Episode 141 | Boosting Business Confidence With Chelsea Zainea | Case Study

Discover the journey from anxiety to business confidence in this compelling episode of the Abundant Accountant Podcast. Michelle Weinstein welcomes Chelsea Zainea, a CPA turned fractional CFO, to share her transformative experience. Chelsea reveals how she overcame stress and underpricing to build a successful and confident business. This case study highlights the steps Chelsea took to enhance her business confidence and create a thriving firm. Tune in to learn valuable insights and strategies to elevate your own business performance. Don’t miss this inspiring conversation that could change the way you approach your business challenges.

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Boosting Business Confidence With Chelsea Zainea | Case Study

Our special guest is the current client here at the show, who’s also a CPA turned fractional CFO. She owns an accounting firm in central Ohio that serves wellness entrepreneurs nationwide. After spending fifteen years in both public accounting and the corporate world, our special guest ventured out on her own to help business owners grow their businesses with flexibility, stability, and peace of mind.

Meet Chelsea Zainea

Before we welcome our very special guest to the show, do you sometimes look at the amount of work piling up from low-value clients and wish you could make it all disappear, or worry about your health, always feeling exhausted, and know the stress every single year from work and having serious impacts on you and your firm, but you have no idea how to reduce your working hours without losing revenue and profit? If any of that sounds like you, then I have good news because none of those things are the real problem. The real problem is that you don’t have a system for only working with ideal clients, maximizing revenue, and gaining back your freedom.

My system here at the show allows you to gain back your freedom, grow your firm, and enjoy work and your family without working long hours, without stressful tax seasons and deadlines, and without having to hound clients for paperwork. Even if you feel like everything depends on you right now and falls on your shoulders, this is the same system that I’ve shown hundreds of firm owners like you, who have used it to create the firm they’ve always wanted to have. If you want me to show you exactly how to do this, go to TheAbundantCall.com right now and book your call with me and my team. Now let’s welcome our very special guest, Chelsea, to the show. Welcome, Chelsea.

Thanks for having me. I’m so happy to be here.

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your journey and experience with other firm owners who tune in to our show. Before we dive in, can you share with everyone where you’re at in the country, what type of firm you have, and a little bit about yourself, even though I’ve already done your intro?

I’m Chelsea Zainea. I’m here in Marysville, Ohio, outside of Columbus, although I work virtually, so I work nationwide. We offer everything from bookkeeping services all the way to full fractional CFO services.

When did you start your firm exactly? You were in a corporate job before, right?

I was in a corporate job, so I have slowly rolled this. I started on the side back in 2020 and slow-rolled it. I left my corporate job in June of 2022.

What were things like in your firm before you found the Abundant Accountant? If you can describe the challenges you’re having, where you were stuck? Give us all the details.

It was very stressful and very fustily. I felt like I was working all the time, even though I had slow-rolled. When I started with you, I think I had twenty clients, which for bookkeeping is a lot when you’re by yourself. I was working all the time. I had way underpriced myself. I was feeling so frustrated and disappointed all the time and how much money I was making for all the work that I was doing. It felt like, “I left corporate for this?” At the same time, I was still trying to grow the business and I would have sales calls, but then my close rate was super low. I wasn’t closing people like I wanted to. It was frustrating and disappointing. I was in a pretty low place when I found you.

I don’t even remember. How did we meet?

I heard your podcast somewhere. I want to say it might have been through Earmark CPE.

Decision To Seek Help

Yes. You can listen to the Abundant Accountant Podcast on Earmark CPE and get a CPE credit for listening. Listening to this exact episode, take a little quiz at the end and you get a CPE credit. It’s like killing two birds with one stone. You listened to the podcast and you said, “Let me reach out for help.” What was that moment that you decided to do something about this where, in your mind, you hit rock bottom? You could not continue anymore having these twenty clients being paid peanuts. It’s basically saying you’re better off in a corporate job, but you didn’t want to go that route. What was that moment when you said, “I’ve got to do something different and I need to reach out for help?”

