May 21, 2025 • 44 mins
Ronnie Withaeger’s journey in Accounting has led him to currently running five businesses, including a sauna, and he talks to John Randolph about doing things his way on Episode 69 of CPA Life. The owner and founder of Ronald Withaeger CPA in Las Vegas, Ronnie started his career at a traditional firm but ultimately established his own practice focused on family-friendly, sustainable growth, and he shares his insights through his accounting community initiative, Launch Your Firm. Highlighting the importance of confidence, client relationships, and flexible work structures in running a successful firm, Ronnie is motivated by the opportunity to support other accountants in starting their own practices.
Get the full show notes and more resources at CPALifePodcast.com
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(00:02):
Thanks for tuning in to CPA Life wherewe taught culture and growth with folks that are going against the grain in
an industry that has been stuck witha, we've always done it that way.
Mindset.
For far too long, join host John Randolph.
And learn how a sustainablefamily friendly career in public
accounting doesn't have tobe the exception to the rule.
(00:24):
Welcome to CPA Life.
Hey everybody.
We are back and excited about gettinga chance to hang out with you for another episode of the CPA Life podcast.
The podcast that's passionateabout showcasing some of the firms and firm leaders.
In today's marketplace who are buildingmore modern minded people-centric organizations, places where people don't
(00:48):
have to choose between a great careeror a great family or personal life.
And today we are gonna be talkingwith Ronnie Withaeger, who is
the owner and founder of RonaldWithaeger CPA in Las Vegas.
And we'll talk about geographyin just a little bit.
But the firm is based out of Las Vegas.
And he's not just working on building afirm that's like what we just mentioned, but he's also passionate about teaching
(01:13):
others how to do just that throughhis own Launch Your Firm community.
So Ronnie, thank you for joining us today.
Thanks for having me, John.
This is exciting to be on with you.
And just looking forward to being ableto share kind of part of my vision and what I've been doing in the space for.
The last 10 years.
It's hard to believe.
(01:34):
You know, when you look back at, Iknow for me sometimes you look back
and go, man, it's, it's been 10 years,you know, a whole decade of doing this.
And like we were just talking aboutbefore we started recording, I'm sure there were days in the early stages
of that 10 years that you had to askyourself, am I doing the right thing?
Oh yeah.
I mean I spent the first likefive or six years of my career working in traditional firms.
(01:58):
I went to RSM out of college andspent two and a half years there,
and then I went to a small localfirm for two and a half years.
I. And I think I kind of maybepulled what little hair I had left
out there and definitely had to makethe pivot when the time was right.
Yeah, it's always tough.
(02:19):
I think we make it tougher mentallythan it really is, but it's always tough stepping away from the safety net.
Of a W2 job.
Yeah.
But you ultimately did that, andyou were talking about kind of the history of where you came from.
You had a pretty traditionalstart coming out of college, as you mentioned, for sure.
RSM working for a local firm.
(02:41):
And then you spent a little bit of timewith Anderson for a little while, correct?
Yep.
So when I kind of got tothat five or six year mark.
I kind of really knew that Iwas ready to make the jump.
And you know, at a small firm, it's hardto make the jump because they're small and they want people that are gonna be staff.
And so, you know, they kind of hadtold me like, well hey, go build a
(03:05):
$250,000 book of business and then,you know, we'll make you manager.
And it was like one of thosethings where I was like, Hey guys.
I'm sorry, but if I'm gonna gobuild a $250,000 book of business, I'm just gonna go work for myself.
And so, you know, that didn't necessarilygo over too well when I kind of said that.
(03:27):
And, you know, I got an opportunityto go to a, a company called Anderson, which it's a very robust company that is.
Legal based, but had a tax practicebecause they did a lot of educational
events and, and you know, I ended upworking for lawyers for four years.
(03:47):
Oh wow.
And.
Like for my people who were likenon-traditional, like our traditional
six years in, Hey, you gotta go, youknow, work your way up to partner.
You know, this was an opportunitywhere I went there and you know, the
lawyers didn't really know how to runa tax practice in a traditional sense.
So.
(04:08):
They looked at me like, Hey, thisis a guy who kind of does know.
And for whatever reason they were kindof like, Hey, we want you to do this.
We want you to like bring our taxpractice into, you know, the 21st century.
And so I got a really coolopportunity working for the
attorneys to build a tax practicein the way that I thought was good.
(04:32):
And so.
You know, they let me hire people.
They let me change softwares.
They let me implement a paperless system.
They let me do all the thingsand, and so that was fun.
I also got to teach events.
I got to go on the road with, withthe partners and, you know, I, they
(04:52):
carved me out four hours to teachtax seminars and stuff like that.
And so.
It was a really cool opportunity to justtake some of the things that I knew needed to happen in the traditional accounting
practices and implement it into a firmthat I thought WA was really good.
Yeah.
It's amazing how when you, and maybeyou did go into it with this kind of a mindset, but it's amazing though when
(05:18):
you look back how God really linesup and ordains those opportunities for you to hone your skills.
Get better at your craft to prepare youfor what that next step is, which, you know, obviously in 2018, stepping out
and starting your own firm, you would putdown a lot of the foundations, and I don't
(05:40):
mean this negatively, but ats somebodyelse's expense and risk, if you will.
Yep.
To be able to then have the confidenceand look back and go, you know what?
Maybe now is the time.
What, what ultimately was theimpetus that got you to the point to say, you know what?
I think it's time.
I think it's time we do this,
so.
(06:01):
I had gotten like these threats oflegal action and all this kind of stuff.
You know, when you talk about like kind ofGod putting a pathway there for you, for whatever reason, I was able to see that.
Like I would never signa non-compete ever again.
And so one of the things thatI started doing early on was telling whoever I worked for, hey.
(06:26):
I'm entrepreneurial minded andI'm gonna go build business.
I have no problem building that businessinto your business, but if I ever leave.
Then I will want to takethat business with me.
And so that was one of the stepsI figured out very early on.
And you know, when I went to thesmall firm, it was a win-win for them.
(06:47):
'cause they're like, yeah,sure, bring business in.
That's totally fine and itcould remain your business.
And so I never really needed todo the moonlighting thing because
I kind of just had that agreementwith the people that I worked with.
And so, you know, what I had kind ofdone was slowly built a small practice.
Within the firms that I was working for.
(07:08):
Mm-hmm.
That was a major step.
The next thing that ended uphappening was that Anderson was growing at a very ridiculous rate.
We were doing amazing things and youknow, after I had kind of done a lot of those things, I mean, I don't know
if it was just the millennial in me,but like I ended up telling them from the beginning that like eventually I
(07:31):
would start my own firm and they werelike, Hey, we'll take you as long as we can have you type of thing.
And they were mm-hmm.
Super supportive of the, that transition.
And so when I got to four years in.
There were a few little things that endedup kind of pushing me off the edge, but I realized that I could go from having
4,000 clients to having 400 clientsand I would be able to make more money.
(07:58):
That's ultimately what it came down to.
It really is sometimesthat simple to look at.
You know, it's interesting youtalk about the non-compete issue and just the whole mindset.
I'm a firm believer that there is areason and a purpose for non-competes.
The people that have an ill intent togo out and do harm to an organization that I, there's a reason it's there.
(08:20):
Sure.
I worked for a boss years ago.
His mindset was a non-compete.
Is not really designed to put youout of business or keep you from working if you do it the right way.
A non-compete is designed tobe kind of a Roman crucifix.
If you do it the wrong way,we're gonna hang you from it and make your life miserable.
But yeah, if you do it the right way,and you know, in our business we have non-competes and I tell my staff all
(08:44):
the time, you know, look, if theregets to be a point that you want to go
out and do this on your own, I wannatrain you so well that you can do that.
But hopefully your desire is to stay here.
But if you do decide to do that, let'ssit down, let's talk about it, and let's figure out a way to let you go
do that and go do what it is that youwanna do, make the money you want to
make, and still be able to run intoeach other at the grocery store.
Shake your hand, hug your neckand say, Hey, how's life going?
(09:07):
Yeah,
there, there's just somethingpowerful about that.
We've got a client here in the Dallasarea, they've been in business 40,
40 something years, and when the firmstarted 40 plus years ago, and they still.
Operate this way today.
They're a pretty large firmhere in the Dallas area.
They're 120, 130 employees.
The owner of the firm started the firmwith the mindset that if you bring in business and you leave, if it's business,
(09:28):
you service, if you hunt it, yeah, killit, skin it, and it's on your desk.
Whether it's you or your team that's doingit, if it's in your purview, your focus and you leave, you can take it with you.
Now, if you bring in business and it'sbeing serviced by another part of the firm, you can't take that with you.
You know, if you're a tax guy, youbring in audit work, that kind of stuff.
(09:49):
Yeah,
and I. They've got a retentionrate of about seven and a half, 8%.
Yeah.
People just love staying there.
They take very good care of their people.
So when you stepped out and youstarted your firm, so you had at least a cushion of a book of business
that you were able to take with youand pick up and start running with?
I did.
Yeah.
The timing worked out good.
I knew that when I did jump outthat a lot of my concerns would at
(10:15):
least in some ways be alleviatedbecause I knew I had like a core.
Business.
