Speaker 1: 0:00

Rarely does one encounter an individual with such adverse array of accomplishments from performing at Disney's opening ceremonies, securing a singing contract with Sony in Nashville, orchestrating citywide fireworks displays to substantiating fishtails with photographic evidence all while amassing accolades as an accountant. For Felicia, however, mathematics stands as a primary passion she pursued ardently. Her affinity for math blossomed during her junior year in high school, complementing her innate curiosity in dismantling and reassembling objects. Her multifaceted achievements underscore a career shaped by unwavering commitment and a profound appreciation for analytical rigor. Let's see what makes Felicia so buzzworthy. Welcome to the Buzzworthy Marketing Show for analytical rigor. Let's see what makes Felicia so buzzworthy. Welcome to the Buzzworthy Marketing Show. Welcome to the show, felicia. How are you doing today? I'm great.

Speaker 2: 0:58

Thank you, and thank you for having me.

Speaker 1: 1:04

No, I appreciate you taking the time to talk with our audience today and tell a little about your story and what's gotten you through and all that good stuff here. A quick question, though where are you calling it from first?

Speaker 2: 1:13

I am in the dead center of the Midwest, in the grit state of misery, as we like to call it.

Speaker 1: 1:19

I just moved from the dead center of Illinois.

Speaker 2: 1:23

I'm sorry, yes, the Spring center of.

Speaker 1: 1:24

Illinois. I'm sorry, yes, springfield Illinois. Now I live in the lush forests of Virginia.

Speaker 2: 1:32

Oh, I'm envious, I really am. So if you were in Illinois, then did you ever drive through?

Speaker 1: 1:38

the great city. Oh, we loved Illinois. We were big. Branson, uranus and St Louis were our three top.

Speaker 2: 1:45

So as you drove through St Louis down to Uranus and on to Branson, you bypassed me. I am right off of I-44 in Rolla, missouri. We are a very small community but a very large college community.

Speaker 1: 1:59

Ah, very, very cool. And now is this where did you grow up? In Missouri.

Speaker 2: 2:04

No, I did not when did you grow up in missouri? No, I did not.

Speaker 1: 2:07

I'm an indiana girl indiana girl born and raised hoosier uh, oh, I thought are you a big fan of? Uh, it was a caitlyn clark, yes, awesome, she's so inspiring. Where it's? Actually in indiana not too long ago and, um, everybody was talking about it and, like, everybody at the airport had Indiana because they were doing the sweet 16 or they were I think they were in the sweet 16 or the grade eight or whatever it is, and then the NCAA, so that was like a big deal. Everybody had a garb on and they were all talking about her. So that's awesome for her. So now in Indiana you got started in early age in entrepreneurialism If I have my numbers right, somewhere between 16 and 17 years old.

Speaker 2: 2:50

Actually a little bit younger, because I graduated at 17. Uh-oh I started my senior year of high school at 16. So I was 15 because I was in my junior year of high school. I was a very young high schooler.

Speaker 1: 3:07

Ah, very good, but you were doing something. You had a little side hustle in high school.

Speaker 2: 3:14

Such are you talking about my music career.

Speaker 1: 3:18

Yeah, let's talk about that first. We both have something in common at a very young age, I do have.

Speaker 2: 3:24

In high school I had a major in music with a minor in business, and I took nine years of vocals. So the pursuance of dance did not come until my daughter was born and that led me in a whole another direction, completely, of which I'm still in today. So, yeah, that's a whole different story in itself. But yes, I do have a music background, went to Nashville actually, and when my daughter was oh, let me see three, I talked to the president of Sony Records, had a music producer, all that fun stuff. But you know, there's no guarantees in the business and if you ever listen to anybody talk about that, you'll know I mean there's just no and it takes forever to get there. And I'm like, yeah, you know, my practice was just really getting off the ground at that point and on my own, and I thought, yeah, you know, my practice was just really getting off the ground at that point and on my own, and I thought, you know this?

Speaker 2: 4:28

is not the time nor the place, so it's the thanks I did. I bowed out.

Speaker 1: 4:31

But no, thank you, that's all right there. You know, um, you know I, I pursued my music career, did not get a call from any Sony executives for 15 years and I finally just said you know what, I'm just not tall enough, dark enough good looking enough for talent enough to make it so, um, it's just in the cards. You know everybody's got it going there. But you know, one of the things that got me into what I do is the jobs that kept me in music for 15 years I paid for a lot of my bandmates equipment along the way. I paid for a lot of my bandmates' equipment along the way.

Speaker 2: 5:06

I get that. I get that completely. You know, as I said, it's hard, that industry is really really hard. So you do kind of have to have two passions. You know what is your secondary passion? And mine just happened to be the fact that I love math and you know, with that, segueing into that is that math actually plays into music. Oh yeah, for 100%, it's all math, my dance world, which plays into the love that I've done for the last 25 years in the pyrotechnic world.

Speaker 2: 5:41

Ah, which is another whole avenue of who I am and why.