I did the webinar. I listened to your podcast and the webinar, and then seeing other people’s reviews, which is why I’m happy to do this, is what changed it for me. Seeing there could be another route and that this could be what I wanted it to be if I knew how.

Seeing the possibility of hope.

Exactly. That’s a great description.

A lot of times, I’m sure you were miserable at the time. I know you were miserable at the time, but when we hit that low point, sometimes we feel like, “Is there even another way?” You’re smart. You’re intelligent. We think, “We should have been able to figure this out by now.” I think for so many, and I’m sure you can speak to this, you never had sales training before. I’m sure, in your corporate job, you didn’t have any.

No sales or marketing. That was the thing I kept telling myself that I’m not good at sales and marketing. This isn’t for me.

What did you try before finding the show on Earmark CPE to fix this business? You started in 2020, then you quit your job and you’re finding yourself spinning your wheels, working at all hours, having these twenty clients, not getting paid what you should be, lowballing your prices, and having a low close rate. What did you attempt to do? What solutions did you try but they didn’t work?

I have spent thousands of dollars.

How much have you spent on other stuff?

I think I came to like $25,000 even before I did yours, and masterminds and other sales training. I did a pricing training. It was like a pricing membership thing, and that was monthly. I did that for a while and it didn’t give me the training and tools that I needed to make a difference.

What did you think you were going to learn, but you didn’t get from any of the $25,000 that you had invested in other programs, coaches, masterminds, pricing things, and it didn’t pan out?

you think there’s going to be the secret formula or the secret sauce that’s going to turn things for you. With you guys, it was the level of accountability and hands-on training that you get. It’s just not another course where you go in and you do it all on your own, and whether you get it done or not, it’s up to you, which is still up to you, but having the extra handholding and customized.

You guys creating our homework and giving us one-on-one feedback was a game changer for me. I think the mindset coaching too that you do in it as well, that it’s included in the beginning, because I think that’s the first step. If you don’t have those exercises that we did to help you feel good about your self-worth, then you missed out on everything else. That’s the number one step that has to take place before you can move forward.

It’s crucial to the foundation of getting your firm on the path to where you want it to be, kudos to you for turning in all the work so we could give you that feedback and immediate response and, on each assignment, create your sales process and your sales binder in your firm that you get to live by every single day.

Overcoming Skepticism

Before we get too far ahead, you spent $25,000 on other programs. You listened to my show, you watched the webinar, and you booked a phone call. There had to be some initial skepticism like, “How is this going to be any different than anything else? Why would I go invest more money and time into something when I blew through $25,000 trying to figure it out 8 million different other ways?” What was that skepticism in your head that you were thinking about before you made the investment? How did you overcome it?

I was a little skeptical that it was going to be another program that didn’t help. What made the difference for me was the step-by-step process. I’ve done other mindset masterminds and things that you go through too. They don’t lay things out for you step-by-step. We come out of this with a sales script that you can use for every single call. You know exactly what you’re going to say before you go into the call. It’s not one of those things like, “We train you the basics and then you got to come up with your own script.” You guys take it all the way from start to finish. That’s been beneficial for me.

That’s true. You get to write your own script. We edit it down. We don’t give it to you. Just so everybody knows. Before you knew all that when you had your call with us before you invested, what were you fearful of and terrified of? You were going to throw away a bunch more money and time into something. How did you get past that fear to say, “You know what? I’m going to do this even though I just invested over the last couple of years, over $25,000, and did not see an ROI?” What had you say, “Let me give this a try?”

Honestly, listening to all the reviews that you have from other people saying it worked for them. That’s why I’m happy to do this episode because I want other people to know that it does work. Having that, pushed me past the skepticism. Seeing reviews online is one thing, but hearing from actual other students was what helped push me to do it.

That’s awesome. I’m glad we’re doing this case study podcast then. You can hear directly from Chelsea that it can work, but you have to put in the work and you did it. You invested the time. You did everything that was asked of you. If you do that, it does work. What were some of the things that you noticed that turned around in your firm? If you can, share with us where things were right before you started our eight-week sales mastery training to where things are at today being in our ongoing coaching and our Abundant Millionaire Mastermind, and how things have completely done a 180 in your firm. What are some of those initial things that you saw as a result or even something that was pretty transformational for you?

