Search Interviews:

Nikole MackenzieNikole Mackenzie is a CPA residing in the San Francisco Bay Area with clients located all over the U.S. She has seen small business accounting from every perspective as a former tax and audit CPA who now runs her own scaling accounting firm. Nikole has led hundreds of owners to revitalize their accounting departments through her easygoing approach and contagious enthusiasm. She and her team help agency owners save money, increase revenue, stay compliant, save time, eliminate stress, and ultimately give them the freedom to scale their recurring revenue businesses to an eventual multimillion-dollar exit.

Spotify
Apple
Google Podcast
Amazon Music
Tune In
Stitcher
iHeart Radio
Deezer

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

  • Nikole Mackenzie shares her entrepreneurial journey
  • What is the value of creating an exceptional customer service experience?
  • Nikole reflects on the change in options for accounting models available to small businesses
  • The new wave of tools and resources available
  • Nikole discusses how she got involved with EO San Francisco and the value she gets from it

In this episode…

When is it the right time to pursue something unstable? When should you choose stability instead? During your entrepreneurial journey you will be faced with taking a leap of faith or playing it safe. Your experiences and goals will affect how you make your decision.

For the longest time Nikole Mackenzie pursued the stable option throughout her career, but she knew she needed to take a risk to reach where she wanted to be. She now helps others navigate their entrepreneurial journey through her business Momentum Accounting and her involvement with the San Francisco chapter of Entrepreneurs’ Organization.

In this episode of Rising Entrepreneurs Podcast, host John Corcoran welcomes CEO and Founder of Momentum Accounting Nikole Mackenzie to the show. She shares stories from her past as a CPA and the lessons she learned that led her to found Momentum Accounting. Nikole discusses creating an exceptional customer service experience and building customer loyalty through that before talking about EO San Francisco and the value entrepreneurs from all stages of their career get from being involved.

Resources mentioned in this episode

Sponsor for this episode…

At Rise25, we’re committed to helping you connect with your Dream 100 referral partners, clients, and strategic partners through our done-for-you podcast solution.

We’re a professional podcast production agency that makes creating a podcast effortless. Since 2009, our proven system has helped thousands of B2B businesses build strong relationships with referral partners, clients, and audiences without doing the hard work.

What do you need to start a podcast?

When you use our proven system, all you need is an idea and a voice. We handle the strategy, production, and distribution – you just need to show up and talk.

The Rise25 podcasting solution is designed to help you build a profitable podcast. This requires a specific strategy, and we’ve got that down pat. We focus on making sure you have a direct path to ROI, which is the most important component. Plus, our podcast production company takes any heavy lifting of production and distribution off your plate.

We make distribution easy.

We’ll distribute each episode across more than 11 unique channels, including iTunes, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. We’ll also create copy for each episode and promote your show across social media.

Co-founders Dr. Jeremy Weisz and John Corcoran credit podcasting as being the best thing they have ever done for their businesses. Podcasting connected them with the founders/CEOs of P90xAtariEinstein BagelsMattelRx BarsYPO, EO, Lending Tree, Freshdesk, and many more.

The relationships you form through podcasting run deep. Jeremy and John became business partners through podcasting. They have even gone on family vacations and attended weddings of guests who have been on the podcast.

Podcast production has a lot of moving parts and is a big commitment on our end; we only want to work with people who are committed to their business and to cultivating amazing relationships.

Are you considering launching a podcast to acquire partnerships, clients, and referrals? Would you like to work with a podcast agency that wants you to win?

Contact us now at support@rise25media.com or book a call at rise25.com/bookcall.

Rise25 Co-founders, Dr. Jeremy Weisz and John Corcoran, have been podcasting and advising about podcasting since 2008.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:02  

Welcome to the Rising Entrepreneurs Podcast where we feature top founders and entrepreneurs and their journey. Now let’s get started with the show.

John Corcoran  0:11  

Hey, John Corcoran here, I’m the co-host of this show where we feature top entrepreneurs and business owners leaders sharing their stories. And I have Nikole Mackenzie here. She is the founder and CEO of Momentum Accounting, and we’re gonna get into her introduction in a moment.

