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Hey, what is up?
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Welcome to this episode of the Entrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.
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As always, I'm your host, brian LoFermento, and I'm so excited about today's episode and today's guest because this is someone who not only loves what he does and we're definitely going to talk about his subject matter expertise but this is someone who also loves entrepreneurship and all the possibilities that it opens up for all of us, on an individual level and on a community and engagement level.
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This is someone who loves the journey as much as he does the work that he's doing and how he positively helps people.
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So let me introduce you to today's guest.
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His name is Jerome McKenzie.
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Jerome is the founder and CEO of Arrowhead Strategy Group, where he helps startups and lower to middle market companies manage world-class accounting functions so that they can make better business decisions, which is important for all of us.
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He was born and raised in New Zealand.
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He founded his company, like I said, arrowhead Strategy Group in March of 2024.
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And, as I said, this is someone who really loves the journey, so I love he wrote it for me in his bio.
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He says I'm on a journey to build something great.
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We are all going gonna learn so much from Jerome today, not just about the accounting functions that he helps others with, but how to love that journey as well and, of course, how to build something great.
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So I'm excited about this one.
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I'm not gonna say anything else.
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Let's dive straight into my interview with Jerome McKenzie.
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All right, jerome.
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It's not every day that we're joined by a Kiwi who is in the freezing cold of Kansas City, but I have to say welcome to the show.
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Thank you.
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Thank you so much, happy to be here.
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Heck, yes.
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Well, I'm excited to hear your story and that love for the journey and building something great as well.
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Before we get to that stuff, take us beyond the bio.
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Who's Jerome?
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How'd you start doing all these cool things?
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Yeah, so, as you said, I'm born and raised in Auckland, new Zealand, and how I got to Kansas City, missouri, is a little atypical.
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One morning after my gap year after high school, I was just working as a house painter, trying to figure out what my next move was, what I wanted to do with my life, and I had always known two things for certain in life.
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One was that I always wanted to be a dad, and the other thing was that I had always wanted to be an entrepreneur and own my own business.
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Thing was that I had always wanted to be an entrepreneur and own my own business.
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Didn't know exactly what that meant, what that looked like, but those are the two things I've always known for certain.
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And one morning and I remember the date, it was January 17th 2017.
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I woke up and I was just had this empty feeling of that.
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There was like a calling of sorts uh, to come over to the us.
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I've never been to the states before, uh, but I just felt some, some sort of internal calling that there was something uh here for me and I thought, okay, well, I want to go to college, I want to get a degree again, don't know what degree.
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I want to, uh, wanted, wanted to pursue, but, uh, uh, all right, how can I do that over in the U?
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S?
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And then I, you know, do a little research and I found out, oh, college is expensive and coming from a family that, uh, you know, we didn't have an abundance of of money.
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And also, knowing that international students can't get scholarship, can't get financial aid, and over in US colleges, I had to figure out okay, well, how am I going to be able to do that then?
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And so I was like well, I see that you can get scholarships to come over and play different sports in college, which is not something that's actually in New Zealand.
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And so I picked a sport and I liked baseball.
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Watching baseball and in New Zealand we play baseball is not a big sport at all, but I played some fast pitch softball that's kind of the salt that and cricket or the big kind of bat and ball sports over there.
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So I came over, played some baseball, got a scholarship, was in West Burlington, iowa, for a semester, got hurt, got cut, drove down to Kansas City, tried out for a university here and spent the rest of my college upstairs to borrow her vacuum cleaner one day, and me and my roommate had never vacuumed our apartment in our three years of living there, and we had a dog, so you can imagine how atrocious that apartment was.
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They let us borrow it, returned it smelling like three years of dog hair.
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They swore never to let me borrow it again.
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They let me borrow it again and now, uh, that's my wife and kansas city's home jerome.
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I love that story for so many reasons.
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I'm sure your wife will love the fact that it's made its way onto the airwaves, being listened to by thousands of people in over 150 countries.
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But the fact that really stands out there is the fact that you've always followed that intuition and followed your nose wherever that took you, from New Zealand to Iowa to Kansas City and everywhere in between.
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I love how much you've always listened to those insides and that gut feeling of I want to be an entrepreneur and I also want to be open to possibilities and I want to pursue those possibilities.
