September 9, 2022 • 59 mins
Joe DiChiara is an entrepreneur with a CPA license. He has worked with thousands of business owners over a 35 year career. Eager to help people succeed, it troubled him that most new businesses fail and was determined to find out why.
Success starts with Mindset and Intention, subjects they don’t teach in CPA school. Joe learned that this was the true culprit in business failure on top of an overly complex tax and compliance system making it nearly impossible to start a business and stay in business.
His primary purpose has become teaching entrepreneurs the fundamental principles of success combined with the practical knowledge acquired as a CPA.
Learn more and connect with Joe DiChiara:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bedrockbizbuild
Website: https://bedrockbusinessbuilders.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bedrockbusinessbuilders/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BEDROCKBUSINESSBUILDERS
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joeydcpa
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/bedrockbusinessbuilders
Find out more about GAIN THE PASSION Coaching
https://www.gainthepassion.com
Access past episodes and more of the GAIN THE PASSION Podcast
https://www.gainthepassionpodcast.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Voiceover (00:01):
Welcome to GAIN THE PASSION with hosts Todd Foster,
Alyssa Stanley and Kelley Skar.
Alyssa Stanley (00:11):
Today we have the opportunity to sit down with
Joe DiChiara. He is the chiefSmall Business architect at
Bedrock Business Builders wherehe helps solopreneurs build
their business foundations onbedrock, through business
consulting, management,consulting and tax advisory.
Thank you so much for sittingdown and chatting with us today
(00:33):
about your business and yourexperiences within a 35 years of
your profession Joe.
Joe DiChiara (00:38):
Thank you so much for having me, it's an honor, I
always love to get a chance totalk about Bedrock and how we
might be able to help the smallbusiness owner.
Alyssa Stanley (00:49):
And I think you have so much to offer small
businesses and just yourknowledge within this field in
the last 35 years. And those aredefinitely things that I want to
dive deep into later. But first,let's kind of go back to the
beginning. How did you even getstarted in this field? And stay
this long with? I mean, it's anever ever evolutionary field.
Joe DiChiara (01:13):
Yeah, well I've tried to get out of it a number
of times. Actually, I'm anentrepreneur that happens to
have a CPA license. And I seeTodd chuckling, you know, I've
learned in the last three orfour years that I was actually
born to do what I'm doing rightnow. I've been blessed. So my
first business was when I was 10years old, I did a casino in my
(01:37):
driveway. And I rememberspecifically, yep, and that came
from we had a carnival two weeksearlier. And I loved it. It was
for charity. And I said, Oh, Iwant to do that. Again. I
invited a bunch of my friendsover. We had all you know, dice
cards, roulette. I made likethree or four bucks, which that
(01:58):
was a lot of money for a 10 yearold 1970. My parents shot me
down. So it was only a one nightthing. They didn't like the fact
that I was doing, you know,casino. But I remember
specifically asking my mother Isaid, why do people get a job
when they could just make moneyand have fun, you know? And when
(02:19):
I was 17, you know, kids, I grewup with a I grew up in a pretty
rough neighborhood, we werewearing leather jackets, my
friends, were getting tattoos.
And my grandmother looked downand said, You know, I don't like
the kids that you're hanging outwith. And I didn't understand
what she was saying. But, youknow, I was going down the not a
(02:40):
good path. So we were at afamily picnic. And my father
said, you know, he pointed toone of my cousins and he said,
That guy's a CPA. Like, that'sgreat dad, what the heck is a
CPA? And he said, Well, they runbusinesses, they start
businesses and business ownersgo to them for advice. So I was
(03:00):
like, then I'm going to be aCPA. I never thought twice about
it. All my friends in collegewould change in their majors.
I'm like, I'm going to be a CPA.
I actually didn't know that thatmeant I was going to be an
accountant. I thought I thought,well, if you're a CPA, you're
(03:21):
going to run just like my fathersaid. And I resented my father
for a long time. Because I said,Now I'm doing bank recs, payroll
taxes, how am I going to changethe world and become a multi,
you know, billionaire doingthis. And so like I said, I'm an
entrepreneur. I've had my shareof failures, some successes, but
(03:43):
I always got drawn back intoaccounting because I have a as
as you see, you know, myexperience is pretty broad. And
I love what I'm doing now. Sothank you, Dad, thank you for
tricking me.
I want to go back to the casinoin the driveway. So you're 10
years old. You don't get shutdown by the police. You get shut
down by the parents. And thenafter that, you thought you
(04:09):
wanted to be a CPA, yet, if youlook back at 10 years old, you'd
like numbers back then. I mean,a CPA is all about numbers. What
made you decide not to get intothe whole gambling thing? Or are
you?
