more and more customers and making more money. But mostly I'm very happy because I had a mindset shift.

Tell me, tell me a little bit about that.

Yes. So I was acting like a one man show. I do everything I Do the bookkeeping, I do the cleaning the book. I do the auditing, if there is audit services to do. I do the strategy thinking, brainstorming with the customers and I do the fractional services. Cfo, which is everything. Budgeting, cash flow forecasting and financial statement analysis. I was doing it all. And then I realized this is a lot to do and this is not how Charles is doing it. And this is not how the succeeding student with Charles are doing it. They are hiring people, they are focusing on a niche. And I say, you know what, I need to understand what I am good at and I need to offer my services within that range. So for example, I'm good with supermarket. And I was able and I just advertised it and I was able in a one hour call to book and close that contract. And I used the. There is an offer spreadsheet deal sheet. Sorry, an offer deal sheet that Charles gave to me that I had to work for on. That I had to work on for many hours to refine it. Yeah, yeah, it was long. It was long for me because I wanted to do it very well, like perfectly as an accountant, you know the thing. Yeah. And when I talk to that new customer, I have two screen. So I used on my left screen the deal sheet offer. And I just went point by point, trying not to read, just trying to talk to my customer. And I made it happen in one hour. And it was a 10k. I signed a 10k monthly contract with that customers. And it just started like that because after that I was able to cross sell other services with that customer and I make more money.

So tell me, tell me about the time. Is this, is this the same client where you were like, hold on, wait. When he tried to negotiate with you? Can you tell me that story again? I know you told me before, but yes, you're right.

That's very funny. So that customer was just like, oh, Karine, like 10k. You. Can you like discount that price? Can you make another price? And I went like, no, listen, you don't want me, you don't want me to discount my services. Why do you want to discount my price? This is the price because I'm one of the best and this is the price. Don't discount my price because I'm not discounting my services. And the customer goes like, whoa, okay. And that's it. And that came from you because during the training you said something like that. You say, well, why would I discount my prices? Right? Because I know my value and, and I will give my 100% to you. So if you want my 100%, this is the price. Because I'm not going to give you 50% or 75% of my capacity. You get all of it. All of it is this price. It's either it's a go or not. And it was a go. I was lucky about this one, too.

How did you feel after you signed that guy on?

I felt, like, reassured that I can make it happen. Sometimes you just need, you need one positive experience, right? And once you're done, it, you're like, if I can make it once, I can make it twice and maybe better. And I kept on going and I earned and I was able to gain another customer. And I felt like, okay, I was right. I am becoming now an entrepreneur and I was not before. And, and being an accountant is a good thing, but if you like to do analysis and talk to customers and you understand where your value is, you can sell that for much more money and enjoy your life, enjoy your job, enjoy your work on a daily basis. Because then you're not working, you're just doing what you like. So I like it.

Okay, that makes, that makes a ton of sense. Thanks so much for sharing that with me here. You and I talked about a lot of things, you know, on an earlier call. So to kind of recap, you saw an ad of us. You were googling fractional CFO trying to grow my accounting firm. You probably saw me on Facebook or Instagram, whatever, scrolling across the feed. I remember our first call. You were so skeptical. You were like, like, like, who, who is this guy? Where is he? You know, trying to find my house on Google Maps or, you know, yeah.

I did all of that. I, I, I search, you know, on a business bureau, I search for profit search. I was like, are you even registered? Who are you? You know, like, because I'm going to give you my money. The thing is, of course, 10k is a lot is money for everyone, right? But the thing is, I know every, there is an effort behind earning money. And for me, I have to be careful how I spend it. I'm just like, okay, who is this? Who are you? Who is profit surge? And when I go on the link for the website, I go to one single page and I'm just like, why can I not find more? This is weird. And then I goes like, I'm looking for more. I'm going to LinkedIn. I'm searching for more. I don't find anything wrong. There is no bad reviews. There is good reviews. But I was skeptical because from the beginning, what happened is that you have to. They call you, the profit search team call you. They explain to you, here is what we are doing. Here is the guarantee, like, we will stay with you until you make that money. And the guarantee was for me. Yes. That's cool. But you asked me to pay in advance, so what about if you disappear? Because it's. It happens. Scam, people acting in a wrong way happen all the time. And I was just so skeptical because I think a lot of people like me already, like, was victim of a scam. Somehow or another, you know, it happens. And I was just like, how am I going to explain to my husband that I lost 10k because I saw something on Instagram and the guy told me, pay upfront, and I paid up front and it disappeared. What am I going to say to my husband?

I. Oh, which is the most boring thing in the world, which is grow your accounting firm to do so. When. When clearly, like, you went through it, you grew your business. One of the things I like to point out is before when you spoke to us, you worked with us, it sounds like you were thinking about the mindset of an accountant, not necessarily the mindset of the entrepreneur, because the accountant's thinking, what happens if this doesn't work? What happens if I lose out on this? How is this possible? Right? We. We're trained to think of all those things, whereas an entrepreneur thinks, okay, what is this worth to me? What. What happens if this works out? What happens if I put in the effort and am successful? You know, what does it look like when I learn these skills and grow past? And so to me, an entrepreneur is, yes, we always balance risk as an entrepreneur, but our thought is, is how is this going to benefit me and, and the business instead of the what happens if everything goes wrong? You need to look at both. But if we just so get focused on what happens, everything goes wrong. Well, you know, like, we show you how to add on fractional C, those services and get more clients and do marketing and hire and build the team and all those things. Most of the time when we work with someone, like the case of you, if you add on just a little bit what we show you, not at all, right? I mean, we like you to do it all, but if you want to add just a little bit, if I can just change how you think, I've changed your life forever, right? That's. That to me, is the most important thing, because that doesn't change the next three months of your business. That changes, you know, the next 300 months of your business. And so that's usually what we try and do here. So I know you worked with us. I knew you added, you went from 14k a month to $40,000 a month, which is awesome by the way. Like you crushed it. Curious. Where do you think you'd be right now, like if you didn't take action and you know, like take the leap.