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Talk to us about that entrepreneurial drive, because I find that it's two sides of the coin.
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Either someone says I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur or I had no idea.
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I wanted to be an entrepreneur and I fell into it.
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Where'd that early drive come from and how did that land in your head?
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I think the biggest role that that played was my dad has always been self-employed and he's never in my entire life worked for another company, so that was what I grew up around, and then I just had a natural kind of gravitation towards that.
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I'm not much of a person who has, you know, growing up liked authority.
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I like to challenge limits.
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I like to challenge you know the reasons why for doing things and and so I've just always kind of been drawn to it, for even from a kind of young age.
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Yeah, I love that, especially challenging authority.
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It's something that we all face and I think it even shows in your university travels of saying, yeah, I'm going to try for this team and I'm going to use my levels of achievement, my capabilities, to pave my own path.
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So I really appreciate that part of your journey, especially knowing that you've leveraged those skills along the way to, of course, start a business that is doing really important work through Arrowhead Strategy Group.
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Talk to us about that real world transition from studying accounting, helping other businesses with it, to now running a business of your own studying accounting, helping other businesses with it, to now running a business of your own, yeah, so I had worked for a couple of different accounting firms doing accounting finance consulting, first for a big public accounting firm that has offices all around the world.
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Within the first week I realized that the climbing the corporate ladder was just not going to be my path.
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And then I moved and I was working for a startup and I enjoyed that a whole lot more, but still there was just the aspect of it, that aspect of it that my like a lack of control of really.
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Basically, like I've always known that I've wanted to be directly responsible for the outcome of my life, whether that was success or failure.
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I wanted my inputs, my efforts to be to determine the output of my life.
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And and it's kind of funny how I kind of got into starting an accounting firm I discovered back in early 2022, I believe the whole concept of buying an existing small business, you know, with SBA financing, kind of the self-funded searcher model, and I went all in on that, almost closed on a business actually in your home of Tampa when we lived in Florida a couple years ago, and my only criteria at the time for pursuing that was that I thought I absolutely don't want to buy an accounting firm.
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And it was through that process of no-transcript and that was pretty sad for me to see.
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And so that's the idea that kind of sparked Starting Our Head.
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It was that I wanted to help business owners maximize the value for their life's work, for their business.
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And I started it off with kind of what I knew which was having different clients and effectively serving as their accounting function in their businesses.
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And then through a friend of mine who owns a sell side M&A advisory firm, stonebridge advisors he I was talking through this idea with him of I just want to get a few clients and build it up, and then kind of to the point where I could replace my income and then figure out what I want to do.
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Because I was going through beginning of last year a bit of a transformation on kind of reflecting which way I wanted to go with my life and whether buying a business was the right path for me, what kind of business kind of.
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I was kind of lost at that point.
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But just over a year ago and he said so you want to start an accounting firm?
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I was like well, no, because I was set on this idea that that was what I never wanted to buy.
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And I said I just want to get some clients and then figure out what I want to do.
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And he said, so you want to start an accounting firm?
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And I was like, well, yeah, I guess so technically.
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And then the next day I decided to go all in on it and he said something that was pretty influential in how I went about it, because I thought it was something that I could build up and then quit my job and then go from there.
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And he put in me the idea to, if you don't have a plan B, then you will make your plan A work.
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And so I went that route and I quit my job with no clients, with not much saved in the bank, and I and just like a very small, you know, a few years of a 401k built up that I was ready to liquidate and kind of cover, give me a runway of about six or seven months.
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And then, as soon as I did that, things started falling into place.
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And he was, you know, he was right, and I'm really glad I did it that way.
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Yeah, jerome, burn the boats.
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That's always been one of my favorite historical stories, because when early settlers burned the boats, they had no other choice.
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It has to work.
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And hearing that about you, jerome, I just feel like this is already a recurring theme this early on in our conversation today, which is that you consistently bet on yourself, something that you said in there.
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You said I want to be the one that controls my outcomes in life.
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You want to be that one, jerome, but that's because you believe in yourself, that's because you bet on yourself.
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Talk to me about that mindset.
