How This Bookkeeping Firm Went from $8K to $20K/Month

We took a shot and it paid off.

This year, we are shooting for close to almost 100,000 just the last two months. I'm not selling this person. I'm having a conversation with this person. And that's what clicked for me.

By week two, you had helped us increase our existing rates and that paid for the program.

My revenue went from 8k a month to about 18 to 20k a month. Just do it. There's no better time to invest in yourself.

Hello, my name is Charles Lykoff. I run Profit Surge Group. We help accountants, bookkeepers and tax professionals start, scale and grow profitable fractional CFO firm. I'm here with Andy and Karen. They own a bookkeeping and fractional CFO business. They're all located in Arizona. We've been working together for about six months together. And I wanted to talk a little bit about their experience growing their business, getting fractional CFO clients and growing it. Hey guys. Welcome. Appreciate you being here.

Yeah, thank you.

So do me a favor. I know you guys really, really, really well. We've spent the last six months together. But people who are watching this, they have no idea who you are. So tell me a little about yourself, your guys's background, your business. What do you guys do?

Sure. I'll start. My name is Karen Sylvius and I am the owner of all of Branch Bookkeeping Inc. I have been doing bookkeeping for over 18 years. It's all I know. But owning a business. We've only been business owners since 2018, so fairly new at it, if you will. And we just found ourselves struggling with this bookkeeping business.

Yeah. So my role inside of all of Branch Bookkeeping is handling business development. So growing, making sure that the appointments are flowing in for sales, making sure that our backend systems are working and have all of our social media and marketing on point. And definitely one of the problems we had early on before we start working with you was getting enough qualified appointments in the door and then struggling with pricing, being kind of across the board, you know, trying to be competitive with other. With other bookkeeping and accounting firms. And that seemed to be kind of a problem for a while.

Okay. So I noticed you guys do something a little bit different. Your husband, wife combo. Karen, what do you do that Andy doesn't like? You guys kind of tackle different parts of the business or.

Yeah, so I basically do all the financial stuff and he does all the operations. So he does the marketing and he helps with systems and processes in our, like day to day with our employees, all that onboarding. Stuff. And I do, like.

Like, out of all the options you could have chosen for, like, your path forward, why was it fractional cfo? And then, like, why did. Why did you. What stuck out to you about, like, us?

I think I can answer this one.

Yeah.

So I actually discovered you guys through, you know, because again, part of business development was like, okay, how do we offer different services? Like, that's. Those are things I'm thinking about, like, how do we do different things? So she's focused on client work. I'm trying to figure out, like, how do we become more profitable and just make more money and bring more appointments in. I had come across an ad of yours. I think what stuck out to me as soon as I went through some of the landing pages on those ads was your messaging was the exact opposite of all the gurus you see online. It was, this is not a get rich quick scheme. This is for accountants and bookkeepers that want to add a service line to their business that can increase their hourly rate. And to me, it just felt more authentic. We've definitely, I'm sure as many people who run a business these days have hired coaches and hired other people, and they. Early on when you first started business, you think, oh, I'm going to follow these people that tell you can be a millionaire in six months. That's not realistic. And we know that now, years later, after running businesses. But, yeah, yours felt more authentic. I did. I'll be honest, I didn't know much about CFO work. And so once I looked into what you were talking about and what the actual fractional CFO offer was, it was like, look, I brought it to Karen and said, you're already doing this. You're literally already doing these things, and let's talk to them.

Yeah. And I'll. I'll have to point out, too, we have worked with a coach before for this business, and then my husband's worked with coaches before in real estate. And we just never felt like we were understood or guided in the right direction. And it just was very frustrating. So when he brought this to me, I was a little bit nervous. I was like, oh, God, we're going down the same route. We just got out of, like, we've. We've just hired a coach, we spent thousands of dollars with him and got zero results. Like, but then when we sat down and talked with your sales rep, because we didn't talk to you, actually, we talked to somebody else, and he had explained to us, like, hey, our guarantee is that we're going to Work with you until we get you to X, Y and Z. And it was like, okay. So I felt safe, like there was a safety net and that. Like, okay, that can build trust between me and Charles and let's see what he's got going on. Like I was. Once we spent the money, it was like, okay, the money's gone. That's not the issue. It's how do I get the results? Because I don't care about spending the money if I can get the results. And you were like, well, we're going to get you the results. And that's what made me feel like, okay.

I think by week two. By week two, you had helped us increase just our existing rates before adding any new service line. And that paid for the program.

Yep.

Yeah, not bad. Two weeks in and everything else after. That's free money.

Yeah.