Honestly my father was agambler, and I saw the bad bad
side of that. And you know, thatjust again, that was another
(04:30):
thing that Thank you, Dad, forshowing me what not to do. And,
you know, that's that's thetruth. You know, I just didn't I
didn't like losing money. Okay,I don't like lose. I don't know
who does, but I didn't likerisking money. I'm not in the
stock market. I just investedlike 500 bucks in crypto and I'm
(04:55):
checking it out. The next day itwas 700. And I'm like Oh my god,
this is great. And then wentback down to 400. And I'm like,
Okay, I'm not I'm not doingthis. I just don't like be in
the house, the casino the house,the house always makes money so
that that was good.
(05:20):
I grew up in Long Island. I wasborn in Brooklyn. Most of my
family came from lived inBrooklyn. So I have, you know,
we traveled back and forth. Ihave a lot of cousins that lived
in Brooklyn. Now. They all livein Staten Island in New Jersey
for some reason.
So what took your family fromBrooklyn to Long Island?
My grandparents when this waswow, like 19 I was a baby. I was
(05:48):
like two years old, and mygrandfather built a house. He
was a trendsetter. No, but theywanted to be out in the country.
Okay, that they liked growingvegetables. And they bought land
out in Bay Shore. And, you know,that's when Long Island was all
woods. It was all, you know,undeveloped. And they built
(06:13):
their own house. And my my momand dad, follow them. And that's
what brought us to Long Island.
And now if you know anythingabout Long Island, there's no
more it's all developed. The,you know, it's changed a lot.
Was your father also a CPA? Orwas he number numbers?
(06:35):
Okay, now. All right.
So you're the first one thatreally likes numbers and the
family that's making some moneydoing it correct.
I was the first one, you know,my family, you know, we're
electricians, plumbers, unionpeople, but for some reason they
put in my head that I could doanything. From when I was a
(06:59):
little child, you could doanything that you put your mind
to. And they just told me I wasgone to college. Nobody else in
my family ever went to college.
So like, you know, like a goodboy, I just listened. And, you
know, most of my friends didn'teven graduate high school, they
all dropped out. Most of themdidn't go to college. And I
(07:21):
remember set, telling them I'mlike, What are you going to do
with your life? You know, don'tyou have a plan? And no, they
did. And, and that's what mygrandmother meant when she said,
You know, I don't like the guysthat you're hanging out with.
So, you know, I went off tocollege to be a CPA. And, you
know, early in my career, I gotthe shock of my life. That
(07:44):
business was not as easy as Ithought it was, you know, that
casino was was so easy than I,you know, I did. I was always
making money shoveling snowmowing lawns, whatever I could
always, you know, trying to makemoney on the side, however I
(08:07):
could. I'm an entrepreneur, youknow, when I saw a problem, it
was like, I could fix that. Andso, before I graduated, I leased
an ice cream truck, which I haddone summers before. But, you
know, it was more like Cheechand Chung's nice dreams. You
know, my friends? Oh, yeah, myfriends still remember that. So
(08:30):
the last time I said, I'm goingto run this, like a business,
and I'm going to prove that I'man entrepreneur. So I kept books
and records. You know, I signeddocuments. I didn't even know
what I was signing at the time,but it was all legit. And I made
money I'll never forget, it wasAugust of 1984. And I remember
(08:51):
turning down this tree lineStreet, it was right waters part
of Bay Shore. And I was going tothis little private beach to
sell ice cream to kids. And Iwas like the hero. So and I made
a lot of money at that time,more than if I had a job. And
(09:13):
I'm like, who's better than me?
I'm making my own hours, I couldtake off, I made money. This is
going to be easy. So I graduate,I get my first CPA job six
months into the job. I get aletter from New York State. I
open it up. It's got a big redstamp on it that says tax
(09:37):
warrant. And so now I'm workingat a CPA firm and I'm like, my
career is over. I need a taxattorney. I don't know what I
was like, was I doing moneylaundering tax evasion. I don't
know. You know, I must have donesomething to get their
attention. And you know, I stillremember it because Is it was
(10:01):
real fear. Three days and nightsI tortured myself. I, I didn't
have the courage, I wasembarrassed to ask why now I'm
working at a CPA firm, the CPAs.
All I had to do was ask them,but I was embarrassed. Finally,
I showed the letter to some,like, what do I do? It's like,
why don't you try calling thenumber on the ladder. So I call
(10:23):
doc, and it was frightening. Andthey were like, Oh, you were an
ice cream guy. And so one of theforms I filled out was to
register as a sales tax vendor.
That's what the truck leasingcompany made me do. There was no
sales tax on ice cream. I wasn'tI wasn't involved in any
(10:45):
criminal activity. And all I hadto do was fill out a form
saying, I was only in businessfor for three months, and I'm
out of business, no penalty,nothing. But that opened my
eyes. I was like, Oh, my God,there's more to business than
than just doing business. Youknow, there's this whole other
(11:07):
side of you know, now you got toanswer to people, there's I
gotta fill out forms.
It was all unknown. And I tookthat experience. And
unconsciously, I applied it towhat I did in my, in my job and
my business. Because all of theclients that came in most of my
(11:29):
career I spent with smallbusiness owners, you know, I did
do you know, a large companyaccounting, I didn't like that
it was boring, I didn't make adifference. So I always
gravitated towards the smallfirms with the small business
owners. And they would getletters. And I would say they
would come in, like, Why doesghost and I knew how that felt.
