Formation Solutions client Brenda Zamzow-Frazier is a hard working woman. As owner of the Zamzow Group, Inc., a financial and accounting consulting firm based in Los Angeles, Brenda has built a successful business with clients in the entertainment, non-profit, and manufacturing industries, among others.

Formation Solutions helped Brenda set up The Zamzow Group as a corporation about 5 years ago. Now, the Zamzow Group is a leader in financial and accounting consulting. We recently caught up with Brenda to learn about how her business has fared since its incorporation.

The Zamzow Group offers all manner of financial services—often in the form of interim CFOs and controllers—from day to day accounting to financial planning, strategizing, and cost analysis.

The company has been feature by the Los Angeles Business Journal, on two of its “Top” lists in LA County: 25 Largest Temporary Placement Firms, and 100 Largest Women Owned Businesses.

The Zamzow Group has been granted a prestigious and widely-recognized certification by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) as a Women’s Business Enterprise (WBE).

History

Brenda decided to start her own business based on her success as a corporate financial consultant and experience at an Internet start-up company. Though she’d always thought of herself as a “corporate gal”, Brenda wasn’t afraid to jump in and start the Zamzow Group with limited resources. “My gut just said, this is what you were meant to do. This is the culmination of everything you’ve done in your career and in your life up until this point.”

Brenda was both excited and nervous when she came to Formation Solutions with the goal to make the Zamzow Group a registered corporation. In order to bolster her confidence as she ventured into self-employment for the first time, Brenda used a quote from her CPA. “He said, most businesses fail because the business owner is fearful of something.”

Instead of wasting time being afraid, Brenda hired experts and tapped her past network in order to make the connections that could assist in getting the Zamzow Group off the ground.

Formation Solutions streamlined the entire process of becoming a corporation, making it transition as smooth as possible for Brenda to start the Zamzow Group.

“It was a great, great decision on my part to leave it to the experts. I didn’t have a clue about what I needed to do to be registered and all the filings and everything. You guys were a great value. You took care of everything and then handed me a book and a disk and a bunch of stuff and said here you go, here’s your corporation. It was a breeze.”

In the last five years, the Zamzow Group has established a solid presence in Los Angeles. Brenda works out of an Arlington Heights office and keeps costs low by hiring contractors, mostly culled from a rolodex of business relationships and friendships acquired during her years as a corporate worker. “All the clients, referrals sources, and other people I’ve worked with in the past now work for me,” says Brenda.

Advice for Other Entrepreneurs

Though profits have remained since the business’ creation, the Zamzow Group has felt some effects of the recession. Brenda uses lessons from her own experience as a business owner to sustain profitability.

“The hardest lesson I learned in my business is that you do need to save for a rainy day and you need to be careful not to grow too fast. Especially if it’s your own company. Some of the money you make during the good times really should be put away and not necessarily poured back into the business.”

http://www.thezamzowgroup.com/

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We’re always excited to see a Formation Solutions client in the news. Brenda Zamzow-Frazier is one of the hardest-working business owners I know, and she deserves all the success in the world. She’s built The Zamzow Group, Inc., a company that provides accounting and finance professionals, from the ground up.

She was recently featured in the Los Angeles Business Journal.

Business Owner Hits the Links to Make Connections

As a female business owner in the male-dominated world of finance,
Brenda Zamzow-Frazier said she has developed a strategy for “dealing
with the boys.” 

“A fair amount of my ability to interact with the boys in business comes
from playing golf,” said Zamzow-Frazier, chief executive of accounting
services and financial consulting firm the Zamzow Group. “It puts me
in the same league with them.”

While hitting the links offers an opportunity to connect with her male
peers, she interacts with her female counterparts through the L.A.
chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners. She
was recently elected treasurer of the group, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy organization for women entrepreneurs.

Zamzow-Frazier she said that didn’t always know she would become a business owner. When she first moved to Los Angeles in 1987, she worked for large corporations Ernst & Young and Fox Entertainment Group.

“I thought I would always be a corporate gal,” she said.

Her point of view changed when she “caught the entrepreneurial bug” working for an Internet start-up from 2000 to 2001. “I realized the buzz and energy you can get from being a decision-maker,” she said. She launched the Zamzow Group on Jan. 1, 2004.

Full story is here (PDF):
http://www.thezamzowgroup.com/Media/LABJ%20NEWSMAKERS%20INTERVIEW%2011-16-09%20CC.pdf

Check out The Zamzow Group at http://www.thezamzowgroup.com/.

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