the disruptors

disruptors: dawn brolin says grow your firm by shrinking it

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make life at work better for yourself, your team, and your clients.

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the disruptors
with liz farr

dawn brolin, cpa, cfe, intentionally shrank her firm, powerful accounting, from 11 to three team members, the opposite of the way most firms grow. she also drastically cut her client list, while nearly tripling her fees from a select group of just 19 clients.

“i decided i wanted to change my life,” brolin says. “i want to change my staff’s life. and i want to change the way my clients work with me where they weren’t worried about getting a bill because they called me and asked me a question.”  

more podcasts and videos: jason blumer & julie shipp: move leaders out of client service | james graham: drop the billable hour and you’ll bill more | karen reyburn: fix your marketing and fix your business | giles pearson: fix the staffing crisis by swapping experience for education | jina etienne: practice fearless inclusion | bill penczak: stop forcing smart people to do stupid work | sandra wiley: staffing problem? check your culture | scott scarano: first, grow people. then firm growth can follow |

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part of that change in dawn’s life was her passion for coaching college softball, where she serves as the team’s designated motivator. because softball season overlaps with tax season, she leaves the office at 2 pm, five days a week. no one in her firm works more than 35 hours a week.  

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disruptors: nicole davis & jw davis show how to create your own pipeline

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change your business model, change your life.

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the disruptors
with liz farr

what would an accounting firm look like if you had never worked in public accounting? because nicole davis, cpa, and jw davis, a registered investment advisor, didn’t follow the traditional path to firm ownership. they reimagined what a firm could look like, starting from a blank canvas instead of the regimented, structured, paint-by-numbers design of traditional accounting firms.

more podcasts and videos: dawn brolin: grow your firm by shrinking it |jason blumer & julie shipp: move leaders out of client service | james graham: drop the billable hour and you’ll bill more | karen reyburn: fix your marketing and fix your business | giles pearson: fix the staffing crisis by swapping experience for education | jina etienne: practice fearless inclusion | bill penczak: stop forcing smart people to do stupid work | sandra wiley: staffing problem? check your culture | scott scarano: first, grow people. then firm growth can follow |

goprocpa.com exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

nicole is the founder and principal of butler-davis tax & accounting in the atlanta area, while jw is the ceo.

like many disruptor-led firms, jw explains that ”one of the really big things we focus on was work-life balance.” nicole adds, “if your culture is one of stress and long hours, then you really need to rethink your business model.”

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disruptors: chase birky builds the anti-cpa firm

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don’t reinvent the wheel. join a better wheel. 

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the disruptors
with liz farr

chase birky wanted “a better way to cpa,” so he and co-founder max fritz created dark horse – the “anti-cpa firm,” which would be “the opposite of what a client would expect of a cpa firm, of what talent expects of a cpa firm.” dark horse democratizes access to the resources, tools, and technology available to larger firms so sole practitioners and small firms have an easier path to the modern cpa firm.

more podcasts and videos: jason blumer & julie shipp: move leaders out of client service | james graham: drop the billable hour and you’ll bill more | karen reyburn: fix your marketing and fix your business | giles pearson: fix the staffing crisis by swapping experience for education | jina etienne: practice fearless inclusion | bill penczak: stop forcing smart people to do stupid work | sandra wiley: staffing problem? check your culture | scott scarano: first, grow people. then firm growth can follow |

goprocpa.com exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

dark horse was born out of the realization that small businesses were underserved by their accountants. many small business owners have “these horror stories about the large firm that deprioritizes them and charges them an arm and a leg, or the one-off practitioner or micro firm that wouldn’t return their emails or phone calls, and never provides advice, just tells them to sign on the dotted line,” birky says.

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disruptors: talent crisis? what talent crisis?

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disruptors wiley, deshayes, satterley, etienne, penczak and vanover offer their takes on staffing in the accounting profession.

by amy welch

in a post-pandemic gig economy, the rest of the world laments the staffing crisis. however, while the solutions may not be easy, they seem to be pretty simple.  

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more thought leaders: james graham: drop the billable hour and you’ll bill more | karen reyburn: fix your marketing and fix your business | giles pearson: fix the staffing crisis by swapping experience for education | jina etienne: practice fearless inclusion | bill penczak: stop forcing smart people to do stupid work | sandra wiley: staffing problem? check your culture | scott scarano: first, grow people. then firm growth can follow | jody padar: build a practice that works for you, not vice-versa | ira rosenbloom: with m&a, nobody wants a fixer-upper | peter margaritis: the power skills every accountant needs | joe montgomery: find the sweet spot of the right clients, right services and right prices | marie green: your bad apples are ruining you | megan genest tarnow: hire for curiosity rather than compliance | clayton oates: one way to keep clients for life |

goprocpa.com exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

in the 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 disruptors one-on-one interview series with liz farr, some of the profession’s most innovative thinkers suggest solutions ranging from re-examining your firm’s culture to tapping into two-year colleges for new talent. here, several weigh in on what they see as the potential answers to one of the most troubling issues in the accounting profession.