(11:54):
So it became my job to help themit was less, and this was
shocking to is less about thenumbers, and more about the
psychology of money, the fear,because that's it, they were
just afraid they didn't knowwhat it was, a lot of times they
would wind up paying the taxnotices when they didn't even
(12:15):
owe money. People still do thatto this day. And you know,
that's why, you know, and Imentioned before I was born to
do this, this is what we do weeducate people about these
situations, how to deal with thegovernment, you know, the
importance of having aprofessional. And you know, it's
(12:36):
lonely as an entrepreneur. Youknow, you've heard it's lonely
at the top. Well, when you're anentrepreneur, you're at the top,
like it or not, and you take allthe responsibility, including
the financial responsibility.
And most people they're great atbeing a carpenter. They're great
at painting, the gradedconsulting, but the if they were
good at accounting, they'd beaccountants. Right?
(13:05):
Absolutely. And one thing thatprobably was the best thing ever
happened to you was that youreceived that letter at a 21
year old, 22 year old self,because I know of many people
out there small business ownersand nine contractors who have no
idea what their taxes are,because as soon as they get that
lump sum, it's all mine tospend. And so when you think
(13:29):
about that, I My question is,first of all, what happened to
ice cream truck after that?
Oh, you want to know something?
I dream about going back to thatsometimes. It was probably the
best besides the casino, but thecasino comes with legal issues.
But the ice cream truck I lookin them. The only thing that's
changed is is a snow cones likefive bucks now. It was 50 cents
(13:53):
when I but you know it's one ofthe only businesses with
technology it you don't use youcan't use a debit card in the
eye. At least I don't think so.
I haven't seen one with a with acredit card machine. But it's
the same it's it's peaceful. Youknow, to me, it's it's, it was
(14:16):
simple. It's still a simplebusiness. It's probably one of
the only truly simple businessesthat are out there.
When it goes back to supply anddemand. Like you said snow cones
are now $5. And the reason whyit's sure cost of goods have
went up it also supply anddemand. I mean, if you had your
(14:37):
ice cream truck out right nowtoday, in February drumroll on
Long Island, you're probably notgoing to have as much demand as
you would for the same productin July at the beach. Right?
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Youknow, that goes without saying.
So I love that you said smallbusiness owners and
entrepreneurs must takeresponsibility, especially for
(14:58):
their financials. Can you tellus more about exactly what a
person should be looking for? Attheir financials? Because most
people, it seems like correct meif I'm wrong. Small business
owners have one checkingaccount, personal business,
everything goes in the samething, then they have no idea
what they owe the government.
And then they get this huge billat the end of the year saying,
by the way you owe such and suchmoney, then it goes into
(15:20):
quarterly payments or monthlypayments, or fees, interest
fines. Can you go into that andtell us exactly what we should
be looking for out there?
That's a great question. Youknow, any successful
entrepreneur will admit thatthey've made all the mistakes.
(15:41):
Any mistake that could be made,I've made with the exception of
the accounting, obviously. Butwhen it came to marketing
relationships, you know, I'mstill learning you, I don't
think you ever get it all. And Ithank God for that, because it
keeps it interesting for me. Butevery really successful
(16:02):
entrepreneur will tell you thatyou need to know your numbers.
Okay, now that scares people,most people are afraid of
numbers. And I understand that.
And when you start a business,the first thing you're thinking
about is how can I make money,you need two things to be
successful in a business, youneed to have something that
(16:24):
somebody will pay for, and youneed cash flow. Okay? So what
does an entrepreneur do, they goout and they try to sell ice
cream. If I didn't sell any icecream, the first week, I would
have got a job at McDonald's. Soif they're lucky enough, they
start making money. Mostentrepreneurs do not make money,
(16:47):
it takes a long time. The peoplethat start out making money
right away, are lucky, okay? Orthey had a big client from a job
and they followed them, youknow, so it happens. It happens
rarely, though. So they're outthere pounding the pavement. So
assuming that they're good atwhat they do, okay, they already
(17:11):
got one, you need three things,you need to have a product, you
have to be able to sell it. Andyou need to have the
administration. Well, if theystart out with the product or
service, they're good. If the ifthey're good, they're probably
selling it, even if they don'tknow how to sell, you know, the
(17:33):
word will get out. So they gotthe first two covered, it's the
administration that comes last.
They might buy insurance becausethey know they need insurance.
But when it comes to theaccounting, they're like, and
this is the the mindset which weare trying to change. I'll get
(17:55):
an accountant, when I startmaking money. That's the
mistake. Now use, you should getan accountant. Before you even
start, you should consult withan accountant. Okay, now there's
issues with that, which whichI'd like to cover.
(18:17):
But you asked me, you know, whatshould they know? So the basics,
you got to know what a balancesheet is? You got to know what a
profit and loss statement is.