And I mean, I know that's one ofthe things that a lot of people get concerned about is they go, Hey, you
know, like I'm leaving my $120,000job and I'm starting at zero.
Like how do I do that?
And so like when I kind of satdown at some point, I wrote down 10 things that I would need to do.
(10:39):
To feel really comfortable, likea bulletproof jump, and it was centered around having money saved.
Mm-hmm.
And also having a certain levelof my own book of business.
Yep.
I totally ended up having like, I feellike I calculated it out like really well.
(11:00):
Like when the time to jump wasthere, it was crystal clear.
It was time to make that move.
And so part of what I wanna do withpeople similar, you know, like, you know, to the firm that you were talking
about is it's like, or what you weresaying is let's create a win-win.
Let's create somethingthat works for everybody.
(11:20):
And when I left Anderson,they did the same thing.
Hey.
We wanna continue to havea relationship with you.
I mean, we worked out a deal where theysent out an email to the clients and said,
if you love Ronnie and you wanna go workwith Ronnie, here's his email address.
Wow.
And we worked out a dealwhere I paid them for that.
Mm-hmm.
(11:41):
And so like the pie is so big in theindustry that there's room for everybody.
So.
We should keeprelationships really strong.
And that was evident.
Now in my traditionalfirms, that was not evident.
Mm-hmm.
They used non-compete as apower play to try to punish you.
(12:02):
They used a non-compete even, I mean, Igot threatened with non-competes before any of the clients ever even called me.
And when you're like making 70 grand ayear and you got two kids under four.
Like, and they're saying, well,we're gonna bring you to court and all this kind of stuff.
That's the kind of stuff where it'slike, Hey, when I see it in public, I really have a hard time respecting.
(12:26):
Mm-hmm.
And so, you know, like there is someplaces out there unfortunately who
are still flexing some of that kindaweight, which I think is ridiculous.
But we're through itand I'm grateful for it.
Tell me a little bit, let's talka little bit about your firm.
Been in business now, almost 10.
You obviously have built a successfulbusiness that not only makes a good
(12:49):
living for you, but also providesgreat solutions for clients.
Where are you now todayin regards to staff size?
Is there a focus or niche that you have?
You know, from the standpoint of deliveryof service, how much of that is compliance versus advisory consulting work?
And do you guys do CAS or outsourcedaccounting, or is it focused strictly tax?
(13:10):
Okay.
Yeah, so my firm's kind of, it'sinteresting, it's went up and down.
And so I think that one of the bestthings about owning your own practice
is that you get to do this thingexactly the way you want to do it.
And so when I jumped out, itwas me, and then I had one staff
(13:31):
person that had worked with meat Anderson, and then we used.
Another girl who I hired atAnderson, but left just before me.
And we kind of had like this whole, it'sme and then I have like one employee and then one contractor and, and so we rolled
with that for a couple years and I endedup kind of taking my firm from probably
(13:56):
a hundred grand to about 800 grandover like a three or four year period.
Wow.
Nice.
We kind of all, were like sittingthere like, this is like kind of too much for our lifestyle, right?
I mean, it's not too much for everybody.
There's plenty of people who couldjust go hire more staff and all that
(14:17):
kind of stuff, but I kind of treatedmy firm as like a family firm.
Mm-hmm.
So.
The people that work with me, I'veknown for 10 plus years, and so that's all the people that I work with.
We ended up getting a little toobig and it was like, we don't, we just don't wanna be stressed.
I got four daughters.
(14:37):
I'm active in that.
I'm active in my church community.
I. I have hobbies.
And so like for me, I was like, I don'tneed to build like this mega million dollar firm where I'm gaining 10 pounds
a year because I'm stress eating allthe time and all that kind of stuff.
Just like three or four pounds a year.
Yeah, no, I'm just kidding.
(14:57):
Um, so what ended up happening is thegirl that was a contractor, she kind
of approached me and was like, Hey,I kind of wanna start my own firm.
And so I said.
That's amazing.
Let's do it.
Like, what do you wanna do?
And she's like, I'm stressed aboutkind of like just getting clients.
And so like, you know, me, I'mgood at getting clients, I get clients every day type of thing.
(15:24):
And, and so she was like, youknow, will you help me get clients?
I said, yeah, help you get clients.
And then I was like, what if Isold you a book of, of business?
You know?
So what we ended up doing is we carvedout $180,000 worth of, of business.
And I sold it to her.
Very nice.
And so, yeah, a lot of thatstuff was my Vegas clients.
(15:47):
And so what I ended up doing is movingto Utah, we decided to move our family to
Utah and live in a smaller town than LasVegas and just try something different.
And so I said, Hey, thetiming works out good.
I'm like, why don't I justsell you my Vegas clients?
A big chunk of those ones, and then someof the other ones you're familiar with.
(16:09):
And then, you know, like,we'll work together on stuff.
You know, we could still telleverybody that, you know, like
I'm kind of here if they ever wantto consult or anything like that.
And it'll let you kind of transitioninto taking those clients over.
So I helped Emily start her own firm.
And gave her the baseand it was a win-win.
'cause she like paidme out on installment.
(16:30):
Mm-hmm.
And so that was a good waywhere I was getting too big to be able to like scale back.
So it's like, okay, now I'm back to like600 k, which was an okay spot to be in.
So Emily kinda like moves out now she'sdoing her own thing and it's like, well
now we don't have like a contractoranymore either to like help us.
And so.
(16:51):
This other guy I know he was at a firmand he ended up like kind of wanting to quit and so he ended up quitting and
I said, well, come on and replace mycontractor and I'll, you know, I'll pay you a monthly amount and work with us.
So after about like six months, I. Weended up like, you know, loving, working together and all this kind of stuff.
And then he was like, Hey man,like you think I can kinda like do that thing that Emily did?
(17:15):
You know, like I'd love tomaybe like do the same thing.
And so then I was like,well, yeah, let's do it.
So then I broke off two 50 for him andso I basically scaled back about 40 or 50% over a two year period and helped.
Two people start their own firms.
(17:36):
Mm-hmm.
And so from a client perspective,we kind of just told everybody like, Hey, I just took partners.
And so like I have partnersnow who spearhead tax prep.
You know, like I'm still happy to talkanytime or any of those types of things.
And so we kinda all like worktogether, share tax software, share our paperless system.
(17:59):
We're kind of like a team, but not a team.
We all have our own S-corp and doour own billing and stuff like that.
But so like today, where I'm at.
I do about 550 or 600,000I would say about.
50,000 of its bookkeeping, ahundred thousand is advisory, and then the rest is tax compliance.
(18:22):
And it's, you know, 50 50 betweensmall business and personal tax.
So a lot of s-corps, lot ofyou know, personal returns that go through with that.
In professional services, I havesome athletes and some high net worth people that I get some bigger fees
from, some construction companiesthat I get some bigger fees from, but.
(18:44):
I'll help whoever needs help, we'll dosomebody's tax return for who's a teacher in a school district for 350 bucks.
I mean, like, we just like helpingthe people that we're connected to.
Yep.
And so we kind of do a little bit allover the map and you know, we're in a spot where our practice is really good.
It, it, it's in a great spot.
(19:05):
Yeah.
It's interesting because you hit onsomething a minute ago, and I think that there's so much truth to that, and
it is the fact that when you run yourown firm, there's no cookie cutter.
Yeah.
You do what fits.
Your wheelhouse, and there may besomebody who looks at what you do and says, Hey man, it's not niche enough.
It's not narrow enough, orit's not, or it's too big.
(19:27):
I don't know if I'd wanna do that much.
Yeah.
And then there's someone elsethat may say, you know what?
I want more.
There's a saying that we've had inour house for years about life in
general, whenever we don't agreeon things, and it's real simple.
It's not wrong, just different.
Yeah.
And I think that's what people havegotta get their head around in the space that we're talking about here,
is when you run your own firm, whenyou run your own business, how you want to do it is the right way to do it.
(19:50):
It's not wrong.
A hundred percent just different.
So you've touched on some stuff thatI think is really a, a great place to segue and springboard, kinda like
you did into a piece of your businessthat you spend a lot of time in,
you're passionate about, and thatis the community that you've built.
Launch your firm.
(20:11):
Tell me the, the birth and genesis ofthat and where that is today and what your focus is with launch your firm.
Perfect.
So one of the pieces of being able torun your own practice is you get to.
Diversify your time into otherthings that you're interested in.
And I would say for the first, youknow, five years of my career, I learned from people who were, you know,
(20:36):
50 years old and above, who was justlike, this is it, we grind 80 hours a week in accounting and like, if you're
not down with that, you're not cut to,to be in this business type of thing.
And, and I always kind of rejected that.
And so, you know, all those days whereI. You know, maybe I, my preference was to come in at six o'clock in the
(20:59):
morning and leave at six o'clock atnight so that I could go have dinner with my family versus the people who
rolled in at eight 30 or nine and thenstayed till nine and tried to make it seem like I was the one that looked bad.
Like all of that kind of stuff,just like just stuck with me.
Mm-hmm.
And, and it was one of thosethings where it was like, okay.
(21:21):
Let me diversify my time and getinvolved in the things that I wanna do.
Like there's more to life.
Than the accounting firm.
And you know, you just sit around and lookat all the things that people complain about when it comes to the industry.