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I would imagine that kind of the baseball player inside of you, the athlete, the person who believes in yourself that manifests in all aspects of your life.
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I'd love to get into that mindset that powers you and enables you to make that bet that a lot of people are afraid of.
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Yeah, and, to be honest, like that's something that has been a huge transformation in myself to build, especially over the last year.
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Um, the person that I was a year ago, uh, compared Like, for example, a year ago, when I like I would wake as soon as I had my last day at my former job.
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I would wake up and the routine for the first couple of months was wake up, feel like I'm going to be sick, question what I was, what I had done, and then have to get into the mindset to kind of take action that day and to make what I'm trying to do a reality.
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And, like the mindset piece has been something that has at times been a struggle, but it's something that I know how important it is, that I know how important it is and really it's.
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There's a book that I now read every single day.
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It's kind of like my own personal Bible that I read a chapter of it every day and my intention is to continue doing that till the day I die.
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Is this book called the master key system?
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It's it's older than Think and Grow Rich, but it's based around the same concept of the laws of the universe and it focuses a lot as well on the belief that you have to have internally to be able to create those results in your external world.
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And it makes a lot of sense for me, when you think about it, like when you zoom out and you can actually think about just the concept and separate it from yourself that if you don't believe fully in what you're setting out to do, or in yourself, then it's going to make things very, very difficult to become reality.
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And so that's really the biggest like that's the things from like that book and then, you know, from other books like it, and is really now the pillars of what I base my life on.
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And it's really centered around for me, knowing what's important for me, what kind of life I want, what my purpose is, what values that I stand for, and basing every single decision in my life around those things.
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So for me it's my family, it's my wife, it's my future kids like God willing and being able to be able to feel and see the type of life that I want, and that then translates into my business purpose, which is what am I passionate about?
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Cause, like, if, if I'm, if, if anyone in my industry is being completely honest, there's a there's a limit to how passionate you can be about accounting and numbers, right, it's a very data driven, analytical, black and white industry, but I found my why in that and something just in my life in general that is what I'm passionate about is helping people, and so I've found a way to All right.
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So if I am passionate about helping people, how can I base my business around that?
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And that's what I, so that's how I run my business and how I operate my business, and the thing that I'm most passionate about in my business is the relationships that I can make with people, and I'm very blessed and fortunate to have clients that value those things as well and have really, really great relationships.
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And, like my goal is always to have the relationships with anyone who I meet in life, whether it's a client or otherwise, to go deeper than a transactional level, because transactional relationships I I, quite frankly, I, I really I really don't like them.
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Um, they make me feel kind of uncomfortable, like just the feeling of something that's just solely based on a transaction.
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Uh, I don't, I don't like.
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And so I just asked myself the question why?
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Why do I have to have relationships that are just transactional and that's what I don't?
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Yeah, jerome, so many powerful insights in there.
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You really make me think of that Henry Ford quote that I've long been a fan of, where he said whether you think you can or you can't, you're right and it happens from within our minds.
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And that's really cool to hear how, on a daily basis, you are practicing that.
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That's the stuff that you're putting into your mind.
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So it doesn't surprise me that it manifests itself in not only your business but in your life, and I think that it's so clear how much you're value-driven in the way that you operate across the board.
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You brought up that important pillar of relationships to you and I feel like it's advice that a lot of entrepreneurial podcasts have.
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We read it in business books.
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Talk to us about those relationships, because I'm with you.
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I mean you and I.
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Before we hit record today, we actually didn't even talk about business at all.
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We talked about geography, we talked about things that you and I had in common, and so we got to, and I very much look forward to the day we get to have a coffee together in person and it's clear to me that that's the way that you operate.
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Talk to us about that relationship building because, especially newer entrepreneurs.
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I think that they are so focused on sales, they are so focused on their accounting and their financial situation that they forget about true relationships.
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So take us there, jerome.
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Yeah, no, focus on sales, which, like I very quickly uh realized that that is, you know, that is, uh, one of my biggest jobs now is is sales, uh, and sales is also something that I uh I have always historically kind of attached a negative feeling, negative uh connotation towards, because a mentor of mine once used the phrase sales, sales breath, which I love to kind of refer back to.