The transformational part has been my confidence and how I feel when I get on a sales call, and also that I can do this business in a way that makes sense and makes money. The first thing I did was go through the process of increasing my prices. Through that, I dropped half my clients, which sounds scary. It was scary going through it.

I remember that.

Michelle got me that you want to be in support while you’re going through that process. At the end of it, I came out making the same amount of money with half the clients, which allowed me to then have the capacity to take on a major client that I took on at the beginning of this year. Now, January was the highest month I ever had in my business.

It was a painful process, but going through it set my business up for success now rather than stress and not making any money and worrying about how I’m going to grow the business because I don’t have any more capacity. I don’t have money. I’m one employee, but no money to hire anybody else. I wasn’t set up strategically from a price point standpoint. Turning that around and setting my business up to where then I have the capacity and could take on more clients at a higher price point has been amazing.

That is amazing. I remember you going through the process and how terrified you were, but now look on the other side, you’re confident now going into every sales call with a prospect. That’s what it’s about. It’s getting that confidence so you don’t have to cave in and discount or lowball your price to think, “I’ll get them now and then I’ll increase that later,” because it doesn’t work that way.

What are some of the business lessons that you’ve learned in going through investing in other coaches, masterminds, pricing things to figuring this out? I’m so glad you found the Earmark CPE and we’ve crossed paths because it’s been amazing to have you as a client, coach you through this, and now onto the scalability of your firm and growing it to another level. What are some lessons that you’ve learned that you’d love to share with other bookkeeping firm owners or fractional CFO owners of their firms? What are some of those lessons that you’d like to share with them that you’ve learned going through this journey up until right now?

Number one is don’t underprice yourself. It’s not scalable. Price accordingly so that you can afford to scale and continue to grow your business. If you underprice it, you end up in the same position I was in where you have way too many clients at too low of a price point. You cannot bring any more on because you don’t have the capacity and you’re just working yourself to death.

You don’t have any profitability to even hire anybody.

You don’t have the profitability to bring on somebody else to take on. It’s like you get in this hamster wheel.

You push yourself into a corner to the point where you, like so many people we’ve talked to here at the show, want to throw in the towel and quit. I don’t blame you. If you don’t fix it, that will be the end game. It’s not a sustainable business model. Physically, I don’t know how your health was at that time, but sleep and your physical health and what your doctors were telling you and your state of mind and anxiety and depression, all those things that come along with that hamster wheel, it can take a toll on you physically.

It definitely can. I wasn’t sleeping well and was super stressed out. My anxiety was at an all-time high. Getting that all under control has been great. Honestly, it’s February and I haven’t been sick yet this year, knock on wood. Saying something to where my business was previously to where it is now is it’s made a huge difference. The number one lesson is don’t underprice yourself. Number two is to get the help you need. Don’t be afraid to invest in masterminds and coaches, but make sure you do your research and find the right ones that get results. By results, I mean sales. You are seeing your return on investment from that.

Doing a lot of research and making sure that you’re investing your money in good coaching and getting that help is a good lesson. The third is to make sure you’re doing what you want to do and not just settling. In the beginning, I also settled for a lot of bookkeeping because that was easier to sell for me than the advisory. I took a lot of that on, but then I didn’t have the capacity to put the time and effort into the marketing and sales that I needed for the advisory side. Don’t settle for a business that you don’t want. Don’t create a business that you don’t even enjoy.

A lot of times, that’s the default. You’re like, “Bookkeeping is an easier entryway.” You have people in at $200 a month or something around there.

I think it was like $300, but even that, you cannot make a living on it.

$100 to #300 a month for a bunch of bookkeeping clients, you’re just going to work yourself to the bone, and then have the anxiety at an all-time high, not sleep, get sick, and then it evens worse than that because you’re not getting anything complete.

Luckily, my firm never got to that point, but I know we have peers. You get to a point where you’re not even getting the client’s work done anymore. You then have to deal with the stress of unhappy clients as well.

