We were lucky to catch up with Gabrielle Luoma recently and have shared our conversation below.

Gabrielle , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start on the operational side – do you spend more of your time/focus/energy on growing revenue or cutting costs?

My main focus is on achieving growth and generating revenue. This takes up about 80% of my time, and I am constantly looking for ways to optimize our operations and streamline our work. Although we are always exploring cost-cutting measures, we recognize that sometimes investing in initiatives may be necessary to achieve our long-term goals. Ultimately, we need to weigh the options and determine whether it makes sense to adjust our pricing strategy or implement cost-saving measures. Leveraging technology and the expertise of our team members are critical to our success. At the end of the day, our primary objective is to grow our business, and we are fully committed to doing so.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I started as a single owner of this company in 2004 when my daughter was born. And the business has obviously grown since then. So I’ve become a multiple seven figure business. There have been many, many levels of growth over the years. So my business has grown exponentially since I founded it back in 2004. Initially a CPA practice, four years ago we transitioned to a non-CPA practice focused on accounting, client advisory services, operational and tax consultancy. Our main objective is to help clients take control of their financial future by utilizing our expertise when it comes to budgeting, accounts payable and receivable management as well as cash flow forecasting. We understand that many businesses don’t have the time or resources to manage all these tasks, so our team offers assistance with customer service, vendor relations and general support. Ultimately, our mission is to ensure businesses remain financially sound regardless of any challenges they may face.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

At one point, I realized that now I’m a leader with employees, and it was really an eye-opening experience for me. As a result, it was important for me to focus on developing my leadership skills and emotional intelligence to better handle the people-related issues that come with being a business leader. To do this, I’ve relied heavily on books from the John Maxwell Leadership Group, Brené Brown’s works on boundaries and trust, and Patrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team. I also listen to leaders like Gary Vee and Leila Hormozi for guidance, ensuring my knowledge stays current and fresh.

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

So how about I share a bit of a fail, but it was funny. Some people probably still remember this today. It was around 2011 or 2012 when I started marketing our services as a smaller firm to some of the larger firms in the area. It happened to be summertime..in Tucson. I wasn’t thinking. I sent out cards to potential clients with mini chocolates in the envelope.

Imagine receiving a card with smashed chocolate in the mail from a local CPA asking you to work with them. It was a major fail, but it’s still funny when I look back on it.

Another fun story before we really knew how big our business could be. We would just try things. We had an amazing opportunity and pitched a proposal for $10,000 a month to a local construction company, they said yes. I was completely shocked and then had to figure out how to get it all done.

I thought “hey, I think we can do this, let’s work together and make this happen for this client.” We pushed ourselves past what we thought was possible and took a risk.

There were many ups and downs in the beginning because it was a time and materials type of billing. It was heavily based on capturing time for employees and materials. Some of the mechanics were really inefficient, and were duplicating parts processes. We were able to help them completely streamline their time and material system, so we only needed one person from our team to review it in the end. A three day process was streamlined into 3 hours.

This was an amazing feat. This encouraged us to start taking risks in other areas too. We didn’t know everything, but we had the courage to jump right in and make it happen. I’m so proud of our work. It has been taking risks and trying new things that have paid off.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://modventuresllc.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mod.ventures/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/modventuresllc/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mod-ventures-llc
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@modventures6968/featured