But first before we get into that this episode is brought to you by EO San Francisco. And EO San Francisco is part of the larger Entrepreneurs Organization. It’s a global peer to peer network of more than 14,000 influential business owners with 198 chapters in 61 countries and if you are the founder, co-founder, owner or controlling shareholder of a company generating over $1 million a year in revenue, you want to connect with other like minded successful entrepreneurs then EO is for you. The EO San Francisco chapter enables leading entrepreneurs in the Bay Area to learn grow and achieve greater success. And the chapter was founded in 1991. Today, we have over 100 members in industries ranging from marketing to agriculture, tech and professional services. To learn more about how it works, or to come to a test drive. Come join us at EONetwork.org/SanFrancisco.

And this episode is also brought to you by my company Rise25, which helps provide B2B companies with done for you content marketing and podcast services. You can learn more at Rise25.

Alright, as I mentioned, my guest here today, Nikole McKenzie. She is the founder and CEO of Momentum Accounting. Fun facts: She was a collegiate athlete and is also passionate about all kinds of obscure sports. The more obscure the better. She’s actually a five time national champion Australian rules football, and she also is the co-host, guest co-host on the Sons of CPA Podcast. And Nikole, thanks for being here today. And I want to ask about, you are actually an accidental entrepreneur, you were not the kind of kid who was out doing lemonade stands on your parents lawn. But, kinda like me in a sense I guess, you just kind of were working other jobs and didn’t like the way it was done and thought maybe I can make a go of this. And you were actually working in Europe when you had to make this decision on on vacation.

Nikole Mackenzie  2:17  

Yeah, I like to say I’m a recovering CPA. So it was definitely had that CPA accountant mentality where in college, I just wanted the job that was the easiest to secure after I graduated. And accounting for me was that but once I started working in a CPA firm here in San Francisco, I found myself I remember having this moment where it was like the middle of tax season, and it was like nine o’clock at night and I looked and I was in a cube and right next to me was one of the partners offices, and he was still there. And I was like, okay, so even if I do this for 30 years, I still I’m gonna be gonna be one of the last people at the office. And it’s funny I have, you know, all your Facebook memories always come up. And every year around right after April 15, I always get all these funny memories that come up. And one of them recently was, I took a I took a personality test and it said I should be an accountant. Damn it, because I had these moments where I was ready to leave accounting and I felt lost. And I thought that I had chosen the wrong career. And I spent all this time getting my CPA license. And when I graduated from college, there really was only two paths. It was either you go auditor you go tax, but luckily at the firm I was at, they added on outsourced accounting and as an additional service line while I was there, so I switched from the tax department to the outsourced accounting department. An outsourced accounting is basically what I do now, but it’s much different than filing a tax return at the end of the year knowing tax law, it’s much more integrated with small businesses. So what I do now with Momentum is we support small businesses with their particularly agents, marketing agencies and other professional services businesses with their, we’re basically a replacement for a one or a one person accounting department.

John Corcoran  4:15  

So you were saying you were working within this larger accounting firm, and they had an outsourced accounting department. And that’s kind of how you experienced how it could be better and better experience for you and for the clients.

Nikole Mackenzie  4:29  

Exactly. Yes. So there was a so it was an analysis, we had an apartment, I liked the work much better, but it was definitely so structured like a traditional CPA firm. It was billed by the hour it was whether accounting software you’re on will take it and it was just a really bad client experience. And because my clients weren’t happy, it wasn’t really rewarding for me. So I ended up leaving that firm just quit. And then after that I went work for an ex-NFL player, Ronnie Lott. And I was at this point after I left the firm with no, with no job. And I remember being I went on a three week trip to Europe with my boyfriend at the time, they didn’t have a job. And I was trying to make a decision about what to do next. And I had a job offer for an in house role at a insurance agency and the accounting department there. And then I had this offer from Ronnie Lott. And so one path was very secure and stable. And then one was kind of a part time gig, not no structure, no stability. And so I was trying to make that decision on do I take the risk and go one way? Or do I go stability. And so I ended up making the best decision of my life and went and work for Ronnie Lott. And while I was working for him, I started Momentum. And I took on a couple other controller roles. And yeah, just kind of grew the business one client at a time.