MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

Candy Bellau: The $350 Pricing Mistake that Nearly Broke this Boutique Firm | The Disruptors

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How to reset pricing, rebuild margins, and stop “helping” clients into bankruptcy.

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Build a 7-figure firm in just 4 hours a week!

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Candy Bellau didn’t set out to build a firm that could operate without her. But her hand was forced when her mother became ill.

“I kept dropping the ball at my own company and my team, the long-term members kept picking it up, and slowly but surely, they just absorbed the client work I was doing,” Bellau recalls. 

MORE DISRUPTORS: Oliver: Build a Biz that Runs Without You | Daiber: Use Succession as a Growth Strategy | Cannon: Busy Season is Self-Inflicted | Carroll: When One Person Can Break the Firm |  Rampe: Build a Roadmap Even When the Road’s Not There | Chang: Killing SALY, One Agent at a Time | Vanover: 5-Star Firms Don’t Bill by the Hour | Kless: Profit Is a Result. Flourishing Is the Purpose | Whitman: Build Culture on ‘Progress,’ Not Change | Shein: No PE? No M&A? No Problem | Hood and Weber: Time to RISE | Proctor: Turn Dumb Ideas into Brilliant Solutions | Carter-Gray: How 1 Poor Review Strengthened the Firm | Hartman: Upwork to “40 Under 40” in 3 Years |

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Her team at Kramerica Business Solutions not only maintained the business but made it better. “They did things that were so much better, and they looked out for me,” Bellau says.  

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Eighteen Stumbling Blocks to Merging in Smaller Firms

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Man rubbing his eye and holding glasses while looking at computer with notes stuck to side

Fortunately, they all can be overcome … if everyone is willing.

By Marc Rosenberg
The Rosenberg Practice Management Library

Though not universally true, larger firms will find many aspects of smaller firms to be below their own standards.

MORE by Marc Rosenberg
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The questions that the acquiring firm needs to ask are:

  • How severe are these weaknesses?

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Jeremy Dubow: Raising the Bar for Talent | Big 4 Transparency

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Why equity is the new standard for talent retention.

This is a preview. The complete video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members | Go PRO here
Sponsored by The Balanced Millionaire: The Advisor Edition by Dr. Jackie Meyer | See Today’s Special Offer.

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Build a 7-figure firm in just 4 hours a week!
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Big 4 Transparency
By Dominic Piscopo, CPA
For CPA Trendlines

Jeremy Dubow, CEO and co-founder of Chicago-based, private-equity-backed Prosperity Partners, explains how entrepreneurship in accounting has shifted from demand-driven to capacity-constrained, and why transparent equity programs are becoming the new standard for talent retention.

MORE Dominic Piscopo | MORE Private Equity | MORE Pay & Compensation

Dubow joins Dominic Piscopo on Big 4 Transparency to discuss how accounting-firm entrepreneurship and the operating model required to scale have changed since he co-founded NDH in 2003. NDH later sold to private equity and rebranded as Prosperity Partners, which Dubow described as a case study in how firms are adapting to labor constraints, expanding client complexity, and rising expectations around technology and talent strategy.

Quotables
“The demand for accounting services is greater than it ever has been. The challenge is providing the service at a high level in a labor-constrained environment.”
“AI in and of itself is not right now the solution to solve all our problems. Using automation and offshoring gives us the operational leverage to create that capacity.”
“I recognize that my people are being attempted to be poached every single day of the year.”
“Why have a stock price if you don’t disclose what it is?”
“‘’If I worked that 80-hour week, you should too.’ Well, guess what? That doesn’t work anymore.”

Dubow argues the profession has shifted from a demand constraint to a capacity constraint. Client needs continue to expand, but firms increasingly struggle to staff and deliver services proactively at scale.

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