You should look at your taxreturn and where those numbers
go on your tax return and alsohow the accountant gets them.
These are the questions nobodyasked me. How do those numbers
(18:40):
get on the tax return? Itdoesn't they don't just appear
magically. And unfortunately,what you know, I started with
the lead pencil and an addingmachine. Okay, I had to actually
read the tax laws, put themmanually on a return add them
up. Somebody checked my workbefore it went out. And that's
(19:04):
how and we did 1000s of taxreturns. Unbelievable that you
could actually do tax returnslike that. And then they they
created the computer andQuickBooks and it ruined
accounting for small businessowners. Because Intuit tricked
people into thinking they coulddo their own bookkeeping and
(19:24):
save money. Now, now what it didwas it destroyed 10s of millions
of businesses, because theythought they were doing
bookkeeping. QuickBooks is not abookkeeping program. It's a
toll. Okay, so they need to knowthe Enter work. They don't need
(19:45):
to become a bookkeeper or anaccountant, but they need to,
you know, I know that a carneeds an engine and a
transmission and you got to haveoil in the engine And you got to
know where to put the gas. Andyou got to know where to put the
transmission flow ID. Because ifyou don't know those things,
(20:06):
you, you're gonna destroy yourcar. So I don't know how to fix
a car. But I know those basicthings. So when somebody goes
into business, they need toeducate themselves on the
basics. Okay, they need to knowwhat to ask their accountant.
And I just did a video on this,I said, don't assume that your
(20:28):
accountant is doing a good job.
We make mistakes, we missthings. You know, I've had
clients that were doing hundredsof 1000s of dollars in business
through Pay Pal, and they forgotto tell me, and by doing my job
the way I did, I would say whatare these Pay Pal? Transit? Oh,
(20:50):
we didn't know we needed to tellyou. Oh, you forgot? Okay, well,
that's part of your business.
You know, well, they wouldn'thave forgot if they knew that
all of the transactions thatthey do, are going to wind up on
the tax return somehowsomewhere. And if it's missing,
your your all if your numbersare suspect. Suspect I should
(21:13):
say, okay, so you need to havethe at least a minimum of
knowledge, you need to befamiliar with the tax return.
And the you know, the tax forms,and I do this, I teach it, I do
it on on YouTube, I say, look,the tax return is not going to
(21:37):
bite you. You're not going toget the Omicron virus by from
touching your tax return. Lookat it, it's pretty simple. The
numbers there, there's only acouple of different tax returns
that we use. Get familiar withit. So you know, I love it when
I get a client and says, youknow, can we go over our
(22:01):
financials? Because I loveexpired. Love Sharpie, Les, I
know what I'm doing. You know,challenge me ask me something
that I don't know. You know, I'mlooking for the people that I
can say, I don't know, I need toget back to you. And you know,
this Soma, taxes arecomplicated. There's credits.
(22:24):
There's it's changing all thetime. It's changing all the
time. And I reach out to people,I have other accountants, I talk
to groups, I need to keep mysword sharp. And if I know
people are asking me questions,I'm gonna I want to make sure
(22:47):
that I have the answers.
Alyssa Stanley (22:50):
Yeah.
Joe DiChiara (22:51):
That makes sense.
Alyssa Stanley (22:53):
Yeah.
When an entrepreneur goes tostart a business, and they
sometimes there are no expenses,and they can just get going,
especially if it's not aphysical product. But you had
mentioned the money mindset,there really is a huge block
there. And the first thingentrepreneur has to figure out
is okay, so if I do have toinvest in something, where am I
(23:16):
going to put that money? So howwould you handle the objection
of a new entrepreneur saying,Well, Joe, I know I should have
an accountant, but I, I don'thave the money for that right
now. It's not, not somewhere Ican invest?
Joe DiChiara (23:30):
Well, then I would say if you think you don't have
the money, you're you'recorrect. Okay, who was that? I
think Henry Ford said, If youthink you can, or you think you
can't, you're right. So if youstart out saying, Oh, I'll hire
you. When I have the money.
That's never gonna happen. It'snot because in my experience,
(23:50):
small business owners usuallywind up hiring an accountant
when they've gotten intotrouble. They got some kind of
notice they got a ha You know,if they have to hire somebody,
they can just easily go to apayroll company. When they start
getting notices, or they or theygo to h&r block, or somebody or
(24:13):
they do that. A lot of them windup doing their own return. And
then they get oh, you owe us$30,000 And then the light goes
off. Oh, now I need anaccountant. Now I have less
money than what I started with.
And the IRS owes me money. Sothe first thing is to get out of
(24:34):
the mindset of I don't have themoney. When you buy a car. Do
you say I can't afford theinsurance? It's the same thing.