Worked with a couple other people. Not the best experience here. I mean, fractional CFO is kind of esoteric. There's nothing a million people out there offering. It's not nearly as cool as, you know, become a drop shipping millionaire or anything like that.

No Lambos, right?

I love those ads. Yeah, maybe. I don't. I don't think my hands would do as well if I put lambos in the minihouse.

Lambos and tigers.

I love it.

I don't know if the tiger would fly at my house. I don't think my dog would like that. So you decided to jump in. You're like, look, if I can get the results, any investment's worth it, right? As long as they're. They're correlated. What, like, really stuck out to you? So, like, what, what particularly helps you guys get to where you are? So you started about 8k a month. We raised our prices first weekend. Like, of course, you know, program's already paid for itself. Where did you end up? Right, So I know we've been working together six months together. Can you give us like a snapshot of like, where we were versus where we are?

Yeah, let's see here. I think my revenue went from 8k a month to about 18 to 20k a month. I want to say where I'm currently sitting. And I've had quite a few CFO clients, a couple of them that are just now ending their CFO program to where they'll move on to recurring, which will bring my recurring up from where it's currently sitting. And then I don't even know from those CFO clients. I've done probably a hundred thousand dollars worth of cleanup jobs and signed on payroll. People so really good, revenue wise. And I will say my confidence has been built. I feel I remember coming in the first few days and going over like sales training with you and being so. And not just sales training, like the sales training. And then like you pushed me to do my ad and I, I did. I dragged my feet for a while, but I finally did it. But I remember you being like, dude, it's good. Like, I guarantee you're in your head more than, than anyone else is. Thinking about this and then going over the sales calls and stuff really built my confidence up because I used to be scared about reviewing them and I still get nervous. I still get nervous.

It's normal.

But I like writing it down and hearing other people's perspectives because it's like, oh, you're right, I should in this or like, as I'm in the call, I'll get off and I'll go, Dan, I already know Charles is going to say this about it and like, it just, it's like a back of my mind all the time. So it's definitely built my confidence up for sure.

So let's, let's talk about it. You went from 8 to 18 to 20k a month. So there's a $10,000 gap there. You sold a lot of one off services.

Yeah.

Right. What have you guys collected total cash in maybe like the last two months?

The last two months? We. Almost a hundred thousand. Just the last two months.

Okay, so you maybe went from 8 to 18 recurring, but in the last two months you've also pulled in 100 grand in cash.

Yep. Cleanup jobs and CFO work. And then that doesn't include the recurring ongoing stuff.

Okay.

That'll be closing in the next few weeks.

Gotcha. So way more than 10 extra investment so far. Okay, so got in, started working with us. 10 extra money going in, went through sales calls, built up your fractional CFO offer here. Let's talk about the confidence part because I think a lot of our audience struggles with the confidence. What they don't realize is like, the business owner needs them. They need the skill. You can kind of roll your face across the keyboard and do better job than the business owner because you're the finance expert, not them. You don't need a super high level of experience. You have most of the experience. Maybe not all, but you have most. Let's talk about the confidence piece because we can build you a really cool offer and really cool CFO package and build you the best ads and VSL and get a sales call. But if you don't feel confident in it. You. It's not going to translate in the sales call. You're not going to be able to do services. Where did you. Where did you get that confidence from?

From you beating me down. No, I'm just kidding. No, no.

I don't know if that's true. I don't know if she should say that.

No.

So I have always struggled with confidence. It's always been something I've. And I was very open with you. The first. Very first meeting that we had that I struggled with the confidence aspect of it. But the more we dug into all the different, like, workshops that you have us do before you, like, set us free, just built it up more and more. And as I practice and as I got into sales calls and filled a few of them, I, of course some people would get in their heads about it, and I did. Like, there was plenty of times I talked to Andy and was like, I don't know if I can do this, man. And he's like, you got this. But the more we talked about it and the more you, like, said, here's where I would do this, here's what I would do that, and you give me pointers. It was like, you know what? I'm not selling this person. I'm having a conversation with this person and figuring out what's wrong. And that's what clicked for me to go, this is not a sales call. This is just a conversation. Have confidence. Just talk to them like I would talk to a friend. Like, what's the big deal?

Yeah. That sounds like it's a lot easier. Because when you think of sales call, I don't. I don't even like the word sales. Right. It's like a consultative process. It's. Let's dive in your financials. Let's see what's wrong. Let's see if we can fix it. Because maybe we can't. Maybe we're not the best solution.

Right.

Okay. We don't get that person to sign up. Like, if I can't help you, I'm not going to introduce you to something.

Yep.