I mean, we know hundreds of thousandsof accountants have left the industry in the past 10 years, and so it's like,
(21:45):
why are all these people leaving theindustry when I'm like sitting here?
Like coasting, like I feel likethe way that I have things, I'm
like, this is like, I'm almoston easy street to some degree.
Mm-hmm.
So why is everybody leaving?
And, and so that was kind of likewhere I'm sitting there and I'm like thinking about all of those
types of things from a leadershipperspective, it's like, oh no, like.
(22:09):
Everybody just needs tolearn that they can do this.
When I went to Anderson, people toldme I was committing career suicide.
You know, I'd be back in publicaccounting before, you know, I knew it and that I couldn't, you know, that
the partners would always make it seemlike you couldn't do it on your own.
That you had to have the guywho had 20 years of experience and, and all that kind of stuff.
(22:33):
It was like.
No, you know what?
Like somehow I was able to breakthrough that, and I know that like accountants are very risk averse.
And so I need to spend some timejust teaching my people that it is possible that you can do it, and that
there are so many people and resourceswho are willing to help each other.
(22:53):
There's people that you can bounce ideasoff of or ask if a certain treatment of attack position can be done a certain way.
We have so many of those types ofresources that it was like, okay, let me try to build a community of people who I
hype up and encourage to get to a pointwhere they can start their own firms.
(23:15):
And so my brother-in-law'sa big events guy.
He loves events.
And so I was sit, we were sitting at afive guys one night and you know, I was explaining this to him and he goes, lets.
Let's do a big hype event wherelike you teach people how to start
your own firm, and so we just didit after tax season a year ago.
(23:39):
We said, let's just book a place.
Let's just start tellingpeople we're having an event.
Let's see what happens.
And so we did it, we got 25 people to cometo a, an event that we called Launch Your Firm, and I just trained people over a
two day period on how to start their ownfirm, how to get over the anxieties, how to, you know, like position yourself for
(24:03):
success, how to get new clients, how to,you know, market yourself on social media.
All the things like createpartnerships with other people.
And we just went through and built outa whole like two day, kind of four or
five hours a day type of networkingevent where it was just a think tank.
And you know, we had some peoplethere who wanted to start a firm.
(24:26):
We had people there who wereactively trying to acquire a firm.
We had people who had started theirfirm, you know, within, you know,
one to three years and were just, youknow, wanting to network and hear more.
We had all kinds of people,bookkeepers who were starting fractional CFOs who were starting.
It was really cool and everyonewas like, I love the event.
(24:48):
So then we're like, let's keep doing it.
Let's do it again.
So, you know, for me, this is like agood way to contribute to, you know, the
accounting community and show people like,Hey, you don't have to leave the industry.
Like you can create a world thatworks for you and it's not really
(25:09):
that hard to replace your salaryonce you start your own practice.
You've done this now for over a year.
I'm sure that you know, outsideof the formal launcher firm.
Event that you guys have done,and I think you've got another one coming up, don't you?
We do.
We're doing it end of July.
Yeah.
Okay.
Outside of that, I'm sure that you haveconsistent discussions with people, if not daily, at least weekly of, Hey, Ronnie,
(25:36):
I'm thinking about, or, Hey Ronnie, I didand I feel like I'm just treading water.
What would you say are the two to threebiggest misconceptions that people have?
About starting their own firm thatkeep them from either taking that
step or being as successful asthey could be in a quicker fashion.
(25:57):
They don't think theycan replace their salary.
So the confidence to say, Hey,I'm making 10 grand a month, or I'm making eight grand a month.
They don't have the confidencelike, how am I gonna replace that?
So the risk aversionto that is always huge.
I would also say that peopledon't think they know enough.
(26:17):
So they think that their technicalknowledge isn't at a certain level that it needs to be at to be able to do it.
So they're not comfortablewith decision making.
And that's something that, I was justtalking to somebody yesterday about where it was, Hey, what do you think about this?
And you know, I was like, Hey,like this is what I would do.
You know?
I was like.
(26:38):
Is, it's like you're the onethat's making the call now, and so they're not comfortable with that
because they're going and justlike asking a partner, what do.
So some of that decision making I issomething that is a little bit foreign
to them, and kind of being in that seatis not necessarily a comfortable seat.
The other thing is just having confidencethat clients will want to work with them.
(27:01):
Mm-hmm.
And so in my experience though, uh,now with helping several people launch their own firms, and you're right, the
conversations do happen quite a bitwith having those conversations now.
Like I haven't had one person tell me,Hey, I regretted starting my own firm.
(27:22):
This has been a disaster.
Never, never one.
And so like from that perspective,it's just putting yourself out there.
Once you put yourself out there and youstart saying, Hey, I have my own practice.
Look, here's my logo.
There's just people out therewho are like, Hey, I'm in a spot
(27:43):
where maybe I could switch, orI wanna work with that person.
Let me support that person.
And we all have networks ofpeople who are willing to do that.
There's also people like mewho are out there who I'm like.
I'm happy where I'm at.
And so when I get referrals now I'mkind of like, Hey, I'm not really
taking new clients right now, butyou know, I know somebody else is.
(28:06):
And so I'm sitting here passing on work toother accountants right now, and it's just because they're part of our community.
They're people that I wanna help.
And so you build those kindsof relationships with people.
There's gonna be people out there that.
Are gonna support you and are gonna helpyou get to the point where you are full.
(28:29):
Some of those bookkeepers that are like,Hey, will you help me build my practice?
Like they're full within sixmonths and they're just like.
Dude, like, thank you.
Like this is such a game changer for me.
So those are the three biggest things.
It's just, it's aconfidence thing, you know?
We really help people just kind ofget rid of those, those things that they don't have the confidence in.
(28:53):
We send out monthly newsletters on howto run your firm efficiently, tips and tricks and all kinds of stuff like that.
So, you know, within that launcher firmcommunity, which I'm still building, like we want people to come to this event.
And it's not arm and a leg either.
Like I know there's a lot of peopleright now who have gotten into
like coaching when it comes to,you know, the accounting space.
(29:16):
Mm-hmm.
Like that's something that I'veseen blow up over the last year.
But it's one of those things forme where I'm like, come to our event for 450 bucks and that's it.
Wow.
Like you can sign up for our newsletter.
I'm kind of in a spot where I'm like,this is not like my bread and butter.
I'm not sitting here trying to likeearn a living off of a coaching community or anything like that.
(29:39):
Like for me, it's like I justwanna help the industry overall.
Like I wanna get us to a spot where like,we don't need to send the work to India.
We don't need privateequity to acquire firms.
Like those kind of things don'tneed to happen in this industry.
And the clients.
Yeah, there's, there's a couple of, andI don't remember if I saw these on your website when I was doing some research
(30:04):
or if I saw it on your LinkedIn page,but there's a couple of comments that
were made and you know, people couldsay, well, that's just marketing stuff.
Yeah.
But there's a lot of truth in themarketing that we put out there.
There were two phrases that came offyour, again, your website or your LinkedIn page for the launch, your firm.
These are two things thatreally resonated with me.
One was, and it's kind ofwhat you're talking about.
Go from curious to capable.
(30:26):
Yeah,
I think that is a great way to put it.
'cause I'm sure there's a lotof people that just, they don't know what they don't know.
And that mountain, we'remiles away from that mountain.
But it looks so big from a distance.
And the reality is once you get closerto it, it's probably not as big as.
You think it is, like you'retalking about you're walking away
from a hundred to $110,000 a yearsalary at the end of the day.
(30:49):
Is it really that hard?
It's not easy, but is it really as hardas you make it out to be to replace that,
right.
Yeah.
You need like 50 clientsthat pay two grand a year.
Yeah.
Yep.
It really is not hard to get,and I mean, single practice.
Probably a contingency of their clientbase who like feels like they're in the lower end of the practice.
(31:13):
Mm-hmm.
You know, we all have like a bottom 20%
Yes.
Of our
clients, right?
Yes.
And like in a lot of ways, likethose clients probably also feel that to some degree too.
And when more people are out there, likeputting themselves out there, like and
somebody starts their own business, you'regoing to be like, their number one client.
(31:34):
And so like, there's just thisnatural progression of people that are gonna switch, they're gonna support,
and if you're putting yourself outthere and you have capacity, right?
Because that's the other thing.
So many accountants are overworked andhave too much work and all this kind of stuff aren't giving good service.
(31:55):
That is naturally gonna flow to somebodywho does have capacity and can do it.
And so that's huge.
There's so many people who like justsigned up for it to where they're just like, if I could just email you every
once in a while when I have like atricky issue and you give me your opinion on it, like that's worth it to me.
They just need a friend in the space andso that's another thing we just trying to do is just be a friend in the space.
(32:20):
Be supportive any way we can, and eventhough I'm a a $5-600,000 firm right now, I know how to be a $4 million firm.
Like, I did that at Anderson.
Anyone can come to this event and dfind a positive experience with it.
Well, and that's kind of a,a perfect step into that.
Second thing I saw on y'all'swebsite, it said people outside of accounting are always dogging it.
(32:44):
People inside of it arealways lamenting it.
We found a way to maximize thevery best of accounting for our personal and family benefit.
Yep.
You can do the same.
And it's not any harderthan working for a firm.
