217: Gale Crosley of Crosley Company

Gale Crosley, a CPA that has spent the majority of her career in sales, marketing, and product development, and now advises the nation’s top accounting firms on such issues, joined us for this episode of Where Accountants Go, the Accounting Careers Podcast.

Gale’s career has definitely turned out differently than her original master plan, but as we discuss near the end of the interview, it’s turned out much better than she ever could have dreamed.

Gale started her career with the plan to become a partner in an accounting firm, as many young students do.  However, after spending just a few years in two of the national firms, she decided to look elsewhere to continue her career… perhaps in industry.  She ended up interviewing with IBM, but found that they had no accounting opportunities in their local office.  Their local office only had a sales team, and so they tried to recruit her for that.  Sales was never something Gale had thought about, so she quickly turned down the opportunity and continued to look.  It wasn’t until they came back several times trying to recruit her that she decided to give it a chance and signed on for a special new program IBM was launching.  That was the start of a 12 year period with IBM, and also the start of her real world education in sales, marketing, and product development.

After her experience with IBM, as well as a few technology start-ups, she decided that she definitely wanted to have her own business, but not necessarily in the same space (technology).  After much market research, and cross-referencing that with her strengths in sales and marketing, she landed on the specialty of consulting with accounting firms on their market strategies, and now serves some of the largest accounting firms around.

This episode is not only a story of business growth, but also of finding your natural talent and using that to shape a career.  Gale is definitely a subject matter expert in her field, and you can tell she thoroughly enjoys it as well.

For more information on Crosley Company, visit them at Home - Crosley and Company (crosleycompany.com)

For Gale’s book on CPA firm success, click here - Amazon.com: At the Crossroads: The Remarkable CPA Firm that Nearly Crashed, then Soared (0884918221111): CPA, Gale Crosley, Stover, Debbie: Books

Other episodes you may enjoy will include:  Ron Baker and Sarah Elliott

To listen in on this episode with Gale Crosley, please use the player below: