Welcome to The Unique CPA podcast, where we go beyond the numbers to highlight the people and the ideas reshaping the accounting profession with intention, innovation, and humanity. Today’s guest is Allanté Collier. She is founder and CEO of Streamline & Scale, an operations management agency helping growth-minded leaders build businesses that run smoothly without them even being at the center of everything. Allanté is a strategist, a system builder, a freedom architect with more than a decade of experience in process improvement—which we talked about before we started recording, this is not my expertise—but she definitely has the process improvement, quality assurance, and scaling service businesses. Her mission: to help entrepreneurs reclaim their time, protect their profit, and build what she calls a famine-proof infrastructure. Allanté, welcome to The Unique CPA.

Woo, Randy! What an intro, that was amazing! That was phenomenal! Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here.

Well, I’m glad you’re here. We’ve been—how long have we been trying to do this? It’s been quite a while.

Oh, it’s been some months, Randy. But we’re here. We made it.

We’re here. We got it done. I’ve got a feeling that I probably had to reschedule a couple times, so I apologize for that. But thank you for being patient.

All good. 

So I gave you a—actually, ChatGPT gave you an intro there. I’ve been using ChatGPT lately and they pretty—I mean, you have to edit and everything, but it does a nice job, I think, explaining the things that you’re working on. But why don’t you give us a little more on your background? Because we’re going to talk about that famine-proof infrastructure. You know, you’re in the business of longevity, if I said that correctly. But why don’t you give us a little background on yourself and what you’re doing.

Absolutely. Well, first and foremost, I’m from Atlanta, Atlanta native, and my background is in engineering, industrial engineering to be exact. And shortly after college, I got into the construction industry. I was doing some project management over automation and controls. And Randy, you know, I’m one of those people—I loved the company I was working with, I loved the people I was working with, I loved the work that I was doing, but I did not like being kept in a box. I did not like being limited. And so in December of 2019, that’s when I had that big corporate escape, that big leap. 

Back in early 2020, pre-pandemic, I was doing something very different from what I’m doing today. I had bought my first home, my first investment property at the age of—what, 22, 23? And I had turned that into an Airbnb. Then I had a travel business. Honestly, back then I was living my best life. But I like to say the pandemic was one of those things that was a blessing in disguise because it allowed me to bring everything full circle. Instead of me—back then, I was very young. I had it all, I had the condo in the city, the travel, all of that goodness—but I was empty inside. I wasn’t fulfilled, right? So there’s a saying, I “went from chasing paper to chasing purpose.” 

So I was able to bring everything full circle when the pandemic did start, or did hit us. It was like March 2020. I was in Seattle at that time. Unfortunately, I had to shut down my businesses. I had to shut down that Airbnb, the travel business. We were just stuck inside. Those were my replacement income streams from corporate. Back then I’m like, well, what am I going to do? So I transitioned completely online and that’s when the whole famine-proof business started. And I got into building my personal brand online, built a following, I was on Facebook at that time. Back then, I decided to start an attraction marketing company, because I was gifted with starting businesses, getting them off the ground, getting them profitable really quickly. So a lot of people, they struggled with getting clients, getting cash flow, and so I just said, you know, why not market in a way that’s in alignment with who you truly are and how you want to show up in this world? 

So I did that, asked my clients, got their clients, got their business off the ground, got the cash flow, now they’re chained to their desk in business. So that’s when the engineer brain started kicking in and that’s when I pivoted into business consulting. At that time we were just a consulting company, but due to demand, we were only so big, I had to go the agency route. So July of 2022, that’s when I launched Streamline & Scale, which is the operations management agency, where we specialize in famine-proofing businesses, making sure that not only can you sustain your success, but regardless of what economic or environmental disaster happens, your business will survive. There’s a recession that’s been lingering for who knows how long around the corner, so with all of this talk that’s going on around the world, the last thing that we want to think about is will your business survive? Will your business be here next year, three years, five, ten years down the road? So luckily, I was able to create a famine-proof blueprint, and that’s what we do.

So I assume the famine-proof building, famine-proof infrastructures, is synonymous with where you say we’re in the business of longevity, is that the same or are those…? Okay.

