Liz Farr, Author at CPA Trendlines

Vimal Bava: When Working Smarter, Not Harder, Is the Only Option

Humans are the most advanced supercomputers, but there’s no user manual.

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The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Like many who start out in public accounting, Vimal Bava didn’t initially question the status quo of our high-stress profession where long hours and little time for self-care are the norm. Part of that stress was a partner who would “chew us out” for mistakes on returns.

MORE PODCASTS and VIDEOS: Dawn Brolin Says 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 |

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But when Vimal’s doctor told him he needed to find ways to reduce his stress, he started his own firm. Another wake-up call for Vimal came in 2017 when one of his accountant friends suddenly passed away.

PODCAST

Jody Grunden: Be Different. Make More Money

Prove the naysayers wrong.

This video is a preview. The complete video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members. The podcast version becomes available in a few days everywhere you get your podcasts.

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

In 2013, Jody Grunden’s firm, Summit Virtual CFO, became one of the first financial firms in the world to go fully remote. At the same time, they narrowed their focus to creative agencies. Those two changes, combined with a weekly subscription pricing model they’ve been using since 2007, resulted in a “hockey slope type ramp up.”

JODY GRUNDEN, PART 2 of 2: See Part 1, June 20 – Jody Grunden: Subscription Pricing Is a Game Changer

MORE PODCASTS and VIDEOS: Dawn Brolin Says 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 |

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Since then, they’ve been doubling in size every three years, reaching $10 million in revenue by 2022 while maintaining a profit margin of 10-25%. They also ditched the suits and ties back in 2004 and “decided to go against the norm…it really changed the way that people thought about accounting,” Grunden says. He is the author of the best-selling Building the Virtual CFO Firm in the Cloud.

PRICING, FEES & BILLING RATES

Disruptors: Cut 90% of Your Clients with Dominique Molina

We risk losing a generation of highly talented people if we continue to expect them to pay their dues and work long hours.

This is a preview. The complete video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members.

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

In 2006, Dominique Molina was overworked and burned out at her accounting firm. But instead of throwing in the towel, she drastically overhauled her firm: she pruned her client base from 300 to 30, focused on her expertise in tax planning, and shifted to value pricing.

MORE PODCASTS and VIDEOS: Dawn Brolin Says 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 |

Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

That transformation was “beyond my wildest dreams,” Molina says. “I never could have predicted the joy that I feel in my life, the satisfaction and fulfillment I feel from my work” by helping her clients with their own business transformations.

GROWTH STRATEGIES

Jody Grunden: Subscription Pricing Is a Game Changer

Get rid of the noise of hourly billing and create value.

This video is a preview. The complete video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members. The podcast version becomes available in a few days everywhere you get your podcasts.

Subscribe to CPA Trendlines podcasts anywhere: Apple, Google, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music and Audible, Player FM, Audacy, Gaana (India), and Boomplay (Africa).

The Disruptors
Part 1 of a two-part episode.
With Liz Farr

For over a decade, Jody Grunden, CPA, has been doing things that many firms are just now discovering. Summit Virtual CFO (now part of Anders) offers weekly subscription-based pricing as a fully remote firm, and their main offering is virtual CFO services or, in today’s parlance, CAS 2.0 services. He’s also the one you might spot at accounting conferences in his signature Tommy Bahama shirts instead of a suit and tie, not quite what you might expect from the leader of a $10 million firm.

JODY GRUNDEN, COMING IN PART 2, June 27: Be different. Make More Money
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Grunden, the partner and co-founder of Summit Virtual CFO, got his start as a thought leader and virtual CFO (as well as his signature wardrobe) when he was invited to speak at a conference in New Orleans. At the conference, he used an easel and pad of paper to walk a roomful of successful creative agency owners through the way they made money and how their decisions impacted the bottom line. He is the author of the best-selling Building the Virtual CFO Firm in the Cloud.

PODCAST

Loren Fogelman: Stop Undercharging and Start Being Client-Centered

Stop letting your business and career “suck the life out of you.”

This video is a preview. The complete video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members. The podcast version will be available everywhere you get your podcasts.

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Loren Fogelman is on a mission to help accountants and bookkeepers build businesses that “don’t suck the life out of you.” As Fogelman says, “How much can you actually give up your personal life before it’s not sustainable any longer?”

MORE PODCASTS and VIDEOS: Dawn Brolin Says 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 |

Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

According to Fogelman, a keynote speaker and one of America’s top-ranked business coaches for Business Success Solution, “At least 57% of firm owners are undercharging for their services.” She encourages professionals to double or even triple their fees, which frees up time so they can provide client-centered services and “go back to the gym or spend more time with your family or take that much-needed vacation.”

The highly-sought business coach has several methods her clients use to earn more, work less, and have more quality time for themselves.

Liz Farr

MORE AT STORE.CPATRENDLINES.COM

Liz Farr, CPA, is a special contributor to CPA Trendlines, bringing an insider's clear-eyed view of the tax and accounting business and a passion for advancing the profession.

She's the host of the hit CPA Trendlines podcast series "The Disruptors," available everywhere: Apple, Google, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music and Audible, Player FM, Audacy, Gaana (India), and Boomplay (Africa).

As founder and proprietor of Farr Communications, she is the secret weapon that her clients use to get their messages out. She has written blog posts, web content, articles, white papers, case studies and books for accountants and accounting tech companies. Her specialty is ghostwriting for coaches and consultants who want to move accountants into the future. She can bridge the gap between the dream these visionaries have for the future and the mindset and reality that today’s accountants are living in.

Five of her past and current clients have been named to Accounting Today’s annual list of 100 most influential in accounting. She has written under her name for the Journal of Accountancy, Intuit’s Firm of the Future blog and AccountingWEB. She has also appeared in Forbes, CFO.com, and Accounting Today.

Farr has a broad educational background, studying biochemistry at the University of Munster, Germany, and obtained her bachelor's degree as a double major in biochemistry and German at the University of New Mexico. She also studied German, Spanish, computer science and linguistics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and continued her studies in linguistics at the University of Washington. She earned her master's degree in accounting in 2004 from the Robert O. Anderson School of Management at the University of New Mexico, qualifying as a licensed CPA in 2005.

Professionally, Liz began as a tax preparer at H&R Block before working at several local CPA firms in the Albuquerque, N.M. area. At her last assignment as a tax manager, she helped a team develop streamlined processes for getting tax returns out faster and more accurately.

After spending 15 years working as an accountant in the Albuquerque, N.M., area, she traded in her ten-key for a pen and has been writing full time since 2018.

She can be contacted at Farr Communications.

When she’s not writing or studying the accounting business, she’s hiking or skiing in the mountains of New Mexico.

Here’s what you’re looking for: Liz Farr

This is a preview. The complete video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members.

Subscribe to CPA Trendlines podcasts anywhere: Apple, Google, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music and Audible, Player FM, Audacy, Gaana (India), and Boomplay (Africa).

This video is a preview. The complete video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members. The podcast version becomes available in a few days everywhere you get your podcasts.

This is a preview. The complete video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members.

This video is a preview. The complete video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members. The podcast version becomes available in a few days everywhere you get your podcasts.

Subscribe to CPA Trendlines podcasts anywhere: Apple, Google, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music and Audible, Player FM, Audacy, Gaana (India), and Boomplay (Africa).

This video is a preview. The complete video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members. The podcast version will be available everywhere you get your podcasts.