See if it's a good fit, go over the problem, explore new it, present the solution, and then help them understand it. Because oftentimes I find in this offer, and, you know, I still do the fractional CFO work. When someone doesn't sign up with us, it's because they don't understand because I don't sell anything, whether it be fractional CFO services or this. That doesn't make you more than it costs you. So if you don't get in, it's just an understanding. Clarifying their understanding, man, that takes some work.

It does, it does.

I have something to add too, and I'm not sure if it aligns enough with your question, but I think it's worth mentioning that prior to joining you, we were kind of feeling hopeless at moments. Like, we'd go through these spurts with, like, okay, we're going to get on track, we're going to get this done. We're going to bring in more clients, this and that. But we struggled with the, like, how are we going to grow this into a big business where we can actually afford to bring on the talent that we need in our business and grow the way we want to? And so I think just like, realizing that there was a different or an additional path or service we could add on that did, like, increase our. Our rates. Like, that gave us a huge. There's a big light at the end of the tunnel. Like, wow, okay. It gave us more excitement about the business where before we're just like, is it worth it? And I think there's a lot of people who probably run an accounting firm or book even, or whatever financial service that are probably working a ton of hours for not a lot of pay, you know, relative. And I think it just gets discouraging after a while. So when you. When we met with you and got this all established, it felt like there was just a lot more excitement about, oh, wow, we can do this and we can grow it and we can make a lot more money and we can serve a lot more clients in a better way.

Yep.

I mean, that's a huge transformation from, I don't know how we're going to get through this to, hey, there's a light at the end of the tunnel, but there's actually a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. There's a big goal. And I remember we got dinner a month or so ago, and you guys were telling me your goals for the end of the year. Right. So we were doing. In last year, you were telling me you're at $8,000 a month, we've collected over 100 grand. Know, not even six months. In. In two of those six months, we've collected over a hundred grand. I. You have your big goal. Do you want to share what your big goal is for? For the end of 2025? Is that. Is that something you're comfortable with?

Yep. Yeah. So my current 2024 year, I ended at around 250,000. This year we are shooting for close to a million.

Okay, that's 4x. Yeah, for. For non, non, non math majors in the. In the room here. How the hell are you going to get there?

We're going to grind.

And a lot of sales calls.

A lot of sales calls. Like eight to nine sales calls a day trying to close. I mean, we built out a sales tracker with you to see what. How many calls we need to take and then reverse engineer it to how many calls we can close to hit those numbers. And bringing on staff, constantly looking to hire people all the time. And just fulfillment.

I think that's probably the biggest problem people are going to have facing. They're going to figure out how to make a lot of money and bring a lot more clients in, then they're going to have a different problem.

Yeah, it's always something.

Well, yeah, there's always going to be something.

Yep.

Most people don't get to the point where they break their business and need help with talent. Yeah, we got you leads coming in, getting sales calls, not a problem. Closing sales calls, also not a problem. Now it's the fulfillment that your guys are kind of running into the problem. And what have we done to help you guys solve that? Let's talk about that. Because I know when we first started working together, our conversations were one flavor and one style. And we're working on something completely different now.

Oh, yeah, it's changed.

Yeah. Back in, I think, November time frame. October. No, it was October. Back in October. I was getting so stressed out with, like, fulfillment on my end. And I had two data entry people at the time. And I said, I think I need to hire another me, a senior bookkeeper. And you were like, okay, let's look at that. And so we looked at the numbers. We looked at, you know, what does that mean? And then we put that out and we. We have hired two senior bookkeepers. They have since left, but we just hired another girl. And we're looking at another data entry person. And we're constantly talking to you about, you know, what does that look like for our business? Like, how do we keep fulfilling that without breaking down at 100 max? And you're like, you just need to always have people in the back of your mind all the time. Just constantly, always have a roster of people for senior bookkeepers, for data entry, for whatever position you have. Just constantly talk to people, constantly. Try, try to get them into your business and let them know, like, hey, we're not hiring yet, but can I keep this on file? That way, when we are hiring, we can reach back out to you and see if you're able and willing. And I think that has been big for us, because if I didn't have that in place when I had senior bookkeepers leave and I'm, like, frantic, like, oh, my gosh, what do I do now? I wouldn't have had a plan to fall back on. And we did. We had a plan, and within a week, we're rehiring somebody else. We were only down a couple days.

Right, so you only. You've only lost a couple days in your grand plan to get to that million stretch.

Yep.

Yeah. I think it's nice because you have the experience. You mean, you have your own teams as well. So I think, you know, we came to you for a problem of fixing, you know, creating an offer and adding a line of revenue, but we're always confident. When we have an issue, we're like, hey, Charles, what would you do in this situation? And you're able to help appreciate that.