Absolutely, yeah. And there was a statistic for my community that Black women, we were starting businesses quicker and faster than anyone else—we were also closing businesses quicker and faster than anyone else. So, you know, outside of that, I’m like, first, I don’t want anyone to ever have to experience what I had to, having to shut down businesses, especially after corporate replacement income streams, left to think what’s next? You have no clue. And so there are—I feel like there’s three core components within your business that you can instill. This all comes from, we have a proprietary operating system that we implement with our clients. But once you have this in place, it really doesn’t matter whether we’re in a recession, a depression, whether the world is on fire, your business will withstand the test of time, and that’s what we’re here for. We’re in the business of longevity. So yes, that’s where that was birthed. It birthed from me having to shut down my businesses. 

But really, growing up, Randy, I had this limiting belief that I had to choose between what type of freedom I wanted: I had to choose between either financial freedom or time freedom. I didn’t know that they could both coexist. So once I became an entrepreneur, once I was able to let go of the shackles of the corporate world, and I was able to really just let my light shine, I found out that complete freedom is something that is—you know, that we can have. So that led to, I don’t believe in work-life balance, I believe in work-life harmony. So when you create a business that complements the lifestyle that you want, Randy, that’s just one of the things that can lead to your business standing the test of time. But to answer your question, yes. It’s great that I started.

No, that’s good. I see the passion coming through. So let’s talk a little bit about, you know, because you mentioned, one, your experience, you’ve had to pivot and shut down an existing business. You just mentioned that there are concerns of a recession coming around. So what steps do you help businesses with to start to famine-proof their organizations?

Yeah. Well, the very first thing is you have to be aware of where your business currently is. So the first thing that we do is we do an operational audit over six core areas of the business. That lets me know what are the hidden bottlenecks, what are the profit leaks that currently exist, right? In all the different processes and systems that you have. Once we know what those gaps are, once we know what is the bottleneck—and a lot of the times it is the CEO, him or herself—then that allows us to then create a game plan. We do it in 90-day sprints, but we create a game plan so that we can streamline their operations and prepare the business to run itself on autopilot and sustain in any economy. Of course, there’s an art to the madness, but a lot of it just starts with simple awareness because sometimes we’re just so close to the business, we can’t see it, or sometimes we don’t have the eyes in our team that can see things, see red flags before it becomes a big gap in our business. Honestly, doing quarterly audits is really key in order to not just stay on track with the leaks and the bottlenecks that’s happening in your business, but also to become more proactive instead of reactive in your business.

So you mentioned that often the bottleneck is the CEO. And from experience, I understand that when we started the current business we’re in, Tri-Merit, I was CEO or managing partner for the first 10 years. It took me a long time to realize that’s not my skillset, my passion. It’s not where I should be. I just felt like that’s where I should be, when in reality it wasn’t. So that has to be a tough situation when you see that, when you see somebody that’s been the bottleneck, how do you address that with the CEO, who’s passionate and they started this business, and most of the time they’re passionate about this, and that’s their baby. And they can’t differentiate themselves from that business and who they are. So that has to be a tough situation to be in.

It is tough, and one thing that I truly believe is that your business is a reflection of the leadership that you have. So when the leadership is not optimal, how is the business supposed to be optimal? Going back to the very basics, making sure that your foundation is concrete, that is crucial. A lot of that goes back to, it sounds cliché, but your why, your mission, your vision, your core values, your principles, getting very clear on what that is will help create this alignment so that when you are scaling, when you are in the growing and scaling season, then you’re able to make decisions and be able to bring in partners and work with clients, be able to get your business to the next level. But a lot of that does start with a CEO, and so we have to spend some time and kind of understand what is the vision, this big vision for this company, right? So what kind of lifestyle does the leadership want to have, or does the CEO want to have, and is this business infrastructure currently set up to complement that? If not, then a lot of the times we have to break down those processes and systems and put new ones in place to make it better so that we can go ahead and tighten these things and make sure that everything that we’re doing on the operation side, again, is in alignment. A lot of that is clarity, getting very clear on what you stand for, what are your core values, what is your big vision. 