You enrolled in the eight-week sales mastery course. You have seen a massive ROI. What have been some of the biggest takeaways that you’d like to share with other firm owners who are tuning in to this saying, “I want to make a change. I can no longer keep operating my firm this way. I’m underpaid. I’m overworked. I have anxiety. I’m depressed all the time. I wonder why I’m even doing this business. There’s got to be more to life than this.” What are some of those takeaways that you’ve learned and that you’ve seen a shift that you would like to share with a firm owner who might need to hear that right now?

I would say that there is more to life than this. You can change it, but you have to put in the time and effort and be willing to make those changes. That can be hard because I had a hard time raising prices for my clients. It’s disappointing to lose clients. None of us want to lose a client but at the end of the day, you’re not for everybody. You’re for the people who can afford your services. It has to be a good match. Being willing to change your mindset around that and being open to it will change the structure of your business and create a path for so much more success going forward.

Any other takeaways?

The confidence. If you can fix your mindset and get confident around sales and marketing, then it can be a different game for you. Most accountants aren’t. We’re not marketing people and we’re not salespeople, but that doesn’t mean you cannot learn.

Importance Of Confidence And Sales

Let’s talk about that. You’re not a salesperson, right? How would you say when you first reached out to us, “How the heck are they going to teach me anything about sales? How am I going to be able to have this confidence that other people have?” What was your fear around that, considering most firm owners are not salespeople?

We don’t want to be salespeople. We’re introverts and we don’t want to talk to people, but yet the first thing on all of the PNLs is revenue and sales. If we cannot bring money in the door and close the clients and get them to commit to engaging you to service them, how are you going to turn things around in your firm? That’s why most people will end up getting a job because they’re not responsible for sales. What was the thing inside your head that said, “I’m going to learn this and I feel like they can teach me.”

I was to that point where I felt like I didn’t have a choice because I wanted to give myself an excuse and say, “I’m an introvert. I cannot. I’m not meant to do that.” It’s either having enough money to hire it out or going back to corporate is where I thought it was, but it came down to, “I don’t have a choice. If I want to run a business and I want to be an entrepreneur and I do not want to go back to corporate, I have to figure this out.”

I’m so glad that I decided to enroll and did because it’s been a game changer. If you think about sales, it’s not sales and slimy and like we all think of the traditional car salesman, but rather if you want to serve people and you want to help them, they have to know about you and they have to be confident that you can help them. Being able to communicate that well is key.

That’s all that sales is. It’s so many of us have had such a bad experience in the past in a sales conversation, like you said, with a car person or the people at the mall or whatever it may be. We have this negative association with that word when it’s about how you’re going to help more people. The doctors sell us all the time doing surgeries and other things that we need to have the best life possible.

Now you get to have the best life possible too because you made that commitment to yourself and you don’t have to slave away for someone else at a job working 40 hours, 60 hours a week, and getting a paycheck every two weeks and not having the scalability internally. Most people in a job have a ceiling. You can only make so much. You can only get so far up in a firm. At what point do you say, “Enough’s enough, I’m going to learn this and be an entrepreneur?” To be honest, entrepreneurship is about learning the art of enrollment. Otherwise, if you cannot sell your services, who is ever going to work with you?

If you don’t come off confident in yourself, they’re not going to be confident in you either.

They won’t be confident that Chelsea is going to be the best CFO I’ve ever had in my business. They’ll be like, “I don’t know about her.” You’ve done a lot of other programs. You’ve invested over $25,000 since 2020, I think you said. What did you like best about the eight-week sales mastery training working with us here at the Abundant Accountant that is different from the other things that you’ve tried in the past? I know we’ve highlighted a few where we held you accountable and gave you one-on-one feedback on the homework, but is there anything that stood out that you love best that you would have maybe wanted to hear six months to a year ago when you first listened to the podcast?

The one-on-one feedback and accountability are key, which is way different than any other course that I’ve taken. They’re mostly you get online and do the modules yourself and good luck. This isn’t that at all in the eight weeks. If you apply yourself and get the work done, you get all the help you need. On top of that, the modules are also good. There’s a lot of great coaching in there of other people as well. You get in there and any question you might have, you’ll see somebody else get coached on the same thing. It’s always beneficial to be in a room where you’re seeing other people getting coached as well. That’s helpful.