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jason blumer & julie shipp: move leaders out of client service

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intentionality can bring freedom and joy.

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the disruptors
with liz farr

when jason blumer and julie shipp joined forces to build blumer cpas more than a decade ago, they eschewed the traditional partnership structure, where decision-making power depends on ownership percentage. instead, blumer says, “we figured out the ownership is a legal reflection of the companies, but they do not reflect anything we do together in our roles.”

more podcasts and videos: james graham: drop the billable hour and you’ll bill more | karen reyburn: fix your marketing and fix your business | giles pearson: fix the staffing crisis by swapping experience for education | jina etienne: practice fearless inclusion | bill penczak: stop forcing smart people to do stupid work | sandra wiley: staffing problem? check your culture | scott scarano: first, grow people. then firm growth can follow |

goprocpa.com exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

together, they also formed thriveal, a support community for accounting firm owners. blumer is the ceo and visionary for the firm and shipp is the coo and integrator. this separation of ownership from roles allows them both to be, as shipp says, “100% in my role and have 100% the authority of my role.”

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brandon hall: firms try to make too much on tax prep

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try for a 10-15% margin.

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the disruptors
with liz farr

brandon hall says that the reason accountants have such long and grueling busy seasons is that “firms try to make way too much money at tax prep.” firms don’t have enough capacity to deliver on services, so everyone – including the partners – ends up working a ton of hours.

more podcasts and videos: james graham: drop the billable hour and you’ll bill more | karen reyburn: fix your marketing and fix your business | giles pearson: fix the staffing crisis by swapping experience for education | jina etienne: practice fearless inclusion | bill penczak: stop forcing smart people to do stupid work | sandra wiley: staffing problem? check your culture | scott scarano: first, grow people. then firm growth can follow | jody padar: build a practice that works for you, not vice-versa |

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because partner pay isn’t included in payroll, the margin on tax prep is likely much worse than the 30-35% that shows up on the income statement. hall’s target for the 2024 filing season is just 10-15% margin on tax prep.

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amber setter: coaching helps resolve the tension between safety and purpose

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safety’s knowing you can pay the bills. purpose is knowing there’s something more.

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the disruptors
with liz farr

amber setter, the chief enlightenment officer for conscious public accountants, started out as a type a overachiever cpa, but after a few busy seasons, she realized that she “didn’t want to be an accountant anymore.”

 

more podcasts and videos: blumer cpas: move leaders out of client service | james graham: drop the billable hour and you’ll bill more | karen reyburn: fix your marketing and fix your business | giles pearson: fix the staffing crisis by swapping experience for education | jina etienne: practice fearless inclusion | bill penczak: stop forcing smart people to do stupid work | sandra wiley: staffing problem? check your culture | scott scarano: first, grow people. then firm growth can follow | jody padar: build a practice that works for you, not vice-versa | ira rosenbloom: with m&a, nobody wants a fixer-upper | peter margaritis: the power skills every accountant needs | joe montgomery: find the sweet spot of the right clients, right services and right prices | marie green: your bad apples are ruining you | megan genest tarnow: hire for curiosity rather than compliance |

goprocpa.com exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

today she’s an executive leadership coach for accountants, helping them transform their lives and careers.

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james graham: drop the billable hour and you’ll bill more

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firm poised to double in size with cfo services.

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the disruptors
with liz farr

james graham’s firm, richtr financial studio, gave up the billable hour 10 or 15 years ago, and graham points to that choice as making the biggest difference in his firm.

more podcasts and videos: karen reyburn: fix your marketing and fix your business | giles pearson: fix the staffing crisis by swapping experience for education | jina etienne: practice fearless inclusion | bill penczak: stop forcing smart people to do stupid work | sandra wiley: staffing problem? check your culture | scott scarano: first, grow people. then firm growth can follow | jody padar: build a practice that works for you, not vice-versa | ira rosenbloom: with m&a, nobody wants a fixer-upper | peter margaritis: the power skills every accountant needs | joe montgomery: find the sweet spot of the right clients, right services and right prices | marie green: your bad apples are ruining you | megan genest tarnow: hire for curiosity rather than compliance | clayton oates: one way to keep clients for life |

goprocpa.com exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

he said it’s because “it really changes the nature of your relationship with the client” when the client is no longer looking at the clock with “that dollar per hour in the moment, always hanging over any interaction.” by removing the focus on time, “it allows everyone to move forward better because the focus is on running the business.”

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karen reyburn: fix your marketing and fix your business

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not more clients, better clients.

