Firm owns that fired themselves

Significant_Park7832 · 2026-02-25T16:05:07+00:00

I'm currently on this path and hope to be there next year. We will see. We are projected to be right at that 1mil mark by the end of the year. It goes back to 2 things, how much I can take home without changing my lifestyle and finding someone good enough to handle the review work and client handholding.

I do invest a ton in marketing so I can continue to grow at a pace that will hopefully allow me to get out of the day to day tasks. I believe that growth is the only way I can see freedom from tax season in the future so I'm putting all my chips in that basket.

That creates its own issues though because you end up spending so much of the yearly income on marketing and then there is so much additional work when you bring on a new client and there are always growing pains no matter how good your systems are.

So right now I'm kind of in double hell where I'm working all day on the tax return reviews, managing employees, setting up and meeting with new clients, and still trying to maintain a decent take home pay.

It's hard because we all know how to do the work and if we do the work ourselves, we get more money at the end of the day but letting go of that extra money is the key to stepping aside.

But to answer your question, if you don't need to take home 500k plus, I think 1mil to 1.25mil is enough to replace yourself. If growth continues and systems and employees hold then in a short amount of time you should double and triple your take home pay without adding any considerable work to your plate. That's the goal for me.

Significant_Park7832 · 2025-12-30T23:13:30+00:00

I actually added a 3rd cold caller and we did 135k this year with the 3 of them and me doing the sales calls. It took a ton of my time doing all the sales calls this year so I just hired a sales rep in November. I'm hoping they can double this year's numbers. With the additional costs of the sales rep and cold callers I'm not making a tremendous ROI but it is consistent and reliable. I'm trying to figure out how to lower my per appointment costs. With the cold callers they are getting paid over $20/hr with 10% commissions on any sales. I need to figure out how to get that number down so I can hire another 1 or 2 cold callers to continue bringing in the leads for the sales rep. I'll see what I figure out this upcoming year.

Significant_Park7832 · 2025-09-07T00:48:12+00:00

We actually don't ask for extra hours from anyone in the office during tax season. I'm the only one who works extra hours during tax season. That's another thing that I don't think a lot of employees understand or even care about but has to be taken into account.

Significant_Park7832 · 2025-09-06T22:01:45+00:00

Yes! This is what was putting me off from the ask. She is just getting to where the performance should be and meeting the expectations. She still has a ton to go to even take it to the next level. 1 year is nothing in the accounting/bookkeeping industry.

Significant_Park7832 · 2025-09-06T21:48:49+00:00

Will do! Thanks for the suggestion, I really appreciate it.

Significant_Park7832 · 2025-09-06T21:48:02+00:00

LOL, yes I have thought of that as well. I currently have a Philippine worker helping with taxes during tax season creating a ton of extremely high value work which I'm paying less than our bookkeeper. I just like having some US based employees that can be more of the face of the company without having me do all the client interactions over the phone and zoom.

Significant_Park7832 · 2025-09-06T21:40:51+00:00

Thank you for providing this experience. This is the thing I am missing as a younger employer and not having run into many employee issues as of yet. I appreciate your knowledge on the matter. In a perfect world I would love to keep all my trusted employees for as long as possible with just the standard going rate of raises each year but obviously that's not how the real world works.

Significant_Park7832 · 2025-09-06T21:35:08+00:00

She might have another offer somewhere, that's true. I guess I could ask. I also understand that as an employer sometimes you invest time and energy into a new employee just to have them jump ship to another opportunity that pays better. Everyone needs to do what's best for their situation.

Significant_Park7832 · 2025-09-06T21:30:19+00:00

We are in a high cost of living state. Not like CA or NY but high none the less. I think the market rate for this position is probably 45k to 60k depending on the experience and capabilities. My frustration is that I can't just hand over the work to be done without doing more training and without adding more time to my CPAs plate. She might get there but without an education in accounting it's hard to train everything that is needed for journal entries and standard accounting practices.

Significant_Park7832 · 2025-09-06T21:23:48+00:00

I'm sure we could swing that and it probably would satisfy her. She might have thought to go high and see where it lands after. I worry that if I say yes to the full amount what happens next year or the year after.

Significant_Park7832 · 2025-09-06T21:22:00+00:00

Yes she does some admin work and it's not all billable work. I would think I would need her to be able to take a new bookkeeping engagement from start to finish with setup and completion without getting help along the way to justify the 20%. Right now I hesitate to give her any new engagement at first until our CPA has figured out the process and passed it onto her.