Speaker 1: 5:47

Now, how did you get? I saw that you did a huge product, a pyrotechnics production, and now, how did? How does one get into pyrotechnics?

Speaker 2: 5:57

By accident. You get roped in in the beginning of saying, hey, can you? You know somebody that is doing this right for their either passion or their living, and all of a sudden they're like we need an extra hand, Can you come out and help? And I'm like I have no clue what I'm doing and they're like that's okay, that's all right, We'll teach you. And it went from okay, we'll teach you to me actually moving forward and actually going and getting my pyrotechnic shooters license. Oh wow, then producing my own shows and creating my own shows, and I was actually shooting the shows for our hometown here. Um, for the last amazing, that is amazing.

Speaker 1: 6:39

I'm an unlicensed pyrotechnic shooter, so that was another. Yeah, we would go out to the lake, though it was always like shooting him out into the lake At the park or at the. This was in Oklahoma when I was in the Air Force. Oh, okay, we would go out. Yeah, we'd get a bunch of pyrotechnics. It was legal then. I don't know if it's still legal there, but we would go to the pyrotechnics shop and we'd find things that we could like mortars and all that good stuff. Sure, and around the lake it was Texoma, not Texoma Ten Killer Lake, I think is what it was called. And so you would see on the beaches, everybody kind of set up where they were camping, and so then, basically, you would have, like each beach take turns in their different shows, right?

Speaker 2: 7:27

No, the things that you were shooting off were what we call Class C fireworks. Yes, so the things that I shot off were Class A fireworks. Yes, which are the things that you shot off were A fireworks?

Speaker 1: 7:37

Yes, which?

Speaker 2: 7:37

are the things that you have to have a license to purchase.

Speaker 1: 7:41

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2: 7:41

So people just think about it this way. You know, when you're sitting back going, ooh, ah, that's really pretty. Look how cool that is. It's going 100 feet in the air. Right, I'm sitting back going oh my gosh, how much time do I have and how many shells do I have left? And you know, literally, Mr Metrodome did that by shows.

Speaker 1: 7:59

Oh, that's awesome, that's that's yeah, definitely, we were here in. And so Williamsburg is the home of Colonial Williamsburg, which is like history Disney is, my wife likes to say, and um, we went to a firework show for during Christmas and they call it the Great Illumination. It's like people from all over the world come to see this show and they do it over the old governor's mansion and there is a mall that goes right down the center, so everybody's kind of sitting there. They turn off all the lights and everything like that. They have a explosion every half second for over 20 minutes straight, and it's right there. They don't even get 100 feet in the air. I want to say maybe 75. So you're feeling the compression boom, boom right into your chest.

Speaker 1: 8:50

It was like this is awesome.

Speaker 2: 8:52

That was one of the things that I loved about shooting fireworks is that setting so close and the percussion being able to feel it in my chest? I would know, as soon as the shot went off, I could hear that. Then you feel it on the ground and I could feel it in here and I'm like, oh, it's good.

Speaker 1: 9:12

Ah, there it is, but that is a lot of music. It is exciting, yes, well, and fireworks is even harder than music because it's two sets of math, right.

Speaker 2: 9:22

Right.

Speaker 1: 9:22

Well, you got probably three sets of math, because you have the timing of when it's going to explode, which means that you have to then figure out how long it's going to get to where it needs to be to explode, and then all the timing for everything before and after that.

Speaker 2: 9:36

So I always, always said you know, I, I always had help. I mean, you can't do it by yourself, it takes a team. And my team, after we got to the point we knew how this, we were setting it up on the ground, right then they would go to work doing a lot of the wiring um to the box, and so they were doing the wiring. I was sitting at a picnic table with, okay, I have this many shells, I have this ground pieces. These ground pieces take this long to go off. The shells are going to go up. I have this much music now.

Speaker 2: 10:05

I didn't choreograph to the actual sound of the music but, I had to make the show last out of music that I had. So, okay, I, okay, I know how many I'm doing, so I'm like okay, well, I have these shells and this, so it's just all about, and you're right. So you had the time. Okay, it's going to go up and it's going to dissipate and you don't want to go too fast but, you also want to make sure that the other one is going up, is seeing that the first one's dissipating down? So there's always something flowing in the air.

Speaker 1: 10:37

Yes, I love it.

Speaker 2: 10:39

A lot of people don't realize the timing and the work that goes behind those shows. There is a lot. It's dangerous.

Speaker 1: 10:47

I'm a. Oh the danger. I mean I have seen. So in Alaska there was a city fireworks and they did it from the inlet, so they were actually on a floating barge and shot everything from there and everybody would look from the city downtown. And of course we have to do it in the middle of the winter when it's dark, because on 4th of July midnight it's still dusk and so we don't have as much, the only thing you could pray for is a cloud cover.

Speaker 1: 11:17

So yeah, at least had a backdrop and a little bit darker. But they actually had an accident one year it was quite a few years ago and something went sideways on the barge and the whole thing went.

