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- Lessons from $1M+ Firm Owners
Hey 👋 - Brandon here.
Happy Saturday to 1,791 growth-minded accountants.
Here’s one growth tip for you and your firm.
Today’s issue takes less than 5 minutes to read.
I’ve been hosting monthly sessions with $1M+ firm owners in my new community, four15, and we reflected on lessons learned during 2024.
The general theme is consistent with my writings in that firm owners need to get out of client work, learn how to delegate, and become an effective leader to scale up.
You can’t do more of the same and expect to grow.
(If you are interested in applying to join four15, check out the footer to this email)
Here are some of the lessons learned:
Client relationships got me here, but are preventing me from working ON the business
We love building relationships with clients and helping them through their own problems, but at some point client relationships become an impediment to firm growth.
Firm owners who don’t accept this are resigning themselves to a lifetime of low leverage work. The opportunity cost has to be insane.
Clear expectations + accountability
A big theme of my writing is how to develop better communication and leadership skills.
As you scale, the ROI on developing these skills outpaces everything else - even marketing/sales skills (I think).
Firm owners in four15 have learned the same lesson - clarity is kindness.
If your team doesn’t know what success looks like, they can’t possibly meet your expectations. You must tell them exactly what you expect, in writing, down to minute details.
You must also hold them accountable to the outcomes.
Many people do not like accountability. They’d prefer to work at their own pace and on their own schedule. If you want to run a non-profit, feel free to let your team have free rein.
For the rest of us, it’s important to work on creating feedback loops (daily check-ins) and quickly addressing lagging performance… do not let it fester.
Better calendar management
As your firm grows, the demand on your time also grows.
You can easily fill an entire workday with low leverage firm management tasks. You will feel busy but the impact of the time you are pouring into the business is minimal.
First, identify the 2-3 most important things you need to accomplish in 2025.
Then, find one day on your schedule each week that you will block from 9am to 5pm. No one is allowed to schedule with you during that day. That goes for clients, vendors, celebrities, employees, etc.
This is your sacred time to focus on your top 2-3 things.
If blocking one whole day makes you nervous, you have a delegation problem. You need to identify the tasks/projects/clients you can delegate to dampen those nerves.
I’d you don’t have anyone to delegate to, you have a capacity or capability problem.
You need to find people who can develop into higher level thinkers/leaders and take things off your plate.
By the way, this cycle repeats itself as you grow: identify most important tasks → calendar block → nervous, need to delegate → can’t delegate, need to develop great people → hire people.
That's all for this Sunday. See you next week.
Cheers,
Brandon
Ready to grow your firm? Here’s how I can help:
→ Apply to join four15, the community I launched for ambitious firm owners doing $1M+ in revenue (23/30 spots filled)
→ Book a demo to get accurate salary data from B4Transparency so you can always attract top talent by paying top of market (I own a minority stake)
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