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Meet Trailblazer Brittany Lanphier

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Brittany Lanphier.

So, before we jump into specific questions about what you do, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I am a CPA, business advisor, and passionate entrepreneur! Along with my husband (a fellow CPA and tax attorney), we have spent the last 10 years building a unique and specialized boutique CPA firm in Downtown Denver from the ground up. I started this business when I was just 25 years old, coming out of a Big 4 “churn and burn” firm, with just a handful of bookkeeping and tax clients. At that time, I never would have imagined that in just a decade we would grow it to over a million dollars in revenue, hundreds of unique clients, and five employees. I am especially proud that I have accomplished all of this while becoming a mom to three little girls over during that same stretch! Ha, I feel like I have barely slept in the past decade!

In the last few years, I have also acquired may be the most surprising title of all – successful network marketer! Who me? I went from being a skeptic and a semi-hater of the industry in general to one of it’s most proud and ardent advocates. While in the midst of some frustrating health struggles while postpartum with my second daughter, I stumbled across some natural health supplements from Plexus Worldwide that completely transformed my health and wellbeing. Over a matter of a few months, I felt totally renewed in my capacity to be the mom, wife, employer, and entrepreneur that I knew I could be. I began devouring information on WHY it had helped me so much, and everything came back to gut health and adrenal fatigue. Apparently, the stress of building a business while making and raising babies had officially caught up with me! Plexus gave me “me” back in that difficult season, and I will be forever grateful for that.

At first, I had absolutely no intention of developing a business around these products. But they had helped me so much, I just started telling friends and family that I knew had related issues. And suddenly the commission checks were rolling in! Because I have a solid business brain, I started to understand the company, the compensation model, and the industry much better. I finally saw the incredible potential of developing a side stream of residual income that wasn’t tied to a fee-for-service model. Entrepreneurship comes with an unbelievable amount of pressure and stress, and I started to envision a life that could give us the flexibility and financial breathing room to continue growing our successful accounting practice without working ourselves to the point of burnout and missing our daughters’ childhoods.

Three years later, my passion for my network marketing business is now two-fold. One, I get to share my health story regularly, which allows me to connect with women of all walks of life and offer hope. I have realized that as women we become incredibly isolated in our health struggles, and we often turn that inwardly into feelings of shame and inadequacy. I love, as a successful career woman and mom, to just have the chance to be vulnerable and share where I struggled, what I have learned, and what has helped me. Secondly, I now get to use my passion for business and entrepreneurship to coach and develop other female business leaders. I can work with people of all education levels, skill sets, and resources and show them the power of diversifying and growing a second income stream without taking on all the risk and stress of traditional business ownership. Working with these fellow business owners has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life!

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Entrepreneurship is never a totally smooth road. At times, it has asked more of me that I thought I had to give! My first daughter was born ON Tax Day in 2011, and my third daughter surprised us early 4 days right before another tax deadline. I spent the first few days of her life (post-C-Section) reviewing tax returns in the hospital! As a business owner, you just do what you have to do to keep the wheels turning.

I also found myself hitting a wall so to speak a few years ago in terms of my ability to lead and grow our practice. I went from being a solo practitioner to someone who had to hire, motivate, empower, and develop staff. I was also faced almost daily with the need to make difficult decisions that I felt ill-equipped for. One of the unexpected benefits of my network marketing business has been its capacity for an emphasis on personal growth and leadership development. Through it, I have read books and developed skills that I never otherwise would have. It has allowed me to “raise my lid” on my capacity to grow my traditional business successfully and strategically. I joke that business executives will often pay thousands of dollars a year for business development and leadership training to acquire these skills. I just so happened to find some that pay me thousands of dollars per year!

My best advice to anyone interested in entrepreneurship is just not to pre-judge any opportunity. I used to look down on network marketing as not a “real” business or career option. Now, it’s my mission to show other women that it can be a pathway to creating the lifestyle they want for themselves and their families. Trust me, the lifestyle of a traditional brick-and-mortar business owner might not be ideal for everyone, but network marketing done the right way can provide all the rewards of entrepreneurship with a fraction of the overhead, pressure, and time commitment. If a more traditional route is for you, just be prepared for the time, emotional, and financial resources it is going to take to make it successful.

We’d love to hear more about Lanphier LLP & Plexus Worldwide.
Our CPA firm provides a really unique approach to client service that emphasizes advisory and planning services over just the typical tax prep and accounting services offered by most firms. We focus on what I call the “small but sophisticated” clients – ones that are small in scale (usually owner-managed small businesses) but have nuance and complexity in their information that requires planning and strategy. We are able to fill a niche in the market place for clients that aren’t satisfied with the big firms (where they feel like the small fish in the pond) but often find that small firms can’t provide the level of strategic advice they know that their growing business needs.

Personally, I am just proud to be in a position to empower business owners – especially women – from so many distinct industries, fields, and walks of life. Most of us spend our lives operating from a place of fear, insecurity, and scarcity. I work every day to be a voice that opens people’s eyes to what is possible on the other side of that fear and then to equip them with the tools to accomplish it.

Finding a mentor and building a network are often cited in studies as a major factor impacting one’s success. Do you have any advice or lessons to share regarding finding a mentor or networking in general?
No one tells you this going in, but entrepreneurship is ISOLATING. Nobody understands what you have invested financially, mentally, and emotionally in your business. Being an entrepreneur and a young mom? Even MORE isolating. I couldn’t join the playgroups or the volunteer at my kids’ preschool like some of the other moms. But I was also too busy to join traditional business networking or mentoring groups like many other business owners.

When I joined Plexus, I didn’t realize I was joining a sisterhood of other motivated, achieving boss babes! Rather than thinking my life as a traditional business owner was intimidating or alienating, they celebrated it. I was able to find the support, encouragement, and friendships that I didn’t even know that I needed, and it has carried me through multiple tax seasons and phases of difficult growth in both businesses. It has honestly been one of the first times in my life that I have felt truly “at home” in a group of women. While it isn’t something I ever expected for myself, I know that I would not have reached the levels of professional success or financial security that I have now without this community.

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Image Credit:
Lisa Turner Photography

Getting in touch: VoyageDenver is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.

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