From Side Hustle to Inc. 5000: Natalia Zacharin on People-First Financial Success
Episode 141 From Side Hustle to Inc. 5000: Natalia Zacharin on People-First Financial Success Frederick Dudek (Freddy D) Copyright 2025 Prosperous Ventures, LLC
What if the secret to scaling your business wasn’t just better marketing or more sales—but true alignment between your finances, team, and clients?
In this episode of the Business Superfans® Podcast, host Freddy D sits down with Natalia Zacharin, founder of Zacharin Consulting and a powerhouse fractional CFO who helps entrepreneurs build profitable businesses with clarity and confidence. Natalia’s story is nothing short of inspiring: what began as a single mom’s side hustle rapidly transformed into a multimillion-dollar firm landing on the Inc. 5000 list.
But this isn’t just about accounting. Natalia reveals why financial accuracy is the foundation of business trust, how alignment between leadership and employees fuels sustainable growth, and why gratitude and recognition are essential tools for stakeholder engagement.
Listeners will discover:
- The dangerous myth of “money in the bank = profitability”.
- Why bookkeeping isn’t data entry—it’s the heartbeat of decision-making.
- How Zacharin Consulting scaled by empowering employees, creating culture-driven alignment, and treating clients like lifelong partners.
- Why the Unite Pillar is critical for growth: when employees, leaders, and clients are aligned, businesses don’t just survive—they thrive.
Whether you’re a business owner ready to move from chaos to clarity, or a leader looking to inspire both your team and your clients, this episode gives you a CFO’s insider playbook on creating superfans through alignment.
Discover more with our detailed show notes and exclusive content by visiting: https://linkly.link/2F0rm
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Guest Quote Spotlight
“Bookkeeping is not data entry. It’s the foundation of all the knowledge and decision-making of your business. Hire the best you can, because if you don’t, the mistakes will cost you far more in the long run.” — Natalia Zacharin
S¹.U.P.E.R.F.A.N.S². Framework™ Pillar Deep Dive: U: Unite
Natalia embodies the Unite pillar by showing how financial clarity creates alignment between owners, employees, and clients. She stresses:
- Employee Empowerment: remote-first culture, premium benefits, and open communication keep her team aligned and engaged.
- Client Trust: proactive onboarding, forensic-level accuracy, and transparency transform skeptical business owners into raving superfans.
- Gratitude as Alignment Glue: recognizing both staff and clients fosters mutual respect, trust, and long-term loyalty.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Zakrin Consulting
- Inc. 5000
Mentioned in this episode:
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Transcript
Hey, super fans.
Speaker A:Superstar Freddy D. Here in this episode 141, we're joined by Natalia Zakrin, the founder of Zakrin Consulting, an elite accounting firm dedicated to helping business owners take control of their finances and build resilient, profitable companies.
Speaker A: Since launching her firm in: Speaker A:With her passion for empowering business owners and her proven expertise in guiding companies through financial complexities, Natalia brings invaluable insights on scaling, profitability and long term success.
Speaker A:Get ready for a conversation packed with practical strategies to help you transform the way you manage your business finances.
Speaker B:Welcome, Natalia, to the Business Superfans podcast show.
Speaker B:We're super excited to have you on the show.
Speaker B:You and I had a great conversation before we got started, so let's continue the conversation, but we're recording it now.
Speaker C:Thank you so much, Freddie.
Speaker C:I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker B:Yeah, so we talked a little bit about we have some similar backgrounds.
Speaker B:I mean you were in sales at one time as well and now you're doing accounting for businesses.
Speaker B:You act as a fractional cfo.
Speaker B:So let's go back to the beginning and how did that all get started?
Speaker C:So yes, I do have a sales background.
Speaker C:I feel like I fell into almost everything that I've done in my life.
Speaker C:I've lived like nine lives and had nine different careers, but always sales and or numbers based.
Speaker C: So in: Speaker C:I wasn't making very good money, wasn't lining up the world.
Speaker C:I saw the writing on the wall.
Speaker C:I needed to make more money.
Speaker C:I wanted to thrive, not just survive.
Speaker C:I was a single mom, divorced, just surviving the last few years and I met someone who is my fiance and he said to me, why don't you start your own business?
Speaker C:And that's how it all started.
Speaker C:I never thought about starting my own business, never thought about it as a possibility, never had it as a dream.
Speaker C:And I thought, okay, I'll just start accounting and bookkeeping and do it on the side for extra income.
Speaker C:That just kept morphing very rapidly and now we have 12 employees.
Speaker B:Wow, what a story.
Speaker B:I mean, yeah, it started out as a side hustle and you've transformed it into a full time business.
Speaker B:And as you were talking, you're really now into the multi millions per year on top of that.