And also, there’s this thing that I got from one of my mentors that a lot of people rely on motivation versus vision to wake up out of bed and do what needs to be done. The needle moving your business. But one thing about that is motivation is a force, meaning motivation is something that pushes you, it’s something that’s being exerted. I’m a geek, I’m an engineer by trade, so I’ll get into physics a little bit. With any kind of exertion, that’s going to run out, right? So at some point in time, you’re going to have to find some kind of new motivation that’s going to allow you to still wake up every day and do what needs to be done and keep the needle moving your business. Well, forget motivation, let’s look at vision. What is the big picture? Your vision is the one thing that’s going to propel you and pull you out of bed, especially on those days when you don’t want to do it. Especially in an economy like this, when we have no clue what the next year, what the next month, what the next quarter is going to look like. But the one thing that we do know is we know where this business is headed. We know what we’re on a mission to do. We know what we’re here for, right? And we know what kind of ripple effects we’re wanting to create in this world or in the country. 

So a lot of that stems from that foundation, and a lot of the times, if the foundation is shaky, then it doesn’t matter what processes, what systems, what partners, what team members you bring in. Eventually, the business will crash and burn. So it all really starts with that foundation and having these core values and principles completely laid out so that any kind of decision that’s being made, again, is in alignment. That is honestly step one to the business of longevity and sustaining.

What’s step two then?

Step two is cashflow. So once you have this vision, once you have all of these different things, now let’s kind of get into, and I’m going to even kind of branch it out a little bit and not just talk about cash flow, but let’s talk about performance, right? You have to have some metrics in place so that you are able to identify red flags when they do come up. So some red flags may be, for example, what profit margin do you consider healthy for your business? When you’re looking at your profit margin, when you’re looking at the changes month to month, quarter to quarter, year to year, when you’re looking at this, you have someone that’s keeping track of this, you’re able to see, let’s say from Q1 and Q2, there’s been a significant decrease in your profit. So a lot of that is like, well, what happened? Are we spending too much? Are the team members that we have, are they performing? Is it the marketing that we’re doing? Is it the lead generation? Numbers don’t lie, data doesn’t lie. When you have these metrics laid out, then you’re able to dig a little bit deeper and see exactly what the issue is, and then that creates the game plan of what kind of processes and systems do we need to have in place so that we can get back on track and prevent this from happening?

And then when you say processes and systems, are you talking technology involved in this or is it just process—hey, here’s how we’re going to go from A to B? Is there a combination? I know you talk about AI, and AI and automation’s a big thing with you. How does that play in?

Yeah. So I break it up into the difference of processes and systems and automation. So a process is just a step-by-step methodology to get something done. The system includes the process, but it also includes some tools that are needed so that whatever input you have has given you the output, the automation or the tools to help put this thing on autopilot. When you look at a business, there are different departments: You have marketing, you have admin, you have operations, you have sales, right? All of these different departments have their own processes and systems that they do in order to keep the business running. When you’re looking at sales, looking at the buyer’s journey, what are those steps to process marketing in sales that you take to take a cold lead and convert them into a happy paying client? When you have this process laid out, you have a system behind it, maybe some automation behind it. That’s what I mean by the processes and systems, Randy. Every department has their own process and system to keep the needle moving, but everything is interconnected.

Alright. And then, okay, so process, which I’m terrible at, and procedures, which I’m terrible at. But people, I’m not. Yeah, and I know automation and all that is important and we need to have part of that, but people, for me, is the most important part of our organization. So how does people play into this?

Yes. When I look at operations, I look at it as the three Ps. You have your processes, you have your people, and you have your performance. Now we’re talking about people. And I want to cover it on all levels—whether they’re someone who’s a solopreneur, who has a very established business, or you have a team of ten, a hundred, it doesn’t matter. Let’s look at the art of hiring, the art of retaining, the art of managing these people. When you look at just the people that you have on your teams and your business, going back to that foundation of your core values, of your principles and all that good stuff. The way that I approach bringing on team members and hiring and expanding is: let’s look at all of the tasks that’s being done on a day to day, and let’s look at who’s doing these tasks. Look at if there’s any task that’s being dropped. When you take all the tasks that are being dropped, that’s going to naturally create a position. I don’t look at hiring or people as a cookie-cutter thing. It’s kind of just principle-based. You do an audit over all tasks. You do an audit over the tasks that are being dropped, that are crucial to a business, but maybe no one is on board on the team to get this done, or maybe you have someone on the team and they’re just not doing it. So when you look at all of these different bottleneck tasks, analyze the people on your team—is there anyone on your team who is qualified to pick up these tasks? If not, then that’s going to create your next hire. But the way that you do your next hire, there’s an art to the madness. 

