Episode 41: Entrepreneurs Who Grew 6+ Figure Businesses With Nellie Akalp

Nellie Akalp is a mom of four, serial entrepreneur and CEO of CorpNet.com where she helps entrepreneurs start, grow and maintain their businesses. She is a contributor to Forbes, Entrepreneur and Mashable and is a regular guest expert on the Fox Small Business Center.

Her first venture grew and expanded to the point that the company was acquired in 2005 and rather than simply taking a retirement they launched corpnet.com in 2009. Corpnet is designed to manage and setup businesses to keep compliant with the latest regulations.

Inspiration:
|A book called Delivering Happiness by the CEO of Zappos.com – now a days we are in a service based industry, and its so important to differentiate yourself and create the niche and stand out. This book is all about creating such amazing customer service and how to best provide that.

Challenge:
With the first business venture the company grew so quickly that they were shocked. Learning and growing all at the same time they had to use their Mother-In-Law’s credit card machine to process orders and even going as far as being left Credit Card information on their voicemail. Having to react quickly and always be on the move.

Now with Corpnet we are in an environment that is pretty saturated and it is proving difficult to expand, but it’s still a wonderful experience.

Lessons Learned:
With the current business, analytics are super important, staying on top of them and seeing where your clients are coming from is a huge deal. Also, by looking at the old business and the new business its that you can look to the past, but what worked then doesn’t always work now. Social media is also important, its a great way to keep up with your clients and your followers. Marketing and advertising was a surprise in that by reducing the expense on advertising my income still increased.

Passion:
The legal space is showing a ton of opportunity. We’re honing into what the needs of the market are showing.

Vision:
Knowing that there is a ton of opportunity in the legal space we are looking at better automation and streamlining the whole processes that are out there. Were looking to do what it is that will make a significant value for the community. Looking to simplify and help others to maximize their time.

Personal Growth:
Nelli says she has become a better communicator and learned to set boundaries and figure out a better way to determine the line for personal and professional relationships.

Tools, Podcasts & Books:
My iPhone is my BFF – a 1 stop shop for staying connected and running the business.

Looking Back:
I would do everything nearly the same. I would maybe change a few things just on a few of the decision, but I would do my best to keep to the same path and keep working hard to make things better.

Interview Links:

• Learn more about Nellie by visiting her at Corpnet.com.
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