Speaker C:Well, now we have a secret which I can actually spill because this won't air until later.
Speaker C: st learned we got on the Inc.: Speaker B:Oh, wow.
Speaker B:Congratulations.
Speaker B:That's amazing.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:So what do you attribute your success to right now that you've scaled the company from pretty much starting as a side hustle gig at nighttime, and now you're a multimillion dollar company helping people with their other small businesses, I should say with their financials and getting them going into the right directions.
Speaker B:Because a lot of businesses, they're doing the work, but they don't pay attention to the back end, AKA the finance.
Speaker B:They think they've got money in their bank account, but they're a lot of times actually have negative cash flow.
Speaker C:We see this all the time.
Speaker C:So don't feel bad if you're doing this, but this is a great moment if you're listening to stop and do something a little bit differently.
Speaker C:Because if you're not spinning your wheels yet, you will end up spinning your wheels.
Speaker C:A lot of people do look at their bank account and they consider themselves successful or profitable because they have money in the bank.
Speaker C:That's a very dangerous place to be because you really don't know how profitable you are or where that money's headed.
Speaker C:And in finance, it's always the trend.
Speaker C:So you might be trending in a really bad direction and have no idea.
Speaker C:What happens is people run out of cash.
Speaker C:And I've seen a lot of people that don't have enough money to even cover payroll.
Speaker C:Sometimes that's not a good place to be and obviously very uncomfortable.
Speaker C:So cash and profit are very different.
Speaker C:Your profitability is what's left over after all of your expenses go out the door and your revenue comes in and then your cash is completely different because that depends on if you've got equipment and you're making loan payments, if you're taking money out for yourself.
Speaker C:So it's a dangerous place to be unless you're really focused in on your financials.
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, I remember I was working with a company a couple years ago.
Speaker B:They had a business coach and then that business coach started working with me and what we uncovered him and I was that even though he was coaching this business owner, they were not doing anything he was telling them to do.
Speaker B:So it was going in one year and going out the other year.
Speaker B:And he would always tell me, what's the net income, what's the net profit of all that stuff.
Speaker B:And I started look paying more attention to it even though I was not in charge of the company at that time, but I still got the P&LS.
Speaker B:Cause I always brought the P&LS to go discuss with them.
Speaker B:We met off site.
Speaker B:And whenever he met with the owner of the company at the time, the guy would say, oh, yeah, yeah, I'll get to it.
Speaker B:We'll get it fixed out, we'll get it squared away.
Speaker B:Because nothing matched.
Speaker B:The books didn't add up.
Speaker B:He kept pulling his hair, which he didn't have any.
Speaker B:He was bald.
Speaker B:But use it as a funny way of explaining that maybe that's why he didn't have any more hair.
Speaker B:But it was the fact that every time we looked at the books, they never added up.
Speaker B:He kept telling me, this doesn't match.
Speaker B:So what you're talking about is very, very important.
Speaker C:And I think it really is attributable to part of our success.
Speaker C:Because I am an accounting firm.
Speaker C:I started my bookkeeping immediately and right away you could tell how profitable you are.
Speaker C:When are you going to break even?
Speaker C:How much money do you need?
Speaker C:How much cash do you actually need for several months of expenses in the bank account?
Speaker C:So it answers all of the questions.
Speaker C:But the really exciting part is when you really know how to analyze and dive in the numbers of the business.
Speaker C:Explain everything.
Speaker C:They can even tell you if your employees are working, if they're in the right place and they're working efficiently in your business.
Speaker C:It's a pretty cool thing to be able to see.
Speaker C:It's literally the language of your business.
Speaker B:Let's talk more about that because that's interesting.
Speaker C:So I actually love this story.
Speaker C:We work with a lot of clients on a fractional CFO level, and we really do a deep dive every month with the client.
Speaker C:And I was meeting with this one client, actually a SaaS business.
Speaker C:I know you have a SaaS background.
Speaker C:I have several SaaS that we work with.
Speaker C:I love that business model.
Speaker C:So we're working with the SaaS business.
Speaker C:And he had a sales manager.
Speaker C:And every month he would tell me, no new sales, and I'd say, okay, well, let's break it down.
Speaker C:How many leads coming in, how many phone calls, how many meetings?
Speaker C:Because there's a percentage.
Speaker C:You can math anything, right?
Speaker C:So you can math how many leads are supposed to be in, how many are supposed to land as a phone call, and.
Speaker C:And then how many of those get closed, and it's usually 20%.
Speaker C:And the sales manager kept saying, he's making all these calls.
Speaker C:He's putting in all this information and making all these calls, all these reaching out on email, having all these meetings.
Speaker C:This is all the Information that was being input into their system.
Speaker C:And I kept harping on it.