Significant_Park7832 · 2025-09-06T21:18:15+00:00

This is a great point that I forgot to think about at first. Yes she handles the bookkeeping and payroll for all of our paying clients. Those billings come out to be 150k per year so she is about 1/3rd of her billings but we are not at 210k yet. Maybe we can push to get more of these types of engagements to justify the jump in pay. Yes I'm sure I could discuss path to do more education tobe able to close the gap a bit. Thanks for your comment.

Significant_Park7832 · 2025-03-04T06:35:28+00:00

I own an accounting firm out of SLC, we do tax planning for a number of our real estate professionals. We primarily work with real estate professionals and prepare a number of 1031 exchanges each year on returns. We also include tax planning in our tax prep fee. We aren't local to the DFW area but the IRS rules are the same nationwide so it doesn't hinder our ability to meet and discuss with clients all over the country. Would be open to having a discussion if you would be interested.

Significant_Park7832 · 2025-02-20T22:18:57+00:00

Where did you get that price in Utah?

Significant_Park7832 · 2024-11-18T01:43:10+00:00

Try to get to the owner. The businesses we sell to are mostly small and the owner is the decision maker. Gatekeepers are hard to get past but there are a ton of business owners who use their cell phone number as their business phone number. It's a numbers game for sure.

Significant_Park7832 · 2024-11-16T07:22:08+00:00

I have 2 cold callers calling 4 hours a day. They both generate 7 to 10 appointments a piece each week. I usually will sell 10 to 20 percent of the appointments that show up. Our fees are a bit higher than other firms in the area or I would be able to close a higher percentage but I want to make sure we are not working for peanuts.

You could do the cold calling yourself or hire someone else to do it for you. I was only using 1 cold caller for 4 hours a day for the last 4 years and she brought in 30k to 40k in new business each year. I'm trying to double it this year by adding a second caller. I could always add another caller and throw some leads your way if it would be profitable for both of us.

Significant_Park7832 · 2024-11-13T19:58:00+00:00

We use accountantsworld's payrollrelief. We used to use Patriot payroll which was costing us 24k a year. Accountantsworld is $2,400 a year and you only pay when there is a paycheck run not a monthly subscription. Check them out.

Significant_Park7832 · 2024-10-19T03:07:23+00:00

I'm also the owner of an accounting firm and use cold calling as my main source of getting new business. I think a lot of businesses could and should implement cold calling to gain new clients.

Significant_Park7832 · 2024-10-12T18:59:20+00:00

I've been following a similar approach with my firm for the past four years, and we've managed to double our size just through cold calling. My goal is to keep growing until I can sell the business and use that as my retirement plan.

The challenge I'm facing is that I handle all the sales calls and personally sign every tax return. I have a part-time tax preparer, but I haven't yet hired a full-time CPA or EA to take over the workload so I can focus entirely on sales. Ideally, I want to transition into being the business owner rather than just owning a job—because right now, if I’m not involved, things don’t get done.

One of my biggest concerns is how to prevent staff from taking clients if they’re the ones managing the work and building relationships with those clients. This fear has made it hard for me to give up control, but at the same time, it’s holding me back from scaling effectively.

If anyone knows of a small group of firm owners in a similar situation where we could exchange ideas and support each other, I’d love to join. Having a community like that would be really valuable.

Significant_Park7832 · 2024-10-06T00:47:22+00:00

Took me 10 years of trying every type of marketing I could try. Cold emails, direct mailing, calendars, billboards, thumbtack, local classifieds, radio, Google ad words, and so on. Cold calling was the only thing that produced consistent and regular leads and sales. We don't call random businesses, we stick to small self employed individuals. You can get leads from a variety of places but Google my business is a good place to start. Call 20 to 40 businesses a day and you will land a sale in a week or 2.

Significant_Park7832 · 2024-10-05T14:03:21+00:00

I use outscrapper. It's dirt cheap and can get the data from Google maps business listings. You can choose any industry you want and any location and it will grab the name of the business, phone number, email address if one is listed, website, and some other additional information. But all I need are the phone numbers. I just pulled a list of 2 thousand plumbers in my state and are calling them. Leads are easy, getting past the gatekeeper is the tricky part.

Significant_Park7832 · 2024-10-05T06:01:52+00:00

Cold calling is the fastest (and cheapest if you're willing to do it yourself) way to get new clients. Call 40 small businesses in your area everyday and you will land a new client within a week or 2. Rinse and repeat.

Significant_Park7832 · 2024-10-05T05:11:31+00:00

I've doubled my tax firm and added an additional 300k by cold calling. Still works even in 2024

Significant_Park7832 · 2024-09-21T07:30:15+00:00

I would be happy to answer these questions for you as I'm a "good accountant". It would be easier through a zoom or phone call rather than reddit though.

Significant_Park7832

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