Imagine you’re sitting outside in the beautiful sunshine, enjoying life while having a meeting to chat about your business. You can travel anywhere, anytime, and your business is just as independent as you are. That's exactly how I met Penny Rose; she joined our Zoom call full of spirit, chatting with me from outside her RV—a joyful life that she, her husband, and their dogs embrace as they travel whenever they like. Penny Rose is the owner of Fe Fi Fo Fum Services, and she is this week’s highlight for our Women in Business series.
FBI to Fe Fi Fo Fum
Penny Rose began her career as a forensic accountant for the FBI, where she worked for over twenty years. During that time, she earned her CPA and decided it was time to start her next career move: launching her own business. Penny wanted to use her expertise to help others understand their business finances. Initially focusing on bookkeeping services, she eventually became a tax strategist, combining both services to create the business she offers today—Fe Fi Fo Fum Services.
Fe Fi Fo Fum is not only a fun name but also an acronym symbolizing her life and beliefs. “Fe” refers to her previous career as a federal employee. “Fi” stands for financial independence, a value she and her husband deeply believe in. “Fum” stands for “forget you money,” which refers to having enough savings to walk away from a job. There’s an alternative interpretation for “fum,” but I’ll let your imagination infer the second meaning! Both she and her husband were able to leave their full-time careers to focus solely on their business and build the life they wanted to live.
Penny started her business to achieve financial independence. She first learned about virtual bookkeeping from a coffee meetup with a fellow entrepreneur who also had a background in law enforcement. Inspired by this idea, Penny created the business she has today, which allows her to enjoy the freedom she desired. Now, Penny and her husband live full-time in their RV. They maintain a “home base” in Florida but travel freely, having recently taken a six-month trip from Florida to Arizona. They continue their businesses on the road, embodying the financial and location independence they designed for themselves.
Trailing a Unique Life
Penny’s clients include several different service-based businesses with a focus on content creators. She enjoys watching YouTube videos of families that are demonstrating how you can transform your life from living a traditional lifestyle to spending more time with loved ones and traveling. One of the non-traditional lifestyles particularly is families living in RVs, who also create content for their businesses. Penny’s goal is to be able to help content creators set up their businesses correctly as well as ensure they understand their unique tax consequences or opportunities their chosen lifestyles bring.
What sets Penny apart is that she fully operates her accounting services from her RV. She connected with a fellow entrepreneur in a master class who also lives a similar lifestyle and mentioned that she would choose Penny’s services as she embraces the same life. Penny’s lifestyle has become not only her desired dream, but also relatable and valuable to her clients as she understands their experiences.
Over the next year, Penny will expand her mentorship program for service-based businesses, with a primary focus on RV content creators. The program helps clients prepare their own bookkeeping with her support and guidance. For example, she assists them with estimated tax payments and saving strategies. Penny also holds periodic co-working sessions, offering clients additional opportunities to ask questions and receive financial feedback. This membership program launched in early May, so you can join the group now!
Level Up
Penny draws inspiration from several entrepreneurs. During our meeting, she was listening to the book "10x Is Easier Than 2x" by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy, co-authors of "The Gap and The Gain." These works have helped push her to new levels, emphasizing the importance of stretching goals. Penny celebrates each achievement and then sets her sights on the next goal.
One person Penny would love to sit with and learn from is Ramit Sethi, author of "I Will Teach You to Be Rich." Penny works with her clients to help them understand how money flows out of their business and into their personal household budget. She uses Ramit Sethi’s conscious spending plan to help them understand. Penny appreciates what Ramit has done with his own business, and she would love the opportunity to ask him questions and be able to take her business to the next level. She mentioned she loves his book, can quote it, and uses it to help her clients apply the practices from Ramit’s book.
Be Open to Ideas
For aspiring and fellow entrepreneurs, Penny emphasizes the importance of understanding the brain’s reticular activation system, which helps filter information. She explains, “We have things that we need to pay attention to and there is so much information that comes to us that we’re not able to manage all the information. As entrepreneurs, we are naturally curious about all the ways that you could take your business; the ideas come to you and your reticular activation system is what helps you recognize the solutions.” She suggests that you need to be open to having solutions come to you in a more organic way to learn how to grow your business. Then take those solutions and test the ideas, which helps you to not put all your eggs in one basket. You now have multiple options of solving an idea and testing for a period to see which idea would be best for your business, feels right for you, and works for you.
Penny is self-motivated and values the sense of accomplishment. To achieve the satisfaction of accomplishing tasks, she uses a task management system called Asana. This system allows her to click buttons and “check” tasks off for the day. She can use Asana for both personal and business tasks. On challenging days, she has more than enough tasks to keep her busy and she is able to switch between sets of tasks and shift gears to be able to continue getting that sense of accomplishment for the day as she focuses on something different. This also helps her take a break from what she may have found challenging and rework it later after she gets some other items off her to-do list.
Connect with Penny
To experience top-notch bookkeeping and tax services, connect with Penny Rose of Fe Fi Fo Fum Services through her website, LinkedIn, or Instagram. If you're inspired by her journey as a content creator, consider joining her mentorship program to elevate your own skills. Additionally, for a glimpse into her RV adventures, follow her on Instagram at ramblincampinroses. Whether you need professional assistance or creative inspiration, Penny Rose is your go-to expert.
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