Speaker C:We would meet every month and I would say, something is off, something's fishy.
Speaker C:So he finally went and talked to the sales manager, and the sales manager caved and said that he was making up all those numbers.
Speaker C:It didn't.
Speaker C:Math and everything has a number when it comes to business.
Speaker C:So if you're running ads or you have marketing, you need to know, how many leads are you getting?
Speaker C:How many are they converting?
Speaker C:How is that converting into a sales call and then into a client?
Speaker C:All those are numbers that you should be keeping track of.
Speaker B:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker B:Because how can you track whether your marketing is working or not?
Speaker B:So that's basically one on one in marketing.
Speaker B:And sales is basically, you gotta be able to track, okay, I'm spending this much money on marketing, how many leads am I getting?
Speaker B:Because then you can track whether the agency you're working with or your marketing team is doing what they need to be doing.
Speaker B:So that's step number one.
Speaker B:And then you're absolutely right.
Speaker B:How many leads that come in, what was the conversion rate?
Speaker B:And if you lost and didn't get the deal, why did you lose it?
Speaker B:So you got to be able to look at all that stuff and then make.
Speaker B:You got to be able to tweak and adjust.
Speaker B:Otherwise, three, four, or five months, nothing's happening.
Speaker B:The numbers don't lie, provided that they're correct.
Speaker C:That's true.
Speaker C:You have to have accuracy first.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And with that one company, once I took it over, we hired a forensic CFO to come in and clean up the books.
Speaker B:And it took six months because we had to go back years and things were miscategorized and it was just.
Speaker B:It was a disaster.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:I'm really surprised in the industry, and I think this is why we've had success.
Speaker C:Also.
Speaker C:I'm always surprised when I get a new client and they've worked with a bookkeeper or sometimes even another accounting firm or CPA firm and how incorrect and messy the financials are.
Speaker C:And you can always tell because there's going to be negative numbers in weird places on the balance sheet or it just doesn't make sense to you, or things are not categorized correctly or inconsistently or it's missing information.
Speaker C:So those are all signs.
Speaker C:We do diagnostics and we actually do a lot of cleanups.
Speaker C:Like you said, the forensic type of accounting, we do a tremendous amount of cleanups because you have to start with an accurate foundation.
Speaker C:And without that accurate foundation, it's garbage in, garbage out.
Speaker B:And when you're cleaning it up, you got to go back a couple years because, you know, what happened two, three years ago really affects where you're at today.
Speaker B:So it's really double work.
Speaker B:You got to go back and fix what it was two years ago, let's just say.
Speaker B:And then one year ago, you got to fix that so it matches.
Speaker B:And so it's a lot of work to get it back to where it needs to be so you can go forward.
Speaker C:I agree.
Speaker C:And I would say to everybody that don't hire the least expensive person.
Speaker C:Hire the best person you can afford.
Speaker C:Because why would you want to just hire someone that's decent at bookkeeping?
Speaker C:Bookkeeping is not data entry.
Speaker C:It's the foundation of all of the knowledge and all the decision making of your business.
Speaker C:So hire someone that's excellent because in the long run, if you don't and they're making mistakes, it's going to cost you a lot more money.
Speaker C:Not only in incorrect financials, incorrect tax returns, but also in not being able to make great decisions.
Speaker C:You want to hire the best in your employees?
Speaker C:Consider that piece with the accounting department as well.
Speaker C:Hire the best.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:The accounting is the heart of the business.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker B:I mean, at the end of the day, you've got no cash, doesn't matter, you're out of business.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:There are some businesses I see, and I see that they have never been profitable.
Speaker C:They keep putting money into their business.
Speaker C:And I think to myself, if you never started this, you would have been ahead.
Speaker C:So let's start it right.
Speaker B:Totally agree.
Speaker B:So, Natalia, let's go into a little bit about, you know, what it is that you do with the customer.
Speaker B:Because before we started recording, we talked a little bit about your unique approach of how you bring on a customer into your organization and what your team does to really transform that business.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:The sale starts after they sign the engagement, and they are now a client.
Speaker C:The sale never ends.
Speaker C:Never take your clients and your customers for granted.
Speaker C:We have a special process that I learned because I'm an entrepreneur.
Speaker C:I'm not just an accountant.
Speaker C:I'm also an entrepreneur.
Speaker C:And a lot of business owners are extremely busy.
Speaker C:They don't have a lot of time, and they don't have a deep understanding of what is necessary in order to put financials together.
Speaker C:So on our onboarding call, we really white glove the entire service.
Speaker C:We set everything up, we tell them everything that we need.
Speaker C:We get access to as much as possible so that in, in the end, we can work as independently as possible.
Speaker C:And also Save them tremendous amount of time.
