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

Jen, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s jump into the story of starting your own firm – what should we know?

“There’s got to more to life than this”, I said to myself as I walked into the building of my cushy 9-5 Corporate America job one morning. I was making more money than I ever had, I was getting the level of responsibility and visibility within the company that I wanted, yet I still felt something was lacking. I made a decision then that I would NOT continue this mediocre routine through retirement and that I needed to start a side hustle. But what? I’d always heard about people turning their passion projects into monetizing machines, but what did I love that I could turn into something that made me money? And I wanted to focus on helping “the little guy” because helping big corporations just didn’t do anything for me internally. The only thing I could think of was my tax experience – I actually REALLY liked taxation, but it was such a seasonal hobby, and taxes were a necessary evil. People HAVE to file their returns; it’s not something most people enjoy per say. I felt very passionate about financial literacy and having been a former screw up in that area myself and in the midst of overcoming it, I felt like helping people with that was another service offering I could have under my side hustle’s umbrella. Plus it was something people would want to hire me for, not a need.

So I went to work researching what kind of entity structure would be a good fit for me, how to set that up with my state, brainstorming names, and fine tuned my service offerings and pricing. It was all very exhilarating to say the least! I attended a Tony Robbins event called Unleash the Power Within and joined a local mastermind group for business owners called SCORE Business Mentoring. These were instrumental during the build up phase of this endeavor. I side hustled for more than 3 years before taking the leap into full time entrepreneurship. This is how I knew it was time to jump – during the day, I had a mix of work and business calls and a designated laptop for each. I would swivel my office chair with dread when it was time for a work meeting, and swivel with joy when there was a business one. It was time. I crunched the numbers – I would need to triple my clients in order to be OK financially the following year. I was confident, I had a strong work ethic, and I knew I did not want to stay stuck in the Corporate world. It only brought me financial security, no joy beyond that. I remember talking to someone about my plans and they said, “you make a lot of money”. I responded before I even thought about what I was saying, “I’m going to make a lot more”. I’m not sure I even believed it at that time, but I knew I HAD to make it work. To add to the stress of the decision, this was during 2020 right after the George Floyd situation and I was worried my increase in revenue was due largely to that movement. Clients would tell me they were making a conscious effort to support black owned businesses, but what about the many that thought it and just didn’t say it? “What if this is the flavor of the month and revenue drops in half next year?” I asked myself. I’d be screwed! I was still a new business owner and felt very uneasy about that, but I was smart enough to have my savings in order to sustain me in case the business flopped.

I quit my job ahead of the upcoming tax season and gave myself a couple weeks of downtime before the rush started. I was terrified, but so relieved to not be in the Corporate politics any longer. Revenue exceeded expectations that year and every year thereafter. It’s not been an overnight success, and it’s quite sustainable. I couldn’t be happier with the way things turned out!

I don’t believe I would’ve done anything differently in this journey. I took the time to do thorough research on all decisions and didn’t rush anything, so I always felt very confident in the timing and decisions that were made. There are always things to do better – more self development, more networking, refining service offerings, but that’s just part of the ongoing growth for myself and my business. For someone who is looking to start their own firm, I would highly suggest taking ALL the due diligence very slowly in the beginning. There’s just so much that goes into this and if you want it done right, it’s not going to go quickly. Tap on FREE resources, they definitely exist! I highly recommend the SCORE Business mentoring because you get expertise from actual business owners.

Jen, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

When I graduated with my Accounting degree, I’d only taken two courses in Taxation. Fresh out of college, I had a hard time finding a job without any experience. I FINALLY found a job via a Craig’s List posting for a Tax Accountant at a franchise. I attended the training and quickly understood why I was hired so fast – their methodology was to hire data entry people, put them through a 6 week crash course on taxes, and send them out to prepare taxes for clients. On day 1, I was in a room with about 20 other trainees, and none of them had an Accounting background. They were people from all walks of life, some of which just wanted a seasonal job and had no previous experience. This franchise was charging clients $500+ for the most basic of returns. I did one season there and decided that was not for me, so I went and did taxes on my own after that for friends and family. Another thing that rubbed me the wrong way was the lack of education that went into it – we charged clients that much money and they left the office not knowing ANYTHING more about taxes than when they walked in. And since this isn’t taught in most schools, most people don’t know much about what goes into this annual requirement that they have every year. When setting out on my own, that was something that I wanted to clearly do different and still do – when wrapping up someone’s taxes, I walk them through the return line by line, they have the opportunity to ask questions to gain better understanding, and we do tax planning if they so desire. Same thing with the financial planning – it’s an exercise that’s specific to the person to help them reach their financial goals, be it to pay down debt, save for a home purchase or kids’ education, retirement planning, etc. I didn’t want to be a typical number crunching, no personality Accountant, so that’s another thing I make a conscious effort to achieve in my practice, and my reviews frequently reference me being friendly, thorough, and easy going. That’s probably my favorite thing about being a business owner – I get to do this MY way, and I’m doing what works for me.

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

For the first few years in business, I was very agreeable to whatever clients needed. Work life balance was NOT a thing I practiced well and I went overboard to be a people pleaser. The tax filing deadline is normally April 15th and I would take on brand new clients with complex returns at the eleventh hour and promise that I’d have their returns done on time, not realizing that people were waiting that late because they generally weren’t organized, or would take full advantage and wait until the very last minute to turn in their documents year after year, after promising to do better, and it was a vicious cycle. Because they turned in things late, and there were so many of them, I’d be stuck doing returns until the wee hours of the morning nearly missing deadlines, sometimes missing them if they hadn’t submitted everything to me. The thing I implemented to overcome that was BOUNDARIES!!! Now, I have a blurb in my engagement letter that says all returns will be completed by the deadline if all documents are submitted prior to April 1st. If between April 1st and the 15th, I’ll try to get them done, but there’s no guarantee that they’ll be done prior to the deadline. It really sets the expectations clear between clients and myself, and it’s been working great so far.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

Gary Vaynerchuk is huge in this area for me because of his no nonsense approach to business. I take what he says about blocking out what other people are doing or saying to heart, and it’s really helped me focus on making this MY own thing through and through. I believe that’s been extremely helpful for me in differentiating myself from the competition.

10x is easier than 2x by Benjamin Hardy & Dan Sullivan – this book has been a mindset gamechanger. As an entrepreneur who wants to continuously grow in business, this has been a great resource to take things to the next level. It’s a great book on a personal level as well.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.godivafinancial.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenniferboukari
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GodivaFinancial
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-boukari-ea-70b2487b/
• Other: https://www.thumbtack.com/fl/winter-haven/tax-preparation/godiva-financial/service/371749723732533259