Of faith as it will would be below 10k. I'm going to explain you why I started with Profit Search. It was January, maybe 15, and I lost the contract because just the company went dorm had to go dormant for market purpose, whatever. And dormant they cut my contract. So I lost the contract, a very important one by January 31st. And it was like, oh yeah, here I am now. I lost a contract. I put 10k in Charles, and I'm still not earning any money. It's not going so well for me. It was January 31st and if I didn't have profit surge and if I didn't learn all that I. If I haven't learned all that I learned and applied to my life in my business, I would be. I don't think I would have been able to gain new customers. Honestly. I would be very stressed and I would be making money under 10k which would not be sufficient for me compared to what I have to pay. And I would be probably panicking and find like everything is too complicated for me not understanding. Karin, this is not complicated. You're just outdated. You need to understand how the, how it works now and you need to come to par and work with the way it's going on the market today and become an entrepreneur. I would have never thought of this this way. I would have been the victim. Honestly, I would have be. Oh, you see, I'm doing everything well. I'm serious.

I'm doing everything well.

It's not working for me. Oh my God, this is. This is not fair. And so on. And so I was glad I made that call.

I'm glad you did too. If there's anyone that's on the fence about booking a call with us or thinking about working with us, like, what would you, what would you say to them?

Do it. Take the risk to book the call and believe. Charles is a very. He is the one of the good guy in there and his team as well, they are honest. They are. They are giving away much than what you're going to pay for. And I told Charles that and I said, charles, I'm getting way more than the money I'm paying you. And this is, by the way, after.

You told me that we raised our prices.

I'm sorry for the other ones. Sorry, people.

If I give you the advice, I have to take it myself. If I hear that two or three times in a row, which we still hear, that's what we're doing.

It's. It's just like an intense course with a lot of materials that can be used and reused and reused all over again. And I'm not done, like, with all that. I can learn from you and I still have access to the classes and the training and so jump in. Usually accountants are very on the safe side. This is our job. This is how we are, and we are very square. This is the limits. This is where we stand because we are honest, good people and loyal and we don't take risk. Yeah. But let me tell you, take some risk because it's worth it. Especially with Charles and with Profit Surge. And for me, I told him that he is my coach and it changed my life. And I will always keep him near in my life because I'm succeeding because he gave me so much, him and Brianna as well, and I learned so much. Those people are just generous in what they're giving. So try it. You will gain way more than that. And they do walk with you on every steps. You're not alone doing this. And there is no way you cannot succeed, honestly. That's what I would say.

Well, thank you so much. I. I really appreciate that. It's been a joy to see you and your business grow. One last final question. Where do you. So I know you came to us, we got everything kind of changed. Got it kind of the growth mindset. Is your goal different now for you maybe in the next five years than it was, you know, a couple months ago? Like, how. How has that changed?

Change a lot. When I came to you a couple months ago, you asked me, what do you want? And I said, well, I would like to earn 50k a month. And I said that I was just like a dream, honestly. And I'm at 40 now and still growing. And what has changed is that how do I see myself in the next five years? Now there is not a number. There is no limit. That's the point. They cannot be a limit. If I am an entrepreneur, I cannot tell you. Well, now I want to make 100k. No, I want to make as much as I can, as much as life is bringing to me. And it can be 1 million, it can be 500k, it can be 100k. I will be Pleased with it because it's a growing path. And I also understood that what has changed is that I have to take risk. Risk maybe of failing too, on maybe one contract, maybe. But I have to take risks to recruit people. And that was something I was very scared about because of the responsibilities behind it, you know, and you hire people and then you want to keep them, but then you have to manage them and understand how to manage people. And this is a different story, you know, but now I have four employees, maybe five next month. And I'm just like, okay, I still have to think growing more will be adding more people in different steps and with different level and background. This is where I am at. So no limits to where I want to go. I want to go to the higher level that I can go. And I will hire as many people as I can because I think this is what I can do now. This is what has changed.

That's awesome. That's what a huge change. Like, congratulations for you for putting in the work and seeing the much bigger result. That is awesome. If people want to get a hold of you, maybe they're interested in hiring fractional cfo. Maybe they're interested in using your firm. Where would we send them to?

Please go to my Instagram. My name is Karine Dumas. I'm French, by the way. I was born in France, so C A R I N E and my last name is Dumas. D U M A S and you will find me and I will reply automatically on any messages that you sent to me on my LinkedIn. Sorry, not my Instagram. LinkedIn profile.

LinkedIn. Gotcha. Well, Kareem, thank you so much for being here. Super grateful to hear about your growth and work with us. Thank you so much. It was awesome to have you here.

Thank you as well. Thank you so much.