Speaker C:So they're only really dedicating that first hour and maybe a little bit of time after.
Speaker C:So you know how like when people are a little bit squeamish about starting something because they're afraid about the effort and the time that it'll take to get something done, we're trying to take that squeamishness away and really help them so that we can get everything we need and then we can just run with it and then they get everything they need after without a lot more effort.
Speaker B:Can you share a story of how you kind of brought a company in and they were train wreck for an accurate way of wording it and you helped turn that company around and they've became, what I would say, a super fan of what you guys have done because you've transformed them financially and now they're your biggest sales team.
Speaker C:We actually have quite a few.
Speaker C:It's amazing to me how other firms don't double check their work.
Speaker C:So everything that we do is checked by an in house controller, which is a fancy way of saying someone with a high level of technical knowledge reviews everything before it goes out.
Speaker C:We have several levels that every client goes through and we have specialists.
Speaker C:So I have one payroll person that has decades and decades of experience.
Speaker C:That's her specialty.
Speaker C:I have onboarding specialists, staff accountants, and I have controllers and CFOs.
Speaker C:Everybody really specializes in what they do.
Speaker C:So last year, at the end of the year, I get a phone call from another tax firm that says we can't do their tax planning and their tax preparation because their books are a mess, their financials are a mess.
Speaker C:So I talked to the owners.
Speaker C:At the time they had five companies, now they have four because they sold one.
Speaker C:There are close to 30 million in gross sales across all companies.
Speaker C:So you think, okay, these guys know what they're doing, right?
Speaker C:It's a big company.
Speaker C:And I said, at this point you should probably hire an in house service, like an in house accountant or cfo because you're large enough to have someone that's in house.
Speaker C:And they said, no, we don't really know what we're doing.
Speaker C:We don't trust anybody.
Speaker C:And so we want to hire you guys.
Speaker C: hing, we saw, for instance in: Speaker C:So what does that mean?
Speaker C:That means that the tax accountant didn't put down all the information but took the tax credit off.
Speaker C:So it's a huge Red flag for the irs.
Speaker C:So when the IRS gets caught up and sees that tax return, that's an automatic audit or an automatic review.
Speaker C:Maybe not a complete audit, but a review because that tax is incorrect.
Speaker C:And so when we really dug in, no one had been doing their accounting.
Speaker C:They've been around for 10 years.
Speaker C:No one had been doing it correctly in all those years.
Speaker C:And they do something called factoring, which is very complicated.
Speaker C:They have another company that will pay the invoices on the behalf of their clients.
Speaker C:So it's like financing, but they don't pay the full amount.
Speaker C:They pay a factored amount.
Speaker C:So that gets very complicated in the AR piece.
Speaker C:I think that's part of why no one really did it correctly.
Speaker C:It took us a little while to figure it out and clean it up.
Speaker C: So we cleaned up all of: Speaker C:But they've been thrilled.
Speaker C:I think it's the first time that they've gotten information where they can factually see what's happening data wise in their business.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B:So, yeah, these guys gotta be super fans of you because you just saved their bacon, for lack of a better way of wording it, but an accurate way.
Speaker C:It's triggering and it's hard to tell someone.
Speaker C:We have to redo several years going back.
Speaker C:It's going to cost you more money than you already paid because it's wrong.
Speaker C:And also you're probably going to owe more money to the IRS and you might be in trouble.
Speaker C:So we need to hurry up and do this.
Speaker C:That's a hard conversation to have with someone.
Speaker C:So there needs to be a lot of trust built up and have a very clear picture.
Speaker C:But in the end, you want to get it done.
Speaker C:You want to have it done right.
Speaker C:You want to have peace of mind so that you as the business owner can really move forward in a way that you feel very confident and really keep building that business.
Speaker C:That's very important.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, with the company, I talked about similar thing.
Speaker B:We had to go back a few years to get things cleaned up and fixed.
Speaker B:And they had a separate tax person and that person had to make some tweaks and adjustments to everything because they had loans that weren't categorized correctly.
Speaker B:They had car in there that they were paying for, not categorized correctly and probably shouldn't have been there in the first place.
Speaker B:So I'm sure you've seen all that stuff.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:That really affects your tax liability.
Speaker C:You're probably overpaying in taxes.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker B:We talked before we started recording about, you know, something that you do with how you pick your team and how you empower your team and the culture of your company, which has really helped you grow.
Speaker B:Because one of the things that you mentioned before we started recording was that you really didn't do any marketing.
Speaker B:This has all been word of mouth, AKA basically, super fans promoting your services.
Speaker B:Just like you mentioned that tax agency reaching out to you and saying, hey, I got a customer.
Speaker B:That's a mess.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:So I built the business really on referrals and just reaching out to people.