When you look at this position that’s based off these dropped tasks, then you go out there, of course, you’re going to create your job description, you want to go out and do some sourcing, do some interviewing, do some hiring, onboarding. But a lot of that just tailors back to the foundation of the values, of the vision, of the mission. So making sure that you bring on people who are in alignment with this, you bring on people who are naturally gifted, who have these natural talents and abilities for this position. I am a firm believer in divine alignment. That’s one of our core values here. I truly believe that once you identify someone who is naturally gifted and talented in this, and they’re walking in their divine alignment, and they’re on board with the business and where the business is going, then honestly that is kind of like—not a perfect match—but it’s like a match made in heaven when it comes to bringing on the right kind of people in your business to retain because turnover is getting to the point [that it’s] a huge thing. Some businesses right now that are at risk of being shut down, a lot of it does come down to high turnover and low retention.

So when you look at these gaps when it comes to people, a lot of it is misalignment, and misalignment could be, maybe they didn’t even believe in the vision and the mission, or maybe the core values that they have and the principles they have are not in alignment with the business or the leadership. Or maybe the task that they’re doing, maybe there’s no accountability for that. There are so many different reasons as to why, but people is such a vast topic. We can go anywhere with it, Randy!

Well, that’s one of my passions is talking to people. I talk often about cultivating a people-first culture, leadership trait of vulnerability. But I’m going to expand on one thing you said—is that, say it again, walking in their divine alignment? Defined purpose? Okay. I like that. One thing I often say is that, and I think depending on the size of the organization, obviously this changes, but if you have a decent-sized organization, just aligning people with their passions is important. Because you mentioned that you have some areas where you’re falling short, or somebody doesn’t have these skills, or we don’t have someone to cover this. If you have a larger organization and you find out, I call it the intersection of your passion and your skills, and if you can get everybody aligned into that intersection, I mean man, that alone will make you fly. That alone can help you become a sustainable operation. So that’s one of my passions, which sounds very similar to the way that you explain it.

Yeah. That reminds me of, there’s this topic about the difference of the zone of excellence and zone of genius, where you may have someone who does something, they do it well, but it’s not their zone of genius, meaning it’s not something that they’re really passionate about. So a lot of these things, you may see this in businesses where you’re hiring people that do the job good, but they’re not passionate. But you see the difference between bringing on passionate people, they’re naturally going to look at how can we make things better, faster. That continuous improvement. How can we take things to the next level versus bringing on someone who’s working in their zone of excellence. They’re just going to do the job and do it well, and that’s it. So which one do you want to bring on? Do you want to bring on someone who is operating in a zone of excellence, or do you want to bring on someone who’s operating in a zone of genius? What kind of energy do you want to have in your team? What kind of team environment do you want to cultivate? A lot of these questions through reverse engineering will help dictate a lot of this when it comes to people.

We’ve touched on a lot of the Ps: the process, the procedure, the people, the passion. There was one more in there that I know, there was a fifth one. Are there other areas that we did not touch on that we should be concerned about when we’re looking at creating the sustainable firm?

Yeah. I want to back it up and kind of recap this in a way that our operating system is. We work in three phases. Phase one is all about the infrastructure, so making sure that the business is sustainable. A lot of that is dependent on what you’re offering to the world. Is it a match for the audience that you’re serving and all that good stuff? Then the next phase is to make sure you have processes in place so that your business is scalable. It’s one thing to be sustainable, but then you’re comfortable, income selling at some point in time, right? So how do you make sure that your business is scalable? The third component, the third phase of that is: is your business sellable? So do you have the right team members in place to be able to remove yourself from the day-to-day operations of your business? A lot of that comes down to performance. So nce you have the foundation in place, once you have the infrastructure in place, once you have the processes, the systems, the tools in place, once you have the team in place, the last step a lot of people miss is that accountability. Performance. You have to identify your KPIs, your metrics, to have an accountability system so that you can hold these people accountable.