You just need to know how.
Yep.
I have five businesses now.
Like, so I have my accounting practice, aspace that I think is heavily underserved is the educational side of the industry.
(33:12):
So I created The Prosperity Society.
That's a website that is like a knowledgebase that just has tax planning measures.
And I record five, 10 minute videosand teach people how to reduce their taxes and how to be compliant.
So we created the Prosperity Society.
We did launch your firm.
I have a wedding venue inVegas that I'm a part of.
(33:35):
I'm opening a cold plunge and saunaplace right now in Salt Lake City.
Saw that gonna be done in two weeks.
And so like this gives you the flexibilityto be able to do whatever you want.
That is so foreign to so many peopleto where they just think to themselves like, I'm only the accountant.
Like, I'm gotta be tied to my deskfor 60 hours a week during tax season.
(33:59):
And sometimes I still am.
I mean, like there's times where I'mstill tied to my desk for 60 hours, but I get to make all the money.
Yes.
Like if you can, if you'll work60 hours a week for three or four weeks, if you just build 80 grand
mm-hmm.
If you can do that, then you'regonna do it like, so the work ethic is not actually that much different,
(34:21):
it's just that we didn't wanna work60 to 80 hours a week and make, you know, like 3,500 on our check.
And, and so like that's the differenceis that like you are in control of
all this now and when you wanna rampup your work, you get to do that.
And then when you don't wanna ramp up yourwork, then you'll be like me and go to Europe for 30 days, which I did last year.
(34:43):
Uhhuh like,
and just answered emailswhile I was out of town.
But I took my family to Europefor 30 days, you know, that
get in control of that.
And there's nothing better in anindustry where you can literally turn on the fire hose if you want more work.
If you want tax work, it's there.
(35:06):
I could post on my Facebook accountright now and say, Hey, I'm looking for.
I'll get 10 messages.
Yeah.
It's the business opportunity is there.
It's not going away.
It's one of the things that I constantlytalk to people about in the space that we play in, in the recruiting world.
We've not picked the phone up and made anytype of an outbound cold marketing attempt at all since probably August, 2020.
(35:31):
Wow.
Th there's more business thanwe could shake a stick at.
Yeah.
You pick and choose what you want to do.
Yep.
You determine when do Iwant to turn that spigot on?
When do I want to turn itoff and be able to build a business that you want to build?
And for somebody, it maybe a $4 million business.
For somebody else, it maybe a $400,000 business.
(35:51):
Yep.
Again, not wrong, just different.
And again I'm assuming through thecoursework you're doing and your teaching, mentoring, you're also showing
people, hey, you could, do you wanna doa fixed fee firm, do a fixed fee firm.
If you wanna do a subscription,you wanna do hourly billing, do what you feel like works for you.
Yeah.
I tell people not to do hourly billing.
(36:12):
I'll say that like when peoplesay like, Hey, how do we bill?
I'm like.
You know, like, stop counting your time.
Yeah.
Like, do not count your time anymore.
So that's kind of one of thethings at the, at the event where
I'm like, I don't, we don't trackour time really at all anymore.
We know approximately howlong stuff is gonna take us.
Yeah.
But like, I would nevermake my staff person.
(36:36):
Show me her billable hours.
There's a gentleman in the subscriptionbilling, fixed fee pricing world.
Ron Baker, I don't know if you know whothat is or if you ever read anything that
Ron's done, but he was on our podcast, Ithink last year and he had a great quote.
He said, the only people that Ibelieve should track their time in 15 minute increments are prisoners.
Um, that's awesome.
(36:57):
Yeah,
and I think there's alot of truth to that.
I did the six minuteincrements for a long time.
I'm like, I'm never billingsomebody for 0.4 ever again.
Like, yeah.
And the clients appreciate that.
Like that's the other thing iswe teach people how to, what the clients are gonna love.
Most of the time the clientslove not being nickel and dimed.
(37:18):
They want something that's like allin, so you're just like, Hey, we'll
do your tax return for 1500 bucks andyour tax planning's included in that.
Like, you can call or text usanytime, email any question.
It's an all in type of thing.
And people love it.
Mm-hmm.
They're just like, they lovenot being nickeled and dime.
What am I getting this.
$60 bill for, so
(37:39):
Yep.
Takes a lot of the questions off thetable that you just, you don't wanna
deal with and the person receivingthe bill doesn't wanna deal with.
Yep.
So now we've got remote work,we've got no time tracking.
And so like, I don't know, like myemployee, she's like, man, I save like
two hours a day on commuting, gettingready, and like all that kind of stuff.
(38:02):
Like you just.
Create win-wins.
That that, that's like one of thebiggest things that I've ever like just tried to live by when it comes
to life, personal life, social things,is it's like let's create win-wins.
Let's think win-win ineverything that we're doing and in the accounting industry.
We can easily do it.
So, yeah, I mean, but I, Ithink people need to come to the event to hear it and see it.
(38:27):
Like we're a very visuallike learning group.
I think people on your podcast hopefullyenjoy kinda what we're talking about today, but like, they may wanna come
to this training and just be like, allright, I just need to like ask questions.
I need to see it, I needto see some numbers.
I need to see like howthis could kind of work.
And we as accountantsare very visual that way.
(38:49):
And need to talk to other people abouthow it can work before we're willing to like just take some of those steps.
So that's just what we set out to do.
One of the questions I was gonna ask youis there's probably a place for people that are, you know, they're all in,
they know that, hey, when tax season'sover, I'm probably gonna start my firm.
Or at the end of 25I'm gonna start a firm.
(39:11):
Yep.
But there's also people probably that are.
It.
It's just a thought in their mind.
Yeah.
They don't know.
If they don't know whenthey don't know how.
It could be 25, it might be 28, andI'm sure there's a place for that
person at your event as well, becausethey're gonna get questions answered.
Is that a safe statement?
A
hundred percent.
Yeah.
(39:32):
I mean, like.
The reality is you need somefoundation no matter what.
If somebody was like saying, Hey,right when I graduate college, I'm gonna go start my own tax practice,
or I'm gonna start a fractional CFOcompany, I'd kind of be like, eh, that's gonna be, that's gonna be tricky.
Like,
yeah.
I fully believe that there's peoplewho are one to three years into their career right now who are kind of
(39:53):
like just getting their CPA licenseand the juices are spinning there.
Like you're just like, youknow, you're thinking it, Hey.
I'm gonna do this at some point.
And yeah, I totally think that the eventis designed for anybody who is thinking
about starting their own firm in thefuture or is early on in the stages.
(40:17):
I even have one guy who wants to come,who's been a partner for, at a very traditional firm for about 30 years.
He wanted to.
And so he was like, I'm gonnahave to like, kind of take some clients with me, but also restart.
But he's also like, Ronnie, I don'tknow how to run a paperless firm.
(40:41):
Like, I don't know how, like,so he's like, could you help me like run a modern firm?
Like we're, I'm talking to peoplewho are, have more experience than me about running a modern firm.
And even those people.
Would benefit and are welcometo come to that event because we show technology type stuff.
Mm-hmm.
Too.
So like we have a technologysection that says like, Hey, you
(41:04):
know, use this practice managementtool, use whatever you want.
Time tracker tools orwhatever it might be.
We have some of that kindastuff at the event, so.
We're like talking to everybody about it.
There's a lot of differentnuggets you can pull from there.
There's so many, and even some peoplewho are kind of like, I didn't really think that I could start my own firm.
(41:25):
Like, we get even a little bit of that.
I mean, it's less common, butlike a little bit of that.
Yep.
Uh, last year we had a studentthat was at BYU who came and soaked it up a little bit.
I mean, so even him, he is like,I'm probably four or five years out.
So we wanna tailor this to whereit's for like just literally anyone who's thinking about making the jump.
(41:49):
I, I think that what you're doing inthe CPA firm space with the launch firm community, your other business
interests, just life in general,there's a lot of good stuff there.
So man, just keep it up.
We need more real people doing realthings online and in real life.
If there are folks that are kickingaround the possibility of starting
their own firm, folks who arethinking about making a career change.
(42:11):
Yep.
Or even folks that are in the Salt LakeCity area that wanna go do a coal plunge.
Um, yeah.
What, what is the best way forpeople to find you, connect with you, link up with you and talk.
Get with me on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn's great to start and then likeif you just like message me through there, like I'll give you my email
(42:31):
address and I'll drop some links for youto kind of sign up for our newsletter and kind of look at what we're doing.
So I would say that's a greatstart is finding me on there.
But yeah.
If you wanna go cold plunge and you'rein the Salt Lake area, that's like a preferred way for me to do business.
I love doing business in the sauna, so
that's awesome.
(42:51):
I will make sure that in the shownotes, we have the link to your LinkedIn
profile, your website, also the, forthe website for launch your firm.
We'll make sure that all of thatinformation is in the show notes.
And for those of you that are listening,thank you guys for investing a part of your day with, with Ronnie and I today.
If you liked what you heard,please leave us a comment below.
(43:12):
I'd also like to encourage youto subscribe to the podcast on the platform of your choice.
We have some great guests coming up, someconversations planned over the next few weeks that you are not gonna wanna miss
a single one That really gives you aglimpse of what CPA life could be like.
