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

Hi Christy , thanks for joining us today. When you were first starting out, did you join a firm or start your own?

Prior to starting my own firm, I was part of 2 distinctly different firms that gave the the ability to learn & grow under some of the best and smartest in the industry! I think sometimes entrepreneurs are very anti corporate America, but for me working in multiple other firms was the best thing I ever did! It allowed me to make mistakes & learn (on someone else’s time) when the stakes were low! I had people to review my work, I had people with years of experience who could teach me what I didn’t know and how to problem solve when I was stuck and that experience was invaluable to the business I have been able to build today.

It also gave me great perspective on what I wanted my own firm to be. There were components of each of the firms I worked at that I did and didn’t like that I have been able to take with me into my own business.

When I first entered the workforce opening my own firm never sounded like an option to me. I was always under the impression that you went and worked for one of the big firms and the goal was just to work until you made partner there. However, I quickly learned that working for someone else just wasn’t for me. I had so many ideas & changes I always wanted to be working towards that just didn’t work in the slow moving world of the huge corporations!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

After obtaining a Bachelors and Masters degree in accounting with a specialty in Tax I went on to sit for my CPA license and work at a Big 4 Accounting firm. While there, I had the opportunity to work with some of the largest global companies, however I quickly realized the monumental flaw in the accounting world. Most accountants work in a very transactional method – filling out paperwork and tax returns AFTER the year is over when nothing could be done about the result….

After leaving public accounting I shifted gears and went to work at a financial planning firm. While there, I helped businesses through all phases of life, from inception to growth and finally exit plans. I also helped these business owners with retirement planning and wealth building. While there, I started to truly see how much opportunity there is to build wealth and control your own destiny for business owners, but only if they were given the proper resources and advice.

During all of this experience, I was actually building my own side business and realized how difficult the business & financial side of being a business owner could be if you didn’t have the background that I did (heck, there were times when it was difficult for me & I studied most of this stuff in school!)

So, with all of those revelations, I started to realize there HAD to be a better way to make owning & building a business more accessible to anyone. As I pieced this together, I started to see a vision for how the tax planning knowledge of the CPA world, the proactive mindset of the financial planning world, and the strategic insight of a CFO could come together in a powerful way to allow business owners to make informed decisions about their business and help them build wealth!

I knew I had to do something to change that way the industry works and create a revolutionary approach to business…a CFO at your fingertips.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

The biggest thing that really helped grow my reputation & brand is the way I take care of my clients.

I am extremely specific on what clients are right for me because I have tailored my process to be PERFCT for those specific people. I make it a point to learn every single one of my clients inside AND outside of their business and sit with them through the struggles and celebrations of their business.

I am also constantly listening to feedback from potential clients & other business owners around me about their experience with others in my field. For example, I know that most business owners have the complaint that their CPA is hard to get ahold of and they only talk once a year so I started using a portal with a task list & monthly scheduled meetings to combat this!

Showing my clients that I know the problems they have and have developed a solution to fix them goes a long way.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

People always laugh when I share the story of the finance behind me starting my business because for a financial expert, it was definitely not the most perfectly planned.

I actually self funded my entire business and somehow did it at a time when my husband was in school so I was supposed to be the one making money to support our family. In a perfect world, I probably would have waited until we had his income back so I wasn’t pressured to hit the ground running right away, but something in me just knew this was the time. Thankfully because we knew he was going to be in school was had tried to save up extra money over the past year so that was a huge help, but really everything to start up was funded with savings!

One of the good things I did was even after I decided I would be quitting my job, I kept working and paid others to prepare things for me until everything was 100% ready. So I had someone do my website, and set up so systems for me, ect. This worked out perfectly because I was still making more money working for someone else than I had to pay for these services and it ensured I was ready to start taking clients as soon as possible.

My last day at my firm was 4/15, I took a short vacation and then I officially signed my first client 5/1 so it definitely paid off to be ready day 1!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.christybowie.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itschristybowie/
• Other: Podcast – tinyurl.com/CEOapplepod

Image Credits
Lauren Bethany Photography