Speaker C:Literally when we started, the very beginning, I would tell everybody what I was doing and ask them if they needed an accountant.
Speaker C:Like a fellow to come over, a plumber would come to my house and say, do you need an accountant?
Speaker C:I have no shame.
Speaker C:That's how I started.
Speaker C:And I would recommend to everybody to leave no stone unturned and have no shame.
Speaker C:One of the things that we do that's really different is I pay attention to what people are telling me on the sales calls.
Speaker C:What are their problems?
Speaker C:What are their concerns?
Speaker C:What has been a bad experience for them, what has been a good experience for them in the past in terms of accounting?
Speaker C:And I take all of that information and I keep building my knowledge base of how I should tweak what we're doing.
Speaker C:As a secret.
Speaker C:I jump into Facebook groups that are in my own industry and I look at how they're all complaining about clients or what they're complaining about, and I do the opposite.
Speaker C:So I do like my own little research.
Speaker C:The accounting industry right now is unfortunately known for poor customer service, unresponsiveness, being late with information taking forever, sometimes talking down to people or using language that the average layperson wouldn't understand so they feel they don't feel comfortable.
Speaker C:And we do the opposite of all of that.
Speaker C:That's how our entire team is trained.
Speaker C:And our entire team is trained according to our vision, mission, and core values, which I think everybody should really lean on those for the culture of their business.
Speaker C:And our top three core values are integrity, accuracy, and excellence.
Speaker C:So those things are very important to me, which also means I need to live by those and set the example.
Speaker C:But also being the client fan, out of the box thinking, being resourceful, outwork and out learn, everybody.
Speaker C:So those are all part of our core values.
Speaker C:And any team member that isn't aligned with those core values, that's okay, but they're just not a good fit for us.
Speaker C:And so we just find those people that are a really good fit for us.
Speaker C:And so far I found 12 that are amazing.
Speaker C:And I'm positive that even though most people are talking about this shortage and it's so hard to hire, if you're offering an incredible vision, a great culture, some amazing benefits, pay them well.
Speaker C:People want to work for you.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:My wife's been working with a company that she's been at past seven years now.
Speaker B:And it's all about the culture.
Speaker B:She's been from day one.
Speaker B:She's started working remote, but, you know, later this year she's going to go fly down to their corporate office in Florida for a company meeting.
Speaker B:So they fly everybody in once a year and get everybody in.
Speaker B:She's won multitude of prizes.
Speaker B:We finally got married last October.
Speaker B:We've been together for over 12 years now, but we finally decided to get it done.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker B:We spent a week in Hawaii on an Airbnb and it was all the Airbnbs that she won the prizes for.
Speaker B:So that was free for us because they give away prizes of a multitude of different things.
Speaker B:She's one of her top salespeople and so I completely concur with what you're saying.
Speaker B:You really need to bring on top people, but you also need to take care of people that are there because otherwise you can bring a top person.
Speaker B:But if you don't have the right culture, they know that they can walk down the street and get another job like that.
Speaker C: % remote and virtual since: Speaker C:No paper, high technology anywhere.
Speaker C:Send them a really nice computer because I want them to be comfortable and enjoy their work.
Speaker C:We have fantastic software that makes things a lot easier, very high level.
Speaker C:So, like, all those are expenses, but they're worth it because I want to attract the best people and make their experience really comfortable.
Speaker C:We also pay 100% of the insurance premiums for the employee, so we cover all of that and we do 401k, that combination, plus just the excitement.
Speaker C:As the owner, you should be the person that's the biggest cheerleader of your team.
Speaker C:Empower them, allow them to do their work.
Speaker C:Hire people better than you.
Speaker C:Don't have the ego.
Speaker C:Don't be afraid to hire people that are better than you.
Speaker C:That's a good thing.
Speaker C:I want to be the stupidest person in the room because that actually makes me the smartest person in the room.
Speaker B:If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room, you're.
Speaker C:In the wrong room.
Speaker C:Hire people that are much better than you at everything and just keep building that app, but stay on top of the culture.
Speaker C:Everybody has KPIs and metrics.
Speaker C:They know what's expected of them, and we meet with them often.
Speaker C:I jump on the staff meetings at least once a week to check in.
Speaker C:Everybody knows who I am, they know my name, they can talk to me.
Speaker C:My door is always open.
Speaker C:And my job is really to keep driving our goals, driving our culture, and reminding them that what they're doing is really important.
Speaker B:That's a key thing that I want to really emphasize, Natalia.
Speaker B:Really getting them to understand that what they're doing is changing people's lives.
Speaker B:And in the case of a business, it's changing that business's life because it's making sure that everything is accurate.
Speaker B:They've got the finances incorrect.