Until next time, Ronnie, thanks a lot.
Hey, thanks John.
Appreciate it, man.
(43:34):
We hope you enjoyed today's episode.
Be sure to subscribe on yourfavorite podcasting app.
Leave a five star rating andvisit our website for links and show notes@cpalifepodcast.com.
We'll see you next time on CPA Life
(44:00):
Professional Productions net.
Thanks for tuning in to CPA Life wherewe taught culture and growth with folks that are going against the grain in
an industry that has been stuck witha, we've always done it that way.
Mindset.
For far too long, join host John Randolph.
And learn how a sustainablefamily friendly career in public
accounting doesn't have tobe the exception to the rule.
(00:24):
Welcome to CPA Life.
Hey everybody.
We are back and excited about gettinga chance to hang out with you for another episode of the CPA Life podcast.
The podcast that's passionateabout showcasing some of the firms and firm leaders.
In today's marketplace who are buildingmore modern minded people-centric organizations, places where people don't
(00:48):
have to choose between a great careeror a great family or personal life.
And today we are gonna be talkingwith Ronnie Withaeger, who is
the owner and founder of RonaldWithaeger CPA in Las Vegas.
And we'll talk about geographyin just a little bit.
But the firm is based out of Las Vegas.
And he's not just working on building afirm that's like what we just mentioned, but he's also passionate about teaching
(01:13):
others how to do just that throughhis own Launch Your Firm community.
So Ronnie, thank you for joining us today.
Thanks for having me, John.
This is exciting to be on with you.
And just looking forward to being ableto share kind of part of my vision and what I've been doing in the space for.
The last 10 years.
It's hard to believe.
(01:34):
You know, when you look back at, Iknow for me sometimes you look back
and go, man, it's, it's been 10 years,you know, a whole decade of doing this.
And like we were just talking aboutbefore we started recording, I'm sure there were days in the early stages
of that 10 years that you had to askyourself, am I doing the right thing?
Oh yeah.
I mean I spent the first likefive or six years of my career working in traditional firms.
(01:58):
I went to RSM out of college andspent two and a half years there,
and then I went to a small localfirm for two and a half years.
I. And I think I kind of maybepulled what little hair I had left
out there and definitely had to makethe pivot when the time was right.
Yeah, it's always tough.
(02:19):
I think we make it tougher mentallythan it really is, but it's always tough stepping away from the safety net.
Of a W2 job.
Yeah.
But you ultimately did that, andyou were talking about kind of the history of where you came from.
You had a pretty traditionalstart coming out of college, as you mentioned, for sure.
RSM working for a local firm.
(02:41):
And then you spent a little bit of timewith Anderson for a little while, correct?
Yep.
So when I kind of got tothat five or six year mark.
I kind of really knew that Iwas ready to make the jump.
And you know, at a small firm, it's hardto make the jump because they're small and they want people that are gonna be staff.
And so, you know, they kind of hadtold me like, well hey, go build a
(03:05):
$250,000 book of business and then,you know, we'll make you manager.
And it was like one of thosethings where I was like, Hey guys.
I'm sorry, but if I'm gonna gobuild a $250,000 book of business, I'm just gonna go work for myself.
And so, you know, that didn't necessarilygo over too well when I kind of said that.
(03:27):
And, you know, I got an opportunityto go to a, a company called Anderson, which it's a very robust company that is.
Legal based, but had a tax practicebecause they did a lot of educational
events and, and you know, I ended upworking for lawyers for four years.
(03:47):
Oh wow.
And.
Like for my people who were likenon-traditional, like our traditional
six years in, Hey, you gotta go, youknow, work your way up to partner.
You know, this was an opportunitywhere I went there and you know, the
lawyers didn't really know how to runa tax practice in a traditional sense.
So.
(04:08):
They looked at me like, Hey, thisis a guy who kind of does know.
And for whatever reason they were kindof like, Hey, we want you to do this.
We want you to like bring our taxpractice into, you know, the 21st century.
And so I got a really coolopportunity working for the
attorneys to build a tax practicein the way that I thought was good.
(04:32):
And so.
You know, they let me hire people.
They let me change softwares.
They let me implement a paperless system.
They let me do all the thingsand, and so that was fun.
I also got to teach events.
I got to go on the road with, withthe partners and, you know, I, they
(04:52):
carved me out four hours to teachtax seminars and stuff like that.
And so.
It was a really cool opportunity to justtake some of the things that I knew needed to happen in the traditional accounting
practices and implement it into a firmthat I thought WA was really good.
Yeah.
It's amazing how when you, and maybeyou did go into it with this kind of a mindset, but it's amazing though when
(05:18):
you look back how God really linesup and ordains those opportunities for you to hone your skills.
Get better at your craft to prepare youfor what that next step is, which, you know, obviously in 2018, stepping out
and starting your own firm, you would putdown a lot of the foundations, and I don't
(05:40):
mean this negatively, but ats somebodyelse's expense and risk, if you will.
Yep.
To be able to then have the confidenceand look back and go, you know what?
Maybe now is the time.
What, what ultimately was theimpetus that got you to the point to say, you know what?
I think it's time.
I think it's time we do this,
so.
(06:01):
I had gotten like these threats oflegal action and all this kind of stuff.
You know, when you talk about like kind ofGod putting a pathway there for you, for whatever reason, I was able to see that.
Like I would never signa non-compete ever again.
And so one of the things thatI started doing early on was telling whoever I worked for, hey.
(06:26):
I'm entrepreneurial minded andI'm gonna go build business.
I have no problem building that businessinto your business, but if I ever leave.
Then I will want to takethat business with me.
And so that was one of the stepsI figured out very early on.
And you know, when I went to thesmall firm, it was a win-win for them.
(06:47):
'cause they're like, yeah,sure, bring business in.
That's totally fine and itcould remain your business.
And so I never really needed todo the moonlighting thing because
I kind of just had that agreementwith the people that I worked with.
And so, you know, what I had kind ofdone was slowly built a small practice.
Within the firms that I was working for.
(07:08):
Mm-hmm.
That was a major step.
The next thing that ended uphappening was that Anderson was growing at a very ridiculous rate.
We were doing amazing things and youknow, after I had kind of done a lot of those things, I mean, I don't know
if it was just the millennial in me,but like I ended up telling them from the beginning that like eventually I
(07:31):
would start my own firm and they werelike, Hey, we'll take you as long as we can have you type of thing.
And they were mm-hmm.
Super supportive of the, that transition.
And so when I got to four years in.
There were a few little things that endedup kind of pushing me off the edge, but I realized that I could go from having
4,000 clients to having 400 clientsand I would be able to make more money.
(07:58):
That's ultimately what it came down to.
It really is sometimesthat simple to look at.
You know, it's interesting youtalk about the non-compete issue and just the whole mindset.
I'm a firm believer that there is areason and a purpose for non-competes.
The people that have an ill intent togo out and do harm to an organization that I, there's a reason it's there.
(08:20):
Sure.
I worked for a boss years ago.
His mindset was a non-compete.
Is not really designed to put youout of business or keep you from working if you do it the right way.
A non-compete is designed tobe kind of a Roman crucifix.
If you do it the wrong way,we're gonna hang you from it and make your life miserable.
But yeah, if you do it the right way,and you know, in our business we have non-competes and I tell my staff all
(08:44):
the time, you know, look, if theregets to be a point that you want to go
out and do this on your own, I wannatrain you so well that you can do that.
But hopefully your desire is to stay here.
But if you do decide to do that, let'ssit down, let's talk about it, and let's figure out a way to let you go
do that and go do what it is that youwanna do, make the money you want to
make, and still be able to run intoeach other at the grocery store.
Shake your hand, hug your neckand say, Hey, how's life going?
(09:07):
Yeah,
there, there's just somethingpowerful about that.
We've got a client here in the Dallasarea, they've been in business 40,
40 something years, and when the firmstarted 40 plus years ago, and they still.
Operate this way today.
They're a pretty large firmhere in the Dallas area.
They're 120, 130 employees.
The owner of the firm started the firmwith the mindset that if you bring in business and you leave, if it's business,
(09:28):
you service, if you hunt it, yeah, killit, skin it, and it's on your desk.
Whether it's you or your team that's doingit, if it's in your purview, your focus and you leave, you can take it with you.
Now, if you bring in business and it'sbeing serviced by another part of the firm, you can't take that with you.
You know, if you're a tax guy, youbring in audit work, that kind of stuff.
(09:49):
Yeah,
and I. They've got a retentionrate of about seven and a half, 8%.
Yeah.
People just love staying there.
They take very good care of their people.
So when you stepped out and youstarted your firm, so you had at least a cushion of a book of business
that you were able to take with youand pick up and start running with?
I did.
Yeah.
The timing worked out good.
I knew that when I did jump outthat a lot of my concerns would at
(10:15):
least in some ways be alleviatedbecause I knew I had like a core.
Business.
And I mean, I know that's one ofthe things that a lot of people get concerned about is they go, Hey, you
know, like I'm leaving my $120,000job and I'm starting at zero.
Like how do I do that?
And so like when I kind of satdown at some point, I wrote down 10 things that I would need to do.
(10:39):
To feel really comfortable, likea bulletproof jump, and it was centered around having money saved.
Mm-hmm.