Speaker 2: 11:32

It's easily done. It is very easily done. I mean, I had something go south in one of my shows and I'm looking at it going. I don't understand what happened and the show was over. Right, I have already shot my finale. I'm done. I'm waiting for the dust to settle so I can go clear the show. And as I'm waiting, I looked at one of the guys that I'm with and I'm like, and he's a dynamite instructor at the university and Paul, come look at this with me. I said we have a whole rack that didn't show.

Speaker 1: 12:05

Oh, unexploded ordnance, as we say in the military.

Speaker 2: 12:09

And he looks at me and he goes I don't get it, alicia. And I said I don't either. So as I'm walking up, all of a sudden I heard boom. Oh, no, and I felt and these were on time-delayed chains. Oh no, and there were 16 of them and I'm backpedaling and as I backpedal I fall. I said, well, I guess I'm going to watch this show from the ground peddling and as I kind of like fall, I said, well, I guess I'm going to watch this show from the brand and everybody else in the crowd is just going encore yay, that's exactly what they said.

Speaker 2: 12:41

They said what was that? I said oh, that was just my thank you.

Speaker 1: 12:44

I love it. Yes, the show must go on. Very theatrical of you. So, with your accounting firm, are you a generalist or have you found a niche of types of businesses that you liked? I guess I should say, are you a personal accountant or a business accountant?

Speaker 2: 13:05

So I'm a little of both.

Speaker 1: 13:06

Okay.

Speaker 2: 13:07

And to answer your question about my niche. So I have moved out of the full arena of offering full service accounting completely. I am strictly playing with, as I call it, I play in the sandbox of tax, the tax mitigation and resolution world.

Speaker 1: 13:26

I love it.

Speaker 2: 13:27

I'm one of those people that I just love to go look for that needle in the haystack. I love to be able to work with the IRS and say, hey, what gives? You know how can we fix this? You know what kind of agreements can we make? You know, it's all playing in that sandbox and that's the sandbox I love playing. You know I am an agent, as you well know. For those who don't know, but I also am a certified tax resolution consultant or representation consultant, and I'm a credited tax resolution consultant or representation consultant and I'm a credited tax advisor. So I always say I have two degrees in accounting, three conservative patients in tax. I just like laying that tax sandbox Again. What does that do for me?

Speaker 1: 14:06

It's all about math.

Speaker 2: 14:07

You know it's about the math.

Speaker 1: 14:09

Yeah, interpreting the math because you can do taxes is like fuzzy math to me, because if you look at the number this way, then the calculation goes this way. If you look at the number this way, the calculation goes this way.

Speaker 2: 14:21

And you know it's really funny. You say that because that's very true and it can be one box on a tax return that can throw everything. And I give you that example in Wholehearted yesterday I had a client company who did a self-prepared return. He goes, I have this notice. He goes, but I paid everything. I don't think. So I called the IRS. Sure enough it's a self-prepared return, one box. He got that box on one line off. So now it's all about amending the return and correcting it and making it right.

Speaker 1: 15:01

But he just couldn't see it. No, I don't understand how people even think about doing their own business tax returns Like sole proprietor. Maybe if you're under the 24,000 or something crazy like that and you're just doing a straight 1040A. Maybe, maybe, maybe. But I'm just like no, I mean, my first year in business I knew I lost money and I'm like I want to make full well sure that I take full advantage of my losses. So I paid the 1500 bucks in 2005. That was a lot of money for me.

Speaker 2: 15:28

It's not for anybody in today's economy, but you know, there's a lot of people that do their own returns, and that's okay. This individual, though, just happens to do his own return. Before what he does it by hand.

Speaker 1: 15:45

Uh-uh, mm-mm, not even doing that.

Speaker 2: 15:47

Get the books from the library, get the forms. I'm like, are you serious? That's your first problem.

Speaker 1: 15:55

Let's get into the 21st century Exactly.

Speaker 2: 16:01

He's a very well-educated individual and he just says you know, as I age, he said I just feel like it's one of those things that I still should be able to do. And I said, yes, but as we age, we miss things. So, when I call him today I say, oh, by the way, this was your worst day. And he goes why didn't somebody tell me that before? And I said because nobody really saw it, because you did it yourself.

Speaker 1: 16:24

You didn't let anybody else look at your books.

Speaker 2: 16:26

Well, even the IRS. He talked to the IRS himself and they couldn't see it. They didn't even see it, it's on the wrong line.

Speaker 1: 16:39

And you know what they were seeing was wrong.

Speaker 2: 16:40

Yeah, that makes sense. Some of the simplest things and I like to say it in the concept of line happens. Life gets in the way Life tends to. You know and I say that with all respect to anybody that does returns or anybody that's in our industry or that works with clients Life happens. So our clients come to us because something in their life happened.

Speaker 2: 17:06

Cause them to be where they are today. So have a little empathy right and be a little empathetic, but you also have to be a little strong and say look, I understand life happened. However, we need to get you fixed.