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Debbie Kilsheimer: Stop Thinking Small | The Disruptors

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“Too often, we’re stepping over dollars to pick up pennies.”

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The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

By age 25, Debbie Kilsheimer was already disrupting the traditional accounting mindset. At her first job, she questioned why clients were billed by the hour when speed and efficiency weren’t rewarded.

“The smarter I get, the more efficient I become, the less you make,” she told her boss. “I don’t understand that. Plus, the clients don’t know what anything will cost—so they’re afraid to call.”

MORE PODCASTS and VIDEOS: Dave Kersting: Collaborate with Co-Firming | Ashley Francis: AI’s a Partner, Not a Replacement | Richard Roppa-Roberts: Collaboration Over Competition | Ira Rosenbloom: M&A Numbers Are Easy – Culture Fit Is Hard | Roman Villard: Ditch the Suit & Shine | Monique Swansen: Align Firm Values with Services | Tina McGill: How to Create Lasting Client Impact | Stefan van Duyvendijk: Develop Operational Mindset | Steve Evans: Why Traditional Hiring Methods Fail | Roger Knecht: Can You Be an Accountrepreneur? | Beth Whitworth: Focus on Outcomes Not Hours |Mike Sylvester: Learn to Say No | Salim Omar: Identify Your Client’s $100,000 Problem | Jackie Meyer: Earn More with Fewer Clients | Jack Fleherty: Don’t Be a ‘Yes’ Person | Greg Adams: From Finance to Storytelling | The Disruptors | Jody Padar: Make Radical Changes Now If You Want to Be Relevant in 2030 | Rebecca Driscoll: Amplify Reach By Helping Other Firm Owners | Rory Henry: Create the Return on Relationships | Mike Maksymiw: Be the Leader You Wish You Had |

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Her suggestion to switch to flat-rate pricing was met with disbelief, but she knew she was onto something. Two decades later, Kilsheimer and her husband, Hal, run a million-dollar firm built on premium service, not time sheets.

“I’m going to be Starbucks. I’m going to be Louis Vuitton,” she says. “I’m going to be the most expensive accountant they talk to—and I’m going to deliver on that promise.”

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Jody Grunden: Be Different. Make More Money

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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.

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Jody Grunden: Subscription Pricing Is a Game Changer

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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.

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