So one of the things you guys mentioned depends upon who's listening to this. If you mentioned trying to make a million dollars a year, you said. You said eight sales calls a day. So I have done that. Now I have a team that does that. Thank the Lord.

We'll need a team for that.

Yeah, you will. That's our next we're working on for you. Yeah, well, if you get a sales team, we'll train them. But the thing is, that sounds terrifying to some. Some people listening, and that sounds like, let's go to other people. There's. There's only two options there, right? To someone who, again, and like, six months ago, you guys were eight grand a month, and now you're like, I'm gonna do a million dollars a year. I'm hiring a sales team. Let me get more people on the staff. I take xyz number of sales calls a day. That's an insane shift in thinking in mindset and growing your business. For some people, that sounds like, wow, Karen, Andy, smartest people in the world ever. They got something different, you know, blah, blah, blah. Like. Like, when I think about that, that sounds extraordinary, and it is. You guys are putting in a lot of work, and I don't want to discredit that.

We haven't gotten there yet, though. So we got to get to a million before you. Like, it's a goal, but we're not there.

You guys are on your way. Yeah, you guys are on your way for sure. But the amount of mindset shift that you've been able to have and do over relatively a short amount of time and the scope of our lives. Six months is air. It's dust. It doesn't exist. How has your life changed over the last six months?

Oh, my gosh. I don't even know how to even describe it. It's nice. It's nice. I feel stressed out in times. Like, obviously this last week, we lost a girl. So it. I had a moment.

She quit. She didn't die.

Just.

Just.

She didn't die. She just vanished out of thin air. Gone. And so it was stressful. But I think what is nice is being able to lean on you and be like, hey, I feel like, what did we do wrong? You're like, dude, it happens. Like, that's business. It happens. And it's like, in our mind, I know it happens, but I'm not thinking logically in those moments. And so it's nice to be able to come to someone who is, like, an outside perspective that goes, just think logically. And I. I have to say, that has been the biggest blessing of all of this, is just being able to have somebody as a third party that's not as deeply emotionally attached to my business that can be like, hey, you need to, like, figure your stuff out, get some more sales calls. You got goals. You've got things you need to do. I'm here to push you. I'm also here to tell you you're doing things right. And I'm also here to say, look, this stuff happens. It's business. It's okay. And it's. You're not just hard on making sure I'm a machine. You're also there as, like, a friend to be like, hey, you're doing great.

No, but he. Here's the thing. Because I'm usually the one that helps push Karen. And even I was like, okay, we backed off of some sales. We got to get this back on track. And Charles, like, that's great. Get on track. And you need to get back in the game.

So let's do, like, I'll give you this week. I'll give you this week. But, like, you should turn those ads back on. I was like, all right.

But as business owners, I think especially with big goals, it's easy to allow drawbacks or setbacks to. To kind of hinder you or paralyze you in the moment. And then, you know, sometimes people don't get out of those moments. I've. I faced that myself and other roles like real estate and other businesses. I've run where big challenge comes up, and it's easy to be like, okay, well, I'm dealing with this problem. But then you allow it to just bleed in for months at a time, or you allow it to drag out. And so having someone to say, hey, take time to get it fixed, but let's also get back on track as quickly as possible because you're going to lose momentum if you don't.

I. I think about, like, this prior CFO still doing, you know, fractional CFO work. We can change the goal or we can change the plan. I hate changing my goals.

No. Yeah. Too stubborn for that.

Yeah.

So we changed the plan. And it's funny sometimes, you know, even with you guys, it's completely, like, not something that we talk about. Like, in that round line, I kind of am your fractional cfo. I'm like, pull up your stats. Let's look at them. Cost per call is good. Close rate's good. Let's do this to keep growing. And I know because I've worked across you and a couple hundred other people, if we make some of those changes, if we take that break or we take that lull, well, it's going to be a lot harder to get to our goal. So do we change the goal or do we change the plan?

Yeah.

And sometimes there's a level of emotional intelligence that, like, gets applied to that there. I. I probably need to go to more therapy, but I'm like, I hate changing my goal.

Yeah.

Like, we'll drag myself through mud, razor blades, and glass, but we are not changing the goal. And for some entrepreneurs, that's fine. They can't change the goal. But I. I think I'm kind of wired incorrectly in, like, a good way. So, you know, I'm. If you want someone to hold you to standards, to do really well, I'm. I'm excellent. If you don't want that, don't, Don't.

Don't call me.

Yeah. You don't. I don't. Yeah. Anyhow, I will make you more money, and you will like it.

You will like it.

