Jenny Groberg started her first business out of necessity. She was the CFO of a company that dissolved, and her husband was a full-time medical student. Groberg needed to work.
With small children at home, Groberg was limited in where she could work as the family had no child care options. Groberg needed to earn money remotely at a time when remote work wasn’t yet common.
She turned to consulting small businesses since she had a background in finance and accounting. What started as a few clients grew into BookSmarts Accounting & Bookkeeping, which is now a seven-figure, all-women business.
Then, Groberg suffered a traumatic brain injury in 2018. Her doctor said she had to give up running her business. Devastated, Groberg stepped away from her company.
But after years of enduring a profoundly challenging quality of life, Groberg ultimately re-emerged as the CEO of her company.
Here’s how.
Solving her own problem
Groberg’s business stemmed from solving her own problem—a task that has catalyzed many other successful companies. In Groberg’s case, the problem was her lack of child care.
“I needed to work. I didn’t have any child care options…. I was constrained by the fact that I had… little kids… and so I had to do something remotely,” Groberg says. “And so I used my skills as a CFO and my background in finance and accounting, and started consulting with small businesses on improving their accounting systems…. Oftentimes, the business owners would just say, ‘Jen, this is just so much more efficient if you do this for me.’”
Groberg knew she needed a way to acquire new clients consistently, so she turned to QuickBooks’ ProAdvisor platform, which allows advisors to connect with new clients. “I didn’t even have $500 to pay for it,” Groberg says, “but I called another pro advisor and said, ‘Hey, is this worth the money?’ And he said, ‘Absolutely, you’ll get a lot of good referrals from it.’”
Groberg signed up, leveraged the platform and received 100 five-star reviews. Her advantage was that she was among the few women on the platform. “I could see that I stood out in the industry and I was different,” she says. “So I think that really was an advantage.”
The first year, her business brought in $30,000, which helped her family, as her husband hadn’t started making money yet.
Growing pains
A few years into the business, Groberg had three kids, stayed up until 2 a.m. every night and had more work than she could handle, which all felt overwhelming.
“I was drowning, and I just said, ‘I cannot sustain this; I have to sell,’” Groberg says. “I had somebody that I thought might work, and then that fell through, and then I pivoted to hiring my first employee…. That was kind of the first real catalyst for growth.”
The employee eventually came on full time, and still, the work was more than they both could handle between them. Her business continued to grow, and Groberg hired more full-time employees.
By 2017, she had 13 employees and was feeling more comfortable. “That was a lot to manage: all the clientele, all the people, all the things—and then I got hurt.”
Pushing through the pain
Groberg’s injury happened by chance. She was grabbing something on her bathroom counter, and when she went to step down, she slipped on some water. She fell and hit her head on their travertine floor.
“I didn’t really realize how catastrophic that fall was…. When I went to get up the next morning… I couldn’t even stand up,” Groberg says. “I couldn’t blow-dry my hair, and it really felt like I was in a coma for months—years, honestly.”
Groberg says she was surrounded by medical professionals who didn’t think the injury was that bad, but also notes that you can’t see a brain injury. After months, Groberg was not getting better. She spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on various therapies, including brain rehab, but none of them worked.
“After I got hurt, I couldn’t even do my hair. I [couldn’t] take my kids to run an errand…. The basic tasks, I was unable to do,” Groberg says. “I would try to invoice my clients… and it would take me hours to try to key in an invoice, and then the others, I would just put off.”
Seeking help after injury
After two years, a doctor and a neurochiropractor told Groberg she’d never get better because the more stress she had, the more taxed her brain was. Her business was a stressful activity. She tried to sell her business to an employee, but got a lowball offer of $300,000—her business was valued closer to $700,000.
Groberg decided instead to keep her business, and made the employee her manager, offering her a profit-sharing arrangement—the business grew 400% over three years. Groberg took this time to give her brain a rest.
“My headaches were 10 out of 10. My vision was blurry. I was nauseated all day, so I would go from my couch to my sofa to my bed, and then, if I had to do something, I would just be like, ‘OK, I’m going to push through this and do it because of guilt,” Groberg says. “My husband just kept saying, ‘Hey, Jenny, this is fine. This is why we have a family, we can do this, I can step in.’”
At the four-year mark after the accident, Groberg learned about an eye doctor in Chicago who makes special eyewear for people with brain injuries. Groberg went to see the doctor, who told her each of her eyes was working independently and that that was why she was so nauseated, dizzy and getting bad headaches.
“She made me these eyeglasses, and that was the turning point,” Groberg says. “I had to go back every quarter to get an updated prescription. I still am wearing them, and I feel so much better. So after the first year, my headaches started to stop.”
Delegation and trust are Groberg’s best tips for managing a business when you have health issues. She says every entrepreneur tries to do everything, and delegating is the best way to avoid burnout—especially when you have health issues. “The key is to have checks and balances in place so that your time is freed up so that you can actually grow your business,” she says.
Paying it forward
Groberg’s initial decision to hire only women was intentional—it’s one of her business’s core values. “I feel a [sense of] stewardship to offer work to women,” she says. “I know how hard it is to be a mom. I know how hard it is to not have any money, and so that’s kind of what the business model is built upon.”
Her instincts and personal development work have paid off. BookSmarts Accounting & Bookkeeping has been featured in the media multiple times, and the firm has been recognized as one of Utah’s top 100 companies championing women in business.
Photo courtesy of Jenny Groberg