It's like you don't have achoice. If they if they looked
at it like that. They wouldchange their mindset. Now I did
say there are obstacles to thisbecause for for practical
(24:58):
purposes, you know account Let'scharge money. And unfortunately,
there is a huge shortage of goodaccountants out there. There's a
huge shortage of good taxpreparers out there. In fact,
there's a lot of criminal taxpreparers out there. And there's
a lot of incompetent taxpreparers, you can't take an h&r
(25:19):
block course, and put up ashingle that you need at least
five or 10 years experienceworking under a either an
enrolled agent, which issomebody that's, you know, took
a very hard test through theIRS, or a CPA that's that deals
(25:39):
with small business owners. Sowhen you go look, so now there's
a whole thing, well, how do Ifind a good accountant? Well, I
could tell you how to find a badaccountant. If they don't answer
their phone, if you go intotheir office, and it's all
messed up, if the people thatare working for them are all
angry and upset. You don't wantto work with somebody like that.
(26:04):
Okay. Any accountant should givea free consultation. Okay, you
have to first of all, you got tohave the chemistry, you know,
you got to know them. You don'thave to be their friends. But
you know, anybody that you'reworking with, you got to have
some kind of chemistry, right.
They should have an introductoryprice for for newbies for people
(26:29):
that are just starting out. Now,unfortunately, if that, you
know, you said about supply anddemand. Well, right now, most
accountants aren't looking fornew clients. It's the middle of
tax season. Okay. I'm alwayslooking for new clients. Yeah,
like I said, I'm anentrepreneur, I'm running a
(26:50):
business. Most accountants don'tbe they run a practice, they own
a job. Okay. And that's whatsets us apart. We have an
onboarding process, we have asystem. A lot of accountants,
unfortunately don't have that.
Okay. But regardless, you know,I tell people, when I get a new
(27:14):
client, and I tell them myexperience, I said, if you think
this is going to be easy, maybeyou shouldn't start a business,
I try to talk a lot of peopleadd to going into business when
I'm like, listen, you'redelusion. Entrepreneurs are
delusional. To begin with, we'recrazy. We do stuff that defies
(27:34):
logic. Look at Elon Musk. Guys,like, oh, I want to go into
outer space. You know, ThomasEdison, I'm going to make the
light bulb that wasn't easy thatwere so I say, Listen, if you're
really an entrepreneur, you'regonna find a way. Don't let the
lack of money stop you. It neverstopped me. You know, I figured
(27:59):
it out. So the very least theycould do go on YouTube, educate
yourself, that's free. You justgot to spend the time. You know,
educate yourself on some ofthese topics. And as you're
educating yourself, if you havethe right mindset, the right
person will appear. You know,you ask your friends, your
(28:21):
relatives, people, you know, inbusiness, most of my clients
come from referrals. So, youknow, that's, that's my story on
that you got to educateyourself.
Alyssa Stanley (28:33):
When you're looking for an accountant. Are
there specialties, for example,we're an ag family, we have we
farm, we ranch. And then I havemy coaching company, something
distinct like that, where it'snot, you know, your average
small business? Do you findsomeone ag related? Or is
accounting accounting as long asthe accounting you hire is
(28:56):
proficient in what they do?
Joe DiChiara (28:58):
No, that's that's a great question. And yeah,
absolutely. You would want tofind somebody that's familiar
with the agricultural business,because there are definitely
nuances. There's probablycredits out there that I'm not
aware of. It's not only federal,there's also state credits,
state and local credits. There'salso state and local
(29:22):
registration and licensingrequirements. Okay, now we do
all 50 states. We happen to havea team where we we can research
every state, every locality.
We've been building up adatabase for years on all the
requirements. But you know, ifyou came to me and say, Oh, we
(29:42):
have a farm, you know, yeah, Iwould, I would take you I would
learn everything I need to, buthonestly, you're much better off
if you find somebody thatalready has, you know, they have
20 foreign clients. Yeah. Andthe way you do that is simply
you go to the farmers around youand you say who's? Who's your
accountant? You know? So yeah,there's basics that are gonna
(30:06):
run a p&l is a p&l. But you ifyou're in a in a specific niche
industry like that, youdefinitely want to find an
accountant in that industry.
Voiceover (30:21):
If you are enjoying this episode, please leave a
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Alyssa Stanley (30:29):
What are the other industries that you can
think of that are niche likethat, that you would you would
recommend finding someoneproficient in that specific
industry?
Joe DiChiara (30:38):
You know, so if you're a larger business, you
know, you could get into likemanufacturing, which has nuances
cost accounting. We don't dotax. We don't do financial
audits or reviews. For everystate has, you know, a specific
and I'm happy about that,because this should have been
(31:02):
some quality control before, youknow, it was like maybe 10 years
ago, anybody if you're a CPA cando an audit? Well, I don't know
how to do an audit. I, I workedon them, but I didn't spend I
didn't like auditing. So youknow, if you're a client, you
got a big line of credit with abank, you need an audit. That's
(31:24):
one, particularly now auditors,people that do tax, financial
audits don't necessarily knowtaxes. Okay. People in the
financial industry, because thefinancial industry, if you're a
broker dealer, a financialadvisor, they have some
(31:48):
regulatory issues that you'reon, I happen to be aware of
them. Because I've had clientsin that industry for a long
time. You know, stuff is comingup. Now we're crypto. Well,
nobody's really an expert incrypto yet. I mean, anybody can
be because the IRS doesn't evenknow how they're going to do it.