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the disruptors
with liz farr

karen reyburn wants accountants to stop thinking “about marketing as this one-off thing where you tick little boxes,” but instead about the ways you can use your marketing to connect to the human experience. her company, the profitable firm, or pf for short, has been helping accountants with their marketing since 2012.

more podcasts and videos: giles pearson: fix the staffing crisis by swapping experience for education | jina etienne: practice fearless inclusion | bill penczak: stop forcing smart people to do stupid work | sandra wiley: staffing problem? check your culture | scott scarano: first, grow people. then firm growth can follow | jody padar: build a practice that works for you, not vice-versa | ira rosenbloom: with m&a, nobody wants a fixer-upper | peter margaritis: the power skills every accountant needs | joe montgomery: find the sweet spot of the right clients, right services and right prices | marie green: your bad apples are ruining you | megan genest tarnow: hire for curiosity rather than compliance | clayton oates: one way to keep clients for life |

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her new book, the accountant marketer: the structured approach any accountant can follow to attract clients they love, provides a step-by-step process for understanding the unique characteristics of their firm and how to connect that uniqueness with their best clients.

in reyburn’s view, marketing is closely connected to the business. “if you have a marketing problem, you have a business problem. if you have a business problem, there’s often a marketing solution that can help with it.”

this book springs out of a pf coaching group called the accelerator, where participants were guided through a process of creating a structured approach to content marketing that made their marketing better. reyburn and pf take a collaborative approach to marketing. “we don’t do marketing for people,” she explained. “we do marketing with them.”

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giles pearson: fix the staffing crisis by swapping experience for education

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promoting cas services to entrepreneurial students can add better recruits to the profession.

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the disruptors
with liz farr

new zealand doesn’t have a tax season. this is largely because all tax returns are due one year after the standard march 31 year-end for businesses and individuals. but also: fewer than 20% of individuals actually need to file a return.

more podcasts and videos: jina etienne: practice fearless inclusion | bill penczak: stop forcing smart people to do stupid work | sandra wiley: staffing problem? check your culture | scott scarano: first, grow people. then firm growth can follow | jody padar: build a practice that works for you, not vice-versa | ira rosenbloom: with m&a, nobody wants a fixer-upper | peter margaritis: the power skills every accountant needs | joe montgomery: find the sweet spot of the right clients, right services and right prices | marie green: your bad apples are ruining you | megan genest tarnow: hire for curiosity rather than compliance | clayton oates: one way to keep clients for life | randy crabtree: follow these three rules to keep employees happy | erik solbakken: yes, you can work less and make more | donny shimamoto: future firm growth requires a mindshift | jennifer wilson: empower young workers to build the firm everyone loves | mike whitmire: re-think your hiring and training practices | hector garcia: success strategies of a quickbooks youtube superstar | blake oliver: why tax work yearns to be free| private equity explodes in u.k. | brannon poe: the status quo must go  | accounting nerds, unlock your super powers  | disruptor: jason statts shakes up the status quo | think small to think big with matt wilkinson | when financial statements go extinct with corey schmidt | can geraldine carter save accountants from themselves? | re-inventing accounting with tyler anderson

goprocpa.com exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

“the returns that accounting firms are filing are for business owners and people with more complex investment structures,” says giles pearson, ceo and co-founder of accountests, an online knowledge-testing company that focuses on recruitment, selection and development assessments for chartered accountants, accounting graduates and candidates.

pearson adds that while a few do wait until the last minute, “the reality is for a lot of smaller firms here, by january, they’re literally twiddling their thumbs.”

this is something that pearson suggests the aicpa and the profession could be lobbying congress to adopt in america. alas, the profession has been trying for years, to no avail.

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jina etienne: practice fearless inclusion

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accounting is what we do. it is not who we are.

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see the disruptors

the disruptors
with liz farr

jina etienne wants accountants to stop hiding behind our green eyeshades and all the stereotypes we share as cpas. she practices “fearless inclusion,” which is the freedom to be yourself and to create the space for others to do the same.

more podcasts and videos: heather satterley: you’ve got to meet people where they are | bill penczak: stop forcing smart people to do stupid work | sandra wiley: staffing problem? check your culture | scott scarano: first, grow people. then firm growth can follow | jody padar: build a practice that works for you, not vice-versa | ira rosenbloom: with m&a, nobody wants a fixer-upper | peter margaritis: the power skills every accountant needs | joe montgomery: find the sweet spot of the right clients, right services and right prices | marie green: your bad apples are ruining you | megan genest tarnow: hire for curiosity rather than compliance | clayton oates: one way to keep clients for life | randy crabtree: follow these three rules to keep employees happy | erik solbakken: yes, you can work less and make more | donny shimamoto: future firm growth requires a mindshift | jennifer wilson: empower young workers to build the firm everyone loves | mike whitmire: re-think your hiring and training practices | hector garcia: success strategies of a quickbooks youtube superstar | blake oliver: why tax work yearns to be free| private equity explodes in u.k. | brannon poe: the status quo must go  | accounting nerds, unlock your super powers  | disruptor: jason statts shakes up the status quo | think small to think big with matt wilkinson | when financial statements go extinct with corey schmidt | can geraldine carter save accountants from themselves? | re-inventing accounting with tyler anderson

goprocpa.com exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

“inclusion happens because of how i show up and the space i make for others,” etienne said. she added that the fearless part means we need to be brave and bold while also interacting with others thoughtfully. when we show our personalities and our humanity, “that fixes a lot of things, actually,” she explained.