That right there is a lot of times a missing piece of the puzzle of a business that can sustain in this business of longevity. When you’re looking at your business and you’re looking at the type of people that you have on your team, does everyone understand their role? Does everyone have KPIs and metrics? Is there a way that you’re holding your team accountable? This looks different. Are you having calls weekly or sometimes daily if it makes sense for your business? Do you have some kind of plan in place that when things fall short, you’re able to address this in a timely manner? A lot of this comes down to performance, comes down to that last P that we’re talking about.

Alright. I knew there was another P in there—performance, there we go. And passion, I think that was one. I think we said passion already too. I think we’re going to have to rename this process, “The Five Ps” or whatever we came up with there. Let’s, before we wrap on that—because we talked about scaling and sustainability, but is there a common or multiple common mistakes that people run into when they look to start to scale their organization and create this? Oh, we’re going down the rabbit hole, huh?

Oh, man. Let’s talk about when you have everything in place. You have a team, you have the processes, you have the systems, you have all of that. Then what I mean by a lot of the times, the CEO is the bottleneck him or herself, so a lot of this comes down to trusting that inner compass that you have inside, but also trusting the people that you’ve hired to do the job. There’s a lot of CEOs who also operate as a solopreneur. You hire all these people, but you still want to do it all. You hire all these people, but you still want to micromanage. You hire all these people, but you don’t really trust yourself to lead. A lot of that is still something that stops a lot of businesses from sustaining as well, and a lot of  that is just doing the inner work, doing the deep work that we all have to do to be the leader that we need to be to continue whatever your mission is for your business.

Got it. And that’s a mindset thing too. It’s often not easy for that entrepreneur to change their mindset that they know probably deep down is getting in the way, but they just have a hard time giving up. I’m assuming that’s part of the coaching you do—is just mindset as well.

Yeah. I love that. It’s mindset. A lot of that comes from—there’s imposter syndrome. It exists on every level, whether you’re five, six, seven, eight figures, it exists on every single level. It’s kind of one of those things that—there are different things that you can have in place to combat that, but you have to do the inner work, and that’s why I love the business world, that’s why I’m in love with entrepreneurship. Because it’s one of those things that in order to sustain, you have to address the good, the bad, the ugly. You have to heal. You can’t continue sweeping things underneath the rug and think that that’s okay. At some point in time, you’re going to come see some things and look yourself in the mirror and see some things that you don’t like, and then your next step is, well, what do you do at that point? Are you going to call it quits? Are you going to exit left or what?

Right. It’s reality check time and then decision time. Well, it sounds like you live at the intersection of your passion and your skills, and get this joy out of the way you’re talking about things. So that’s awesome. So before we start wrapping up, let’s talk about just who you’re helping. What’s your client base look like?

So currently we are in a transition, so we’re right now transitioning into B2G. Right now our client base looks like 80% B2G—business to government—20% B2B. When it comes to B2B, we work with high-growth businesses, high-growth leaders that are experiencing growth at a rapid pace, but they’re having a hard time keeping up with it. A lot of times we’re growing and scaling very quickly. That’s the recipe for crashing and burning, and that’s where we come in, to sustain those operations to make sure that as you’re growing and scaling at the pace that you are, nothing’s broken.

Alright. And then what’s a typical engagement? Are you in there for a month, a year, ongoing? Is it annual, quarterly, like you said at the beginning, quarterly assessment? How’s that normally look?