(32:12):
But there will be people thatemerge as extra I see them on
YouTube already talking aboutwhat's what's going on. But
yeah, that's, that's an emergingniche, niche field, but for the
most part, you know, we dealwith consultants, attorneys,
(32:34):
professionals. You know, smallbusinesses, that's our niche.
Alyssa Stanley (32:42):
Okay.
Joe DiChiara (32:43):
I like how you said that CPAs are Oh, you
didn't really say that yet, theway I took it as that CAAP CPA
should be almost viewed as beingproactive and said, a reactive
thing. And when you think aboutCPAs, it's not sexy, or fun when
you think of numbers, like manythings in life, yet, it's one of
those things that as a businessowner, you must have. I've
(33:05):
always said that if you don'thave someone who's watched your
books better than you are, youwill be out of business soon.
There are so many things thatcan happen. So my question for
you is this when you have a newcompany, and let's say I'm going
to go sell some widgets? Whatshould I expect to really have
in my relationship with my CPA,when I first start off, is it a
(33:27):
weekly? Is it a monthly? Is it aquarterly, a yearly meeting?
What exactly am I looking at?
You know, I could just tell youwhat we do. And the people that
come to us what they had,because they're not coming to
us, if they're happy with theiraccountant, they've either had a
(33:48):
problem, the accountant isn'tpicking up the phone now. Or
unfortunately, maybe maybe theaccounting retired or moved away
that you know, so. So what we doour processes we want to know as
much as we can about thebusiness and their personal
finances before we start, weactually developed our own
(34:10):
internal software, we have aquestionnaire. We also have a
secure portal where we we setthem up. So before we take take
them on as a client, I'm lookingat the last two years business
returns if they've been inbusiness, and their personal
returns. This gives me ahistory. And then we have them
(34:32):
fill out a questionnaire howmany you know, how long have you
been in business? What are youryou know, what do you want to do
with the business? So beforeI've even met with them, I have
a good idea of what's going on.
Okay, I ask a lot of questions.
Have you ever been in thisbusiness before? What do you
(34:54):
expect? You know, so especiallywhen I get somebody No, I try to
brace them for for what's aboutto happen. I say, listen, be
careful, we asked for, you know,if you're good at what you do
you get a mock, the worst thingthat could happen because it
happened in May, is yourmarketing works. And you don't
(35:16):
have the infrastructure tohandle it. And then you see all
that time and effort you spentbuilding this, it collapses,
that implodes. So you know, andalso I tell them business is one
problem after another, it'snever going to be a smooth ride.
(35:36):
So, you know, just expect that,if you think you're going to
quit your day job, and you'regoing to have freedom, you're
going to work more than you havebefore. Okay, and I encourage
them to ask me questions, all ofmy clients, I say you have
unlimited access to me for aslong as I can, you know, be
(35:57):
unlimited. But we've also as abusiness, we've handled that
because, you know, we have somany clients now, I couldn't be
available to everybody. So we weweed out the simple questions
that everybody asks, like, howdo I find, you know, my tax
refund? Well, everybody on myteam knows that we have
(36:20):
frequently asked questions, yougo to the IRS site, here's a
link. So instead of me spendingmy time with them, but I tell
them at least, at least at themidpoint of the year, I want to
have a discussion with Yeah. Andif they're not making an
appointment with me, I'm lookingat their financials and I'm
sending them questions. It's upto them if they want to follow
(36:44):
through or not. To me, I'm like,it's like, if I wanted to learn
accounting, what fascinated mewas I said, Oh, I could be a CPA
and then I don't have to asksomebody all these questions. So
you know, yeah, yeah, we we areproactive if you get it. So if
(37:11):
you're looking for anaccountant, here's a tip. And
they say, Oh, you just give usall your numbers at the end of
the year and we'll do yourtaxes. That's not somebody
that's a tax preparer. That'snot an accountant. Okay, h&r
block. I mean, I love them. It'sa great company. I remember
(37:31):
Henry block growing up, youknow, the 10 reasons why you
should use h&r. That wasbrilliant, brilliant. But
they're tax preparers. You go tothem with your data, and they
fill out a form. You're notgonna get tax advice. They'll
give you a little bit ofdirection, but they're not doing
(37:53):
tax minimum that they're closedafter tax season. So, you know,
do you want an accountant or doyou want a tax preparer?
(38:15):
Well, the first, you know, likeI said, the first thing is you
have to educate yourself. If youlook lucky enough to find an
accountant that wants to educateyou, you pick their brain, ask
them questions, you know, askthem as many questions as you
can. You want to know, don't askthem what can I do docked?
(38:38):
Everybody wants to know, whatcan I do docked? And the way I
answer that is, it's easy totell you what you can't deduct.
