Andrea Sykes, a native of Brooklyn, NY by way of Haiti, was born to Haitian and Dominican immigrants, and experienced a tumultuous upbringing. As a toddler, she traveled back and forth from the U.S. to Haiti, as her mother searched for a better life in the U.S. Eventually she would be left behind in Haiti with family members who used her primarily to collect and withhold the money sent from New York by her mother. By age four, Sykes was taken away to live in the Dominican Republic with a father she had never met, not knowing any Spanish. She was routinely abused, belittled, and told she would never amount to anything for years. No one ever really accepted her, not even her siblings.
Eventually, her mother was able to bring her to the U.S. She would endure many other trials and tribulations, including becoming a teenage mother trying to find her way at the age of 17. However, there was always a burning desire within her to learn and to create a life that was far distant from the life she lived as a child.
In 2008 Andrea went to school to become a certified financial advisor with the National Financial Educators Council, and also received a degree from the Metropolitan College of New York in 2012. She reunited with her sister from another mother, who is one of two partners today in her business called Abundance BTS, established in 2021.
Abundance BTS aims to show people that they can have it all. A physically, spiritually, and financially abundant life, if they adopt the right mindset, and educate themselves on key success principles. That is what Andrea has done, and she will help thousands of others to do the same.
Please tell us a little bit about your business – what is Abundance BTS all about?
Having it ALL! The best statement that describes what AbundanceBTS is all about; hence why it is our slogan. AbundanceBTS has sought to cater to the entrepreneurial spirit from its infancy. If we can lay a solid foundation from the very beginning, our clients’ journey will be easier and more fulfilling. Gaining strong insight, we believe is key. Not all mentorships are created equal. When starting out in the business world, we had a lot of mentors who we’ve come to understand were not only bad influences, but straight laid out terrible foundations. That just had to be our journey so we could learn how important it would be to guard the gate of the minds of the entrepreneurs we would come across and imprint on. This is what our company promotes:
Having it All first focuses on Your Health is Your Wealth!
- Personal Development (Doing the inner work…for example, what are you Eating? How do you Rest? Do you exercise? How do you stretch your Thinking, your Mind? Are you seeking Peace for yourself? What is it to have all the money in the world and have bad health – You would have nothing!
Business Development (Consultation, RoadMap & Strategic Plans are created here).
- Taxes (Guarding Your hard-earned Money happens here through various services). A Tax School for future tax professionals, who takes pride in perfecting their art of protecting their clients.
- Insurance (Helping people to Never have to worry about Life Risks and how to use insurance to build generational wealth)
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your company?
I have been in the financial industry for about 15 years now. My background did not consist of financial literacy and a true understanding of money. However, through all of my trials and errors, I have been able to create this amazing company, which caters to the awakened entrepreneur who understands that health & time are their greatest assets. By learning proper self-care/self-love habits early in their journey, they can learn how to work more efficiently; by learning how to build with others, they can leverage their efforts… therefore making better use of their time. That is what I help people to achieve.
What would you say are the top 3 skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur, and why?
- The ability to learn quickly – leveraging other people’s experiences & learning from their own process too…Being a learner, coachable, flexible. I believe all these could be summed up with just the word: LEARN. When you have a learning spirit it just makes your life easier. You find out that you’re not as original as you thought you were. Someone has already done the hard part for you to go through easier and smoother.
- The Ability to Create Solutions (problem solver). We all know the cliché phrase,
“If you want to be rich, just solve a lot of people’s problems”.
Everyone sees what is wrong most of the time (I call them stressors). But being a troubleshooter and not just seeing the problem, but being able to come up with multiple solution changes the atmosphere. People feel better, lighter, and more confident when you’re around.
- You must like people to work with people. It might seem like a bit of a joke. But often I see other business people over-stressed about what they are doing simply because it boils down to them not liking to work with people.
Tell us a little bit about your marketing process, what has been the most successful form of marketing for you?
- For me, word of mouth has been my biggest form of marketing. I remember in 2010 I didn’t have a private office yet… but I had made up my mind that in the next two years I was going to open an office space on the corner of Hempstead Tpke and Franklin Ave in Franklin Square, NY. To everyone it was impossible and it was out of my reach… Long story short… I’m on Jamaica Ave with my friend and she slips and falls on black ice on the road after I told her to watch her step… very bad fall. The ambulance had to come for her.
- On our way to the hospital the two guys were shaking their heads at me for laughing so hard about her falling. Hey, she was laughing at herself too in pain and all. When I explained why it was funny, they too started laughing. We connected right there and then. One asked me “what do you do?” “You have a great sense of humor.” I said, I’m a tax professional. “No way” Yep, I am. I said nothing more, I did not try to sell them or recruit them… but they kept asking question after question… Finally, I said you know next year I plan on opening an office in Franklin Square, NY. One of them said, “No way, I’ve lived there my whole life”. Cool, then next year come and look for me! You won’t believe it. I didn’t open the next year. But when I opened the following year, guess who came around the corner with all his paperwork to see me? My ambulance Italian friend I made. We did not even exchange numbers. He remembered where I told him I would be. That one client referred over 250 clients to me. My goodness! Knowing your stuff and having a great attitude goes a very long way.