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You know, like the kind of the feeling when you you might have if you go to like a car dealership or you know the, the, you know door-to-door salesmen that really come across with like that sales breath, and I was like, uh, all right, I, that is something that I don't want to have.
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And so how can I, how can I make the sales component not feel salesy to me?
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And then it all came, came back to okay, well, well, what do I love doing?
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And it's having conversations with people, building relationships with people that go deeper than just that top surface level call is to my sole goal, when you know, meeting a new person, whether it's a prospective client or just anyone new, is to get on and just to see how much I can connect with that person, and then really everything is just based around kind of the, the core values that I've uh set as kind of non-negotiables for my life.
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So authenticity, uh, having empathy, uh a really important one for me, being a net giver.
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So how can I, how can I engage in like a uh a competition of generosity and and try and give, uh give value to, to, to you or to someone else?
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Another one that is something I practice every day is gratitude and always being grateful for where I'm at the growth I've had the things I have, the growth of I've had the things I have another one and taking intentional action every day that align with the rest of your purpose and your mission in life, and then always having an abundance mindset, even though that one can be.
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You know that can be tricky.
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Some days are harder than others.
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You know that can be tricky, some days, uh, harder than others.
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But um, yeah, the relationship side of things is um is the most important thing for me and um like uh.
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You might be familiar with uh an old clip of simon sinek where he talks about the uh, the how and why, and a lot of companies go from the what, the how, and then they don't know what their why is, but the great companies and he talked about the Wright Brothers and Apple start with why?
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Obviously his book, obviously his book, and and so that's a.
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That's another great lens that I like to look at at my business through is at the beginning of it all, you know, the idea that sparked it all was a why and it was to to help people.
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And then it was was, then it was kind of figuring out all right, how can I do that?
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Um, and so, knowing what my why is, and then uh from the beginning, and then working, uh, working out from there has, uh, is, is the way I like to do it.
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It's the way that that allows me to wake up every morning excited and where a Monday morning feels the exact same as a Friday afternoon to me.
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And yeah, yeah, jerome, I'll tell you what.
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Hearing all of this, I would say from the outside, looking in and just having looked at your work and having a chance to interact with you here today, it's not just about your why.
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What I really appreciate is that you also love the journey.
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It's something that I teased at the very top of today's episode, and the more you and I interact, I think of that quote.
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I'm obviously a sucker for quotes, the way that you're a sucker for books and obtaining the wisdom of others through that mechanism.
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I love that quote of the man who loves walking will walk farther than the man who loves the destination.
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Talk to us about the journey, because I'll tell you this as the host of this show for over 1100 episodes.
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I think the one thing that plagues entrepreneurs the most is impatience for results.
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They're all looking for that result, whereas I think it's safe to say for both you and I that we love the entrepreneurial journey, which sometimes means results are going to be delayed, sometimes it's going to feel like the results are never going to come at all, but we have to keep walking along that journey.
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Talk to us about the mindset behind that.
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Yeah, no, it's, and again, that's another, that's another thing that has uh, I feel, at least for me it has.
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It's something that you have to work on and you have to keep reminding yourself, uh, uh, how important it is.
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As you know, the most important thing, and it's, um, like the journey is, uh, is 99 of it, and I think you know it's, there's, there's, like there's always going to be.
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You know, especially in like you're in business to to make a profit, to earn money, and you know what that money can do for you and your company and the people you can help with it.
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Like that's all important stuff, but, um, the, the way I think about it as well, is that I, those are results of the daily things you do day in, day out, and staying true to your purpose and your mission.
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Like that will create the results, uh, and which you know, the destination, whether those are kind of destinations along the way and or, or if you have a, you know, a big end goal type thing.
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So, like I, um the journey is just if it, it becomes easier to do for me when I do things that are in line with my purpose and with what I'm passionate about and what gives me fulfillment, and it's uh, it's it just makes more sense to me to do things you enjoy, so that every day along that journey it's a journey of growth.
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There might be a couple of weeks where things are hard and you don't see the results of the effort you've put in, don't see the results of the effort you've put in, and, but when you keep pushing and you get past those barriers, those hard, you know the uphill battles because it's you know, the growth in your business and your life is not linear.
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It ebbs and flows and it's, I think, that's a big differentiator between, um, the people that, the people that love the journey and and uh, focus on that, they'll push through the hard times and push through the, the periods of doubt, uh, and scarcity.
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And if you can just keep pushing through each day and learn from the things, your shortcomings, your failures, any challenges that you face, and just welcome those, welcome every challenge, I mean over the last year, every single moment that was I thought was a bad thing in that time, or a big challenge, um, after I overcome it and push through it, there are things that those are the things that I'm most grateful for, uh, that I I'm glad happened and that's been a common theme throughout my entire life.
00:27:53.934 --> 00:28:13.190
Anything, any hardship that I've ever gone through, in that moment they seem like a terrible thing that you wish wasn't happening, but those are the things that shape the person you are and shape kind of the life that you have and the resilience you have to overcome those things.
00:28:13.190 --> 00:28:17.971
And so I've just I've learned to love it.
00:28:17.971 --> 00:28:34.301
I love challenging days, I love all the hard things that life can throw at you, because I know that I'm not going to quit and I'm going to push through those things and I'm going to learn the lessons that they teach you and come out on the other side better for it.
00:28:35.109 --> 00:28:38.773
Yeah, jerome, I'll be honest with you, I totally join you in that sentiment.
00:28:38.773 --> 00:28:52.761
On those very difficult days, the words that ring in my own mind is I always think this is what would make other people quit, this is what makes other people should quit, and that's where I dig in and I always remind myself I'm not other people.
00:28:52.761 --> 00:28:59.779
This is going to be one of those reasons of many along my journey why I'm going to succeed, and so I so appreciate hearing that.
00:28:59.779 --> 00:29:03.778
I have no idea how you're going to top all of this wealth of knowledge and insights for our listeners.
00:29:03.778 --> 00:29:07.715
But my last question I always ask what's your one best piece of advice?
00:29:07.715 --> 00:29:16.223
Knowing that we're being listened to by both entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs at all different stages of their own growth journeys, what's that one piece of advice that you want to leave them with today?
00:29:17.230 --> 00:29:25.217
Yeah, it's hard, but I think it'd probably be something that I actually wrote down today, this morning, when I was writing.
00:29:25.217 --> 00:29:41.121
I think the biggest thing is mastering your mindset and, as a result of that, to have faith in yourself.
00:29:41.121 --> 00:30:05.498
For me, I know that I'm able to look like, be able to see that if I don't do a certain thing because it seems hard or scary, those are the things that I don't want to get to the end of my life and regret having not done.
00:30:05.498 --> 00:30:21.012
You know, like life is too short to die with regrets of not doing things, die with regrets of not doing things.
00:30:21.012 --> 00:31:21.586
And I think, for anyone out there who is questioning whether they should or can or start a business or do this or that, that my biggest piece of advice would be if it aligns, if you truly feel it in your gut and if it aligns with your life's values, if you are passionate about that thing, whatever that is and it doesn't even have to be something in business you're going to regret it more if you don't try it, and so, with that, it would just be just take the leap and just have faith in yourself, because anything that you I truly think that if you, that's the biggest, hardest part is to really really have faith that you can do what you're trying to do.
00:31:21.586 --> 00:31:41.247
So yeah, that haven't been doing this for 10 plus years.
00:31:41.589 --> 00:31:42.935
I'm 26 years old.
00:31:42.935 --> 00:31:50.103
What business do I have in starting an accounting company?
00:31:50.103 --> 00:31:51.023
I don't know everything.
00:31:51.023 --> 00:32:25.480
I don't have the experience that a lot of people have, but there's the things that I did know is that whatever I come across, I know that I'll figure it out and I know that I will out-care and outwork anyone else in my own mind, which gave me the belief that I can do it and and if you just write off that, it'll be like I.
00:32:25.480 --> 00:32:31.317
I can almost guarantee, if you can align those things with your purpose, you can.
00:32:31.317 --> 00:32:33.396
Anyone can achieve anything that you.
00:32:33.396 --> 00:32:34.935
That age is just a number.
00:32:34.935 --> 00:32:35.578
Experience is just a number.
00:32:35.578 --> 00:32:36.170
Experience is just a number.