Speaker B:They can forecast what they need to be doing.
Speaker B:They can get out of the reactionary mindset of a business and become proactive.
Speaker B:Because now they go say, okay, this is what's happening.
Speaker B:I can plan to expand here.
Speaker B:I can do these things.
Speaker B:I can get this new technology, whatever, because I know where we're going versus the reactionary that you're always playing firefighter.
Speaker B:And in turn, you can never get ahead because you're always looking backwards to solve a problem.
Speaker C:Being proactive and forecasting, projecting it gives you options and time.
Speaker C:So if you're headed in the wrong direction, you'll get a heads up maybe three or six months in advance.
Speaker C:If you had three to six months in advance notice that something was going in the wrong direction, that gives you options to make changes.
Speaker C:Whereas if you have no idea and you're just flying by the seat of your pants and making daily decisions or reactionary decisions, you can get into deep trouble very quickly and suddenly not know what to do and not have the time or not have the options because we ran out of time.
Speaker B:Yeah, and I want to go back to the technology aspect because you me remember years ago, I was picked to speak at the Mold Makers association, and I was not allowed to pitch the technology, so I had to provide something of value.
Speaker B:So I had to come up with some idea.
Speaker B:And what I came up with was compute time.
Speaker B:Back then, when you're doing engineering and manufacturing software for milling machines and blades and wire EDM machines, all that stuff, it takes time for it to calculate all the math to create both toolpaths and everything else.
Speaker B:So I was talking about the fact that how much time is being wasted while the Engineer waits for the program to calculate, do all the math to calculate the toolpath, and then say, ah, that's not exactly right.
Speaker B:I have to now recalculate it again.
Speaker B:Wait now a little better tweak as you figure.
Speaker B:And then about an hour a day, just conservative number an hour a day of calculation time times five days, times a month.
Speaker B:I says, what does that add up to?
Speaker B:And then bottom line was you're too cheap to spend 5, $6,000 to get a brand new computer that would be faster in computing this stuff and you'd be ahead.
Speaker B:And people were scratching their heads because they had never thought of it from that perspective.
Speaker B:And what you're doing is you're keeping everybody efficient because they've got good technology.
Speaker B:And it's important.
Speaker C:In today's world, we really try to streamline, we create an entire system if we can for the client.
Speaker C:So if they're writing checks, there's no reason to write checks anymore.
Speaker C:There's software to do that.
Speaker C:And not only that, there's a lot of checks and balances where people can approve something or authorize it rather than just one person writing checks.
Speaker C:And it saves a tremendous amount of time.
Speaker C:And that way you can even stage it out.
Speaker C:We use all kinds of technology, not just for ourselves, for our own firm, but also for our clients, to speed things up, make it easier and give everybody visibility.
Speaker C:I am not a fan of desktop.
Speaker C:I'm a fan of let's do everything in the cloud, because everybody that needs to see something can.
Speaker C:You could be the owner sitting on the beach with your cocktail in hand and see what your revenue looks like on your phone.
Speaker C:And that's the freedom that you should want and that you need to have for your business is the freedom of using technology in your favor.
Speaker C:What's that saying?
Speaker C:AI isn't going to replace people or forget.
Speaker C:Basically, AI is going to speed things up.
Speaker C:So if you're not using technology and AI is like the newer technology coming.
Speaker B:Next, you need to be leveraging that for your business because it's not really.
Speaker B:I don't see it replacing jobs.
Speaker B:I see it making people more productive and actually putting out better quality work.
Speaker B:Because of the fact that you're leveraging technology to the max.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:And you can afford better people.
Speaker C:Why are you paying for tasks that can be done faster and better by some something else, by computer, when you can be leveraging your people to actually bring real value to your clients?
Speaker B:And it's really important too.
Speaker B:I want to reemphasize, you were mentioning that you get together with them on a weekly basis, the team, that's very important because it builds a camaraderie.
Speaker B:Even though people are all remote, if you get together, it's not all business.
Speaker B:I mean, yes, you have business conversations, but at the same time you have relationship building conversations.
Speaker B:That's how you keep the nucleus of the team going because they feel that they're part of something.
Speaker B:And the other thing I want to really emphasize was the fact that really understanding what the importance that they're bringing.
Speaker C:To the equation, I think that's really important for everybody to understand.
Speaker C:And I repeat this to clients as well.
Speaker C:It is very hard to run a business.
Speaker C:There are definitely emotional roller coasters and you have, you get punched in the gut on a regular basis and you feel like giving up.
Speaker C:I think it's an important reminder for yourself as well.
Speaker C:But to remind myself, keep going.
Speaker C:But also remind my team what we're doing is, has a ripple effect.