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chris vanover: question the why or stay with the status quo

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challenge yourself to do things differently.

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see the disruptors

the disruptors
with liz farr

chris vanover is on a mission “to make accounting and auditing better.”

initially, auditclub helped firms mainly with quality control, but over time that grew into offering fractional support on a subscription basis to audit firms that can’t find the talent they need.

more podcasts and videos: jason deshayes: what we’re doing isn’t working | heather satterley: you’ve got to meet people where they are | bill penczak: stop forcing smart people to do stupid work | sandra wiley: staffing problem? check your culture | scott scarano: first, grow people. then firm growth can follow | jody padar: build a practice that works for you, not vice-versa | ira rosenbloom: with m&a, nobody wants a fixer-upper | peter margaritis: the power skills every accountant needs | joe montgomery: find the sweet spot of the right clients, right services and right prices | marie green: your bad apples are ruining you | megan genest tarnow: hire for curiosity rather than compliance | clayton oates: one way to keep clients for life | randy crabtree: follow these three rules to keep employees happy | erik solbakken: yes, you can work less and make more | donny shimamoto: future firm growth requires a mindshift | jennifer wilson: empower young workers to build the firm everyone loves | mike whitmire: re-think your hiring and training practices | hector garcia: success strategies of a quickbooks youtube superstar | blake oliver: why tax work yearns to be free| private equity explodes in u.k. | brannon poe: the status quo must go  | accounting nerds, unlock your super powers  | disruptor: jason statts shakes up the status quo | think small to think big with matt wilkinson | when financial statements go extinct with corey schmidt | can geraldine carter save accountants from themselves? | re-inventing accounting with tyler anderson

goprocpa.com exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

audit firms are challenged to plan a year or even a month out, so auditclub offers members weekly access. this weekly flexibility allows auditclub to take a concierge approach to help their member firms out a week at a time. plus, vanover may have the secret sauce to getting employees to perform at their optimum levels daily.

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jason deshayes: what we’re doing isn’t working

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create opportunities for others by getting out of the way.

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see the disruptors

the disruptors
with liz farr

by age 35, jason deshayes, cpa/pfs, cfp, cka, was already co-owner of a cpa firm in albuquerque. he “hit the magic shangri la that we’re all working for.” but it wasn’t right for him. he was bored with the long hours and felt he wasn’t growing. he wasn’t able to think about his firm the way he wanted to. so he and his partner sold their firm.

more podcasts and videos: heather satterley: you’ve got to meet people where they are | bill penczak: stop forcing smart people to do stupid work | sandra wiley: staffing problem? check your culture | scott scarano: first, grow people. then firm growth can follow | jody padar: build a practice that works for you, not vice-versa | ira rosenbloom: with m&a, nobody wants a fixer-upper | peter margaritis: the power skills every accountant needs | joe montgomery: find the sweet spot of the right clients, right services and right prices | marie green: your bad apples are ruining you | megan genest tarnow: hire for curiosity rather than compliance | clayton oates: one way to keep clients for life | randy crabtree: follow these three rules to keep employees happy | erik solbakken: yes, you can work less and make more | donny shimamoto: future firm growth requires a mindshift | jennifer wilson: empower young workers to build the firm everyone loves | mike whitmire: re-think your hiring and training practices | hector garcia: success strategies of a quickbooks youtube superstar | blake oliver: why tax work yearns to be free| private equity explodes in u.k. | brannon poe: the status quo must go  | accounting nerds, unlock your super powers  | disruptor: jason statts shakes up the status quo | think small to think big with matt wilkinson | when financial statements go extinct with corey schmidt | can geraldine carter save accountants from themselves? | re-inventing accounting with tyler anderson

goprocpa.com exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

today, he’s coo at cook wealth, a hybrid wealth management and tax firm. providing both types of services means that they don’t deal with “this weird thing, where the client’s in the middle, and they have to be the conduit for information going both ways.” he says that getting his cfp has “been so enriching.” deshayes added, “i love what i do, and it’s because i was willing to drop stuff so other people could learn the stuff i learned, and so i could do fun stuff.”  


click “play” to see: what jason deshayes talks about when he’s talking about a “forward-thinking enterprise.” (via wordclouds.com)

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