And also having a certain levelof my own book of business.
Yep.
I totally ended up having like, I feellike I calculated it out like really well.
(11:00):
Like when the time to jump wasthere, it was crystal clear.
It was time to make that move.
And so part of what I wanna do withpeople similar, you know, like, you know, to the firm that you were talking
about is it's like, or what you weresaying is let's create a win-win.
Let's create somethingthat works for everybody.
(11:20):
And when I left Anderson,they did the same thing.
Hey.
We wanna continue to havea relationship with you.
I mean, we worked out a deal where theysent out an email to the clients and said,
if you love Ronnie and you wanna go workwith Ronnie, here's his email address.
Wow.
And we worked out a dealwhere I paid them for that.
Mm-hmm.
(11:41):
And so like the pie is so big in theindustry that there's room for everybody.
So.
We should keeprelationships really strong.
And that was evident.
Now in my traditionalfirms, that was not evident.
Mm-hmm.
They used non-compete as apower play to try to punish you.
(12:02):
They used a non-compete even, I mean, Igot threatened with non-competes before any of the clients ever even called me.
And when you're like making 70 grand ayear and you got two kids under four.
Like, and they're saying, well,we're gonna bring you to court and all this kind of stuff.
That's the kind of stuff where it'slike, Hey, when I see it in public, I really have a hard time respecting.
(12:26):
Mm-hmm.
And so, you know, like there is someplaces out there unfortunately who
are still flexing some of that kindaweight, which I think is ridiculous.
But we're through itand I'm grateful for it.
Tell me a little bit, let's talka little bit about your firm.
Been in business now, almost 10.
You obviously have built a successfulbusiness that not only makes a good
(12:49):
living for you, but also providesgreat solutions for clients.
Where are you now todayin regards to staff size?
Is there a focus or niche that you have?
You know, from the standpoint of deliveryof service, how much of that is compliance versus advisory consulting work?
And do you guys do CAS or outsourcedaccounting, or is it focused strictly tax?
(13:10):
Okay.
Yeah, so my firm's kind of, it'sinteresting, it's went up and down.
And so I think that one of the bestthings about owning your own practice
is that you get to do this thingexactly the way you want to do it.
And so when I jumped out, itwas me, and then I had one staff
(13:31):
person that had worked with meat Anderson, and then we used.
Another girl who I hired atAnderson, but left just before me.
And we kind of had like this whole, it'sme and then I have like one employee and then one contractor and, and so we rolled
with that for a couple years and I endedup kind of taking my firm from probably
(13:56):
a hundred grand to about 800 grandover like a three or four year period.
Wow.
Nice.
We kind of all, were like sittingthere like, this is like kind of too much for our lifestyle, right?
I mean, it's not too much for everybody.
There's plenty of people who couldjust go hire more staff and all that
(14:17):
kind of stuff, but I kind of treatedmy firm as like a family firm.
Mm-hmm.
So.
The people that work with me, I'veknown for 10 plus years, and so that's all the people that I work with.
We ended up getting a little toobig and it was like, we don't, we just don't wanna be stressed.
I got four daughters.
(14:37):
I'm active in that.
I'm active in my church community.
I. I have hobbies.
And so like for me, I was like, I don'tneed to build like this mega million dollar firm where I'm gaining 10 pounds
a year because I'm stress eating allthe time and all that kind of stuff.
Just like three or four pounds a year.
Yeah, no, I'm just kidding.
(14:57):
Um, so what ended up happening is thegirl that was a contractor, she kind
of approached me and was like, Hey,I kind of wanna start my own firm.
And so I said.
That's amazing.
Let's do it.
Like, what do you wanna do?
And she's like, I'm stressed aboutkind of like just getting clients.
And so like, you know, me, I'mgood at getting clients, I get clients every day type of thing.
(15:24):
And, and so she was like, youknow, will you help me get clients?
I said, yeah, help you get clients.
And then I was like, what if Isold you a book of, of business?
You know?
So what we ended up doing is we carvedout $180,000 worth of, of business.
And I sold it to her.
Very nice.
And so, yeah, a lot of thatstuff was my Vegas clients.
(15:47):
And so what I ended up doing is movingto Utah, we decided to move our family to
Utah and live in a smaller town than LasVegas and just try something different.
And so I said, Hey, thetiming works out good.
I'm like, why don't I justsell you my Vegas clients?
A big chunk of those ones, and then someof the other ones you're familiar with.
(16:09):
And then, you know, like,we'll work together on stuff.
You know, we could still telleverybody that, you know, like
I'm kind of here if they ever wantto consult or anything like that.
And it'll let you kind of transitioninto taking those clients over.
So I helped Emily start her own firm.
And gave her the baseand it was a win-win.
'cause she like paidme out on installment.
(16:30):
Mm-hmm.
And so that was a good waywhere I was getting too big to be able to like scale back.
So it's like, okay, now I'm back to like600 k, which was an okay spot to be in.
So Emily kinda like moves out now she'sdoing her own thing and it's like, well
now we don't have like a contractoranymore either to like help us.
And so.
(16:51):
This other guy I know he was at a firmand he ended up like kind of wanting to quit and so he ended up quitting and
I said, well, come on and replace mycontractor and I'll, you know, I'll pay you a monthly amount and work with us.
So after about like six months, I. Weended up like, you know, loving, working together and all this kind of stuff.
And then he was like, Hey man,like you think I can kinda like do that thing that Emily did?
(17:15):
You know, like I'd love tomaybe like do the same thing.
And so then I was like,well, yeah, let's do it.
So then I broke off two 50 for him andso I basically scaled back about 40 or 50% over a two year period and helped.
Two people start their own firms.
(17:36):
Mm-hmm.
And so from a client perspective,we kind of just told everybody like, Hey, I just took partners.
And so like I have partnersnow who spearhead tax prep.
You know, like I'm still happy to talkanytime or any of those types of things.
And so we kinda all like worktogether, share tax software, share our paperless system.
(17:59):
We're kind of like a team, but not a team.
We all have our own S-corp and doour own billing and stuff like that.
But so like today, where I'm at.
I do about 550 or 600,000I would say about.
50,000 of its bookkeeping, ahundred thousand is advisory, and then the rest is tax compliance.
(18:22):
And it's, you know, 50 50 betweensmall business and personal tax.
So a lot of s-corps, lot ofyou know, personal returns that go through with that.
In professional services, I havesome athletes and some high net worth people that I get some bigger fees
from, some construction companiesthat I get some bigger fees from, but.
(18:44):
I'll help whoever needs help, we'll dosomebody's tax return for who's a teacher in a school district for 350 bucks.
I mean, like, we just like helpingthe people that we're connected to.
Yep.
And so we kind of do a little bit allover the map and you know, we're in a spot where our practice is really good.
It, it, it's in a great spot.
(19:05):
Yeah.
It's interesting because you hit onsomething a minute ago, and I think that there's so much truth to that, and
it is the fact that when you run yourown firm, there's no cookie cutter.
Yeah.
You do what fits.
Your wheelhouse, and there may besomebody who looks at what you do and says, Hey man, it's not niche enough.
It's not narrow enough, orit's not, or it's too big.
(19:27):
I don't know if I'd wanna do that much.
Yeah.
And then there's someone elsethat may say, you know what?
I want more.
There's a saying that we've had inour house for years about life in
general, whenever we don't agreeon things, and it's real simple.
It's not wrong, just different.
Yeah.
And I think that's what people havegotta get their head around in the space that we're talking about here,
is when you run your own firm, whenyou run your own business, how you want to do it is the right way to do it.
(19:50):
It's not wrong.
A hundred percent just different.
So you've touched on some stuff thatI think is really a, a great place to segue and springboard, kinda like
you did into a piece of your businessthat you spend a lot of time in,
you're passionate about, and thatis the community that you've built.
Launch your firm.
(20:11):
Tell me the, the birth and genesis ofthat and where that is today and what your focus is with launch your firm.
Perfect.
So one of the pieces of being able torun your own practice is you get to.
Diversify your time into otherthings that you're interested in.
And I would say for the first, youknow, five years of my career, I learned from people who were, you know,
(20:36):
50 years old and above, who was justlike, this is it, we grind 80 hours a week in accounting and like, if you're
not down with that, you're not cut to,to be in this business type of thing.
And, and I always kind of rejected that.
And so, you know, all those days whereI. You know, maybe I, my preference was to come in at six o'clock in the
(20:59):
morning and leave at six o'clock atnight so that I could go have dinner with my family versus the people who
rolled in at eight 30 or nine and thenstayed till nine and tried to make it seem like I was the one that looked bad.
Like all of that kind of stuff,just like just stuck with me.
Mm-hmm.
And, and it was one of thosethings where it was like, okay.
(21:21):
Let me diversify my time and getinvolved in the things that I wanna do.
Like there's more to life.
Than the accounting firm.
And you know, you just sit around and lookat all the things that people complain about when it comes to the industry.
I mean, we know hundreds of thousandsof accountants have left the industry in the past 10 years, and so it's like,
(21:45):
why are all these people leaving theindustry when I'm like sitting here?
Like coasting, like I feel likethe way that I have things, I'm
like, this is like, I'm almoston easy street to some degree.
Mm-hmm.
So why is everybody leaving?