Speaker C:So everything that we do improves the lives of another business, which is improving the life of their employees and their clients and customers and so on and so forth.
Speaker C:And honestly, this country has been built on small and medium sized businesses.
Speaker C:That's our foundation.
Speaker C:I think There are over 35 million businesses in the United States.
Speaker C:What you're doing is important.
Speaker C:It's important to the economy, to your employees, to all of your customers.
Speaker C:Just keep going.
Speaker C:Because it has that ripple effect.
Speaker C:You can help communities that way.
Speaker C:We donate money.
Speaker C:I don't really have a lot of time anymore to donate, but I donate money to charities because we can afford to do so.
Speaker C:It just, the ripple effect just keeps.
Speaker B:Going and it all begins inside the organization because you've got to create super fans within your team.
Speaker B:And they're super fans of you as a leader.
Speaker B:They're super fans of the company.
Speaker B:So they're telling other people about the great company that they're working at and the way you guys are doing things.
Speaker B:That energy transcends to prospective customers, that transcends to new customers.
Speaker B:That coming on board because we all have buyer's remorse.
Speaker B:But when you have someone that says super excited, hey man, we're super excited being part of our team and one of our customers that reinforces that decision that says, oh yeah, okay, we picked the right company that propels and it continues because one of the things that I did when I would demo software, I wouldn't do it, my tech guy would do it.
Speaker B:But I made sure that everybody that was in that meeting, even the shop floor guys, got a thank you letter.
Speaker B:Old school through the mail, because it still works.
Speaker B:Thank you for your time.
Speaker B:Thank you for your contributions to the meeting.
Speaker B:And more importantly, we're excited to work with you.
Speaker B:Already put in the mindset that we were already working together.
Speaker B:And I closed more sales of that because one, when I follow up and says, why'd you pick us?
Speaker B:He says, we felt after the transaction you would provide us the best support because even the guy on the shop floor got a letter.
Speaker B:I recognized him.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:I think it's super important people are still doing business with people.
Speaker C:And how you get out of the rat race of having really low pricing.
Speaker C:Like, you don't want to keep downgrading or pricing and downgrading it because that is a no win situation.
Speaker C:You need to provide more so that people want to see your value and they want to work with you and they're excited to work with you.
Speaker C:And honestly, the more successful you are and the more.
Speaker C:The happier your employees are, it attracts even more and more customers to you.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's contagious.
Speaker B:Just like negativity is contagious, Positivity is contagious.
Speaker B:I would rather have the positivity because the negativity becomes toxic and then everybody's unhappy.
Speaker B:And we've all experienced that once or twice in our lives.
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker C:And if you have a team, it's really important to nip that in the bud.
Speaker C:We have a policy.
Speaker C:I don't even know if I've ever verbalized the policy, but I think everybody pretty much knows.
Speaker C:No drama, no gossip policy.
Speaker C:And also no negativity and person who's not getting their work done.
Speaker C:Trust me, the entire team knows and they know why you're tolerating that.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And that sets a bad precedent right off the bat.
Speaker B:Because then it says, if they're getting away with it, I'm going to start getting away with it.
Speaker B:And you start going down a slippery slope backwards.
Speaker C:Yes, we do some interesting things.
Speaker C:The team actually comes up with a lot of this.
Speaker C:We have some amazing folks every once in a while.
Speaker C:We play some games this week and I have a task that I have to complete so that I'm part of the game.
Speaker C:You have to take a photo of your junk drawer, and then we're going to guess whose junk drawer it is.
Speaker C:It's silly, but it's fun and it sparks the conversations.
Speaker C:You get to know each other, and I think that's always fun.
Speaker C:So that's one of the things that we do, is that we play.
Speaker C:Every once in a while we play a game or we have a happy hour.
Speaker C:We also encourage each other to give each other a kudos for a job well done.
Speaker C:So we'll put it in our slack channel that someone helped someone or someone did a great job, someone out of a bind or.
Speaker C:So we really encourage folks to help each other and to write it down in a slack channel that everybody can see and give them kudos in public.
Speaker B:You read one of my chapters in my book, Creating Business Superfans, because one of my quotes in the book is, people crawl through broken glass for appreciation and recognition.
Speaker B:That's just what you just described right there.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:So the appreciation, recognition shouldn't only come from the top.
Speaker C:It should definitely come from the top, but it should come from everyone.
Speaker B:Yes, exactly.
Speaker B:Everybody.
Speaker B:It's one thing to say, okay, Natalia, thank you so much.
Speaker B:Really appreciate the great job you did on a project and you feel wonderful and great.
Speaker B:It's another thing to say, hey, everybody, I want to take a moment to recognize Natalia for what she's did to help this company, etc.
Speaker B:That creates energy for everybody.