00:32:36.170 --> 00:32:44.230
If you have the drive and the belief in yourself that you can do it, you can do anything yes, 100.
00:32:44.991 --> 00:32:48.038
I so deeply agree with that advice that you gave.
00:32:48.038 --> 00:32:48.358
Jerome.
00:32:48.358 --> 00:32:51.613
I'm so grateful for you coming here on the air and sharing it with our listeners.
00:32:51.613 --> 00:32:58.960
You are an entrepreneur down to your very core and I'm so appreciative of the work that you're doing and the way that you're doing it.
00:32:58.960 --> 00:33:12.609
And I think that all too often in business we talk about unique selling, differentiators and unique selling propositions, and I think that the biggest uniqueness that we all have is ourselves and the way that we think and our own values, and you're such a shining example of that.
00:33:12.609 --> 00:33:13.571
Even in your advice.
00:33:13.571 --> 00:33:19.042
It's clearly advice that you have followed, so I'm really grateful for you coming on the air and sharing that with people.
00:33:19.042 --> 00:33:26.829
I also know that listeners will be keen to go deeper into all the great work that you're doing, the way that you're helping other businesses make those smarter financial decisions.
00:33:26.829 --> 00:33:28.576
So drop those links on us, jerome.
00:33:28.576 --> 00:33:30.217
Where should listeners go from here?
00:33:31.711 --> 00:33:38.146
Yeah, so if you want to reach me uh on linkedin, it's jerome mckenzie.
00:33:38.146 --> 00:33:43.936
Uh, I think you're gonna put a link uh on the on the description to that.
00:33:43.936 --> 00:33:57.523
Um, our website is arrowheadstrategygroupcom and I can be reached also directly via email, jerome j-a-r--O-M-E at arrowheadsgcom.
00:33:58.285 --> 00:34:00.135
Yes, listeners, you already know the drill.
00:34:00.135 --> 00:34:01.977
Jerome already made my life easy here today.
00:34:01.977 --> 00:34:04.336
We're dropping those links down below in the show notes.
00:34:04.336 --> 00:34:08.376
No matter where it is that you're tuning into today's episodes, you don't have to go hunting very far.
00:34:08.376 --> 00:34:10.972
Just click right on through from the show notes down below.
00:34:10.972 --> 00:34:16.039
So, jerome, on behalf of myself and all the listeners worldwide, thanks so much for coming on the show today.
00:34:17.021 --> 00:34:18.041
Thank you so much.
00:34:18.041 --> 00:34:18.842
This was great.
00:34:18.842 --> 00:34:20.304
I appreciate you having me.
00:34:26.070 --> 00:34:28.539
Hey, it's Brian here, and thanks for tuning in to yet another episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.
00:34:28.539 --> 00:34:31.070
If you haven't checked us out online, there's so much good stuff there.
00:34:31.070 --> 00:34:40.250
Check out the show's website and all the show notes that we talked about in today's episode at thewantrepreneurshowcom, and I just want to give a shout out to our amazing guests.
00:34:40.250 --> 00:34:49.139
There's a reason why we are ad free and have produced so many incredible episodes five days a week for you, and it's because our guests step up to the plate.
00:34:49.181 --> 00:34:51.172
These are not sponsored episodes.
00:34:51.172 --> 00:34:52.775
These are not infomercials.
00:34:52.775 --> 00:34:56.262
Our guests help us cover the costs of our productions.
00:34:56.262 --> 00:35:07.211
They so deeply believe in the power of getting their message out in front of you, awesome wantrepreneurs and entrepreneurs, that they contribute to help us make these productions possible.
00:35:07.211 --> 00:35:15.710
So thank you to not only today's guests, but all of our guests in general, and I just want to invite you check out our website because you can send us a voicemail there.
00:35:15.710 --> 00:35:17.054
We also have live chat.
00:35:17.054 --> 00:35:21.653
If you want to interact directly with me, go to thewantrepreneurshowcom.
00:35:21.653 --> 00:35:23.097
Initiate a live chat.
00:35:23.097 --> 00:35:32.507
It's for real me, and I'm excited because I'll see you, as always every Monday, wednesday, friday, saturday and Sunday here on the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.