And, and so that was kind of likewhere I'm sitting there and I'm like thinking about all of those
types of things from a leadershipperspective, it's like, oh no, like.
(22:09):
Everybody just needs tolearn that they can do this.
When I went to Anderson, people toldme I was committing career suicide.
You know, I'd be back in publicaccounting before, you know, I knew it and that I couldn't, you know, that
the partners would always make it seemlike you couldn't do it on your own.
That you had to have the guywho had 20 years of experience and, and all that kind of stuff.
(22:33):
It was like.
No, you know what?
Like somehow I was able to breakthrough that, and I know that like accountants are very risk averse.
And so I need to spend some timejust teaching my people that it is possible that you can do it, and that
there are so many people and resourceswho are willing to help each other.
(22:53):
There's people that you can bounce ideasoff of or ask if a certain treatment of attack position can be done a certain way.
We have so many of those types ofresources that it was like, okay, let me try to build a community of people who I
hype up and encourage to get to a pointwhere they can start their own firms.
(23:15):
And so my brother-in-law'sa big events guy.
He loves events.
And so I was sit, we were sitting at afive guys one night and you know, I was explaining this to him and he goes, lets.
Let's do a big hype event wherelike you teach people how to start
your own firm, and so we just didit after tax season a year ago.
(23:39):
We said, let's just book a place.
Let's just start tellingpeople we're having an event.
Let's see what happens.
And so we did it, we got 25 people to cometo a, an event that we called Launch Your Firm, and I just trained people over a
two day period on how to start their ownfirm, how to get over the anxieties, how to, you know, like position yourself for
(24:03):
success, how to get new clients, how to,you know, market yourself on social media.
All the things like createpartnerships with other people.
And we just went through and built outa whole like two day, kind of four or
five hours a day type of networkingevent where it was just a think tank.
And you know, we had some peoplethere who wanted to start a firm.
(24:26):
We had people there who wereactively trying to acquire a firm.
We had people who had started theirfirm, you know, within, you know,
one to three years and were just, youknow, wanting to network and hear more.
We had all kinds of people,bookkeepers who were starting fractional CFOs who were starting.
It was really cool and everyonewas like, I love the event.
(24:48):
So then we're like, let's keep doing it.
Let's do it again.
So, you know, for me, this is like agood way to contribute to, you know, the
accounting community and show people like,Hey, you don't have to leave the industry.
Like you can create a world thatworks for you and it's not really
(25:09):
that hard to replace your salaryonce you start your own practice.
You've done this now for over a year.
I'm sure that you know, outsideof the formal launcher firm.
Event that you guys have done,and I think you've got another one coming up, don't you?
We do.
We're doing it end of July.
Yeah.
Okay.
Outside of that, I'm sure that you haveconsistent discussions with people, if not daily, at least weekly of, Hey, Ronnie,
(25:36):
I'm thinking about, or, Hey Ronnie, I didand I feel like I'm just treading water.
What would you say are the two to threebiggest misconceptions that people have?
About starting their own firm thatkeep them from either taking that
step or being as successful asthey could be in a quicker fashion.
(25:57):
They don't think theycan replace their salary.
So the confidence to say, Hey,I'm making 10 grand a month, or I'm making eight grand a month.
They don't have the confidencelike, how am I gonna replace that?
So the risk aversionto that is always huge.
I would also say that peopledon't think they know enough.
(26:17):
So they think that their technicalknowledge isn't at a certain level that it needs to be at to be able to do it.
So they're not comfortablewith decision making.
And that's something that, I was justtalking to somebody yesterday about where it was, Hey, what do you think about this?
And you know, I was like, Hey,like this is what I would do.
You know?
I was like.
(26:38):
Is, it's like you're the onethat's making the call now, and so they're not comfortable with that
because they're going and justlike asking a partner, what do.
So some of that decision making I issomething that is a little bit foreign
to them, and kind of being in that seatis not necessarily a comfortable seat.
The other thing is just having confidencethat clients will want to work with them.
(27:01):
Mm-hmm.
And so in my experience though, uh,now with helping several people launch their own firms, and you're right, the
conversations do happen quite a bitwith having those conversations now.
Like I haven't had one person tell me,Hey, I regretted starting my own firm.
(27:22):
This has been a disaster.
Never, never one.
And so like from that perspective,it's just putting yourself out there.
Once you put yourself out there and youstart saying, Hey, I have my own practice.
Look, here's my logo.
There's just people out therewho are like, Hey, I'm in a spot
(27:43):
where maybe I could switch, orI wanna work with that person.
Let me support that person.
And we all have networks ofpeople who are willing to do that.
There's also people like mewho are out there who I'm like.
I'm happy where I'm at.
And so when I get referrals now I'mkind of like, Hey, I'm not really
taking new clients right now, butyou know, I know somebody else is.
(28:06):
And so I'm sitting here passing on work toother accountants right now, and it's just because they're part of our community.
They're people that I wanna help.
And so you build those kindsof relationships with people.
There's gonna be people out there that.
Are gonna support you and are gonna helpyou get to the point where you are full.
(28:29):
Some of those bookkeepers that are like,Hey, will you help me build my practice?
Like they're full within sixmonths and they're just like.
Dude, like, thank you.
Like this is such a game changer for me.
So those are the three biggest things.
It's just, it's aconfidence thing, you know?
We really help people just kind ofget rid of those, those things that they don't have the confidence in.
(28:53):
We send out monthly newsletters on howto run your firm efficiently, tips and tricks and all kinds of stuff like that.
So, you know, within that launcher firmcommunity, which I'm still building, like we want people to come to this event.
And it's not arm and a leg either.
Like I know there's a lot of peopleright now who have gotten into
like coaching when it comes to,you know, the accounting space.
(29:16):
Mm-hmm.
Like that's something that I'veseen blow up over the last year.
But it's one of those things forme where I'm like, come to our event for 450 bucks and that's it.
Wow.
Like you can sign up for our newsletter.
I'm kind of in a spot where I'm like,this is not like my bread and butter.
I'm not sitting here trying to likeearn a living off of a coaching community or anything like that.
(29:39):
Like for me, it's like I justwanna help the industry overall.
Like I wanna get us to a spot where like,we don't need to send the work to India.
We don't need privateequity to acquire firms.
Like those kind of things don'tneed to happen in this industry.
And the clients.
Yeah, there's, there's a couple of, andI don't remember if I saw these on your website when I was doing some research
(30:04):
or if I saw it on your LinkedIn page,but there's a couple of comments that
were made and you know, people couldsay, well, that's just marketing stuff.
Yeah.
But there's a lot of truth in themarketing that we put out there.
There were two phrases that came offyour, again, your website or your LinkedIn page for the launch, your firm.
These are two things thatreally resonated with me.
One was, and it's kind ofwhat you're talking about.
Go from curious to capable.
(30:26):
Yeah,
I think that is a great way to put it.
'cause I'm sure there's a lotof people that just, they don't know what they don't know.
And that mountain, we'remiles away from that mountain.
But it looks so big from a distance.
And the reality is once you get closerto it, it's probably not as big as.
You think it is, like you'retalking about you're walking away
from a hundred to $110,000 a yearsalary at the end of the day.
(30:49):
Is it really that hard?
It's not easy, but is it really as hardas you make it out to be to replace that,
right.
Yeah.
You need like 50 clientsthat pay two grand a year.
Yeah.
Yep.
It really is not hard to get,and I mean, single practice.
Probably a contingency of their clientbase who like feels like they're in the lower end of the practice.
(31:13):
Mm-hmm.
You know, we all have like a bottom 20%
Yes.
Of our
clients, right?
Yes.
And like in a lot of ways, likethose clients probably also feel that to some degree too.
And when more people are out there, likeputting themselves out there, like and
somebody starts their own business, you'regoing to be like, their number one client.
(31:34):
And so like, there's just thisnatural progression of people that are gonna switch, they're gonna support,
and if you're putting yourself outthere and you have capacity, right?
Because that's the other thing.
So many accountants are overworked andhave too much work and all this kind of stuff aren't giving good service.
(31:55):
That is naturally gonna flow to somebodywho does have capacity and can do it.
And so that's huge.
There's so many people who like justsigned up for it to where they're just like, if I could just email you every
once in a while when I have like atricky issue and you give me your opinion on it, like that's worth it to me.
They just need a friend in the space andso that's another thing we just trying to do is just be a friend in the space.
(32:20):
Be supportive any way we can, and eventhough I'm a a $5-600,000 firm right now, I know how to be a $4 million firm.
Like, I did that at Anderson.
Anyone can come to this event and dfind a positive experience with it.
Well, and that's kind of a,a perfect step into that.
Second thing I saw on y'all'swebsite, it said people outside of accounting are always dogging it.
(32:44):
People inside of it arealways lamenting it.
We found a way to maximize thevery best of accounting for our personal and family benefit.
Yep.
You can do the same.
And it's not any harderthan working for a firm.
You just need to know how.
Yep.
I have five businesses now.
Like, so I have my accounting practice, aspace that I think is heavily underserved is the educational side of the industry.
(33:12):
So I created The Prosperity Society.
That's a website that is like a knowledgebase that just has tax planning measures.
And I record five, 10 minute videosand teach people how to reduce their taxes and how to be compliant.