Speaker C:And don't forget to thank your employees.
Speaker C:I thank them on a regular basis that not only remind them that what they're doing is really important, but I thank them for all the things that I want them to also do.
Speaker C:So I thank them for being so caring to the clients, being passionate about their work.
Speaker C:I thank them for being loyal.
Speaker C:It's been a wild ride, right?
Speaker C:We've been growing and doubling almost every year.
Speaker C:It's wild and chaotic sometimes.
Speaker C:So you want to thank them for that.
Speaker B:It was a two.
Speaker B:You've been growing 200% a year.
Speaker C: Yeah, we grew in: Speaker C:We grew a million dollars in revenue in one year.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B:Congratulations.
Speaker C:Thank you.
Speaker C:And most of it was at the end of the year, towards the end.
Speaker C:I know that my people can get burned out if I'm not aware of that.
Speaker C:So we want to jump in and help.
Speaker C:We want to give everybody access to helping and also give them appreciation.
Speaker C:Some of the employees that you have will be very uncomfortable if you're growing quickly because they want a stable environment.
Speaker C:And when you're growing, it's not very stable to stabilize it.
Speaker C:You're going to have times where it's chaotic.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker B:Totally agree.
Speaker B:And you said a key point, which was another one of my chapters, is gratitude.
Speaker B:You've got to take the time to express the gratitude.
Speaker B:Because one of my other sayings is the little things are really the big things.
Speaker B:And taking a moment to say thank you is a little thing.
Speaker B:But to that individual.
Speaker B:That's a really big thing.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:I would say using gratitude for yourself as a practice is really helpful and especially in those times where things are rough.
Speaker C:This has been a kind of a rough year for a lot of folks.
Speaker C:And looking back, realizing how far you've come is really important.
Speaker C:Even if you haven't gotten to where you want to be, you've still grown and changed and accomplished things.
Speaker C:And being grateful that we live in a great place, you get to run a business, you get to do these things.
Speaker C:It's pretty incredible.
Speaker C:And just remember that when things are feeling a little rough, if you practice gratitude, it does change how you feel and it's very helpful.
Speaker C:It's really saved me.
Speaker B:Absolutely correct.
Speaker B:Well, Natalia, as we get closer to the end here, great conversation.
Speaker B:You and I could probably talk on this stuff for hours.
Speaker B:How can people find you?
Speaker C:We have a special page for your audience that I hope they'll enjoy.
Speaker C:It's going to be under Zachary consulting.com superfans.
Speaker C:If they log in, we'll have two giveaways.
Speaker C:They're PDFs.
Speaker C:One is 7 Ways to Find money in your business.
Speaker C:Now the other one is the ultimate checklist for financial success in your business.
Speaker C:And then the third is a link to get in touch with us.
Speaker C:If you want to have a free financial consultation and have a chat with us, you can get on our calendar.
Speaker C:But go ahead and check out those two assets, those two PDFs, and hopefully they'll be helpful.
Speaker C:And feel free to connect with me on social media and let me know what you think of them.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:Thank you so much.
Speaker B:Those are really nice gifts that you're putting out there and we'll make sure that that's in our show notes.
Speaker B:And thank you so much for your time.
Speaker B:We definitely would love to have you on the show down the road.
Speaker C:Again, thank you, Freddie.
Speaker C:It's been a lot of fun and I feel like we have a lot of things in common.
Speaker B:Thank you so much for your time, Natalia.
Speaker B:Than Wow.
Speaker A:What a powerful conversation with Natalia.
Speaker A:This episode highlights to you in our Superfans framework Unite Create stakeholder alignment.
Speaker A:It's all about building a unified culture by aligning your team, partners and vendors around shared goals.
Speaker A:Natalia shared how clarity in financials isn't about numbers.
Speaker A:It's about getting everyone on the same page so your whole organization moves forward with confidence.
Speaker A:So here's your pick.
Speaker A:One key metric this week.
Speaker A:Share it with your team and make sure everybody understands why it matters.
Speaker A:And when you do, you'll see better decisions stronger trust and a culture that works together instead of pulling apart.
Speaker A:And remember, one action, one stakeholder, one superfan closer.
Speaker A:Until next time, keep building your business Superfans.
Speaker A:Thank you for listening.
Speaker A:And know this, when you do, freedom follows.
Speaker D:We hope you took away some useful knowledge from today's episode of the Business Superfans Podcast.
Speaker D:The path to success relies on taking action.
Speaker D:So go over to businesssuperfans.com and get your hands on the book.
Speaker D:If you haven't already, join the accelerator community and take that first step in generating a team of passionate supporters for your business.
Speaker D:Join us on the next episode as we continue guiding you on your journey to achieve flourishing success in business.
