We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tori Jaquess a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Tori, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Parents play a huge role in our development as youngsters and sometimes that impact follows us into adulthood and into our lives and careers. Looking back, what’s something you think you parents did right?

My parents always believed the best in me and taught me every day to dream HUGE then go accomplish that!

They taught me my best is always good enough if I keep working hard regardless of circumstance. Failure is only when a person quits working toward attaining their goals. They taught me to think creatively and uniquely to solve problems and do EVERYTHING you can today to make tomorrow, next week, and next year easier. Be strategic in every action.

Instead of procrastinating, do extra now, do the hard now and you will be prepared to seize opportunities that others cannot because they are unprepared while you are prepared! The magic of today is in consistently serving others while working hard to prepare today for a wonderful tomorrow. There are no shortcuts to sustained success.

I remember, as a kid junior high aged, my mom and dad purchased a retail store that was within 15 days of locking their doors and posting a “Closed Forever” sign. My dad generously took me with him to the store constantly as he worked hard to learn a new industry and transform this business from shutting down to profitable. In less than 18 months, he tripled the store’s square footage, doubled its staff, and sky rocketed its revenue. He single-handedly transformed this small-business and I was privileged to experience it alongside him, all the while watching him in wonder and admiration. I watched him navigate learning how to read financial statements, receive emotional hugs from grateful customers, negotiate new vendor relationships, and hire and fire staff members. I watched him risk it all to earn big rewards. This was first-hand experience of the magic of small-business in America. This journey lit a fire and a courage in me to own my own business as well as seek a career focused on empowering other small-business owners. Every action our bookkeeping staff takes is focused on empowering our clients with financial-driven business decisions using financial statements and proprietary processes. Our bookkeeping firm partners with small-business clients by creating a mutual goal to lighten the owner’s load and help them stay in business next year, the year after, and 10 years from now!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Hello. I am Tori Jaquess, owner of Dogwood Financials Bookkeeping. We are a dynamically growing bookkeeping firm focused on serving accounting needs of other small-businesses. We make life easier for our clients!

I have earned three college degrees: a BA from Baylor University (Waco, TX), and a MBA and MSA from Ohio University (Athens, OH). I am especially proud of my MSA degree. Ohio is the #1 program in the world to earn a MSA. This degree program only admits 15 students worldwide annually to move to Athens and try to earn this degree.

I am a member of the American Institute of Professional Bookkeepers, nominated as Influential Business Woman of the Year (Acquisition International, 2022), awarded Who’s Who of US Entrepreneurs (2023), and act as Meeting Leader of the DFW Bookkeepers Club. My peers have nicknamed me “The Bookkeeping Encyclopedia”.

Dogwood Financials Bookkeeping offers tailor-made accounting solutions virtually. We take care of the day to day accounting for our clients AND act as a liaison with their tax accountant and other specialists.  For efficiency purposes our firm has become Quickbooks-centric. We also utilize a few selected payroll solutions to fit various client needs.

Two main characteristics set our firm apart from our peers.  First, at least two sets of accounting-trained eyes work on every business transaction that feeds into our client’s financial statements.  Our staff has a separated Bookkeeper role followed by a different person in a Reviewer role.  Second, we collaborate throughout the year with our client’s CPAs, financial advisors, and attorney. We also connect our clients to a rolodex of vetted professional contacts of these type of specialists as needs arise.

My super power, when I tie my cape on, is my ability to predict how today’s action steps will impact future actions and options.  Relating back to how my parents taught me to do the hard now so tomorrow will be better has trained me to use this super power in my business and in the many business clients we serve!

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

Our firm works by referral only. This helps us partner with top-tier clients that value clean financial statements and our collaboratory ideas.

Because our zone of genius is in cooperating with the CPAs, financial advisors, and attorneys so that our client’s financial wires are crystal clear rather than crossed, most of our new clients are referred by someone in one of those professional specialty roles. The easier we make the job of the CPA, FA, and JD, the more they refer clients to us.

Not incidentally, because our clients are grateful we alleviate their accounting pain points our current clients refer their peers to work with us too.  When you contact our firm for help with your business’ bookkeeping, please be prepared to share how you heard about us.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Pivot has been my middle name over the past two years. Due to a hit and run crash between my car and a heavy fully loaded multi-state vehicle hauler, I was forced to change instantly from working 50 hours a week on my business to bedridden and feelings of extreme brain fog due to constant pain caused by a sudden spinal injury.

My life forever changed dramatically at that moment. I had to process the grief, bravely face the constant spinal treatments available multiple times per week, and pivot my business so that my clients were not negatively affected.

Business checklists and workflows that for a decade were successfully juggled in my brain very quickly had to be documented and systematized for my staff. Three additional staff members had to be located, hired, integrated with the current staff, and trained how to complete the work that I as the owner used to complete. Most terrifying for me as a business owner, I had to release direct communications between our firm and our clients to our staff instead of me acting as the clients’ only point of contact.

Like all businesses, we refine our internal and external processes every year to serve clients even better. This sudden push in efficiencies and delegation that was forced upon us two years ago (due to my car wreck) has empowered our business to grow at least 20% year over year. We are well positioned with systems in place to scale larger and larger while serving our clients better and better.

Contact Info:

• Other: [email protected]

Image Credits
Pics by the Teal Album or Kristin Jewel Photos