You can't deduct your haircuts,even though Donald Trump tries
to you can't deduct your yourfamily meals, your family
vacation, you can't deductanything that's personal in
(38:58):
nature. Okay, but if it has anyconnection to your business, and
it's ordinary and necessary, youcan deduct it. I just did a
workshop on strange deductionsthat the IRS didn't like them,
but the Tax Court did. Okay, forinstance, there was a stripper
that deducted breastaugmentation surgery. The IRS
(39:23):
did not like that. The the TaxCourt said it was a depreciable
asset Believe it or not, therewas a woman that was deducting
cat food and vet bills, and theIRS didn't like that she wants
to tax court. And it turned outthat she owned a junk yard and
the cats were keeping the ratsand the snakes out so the Tax
(39:45):
Court allowed it. Okay. So ifit's related to your business,
it's deductible. Okay. You alsowant to know how do you get the
information Listen to me, okay?
The smart clients say, Okay, Ihave all this information that's
gonna go on my tax return. Howdo you handle it? How do you
(40:07):
want me to give it to you? Doyou want me to email it to you?
Do you want access to my bankaccount? How are you going to?
What are the mechanics behindyou taking my information and
putting it on my tax return?
That's what you want to askpeople. If they look at your
cross-eyed, then they might notbe for that.
(40:32):
So let's go to your currentcompany Bedrock. First off, my
question for you is I know youweren't around during the
Flintstone era.
How do you know?
Todd Foster (40:40):
In terms of at least living there. Where did
the name bedrock come from?
Joe DiChiara (40:46):
I was looking for a word that that people could
get a visualization of a firmfoundation. So I had a company
called cornerstones cornerstonesof business. And that just
didn't fly for me. And thensomehow, I've, you know, I was
(41:06):
doing research on this. And Iwas like, I came across bedrock.
It's like, what's, what's betterthe build something on bedrock?
You know, that that's thedrawback is, you know, so
bedrock Business Builders, a lotof people mistake us for a
construction company. Yeah, Iget once in a while, I get
(41:30):
people asking me for a quote, tobuild a building or something.
But the people that know that,you know who we are. I think it
works. So that's where we gotbedrock from. And I did think
about using the Flintstones, butthen I have a friend that's a
marketing expert. And I said, Idon't want to get sued by Hanna
(41:50):
Barbera are a lot bigger thanme. So we're not going to use
the funds bonds.
So you have bedrock? At whatpoint did you say, wow, I've
made it because if I recall yousaying earlier? You've been
doing this for about 35 years?
Yeah, you just realized, likefour years ago that you're doing
what you've always should beendoing the first place.
(42:11):
I'm so glad you asked me that.
Because there's a time and Italk about this. When I got my
first office in 1994. Iremember, you know, I just gone
out on my own. I rented anoffice. I didn't have enough
business for full time. But Ihad enough business to keep me
busy for three or four days aweek. And I worked per diem for
(42:33):
another firm. But I remembersitting at my desk, saying I've
arrived, I've done it. And thenI lasted for about 30 seconds.
Then it was like, I needed abigger office. I needed more
clients. So that I use that asI'm like you never arrive. You
(42:58):
know. You never actually look atbillionaires. You ever wonder
why somebody like Elon Muskkeeps Bill Gates like they keep
creating things. You're anentrepreneur, you never arrive.
Okay. But, and I share this withmy team on like, I'm blessed on
(43:19):
white because all these yearsI've been trying to build
something that was special.
That's what I was trying to getout of accounting. I was like,
I'm, I'm limited. I tried hireand staff. I didn't do it.