So we come in minimum quarterly, 90 days, and we start with 90 days because of course it takes time to learn the business, it takes time to meet the team. When we come in, we’re interviewing every single person on the team, we’re asking all of the questions that we need to, to get a full understanding of the current business infrastructure. That takes about 30 days. Then the next 30 days, now we’re looking at, well, what things do we have in place and what kind of cleanup do we need to do? What kind of streamlining do we need to do? Sometimes, depending on the size of the business, that could take anywhere from 30, 60, or 90 days. But we come in at a minimum 90 days, just as kind of like a test trial to see if we’re a good fit to work together for the long term. In order for us to implement our Time Rich Operating System, that takes anywhere from six to nine months for businesses that’s north of $1 million. From about $1 to $3 million, it takes us about six to nine months to implement that system. For companies that are about $5 million and north, we’re typically onboarding for at least 12 months. So long story short, 90 days, and then from there it is just a matter of if it’s a good fit, let’s rock and roll and see it through.

Okay. And then last question on that before we go to something else. Being that we are The Unique CPA Podcast, how does the accountant fit in with the way you go out and consult with the companies?

Yes! So I love working with accounting firms and CPAs. A lot of times we do have partnerships with these firms and organizations, because you are directly consulting and telling your clients what needs to be done, especially when it comes to their numbers and their data to ensure that their business is on track to grow and scale at the rate that the CEO, the business owner wants to. When we come into partnership, a lot of times we have these firms saying, “Hey, this company right now is growing quickly, but their operations is a mess and they need you.” And we’re like, “Perfect. Let’s make the introduction. Let’s get on a call.” In about 15 minutes they see, “Okay, yeah, I needed you like last year.” And I’m like, “Let’s get started tomorrow.” So that’s where that kind of comes in.

Nice, so I figured there was a good synergy there between you and the accountant. Sorry, go ahead.

Oh no. Yeah, pretty much. Why I love working with accounting firms and CPAs is because you are also in the business of longevity, right? You’re not in business to work with these clients just for three months, for six months. Their books need managing on an ongoing basis, right? So a lot of these times, as you have these relationships with these clients and you’re working with them for years at a time, you’re seeing their growth, you’re seeing the progression, you’re seeing what kind of decisions need to be made in order for this business to sustain. A lot of that could be on the CEO level, a lot of that could be just internally with their processes and systems, a lot of times that could be on the team. That’s when we come in and we say, “Hey, what’s going on with this business? What’s going on with this company? What kind of gaps and leaks do you have?” And then based off that, we have something very unique—a different operating system that we work with accounting firms on so that we can come in and do some streamlining as well, because accounting firms are very different from coaches, consultants, law firms, just completely different because the infrastructure is different.

Got it. Alright. Well, that’s a good team combination to me, it sounds like there. Before we get into contact information and all that, I’m going to ask you one question—I’m pivoting, we’re going completely away from everything we just talked about. I think it’s super important to really get to know people on a level outside of work. So I always ask this question: Hey, you’re this consultant, you’re your advisor, you’re helping these businesses, you’re making them sustainable. But when you’re not doing all this cool stuff, what’s your outside-of-work passion? What do you enjoy doing when you’re not working?

I am a gardener and my dream is to be a farmer. So outside of work, I’m definitely attending to the garden right now, working on the spring and summer garden. I am out there pruning sometimes harvesting sometimes. Depends on the day, but I love it because plant cycles remind me a lot of business cycles, but I just have a natural green thumb. It’s in the family and I’m one of those people that I see myself retiring on a big farm, got my cows, got my goat, I got my chickens, got a lot of land, and it’s really farm-to-table style. It’s kind of going back to—not to say hunter and gatherer days—but that’s, to me, a dream.

Nice. Well, I hope you get there and I’m sure you will with the way that you look at things. So, and then last thing: if people want to hear more, they want to see what you’re doing, they want to get ahold of you, where’s the best place for them to look or reach out?

Absolutely. The best place is AllanteCollier.com. Of course, I’m on LinkedIn and all these different social media networks, but AllanteCollier.com is how you’ll stay updated with everything. Right now, I am running and doing a series, it’s a free training series over becoming famine-proof. Every Thursday I’m going over different steps so that businesses can survive not just this recession, but any recession. So if you go to AllanteCollier.com, you’ll see the link for becoming famine-proof. You’ll be able to register and stay connected and stay in the loop.

Alright, and we’ll put that in the show notes as well. Well, Allanté, I’m glad we finally got this done. It was a pleasure talking with you. I’m very excited to see all the great things that you’re going to continue to do.

Randy, thank you so much for having me!