Sharrin Fuller: Build It Better, Then Let It Run Without You | The Disruptors
Freedom comes from systems.
The Disruptors
With Liz Farr
THE DISRUPTORS
Oz Demirdoven: Why U.S. Firms Lag the World in Advisory | The Disruptors
Success breeds complacency – and obsolescence.
Sponsored by True Advisor: The Definitive Success Guide for Client Advisory Services by Hitendra Patil
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The Disruptors
With Liz Farr
Success, long the defining strength of U.S. accounting firms, is fast becoming their most dangerous liability, according to Oz Demirdovan, a PKF executive with a global portfolio.
Flush with steady profits, deep client rosters, and decades of compliance-driven demand, many firms see little reason to change—just as the ground beneath them shifts, Demirdovan tells Liz Farr in this episode of The Disruptors.
MORE DISRUPTORS: Candy Bellau: The $350 Pricing Mistake that Nearly Broke this Boutique Firm | The Disruptors | Poe: What P.E. Really Wants from Firms | The Disruptors | Blake 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 |
The paradox is stark: the very stability that built the profession now insulates it from the urgency to adapt, leaving some of its most successful players at greatest risk of falling behind.
Demirdoven has worked in accounting worldwide, spending more than five years at Allinial Global. From his perspective, the most striking difference between accounting in the U.S. and the rest of the world isn’t just our complex regulatory environment.
“The biggest difference isn’t only regulation, it is mindsets,” he explains. “I would say, in North America, especially in the United States, firms are still very compliance anchored.” READ MORE →
Rebecca Driscoll: A Millennial and a Boomer Walk into a Bar… | The Disruptors
The Collaboration Room turns online peer networks into practical tools for pricing strategy, tax planning, succession, and psychological safety.
Sponsored by The Balanced Millionaire: The Advisor Edition by Dr. Jackie Meyer | See Today’s Special Offer
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The Disruptors
With Liz Farr
Before they co-founded The Collaboration Room, Rebecca Driscoll and Mike Sylvester, CEO of SBS CPA Group, had both been helping accountants with challenges on an informal basis.
“It felt kind of like disorganized, and we just needed one place,” Driscoll explains.
IN THIS EPISODE: The Collaboration Room | Brenda Cannon | Mike Sylvester | SchedulEase | Take Your Life Back Tax Pro Community | Tax Retreat |
MORE DISRUPTORS: Candy Bellau: The $350 Pricing Mistake that Nearly Broke this Boutique Firm | The Disruptors |Poe: What P.E. Really Wants from Firms | The Disruptors | Blake 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 |
After Brenda Cannon, co-founder of Cannon & Associates and founder of SchedulEase and the Take Your Life Back Tax Pro Community, connected them, they spent months testing ideas, questioning assumptions, and allowing the concept to grow organically before launching in the fall of 2024. “It doesn’t have to be perfect, and we’ll let it evolve and see what it becomes,” Driscoll says. READ MORE →
Candy Bellau: The $350 Pricing Mistake that Nearly Broke this Boutique Firm | The Disruptors
How to reset pricing, rebuild margins, and stop “helping” clients into bankruptcy.
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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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.
Poe: What P.E. Really Wants from Firms | The Disruptors
Beyond revenue and margins, buyers are scrutinizing teams, culture, and operational health.
This is a preview. The complete 1-hour 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
Subscribe to CPA Trendlines podcasts anywhere: Apple, Google/YouTube, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music, Audible, Player FM, Audacy, RSS.
The Disruptors
With Liz Farr
Brannon Poe, founder of Poe Group Advisors, says the key to a successful firm transaction is fit.
“I think having a good deal is really about having a good fit,” he says. Besides technical skills, “you have to have management styles that mesh well, you have to have client service philosophies that are aligned,” he explains.
MORE STREAMING: 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 |
For sellers, choosing the right buyer matters as much as the price. “I find that the sellers in particular, who keep their focus on fit and choose the right buyer, usually are the happiest with their exit.”
The last few years have created favorable conditions for accounting firm sales, but not for everyone.