What’s a productivity tip you swear by?
For me I would have to say focus.
(Haitians have a saying “dog has four feet, but it cannot run in four directions)
This is encrypted in my brain.
What were the top three mistakes you made starting your business, and what did you learn from them?
L-rd have mercy! 1) All mentorships are not created equally.
- I took advice from business people whose ethics (I learned later) did not match mine. Being naïve and not knowing any better cost me my 1st official company… an expensive franchise. I learned how to screen people.
- In my early days, I could not grasp the idea of how to properly form and maintain my entities. Paying so much money to an attorney just to have your business dissolved at the time was a nightmare. Those days are long gone- I’m a pro now at helping others get their ducks in a row.
- Bad customer service… When starting a business alone and having to wear many hats, something or someone is going to suffer… My motto now: better me then my clients. I’ve learned when a client is unhappy about anything you don’t put it off getting back to them. Return calls within 24 hours MAX! Period. They keep all the lights on. So client appreciation is huge for me.
What helps you stay driven and motivated to keep going in your business?
When I think of what my ancestors went through so I can be where I am, I have no choice but to keep fighting for my own financial freedom in hopes of helping to free other sisters and brothers out there. I used to think I was in this for my children and to retire my mother… but those were just the bait G-d used until I was mature enough for Him to trust me with a plan to be part of the liberation solution for my people.
If you only had $1000 dollars to start a new business, knowing everything you know now, how would you spend it?
Lol! This is easy for me, and yet at the same time, a little tough. Since I’ve been there before, I’ll go with my 1st love: I would start a tax preparation service business. Honestly, I would start blabbing about it to everyone I know and meet that I intend on starting a tax preparation business… and listen carefully to the remarks they make and use that as part of my market analysis. Put the buzz out.
- Then I would start preparing by registering my business as a sole proprietor as it would be cheaper to form than a limited liability entity or a corporation. This is where I would decide what to name my business: let’s say ASK Tax Solutions… A friend once told me to try to always create a name that starts with the letter A… so when my industry is searched my name will show up at the top of the list alphabetically.
- I would then get my EIN (Employer Identification Number) so I can open my business bank account – Free.
- Complete my (PTIN) Preparer Tax Identification Number application – back then $65 now I believe it’s $35.
- Also Apply for an EFIN Electronic Filing Identification Number – also free but you must submit two fingerprint cards from the police department for a suitability background check (price varies but I would say no more than $30).
- I would also enroll in a quality free tax comprehensive tax course.
- Find a user-friendly tax preparation software with a good bank product (this enables me to offer the clients the ability to get their fee taken right out of their refunds instead of paying me out of their pocket. This can be very costly ($300-$3500); however, some software allows you to pay them per return ($35), as you start filing. This in the long run costs you more but it gives you more flexibility and the client would be the one carrying the cost.
Example: buying a complete software may cost you about $1250 unlimited returns… but if you are paying per return and you complete just 50 returns; the software company has already made $1,750 from your clients.
- Now the fun stuff, create my identity: I would go to Vista print and order my 1st 500 business cards for like $20, get 500 6×4 postcards for $75, set up my website for $14 a month ($154yrs) 1st month free. In today’s I world create an Instagram account & a Facebook page (these are free to sign up). Get listed on 411, google search, yelp, yellow pages (bundle service $6 monthly) …Off course I would opt-in to use my cell phone because I’m already paying that bill.
- By the time tax season comes around I already have at least 200 clients and at least 10 key referral people (these are people I have identified as well-connected and influential. People follow & listen to them). I would create a reward system for them on the back end since I’m limited on cash. Every client they refer to me who files and gets a refund I will pay them $50 CASH!
- There you have 200 clients with an avg fee of $325 that would give me $65,000 and oh yeah, I still have a little over $650 from my initial investment of $1000. Which I can use for more marketing:
Me: “want to make some cash while you sit here and get your taxes done? Client: Sure, how?
Me: For each person you text and tell to come to ASK Tax Solutions to get their taxes done because you just love it here! Give me their names, numbers and emails. I will give you $10
Client: Let’s do this, how much do you have? Because I’m going to clean out your bank. Lol!
What are you learning now? Why is that important?
I’m learning for myself what I do for others: Self balance, self-prioritizing, timeout and regrouping. I started taking time out to just think. It is very important to keep your own cup full when you are constantly pouring into other people. It’s easy for you to get lost in helping, that you lose yourself.
What is your definition of success?
For me success is not missing the mark! Conquering whatever I set out to do for me is success.
What are your plans for the future, and how do you plan to grow this company?
My plans are to perfect the concept of working on my businesses and not in them. We took the launch of this new business very slowly just because of that one principle. My plan is to make my mark in the marketplace by creating 1000 new jobs for single mothers and veterans that have returned home and need a new place to call home. AbundanceBTS is just one of our many streams of income to come. Our plan for AbundanceBTS is that she becomes a multimillion-dollar producing company within the next three years.
How can readers get in touch with you?
Readers can find us on Instagram @theboldeducator, @abundancebts or through our website coming soon: www.abundancebts.com or by calling us at (877) 291-1065
Founder Interview: Meet Chi Ilochi, Founder of StylingByChi
