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Joe Pine: The Transformation Economy Comes for Public Accounting | Gear Up for Growth

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As AI automates compliance, value shifts to measurable outcomes and client aspirations.

This is a preview. The complete episode 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.

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

Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

Author and strategist B. Joseph Pine II urges accounting firm leaders to confront a fundamental question: What business are you really in?

MORE Jean Caragher here | Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here | MORE Gear Up for Growth | MORE CPA Trendlines videos and podcasts here

According to Pine, the profession is approaching a critical inflection point as the global economy moves beyond goods, services, and even experiences, into what he calls the transformation economy.

“You use experiences as a raw material to guide people to change, to help them achieve their aspirations,” Pine tells Gear Up for Growth host Jean Caragher, president of Capstone Marketing. This shift, he explains, requires firms to move beyond simply delivering accounting work efficiently to helping clients achieve meaningful, measurable change.

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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.

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

Subscribe to CPA Trendlines podcasts anywhere: Apple, Google/YouTube, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music, Audible, Player FM, Audacy, RSS.

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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Subscriptions Make Clients Feel Like Members

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man talking to pair of people seated across from him

Why they beat AUM and hourly fees for wealth management.

By Rory Henry
The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management

Recently I listened to a lively debate about financial advisor compensation between Ramit Sethi, author of the best seller “I Will Teach You To Be Rich,” and Michael Kitces, host of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast. Sethi was highly critical of the traditional 1 percent of assets under management (AUM) model that so many wealth advisors charge. Instead of 1 percent of AUM, Sethi argued that advisors should think of themselves as accountability partners (i.e., personal trainers for clients’ money) and instead charge them based on how they help them modify their behaviors to produce better outcomes.

MORE Rory Henry and The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management
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For instance, a good advisor can help clients adopt good behaviors such as saving more of every paycheck and sticking to their investment plan during volatile times. Good advisors, said Sethi, also help clients from engaging in their old wealth-destructive behaviors such as speculating on hot stocks in the news or cashing out of the market at the first sign of trouble. By the way, helping clients modify behaviors and produce better outcomes is what an Advis-ROR™ does.

Let’s explore how an AUM/subscription model using a virtual family office is a win for both firms and the clients they serve.
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Brannon Poe: Is Your Firm PE-Ready? | The Disruptors

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Most firms aren’t. Here’s how to change that.

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

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 |

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

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.  

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Want Better Clients? Raise Your Rates

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portrait of Loren Fogelman
Fogelman
 Loren Fogelman, founder of Business Success Solution, is an expert in pricing strategy and sales for accounting firms. A sought-after keynote speaker, she is continually listed among America’s top-ranked business coaches.

Your fees send a message about your firm.

By Loren Fogelman
The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management

Setting your fees appropriately is one of the primary challenges that accounting professionals face. According to McKinsey, 80 to 90 percent of services are priced too low. Throughout my career, I too have found that most firm owners don’t know how much to charge for their services – and too often they undercharge.

MORE Rory Henry and The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management
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Many firm owners tell me that setting fees can feel like tiptoeing through a pricing minefield. And pricing shouldn’t be taken lightly. This is especially true for wealth management services. The prices you set today will impact your firm’s profit margin as well as your growth for years to come.
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