So if somebody's watching this right now, right, Going through the interview, listening to our conversation, if they're on the fence about working with us, right. If they're on the fence about maybe booking a call with us, like, what would you. What would you guys say to them?

Just do it. That's it. Like, literally just do it. Like, there's no better time to invest in yourself. Like, you just. Sometimes it's scary and change is hard, but change is Inevitable. If you want to see something better in your life, you cannot do the same thing expecting a different result. So do it.

I would say my answer is gonna be a little longer. I have seen testimonials like this from other services, and I always get very hesitant because I'm like, okay, are they paid to do this or this or that? Like, you don't really know the backstory, Right? So if somebody comes across, wherever you post this, and they go, okay, well, what's the incentive for them to do this? Honestly, the incentive for us is, like, we were terrified to hire another coach. We've had coaches in our real estate company. We had coach a coach early on where we didn't see the results. And so to spend money, you know, for somebody else, it was just like, man, are we gonna. Are we going down the same path? And we took a shot. It was a risk, not really knowing you guys personally, and it paid off. And so I think a lot of people, when you're on the fence, it's easy to come up with all the reasons why you shouldn't do things. But if you're serious about growing your business, you have been the biggest shift for us to be able to continue growing. And, you know, people gotta realize they gotta put in the work. There is a lot of work that's involved, but you can help them get there. And so my advice is same as Karen. Like, don't allow the fear. The fear to control you, and take the leap, and it will pay you back tenfold.

Yeah. And the first couple of weeks are the hardest weeks in this program. It's, you know, just like in my CFO program. It's. The first few weeks are tough. They're hard. They're a lot of hours. They're a lot of work. But we're proof it pays off. It does help.

Well, Charles can't get rid of us now. Like, we're.

No. Yeah, we're family.

Even. Even if Charles. Even if Charles says, like, okay, I'm not doing this anymore. We're stopping the program. Like, well, too bad. I'll show up at his house. That's how it's gonna be.

We're keeping our slack turned on, so we're not going anywhere.

I really appreciate it, guys. It's been such a joy to work with you guys over the last six months. And, like, seeing you guys grow and growth is a roller coaster. Right? It's not like, you know, a straight, linear line. It's a roller coaster. But the ups are exponential.

And.

Going through that process Right. It's been really cool to see the changes in mindset and the changes in shift. And it's like we go from not doing a lot of online marketing stuff to doing some online marketing stuff and getting comfortable on the camera and getting comfortable on sales calls. And those are. Those are skills that you have for life. Right. If you were like, hey, I'm gonna close up my firm tomorrow and I'm gonna go coach coaches, to coach coaches for coaching.

Lambos and Tigers.

But that's half the people on the Internet. Yeah, Right. Cool. If you want to go sell Lambos and Tigers tomorrow, like you could from the skills you learned, which is, how do I sell an expensive thing on the Internet and deliver damn good service? Right.

Well, case in point. I think not to just something that I want to launch is like, I had the confidence after you helping us with this that I can go launch that thing now. Just from seeing how things work and you guiding us in our. In our one business, it gave me this, like, catalyst to go do my own thing too, that I want to launch. So.

Yeah, and we're going to set that up and we're going to crush it. So I know we're. We're totally out of time today. Super appreciate you guys being here. Karen, Andy, if someone wants to reach out to you, interested in hiring your bookkeeping services, your accounting services, like, where's the best place for them to reach out to you?

So there's a couple spots. First would be our website, olivebranchbk.com or you can go to just about any social media site and either look up Karen Sylvius C, A, R, Y, N. Or just look up Olive Branch BK and Instagram, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or X. All the places, but all branch bk. Or just type in Olive Branch Bookkeeping, Inc. And you'll find us.

Yeah. Google Online is Olive Branch Bookkeeping, Inc. North Idaho.

Perfect. Well, appreciate you guys being here. So if you've heard this, heard this testimony, heard this testimonial, heard this interview, listen to their experience, and you're interested in learning more about fractional cfo, interested in growing your fractional CFO firm and getting results like them, understanding that requires work, Right. If you do no work, you do know you get zero results. A lot of work, you're going to get a lot of results. Like life. Life works like that. Work with someone like us is just press and fast forward. You never get the press skip right. I wish you could. And so if you're looking for that, hit us up. Private searchgroup.com profit surge on Instagram. Right. Reach out to us. My name is Charles Lykoff, so if you're interested, go reach out to us. Talk to me, talk to my team, and we'll kind of walk you through what it looks like. But again, Karen, Andy, super appreciate you guys being here. Thank you so much.

Absolutely. We appreciate you.

Absolutely.