So we created the Prosperity Society.
We did launch your firm.
I have a wedding venue inVegas that I'm a part of.
(33:35):
I'm opening a cold plunge and saunaplace right now in Salt Lake City.
Saw that gonna be done in two weeks.
And so like this gives you the flexibilityto be able to do whatever you want.
That is so foreign to so many peopleto where they just think to themselves like, I'm only the accountant.
Like, I'm gotta be tied to my deskfor 60 hours a week during tax season.
(33:59):
And sometimes I still am.
I mean, like there's times where I'mstill tied to my desk for 60 hours, but I get to make all the money.
Yes.
Like if you can, if you'll work60 hours a week for three or four weeks, if you just build 80 grand
mm-hmm.
If you can do that, then you'regonna do it like, so the work ethic is not actually that much different,
(34:21):
it's just that we didn't wanna work60 to 80 hours a week and make, you know, like 3,500 on our check.
And, and so like that's the differenceis that like you are in control of
all this now and when you wanna rampup your work, you get to do that.
And then when you don't wanna ramp up yourwork, then you'll be like me and go to Europe for 30 days, which I did last year.
(34:43):
Uhhuh like,
and just answered emailswhile I was out of town.
But I took my family to Europefor 30 days, you know, that
get in control of that.
And there's nothing better in anindustry where you can literally turn on the fire hose if you want more work.
If you want tax work, it's there.
(35:06):
I could post on my Facebook accountright now and say, Hey, I'm looking for.
I'll get 10 messages.
Yeah.
It's the business opportunity is there.
It's not going away.
It's one of the things that I constantlytalk to people about in the space that we play in, in the recruiting world.
We've not picked the phone up and made anytype of an outbound cold marketing attempt at all since probably August, 2020.
(35:31):
Wow.
Th there's more business thanwe could shake a stick at.
Yeah.
You pick and choose what you want to do.
Yep.
You determine when do Iwant to turn that spigot on?
When do I want to turn itoff and be able to build a business that you want to build?
And for somebody, it maybe a $4 million business.
For somebody else, it maybe a $400,000 business.
(35:51):
Yep.
Again, not wrong, just different.
And again I'm assuming through thecoursework you're doing and your teaching, mentoring, you're also showing
people, hey, you could, do you wanna doa fixed fee firm, do a fixed fee firm.
If you wanna do a subscription,you wanna do hourly billing, do what you feel like works for you.
Yeah.
I tell people not to do hourly billing.
(36:12):
I'll say that like when peoplesay like, Hey, how do we bill?
I'm like.
You know, like, stop counting your time.
Yeah.
Like, do not count your time anymore.
So that's kind of one of thethings at the, at the event where
I'm like, I don't, we don't trackour time really at all anymore.
We know approximately howlong stuff is gonna take us.
Yeah.
But like, I would nevermake my staff person.
(36:36):
Show me her billable hours.
There's a gentleman in the subscriptionbilling, fixed fee pricing world.
Ron Baker, I don't know if you know whothat is or if you ever read anything that
Ron's done, but he was on our podcast, Ithink last year and he had a great quote.
He said, the only people that Ibelieve should track their time in 15 minute increments are prisoners.
Um, that's awesome.
(36:57):
Yeah,
and I think there's alot of truth to that.
I did the six minuteincrements for a long time.
I'm like, I'm never billingsomebody for 0.4 ever again.
Like, yeah.
And the clients appreciate that.
Like that's the other thing iswe teach people how to, what the clients are gonna love.
Most of the time the clientslove not being nickel and dimed.
(37:18):
They want something that's like allin, so you're just like, Hey, we'll
do your tax return for 1500 bucks andyour tax planning's included in that.
Like, you can call or text usanytime, email any question.
It's an all in type of thing.
And people love it.
Mm-hmm.
They're just like, they lovenot being nickeled and dime.
What am I getting this.
$60 bill for, so
(37:39):
Yep.
Takes a lot of the questions off thetable that you just, you don't wanna
deal with and the person receivingthe bill doesn't wanna deal with.
Yep.
So now we've got remote work,we've got no time tracking.
And so like, I don't know, like myemployee, she's like, man, I save like
two hours a day on commuting, gettingready, and like all that kind of stuff.
(38:02):
Like you just.
Create win-wins.
That that, that's like one of thebiggest things that I've ever like just tried to live by when it comes
to life, personal life, social things,is it's like let's create win-wins.
Let's think win-win ineverything that we're doing and in the accounting industry.
We can easily do it.
So, yeah, I mean, but I, Ithink people need to come to the event to hear it and see it.
(38:27):
Like we're a very visuallike learning group.
I think people on your podcast hopefullyenjoy kinda what we're talking about today, but like, they may wanna come
to this training and just be like, allright, I just need to like ask questions.
I need to see it, I needto see some numbers.
I need to see like howthis could kind of work.
And we as accountantsare very visual that way.
(38:49):
And need to talk to other people abouthow it can work before we're willing to like just take some of those steps.
So that's just what we set out to do.
One of the questions I was gonna ask youis there's probably a place for people that are, you know, they're all in,
they know that, hey, when tax season'sover, I'm probably gonna start my firm.
Or at the end of 25I'm gonna start a firm.
(39:11):
Yep.
But there's also people probably that are.
It.
It's just a thought in their mind.
Yeah.
They don't know.
If they don't know whenthey don't know how.
It could be 25, it might be 28, andI'm sure there's a place for that
person at your event as well, becausethey're gonna get questions answered.
Is that a safe statement?
A
hundred percent.
Yeah.
(39:32):
I mean, like.
The reality is you need somefoundation no matter what.
If somebody was like saying, Hey,right when I graduate college, I'm gonna go start my own tax practice,
or I'm gonna start a fractional CFOcompany, I'd kind of be like, eh, that's gonna be, that's gonna be tricky.
Like,
yeah.
I fully believe that there's peoplewho are one to three years into their career right now who are kind of
(39:53):
like just getting their CPA licenseand the juices are spinning there.
Like you're just like, youknow, you're thinking it, Hey.
I'm gonna do this at some point.
And yeah, I totally think that the eventis designed for anybody who is thinking
about starting their own firm in thefuture or is early on in the stages.
(40:17):
I even have one guy who wants to come,who's been a partner for, at a very traditional firm for about 30 years.
He wanted to.
And so he was like, I'm gonnahave to like, kind of take some clients with me, but also restart.
But he's also like, Ronnie, I don'tknow how to run a paperless firm.
(40:41):
Like, I don't know how, like,so he's like, could you help me like run a modern firm?
Like we're, I'm talking to peoplewho are, have more experience than me about running a modern firm.
And even those people.
Would benefit and are welcometo come to that event because we show technology type stuff.
Mm-hmm.
Too.
So like we have a technologysection that says like, Hey, you
(41:04):
know, use this practice managementtool, use whatever you want.
Time tracker tools orwhatever it might be.
We have some of that kindastuff at the event, so.
We're like talking to everybody about it.
There's a lot of differentnuggets you can pull from there.
There's so many, and even some peoplewho are kind of like, I didn't really think that I could start my own firm.
(41:25):
Like, we get even a little bit of that.
I mean, it's less common, butlike a little bit of that.
Yep.
Uh, last year we had a studentthat was at BYU who came and soaked it up a little bit.
I mean, so even him, he is like,I'm probably four or five years out.
So we wanna tailor this to whereit's for like just literally anyone who's thinking about making the jump.
(41:49):
I, I think that what you're doing inthe CPA firm space with the launch firm community, your other business
interests, just life in general,there's a lot of good stuff there.
So man, just keep it up.
We need more real people doing realthings online and in real life.
If there are folks that are kickingaround the possibility of starting
their own firm, folks who arethinking about making a career change.
(42:11):
Yep.
Or even folks that are in the Salt LakeCity area that wanna go do a coal plunge.
Um, yeah.
What, what is the best way forpeople to find you, connect with you, link up with you and talk.
Get with me on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn's great to start and then likeif you just like message me through there, like I'll give you my email
(42:31):
address and I'll drop some links for youto kind of sign up for our newsletter and kind of look at what we're doing.
So I would say that's a greatstart is finding me on there.
But yeah.
If you wanna go cold plunge and you'rein the Salt Lake area, that's like a preferred way for me to do business.
I love doing business in the sauna, so
that's awesome.
(42:51):
I will make sure that in the shownotes, we have the link to your LinkedIn
profile, your website, also the, forthe website for launch your firm.
We'll make sure that all of thatinformation is in the show notes.
And for those of you that are listening,thank you guys for investing a part of your day with, with Ronnie and I today.
If you liked what you heard,please leave us a comment below.
(43:12):
I'd also like to encourage youto subscribe to the podcast on the platform of your choice.
We have some great guests coming up, someconversations planned over the next few weeks that you are not gonna wanna miss
a single one That really gives you aglimpse of what CPA life could be like.
Until next time, Ronnie, thanks a lot.
Hey, thanks John.
Appreciate it, man.
(43:34):
We hope you enjoyed today's episode.
Be sure to subscribe on yourfavorite podcasting app.
Leave a five star rating andvisit our website for links and show notes@cpalifepodcast.com.
We'll see you next time on CPA Life
(44:00):
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