Is there anything else that stood out about working with us in comparison to other things that you’ve tried?

You get the best of both the mindset side of things and the very structured process. Here’s exactly what you’re going to do, step 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 of it. In mastermind and programs I have been in the past, it’s either very all mindset and woo woo, or all black and white and you need to do this exactly this way. This is a very nice combination of both having some structure, but also working on your mindset and making sure that you have the confidence to feel like you can do the sales process.

Impact On Personal And Professional Life

By having that sales process and having this newfound confidence, hopefully, you’ve made enough ROI to pay for all the other stuff that you invest in the best too, which I think you have. How do you feel now? If you had to share how this has made an impact on you and your family and your dogs and your life and your anxiety and everything in the world of Chelsea, how would you feel now?

I feel so much more confident in that I have a clear path forward, whereas before I was very not only stressed, discouraged, and frustrated, but I was always so wishy-washy about where I take this business to make it sustainable and something that I enjoy and want to do going forward. Now I feel like I have that clear. It feels such a relief that I have this clear path forward and I know exactly what I want to do and I’m working towards it.

What words of wisdom would you have for younger Chelsea today a year ago? Frustrated, depressed, not knowing what to do, that person that you were listening to this podcast and said, “I got to do something.” What words of wisdom would you have for that person listening right now?

I would say it doesn’t have to be that way. You don’t have to set your firm up like that. It can be different and be willing to invest in yourself and do it.

Thank you so much, Chelsea, for taking the time to share your story and to share how you’ve come full 180. I never say 360 because then you’d be back looking for a corporate job, but you did a 180 and you’ve transformed your whole, not only personally, but for your firm and being able to service your clients at such an upgraded level. Is there anything else that you want to share with those listening today that maybe we didn’t touched on yet or I didn’t ask you about?

I feel like we talked about a lot, but the eight weeks is wonderful but the mastermind is even better. Get to the eight weeks and then get into the mastermind.

Thank you so much, Chelsea, for taking the time to share everything. Before we leave, why don’t you share what’s in store for the future of your firm now? What’s the vision?

The vision is signing on more advisory clients and niching down to wellness entrepreneurs. I’ve found the people that I enjoy working with. I look forward to being able to only work with people that I want to and grow this business in a healthy way, both financially and physically from not being stressed out all the time and on the verge of a breakdown.

That’s awesome. Thank you again for taking the time. It’s been an honor to spend these 30 minutes with you or however many minutes it’s been. I know those tuning in are grateful to hear this from you too. If you are looking to make that change and are sick and tired of the way things have been going, how to get a hold of us? Make sure to go to TheAbundantCall.com to book your call right now with us. Thank you again, Chelsea, for being here.

Thank you so much, Michelle. I’m so grateful.

Thank you all so much for joining Chelsea and me here at the show. It’s always an honor to have you and it’s wonderful to share the stories of our current clients with you. What if I told you there was a better way to do your business and only work with ideal clients who value your expertise and time within two months, like Chelsea did, without having to hound clients for paperwork or deal with working 40-hour to 60-hour weeks, and without having to spend every night and weekend working just to keep up, and without having to sacrifice your family, time, and freedom.

What if in just eight weeks, you could multiply your revenue while working four days a week or five, no more weekends, even if you’re working 12-hour to 16-hour days and still have to work on the weekends right now to just keep up? Not only that but I’m also going to show you how to do all of this in a way that feels simple, effortless, and automatic. You barely even have to think about it.

This is the same system that I’ve not only shown Chelsea, but I’ve shown hundreds and hundreds of other accounting, tax, and bookkeeping firm owners like you who have used it to create the firm they have always dreamt of. If you want me to show you exactly how to do this, go to TheAbundantCall.com right now to book your call with me and my team. We look forward to speaking to you and have a beautiful day. We’ll see you in the next episode.

Important Links

• Chelsea Zainea – Linkedin
• TheAbundantCall.com
• Earmark CPE