Today we’d like to introduce you to Buffie Purselle.
Buffie, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
My career began when I moved to Atlanta in the summer of 1996 to volunteer for the Olympic Games as an Escort Runner for the gymnastics, road racing, and basketball venues. I was selected to be a part of the Olympic Dream Team for completing over 100 hours of community service. I attended college that fall at Georgia State University. While in college, I worked in my family owned tax practice. My first entrepreneurial endeavor was to offer prepaid home phone service to clients who couldn’t obtain a home phone because of credit issues. I asked my uncle if I could set up payment locations in his ten locations across the state of Georgia. He agreed and I got my first taste of entrepreneurship. I quickly determined that I didn’t want to work for my family business and branched out on my own.
In 1997, I opened my first location in the small town of Newnan, Georgia. That office was a hole in the wall with no windows and no staff but I could afford it. I would answer the phone with different voices to make potential clients think that I had a full staff. I learned Spanish in high school and found that I had a niche in Newnan. I owned the only tax practice that offered Spanish speaking clients tax and accounting services. I was never fluent in Spanish but I learned enough to make it work. I was also one of the first practices in Newnan to become a licensed Acceptance Agent with the IRS and issue tax id numbers. I grew that practice to over 2000 clients. I set my sights on becoming a licensed mortgage broker. I also became a licensed life, health, and property and casualty insurance agent. I felt that those financial services were a natural progression for my tax empire.
I enjoyed college but found that it was unnecessary. I built my first home when I was 20 years old, I was successful in business and was earning more than my parents so I dropped out just shy of finishing in the year 2000. In 2007, I could see that the mortgage industry was changing for the worse so I sold my practice and decided to concentrate solely on the tax business. I am currently the Founder and Managing Member of Buffie the Tax Heiress, a chain of tax and accounting practices with multiple locations in the state of Georgia; The Creative Artist Group, a business management and concierge service for busy film and tv creatives; and Crawl Before You Ball, a personal and business financial management company. I am the author of Crawl Before You Ball, a personal finance self-help book to help individuals break the cycle of poverty of living from direct deposit to payday loan to direct deposit.
In 2017, I was selected out of 20,000 applicants to be part of the top ten in the nation to compete to be serial entrepreneur and star of CNBC’s “The Profit” host, Marcus Lemonis’ business partner. I was the fan favorite of the show as indicated by polls conducted during the original airing. I finished the competition as part of the Top Four. I am also a highly sought-after tax and personal finance expert known for my brutally honest and sassy guidance. I have joined forces with WSB Channel 2 and HLN Consumer Advisor Clark Howard for the past three tax seasons to help taxpayers with end of tax season tips and advice.
My philanthropic endeavors include an Advisory Board Member position with the GreenHouse Foundation. The GreenHouse Foundation was founded by Entertainer CeeLo Green and his sister Shedonna Alexander to educate, inspire and influence school-aged children in disadvantaged areas to become responsible stewards of their environment, communities and future. I am an Image Consultant and Career Development Coach for Dress For Success Atlanta. I also volunteer at The Shrine Night Shelter where my husband and I spend the night and serve dinner and breakfast to homeless men. I am also a volunteer for the Partnership Against Domestic Violence.
I am happily married to the love of my life, Dr. David Purselle. We have one canine child named Louie and one feline child named Leo.
Has it been a smooth road?
The road has definitely not been smooth. Quite honestly if any entrepreneur says that it has been smooth they must have been born with a silver spoon in their mouth. When I started my business, I literally had around $450 to my name. I had faith and I did what I had to do to survive. There have been times when I had to make the decision to fund my company payroll and not pay the mortgage on my home. Lately. my challenge is weathering growing pains. And I am not complaining, it’s definitely a good problem to have but it is difficult to determine how big is too big because I want to always be able to see all of my clients. I believe more in quality over quantity so I have started vetting all of our potential new clients and we only accept clients who own small or medium businesses.
So, let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Buffie the Tax Heiress story. Tell us more about the business.
I am a serial entrepreneur and I own many businesses but the business that I most known for is Buffie the Tax Heiress. The name is deceiving. It sounds like a tax practice, right? Nope, we are not just a tax practice. We are a customer service company that just happens to prepare individual and business tax returns, offer business management services, and bookkeeping and payroll. What sets us apart from others is that we vet all of our clients before bringing them into our taxfam. Also, have you seen our locations? There are step and repeats in our lobbies, chandeliers everywhere, and pink walls! The locations are super feminine and happy like me!
We don’t tell our clients what they want to hear. If you owe you owe. I am way too cute to go to prison so there will be no tomfoolery in my practice. The way that we can help is to figure out why you owe and help you make changes so that it doesn’t happen again. We also require that our clients sign up for one of our management services. We can’t really help them if we only see them once a year. We require a minimum of 4 visits to the office a year so that we can help with tax strategy and guidance.
I started my business because I wanted to honor my Grandmother’s wish to provide good jobs for my family members and people in my community. I am the most proud of the fact that I have ten employees who actually love coming to the office every day.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Individual tax preparation is being taken over by software and apps. I saw this coming years ago. My practice actually no longer accepts individual taxpayers as clients. All of our new clients must own a small or medium business. The service that we provide that software and apps cannot is business consultation with a family atmosphere.
Contact Info:
- Address: 349 Decatur St SE
Ste M, Atlanta, GA 30312 - Website: www.taxheiress.com www.justbeingbuffie.com
- Phone: 404.521.2850
- Email: info@taxheiress.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/buffiepurselle/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/buffiethetaxheiress/?ref=bookmarks
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/buffiepurselle
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/in/buffie-purselle-62a43ab/
Image Credit:
Alter Ego Tax Heiress Image – Derek Blanks Photography
Shawn Brooks Photography
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