How a counterintuitive strategy is helping this CPA firm grow

In the small town of Collierville, Tennessee, right outside of Memphis, people like to do business with other people from Collierville, making it a great place for small businesses to thrive. This is Debbie Hylander’s story.

Along with Collierville’s welcoming atmosphere, entrepreneurship runs in Debbie’s blood. Her dad owned a business catering to people with show dogs, and she grew up always wanting to have her own. “I like the flexibility that you get, and it’s easier to work those long hours when you know you’re doing it for yourself and for your family.”

After Debbie had spent about ten years working at another firm, she fulfilled her dream and started her practice, Hylander CPA Firm, PLLC. Seven years later, she now has six employees and has helped everyone from privately-held companies to high net-worth individuals.

As a strong proponent of work-life balance, Debbie has two goals:

1. Be able to take a long vacation and not worry.
2. Make sure no one is working overtime.

“Owning my own practice is very fulfilling. I like the flexibility that you get and it’s easier to work those long hours when you know you’re doing it for yourself and for your family.”

The latter goal might be tricky to accomplish. She explains, “In this industry [not working overtime] is hard to do because you have tax season — so many hours that are crammed into that short amount of time.”

Fortunately, Debbie has an innovative strategy for achieving this goal: take on fewer clients.

That might appear counterintuitive, but it’s actually a smart move — now her firm is able to provide more services, including bookkeeping, payroll, tax planning, and business consulting to those few clients so there’s not as much volume during tax season. In other words, their work is spread out across the year instead of concentrated during a few stressful months.

Additionally, because her firm is able to serve a wide range of industries, including real estate, medical practices, pharmacies, and start-ups, demand is high. “I’ve gotten to the point where I can’t grow the business any more because I’m too busy doing the work,” she explains.

This is why she began looking for a term loan in early 2017. “We came to a point where we needed to hire some good talent. That takes additional funding because you’ve got to pay your employees before you get paid.”

As a savvy business owner with good credit, Debbie had several loan offers from different companies, but didn’t like the rates and terms. She finally found Funding Circle which, along with offering the best rate, didn’t take too much of her time — a big plus to busy business owners.

“The whole thing was very quick and easy. I just printed off my financial documents and sent them over. It was pretty simple.”

With her loan of $100,000, Debbie’s been able to hire another CPA and buy necessary equipment, which is good because business is booming — “I don’t even need to bring in business — we have new people coming in just about every day.”

Maybe, with the help of Funding Circle, she’ll be able to take that long vacation after all.

asdfad