Right. One of my mistakes. Itried all the things that people
(43:42):
do to build a business, I builta nice job for myself, I was
very profitable. And I spentmost of my time trying to figure
it out. To be honest with you, Itraveled a lot and educated
myself. Like what what am I notdoing right? And my clients
(44:03):
actually helped me I got sickand tired of people asking me to
commit felonies to commitinsurance fraud. Okay, because
that that's the kind of people Iwas attracting. I always got
clients, and I always firedthem. Because I'm like, Listen,
I don't I'm not committingcrimes for myself, why do you
(44:25):
think I'm going to commit acrime to you? And if you're an
account and you know, they alleventually put you in that
position. Okay. And I said, thisain't working for me working for
you know, established businessowners that they they don't
listen. They think they knoweverything unfortunate. I said,
(44:48):
I want people I can teach. And Idid some research and my, my
best client, actually my mostprofitable client was my
smallest client Never heard fromshe never complained always paid
her bill. She did what I askedher to do if she she always
called me and asked mequestions, and she listened to
(45:10):
me. So when I when I was rereorganizing, I said I need 1000
of lenders, I need 1000 lenders,low maintenance, she wants to
learn, she's hungry forknowledge, she listens. And
she's, she's successful. She'snot a multimillionaire, but she
(45:33):
she had to raise two autisticchildren. So being able to work
from home and running herbusiness that that made all the
difference for her. Now she'spart of my team. She builds
software, she built the softwarefor my team. So I said, well,
and this goes to the to theprice, you know, accountants are
(45:56):
expensive. And I said, How am Igoing to attract all of these
people? Because they're juststarting out? They have the
mindset that, oh, I'm gonna hirean accountant, when I start
making money. How do we overcomethose obstacles? Because to me,
that's all it was. It's anobstacle. So, you know, we came
(46:16):
up with a system. We call it ourCFO package, it starts at only
$57 a month. So I'm like, if youcan't afford to start your
business at $57 a month for thekind of service that we provide
you, you know, come on, youspend more than that at
Starbucks. So I took money outof the equation as being an
(46:39):
obstacle. Okay. We designededucation programs that they can
join for free, we have a monthlya weekly mastermind meeting is
free. You come in, you could askme any question you want, not
only me, we have other clients,other entrepreneurs, it's
unbelievable. We have a monthlyworkshop, it might wind up being
(47:06):
twice a month, we're going to dosomething for our clients, once
some once a month and one forthe general public. I mean, very
easily in social media, justGoogle my name Joe de Chera. Or
you can go to bedrock businessbuilders or if you want to take
me up bed dry businessbuilders.com. Or, very easily,
(47:33):
you can sign up for ourmastermind, it's mastermind with
joe.com. We meet every Fridayand I want to add, we have a CFO
in our in our company, the chieffun officer. That's one of one
of my my assistants, Elizabeth,she's brilliant. She runs she
(47:54):
created this game game calledyour party, which we play during
the mastermind. But one of ourcore values is fun. I have a
woman I was introduced to a verysuccessful entrepreneur, and she
introduced me to, to a prospectand she's like, she's like Josie
(48:18):
only accountant. I know thatactually has fun. That said, I'm
like because one of the thingsif you're in business, I'm not
here to be miserable. I'm not onthis earth to be miserable, to
trudge along, like whatever I'mdoing, if I'm not having fun. I
don't want to do it. And part ofeverybody in our team, I said,
(48:40):
if you're not having fun, thenElizabeth's not doing her job.
Because that's her. She's achief fun officer.
I love that position that asespecially when you are in a
business that is known for beingkind of...
dry?
Todd Foster (48:58):
Just ugh.
Alyssa Stanley (48:59):
Yeah. Wow. Yeah.
I mean, you think about it,people dread numbers. And then
you attach those numbers totheir bank account. And it's,
but you add fun to it, andeducation and mean, I, I want to
take a minute and shift to theentrepreneurial mindset that you
have, because that has preservedyou for 35 years.
(49:21):
Congratulations on that numberone because that I mean, that's
quite the accomplishment. And Ihave been thinking about your
story where you are going to bea CPA, and then you realize, oh,
crap, I have to stare ataccounts all day like, well,
this is not quite what Ithought. You know, it would have
been that would have been a goodtime to go back into day work,
(49:45):
shift work, things that youwere, you know, raised by those
kinds of positions. But you wereable to shift yourself and
figure out okay, well this isnot the way of me Is this I
thought it was going to be, buthow can I make it my mission and
my purpose? What was what wasyour mindset to get you through
(50:06):
that?
Joe DiChiara (50:08):
Well, I did make it clear that I tried to get out
of it for a while, I could tellyou some of my crazy
entrepreneurial endeavors, I didtry to sell insurance at one
price, and I'm going to use myfinancial knowledge to sell
insurance. And then what Irealized was my bosses were
trying to get me to sellexpensive insurance that nobody
could afford. It's like, I don'twant to do this, you know. So I
(50:32):
went back into accounting. Andevery time I went back, I
learned another aspect ofaccount there. So you know, this
is all divine intervention, someodd an entrepreneur, but all the
position, I look at everyposition I had, like, Oh, my
God, I spent a year at a firmthat was actually a criminal
(50:55):
enterprise. They were a CPA firmthat wasn't a CPA firm. I didn't
know this. My job was to handleall of the tax problems, tax
audits, criminal investigations,offers and compromise. Anything
that had so I got a realeducation on how the system
really works, is it don't workthe way they want you to think
(51:18):
it works. Okay. A couple of ourclients started getting the
letters saying please contactspecial revenue officer, so and
so six of them. So it came on mydesk, I gotta find all here's
another tax problem. I found outthey were investigating the
firm. They had a massivecharitable deduction scam going
(51:42):
on, it was going on for decades.
Oh, my God, it started itretired and sold it to two of
his employees, neither of whichwas CPAs. But there was still
operate. They were still signingoff on finance. I had no idea. I
was only there for nine months.
And I was the only one the FBIand the IRS did not interview.
(52:05):
And I was thinking I'm like, Oh,my God, they must be targeting
may. But the truth is, theydidn't need me. I wasn't there
long enough. I wasn't doing andand most of the people that I
would just workers, you know,and even the people that were
helping them, I mean, they weredoing money laundering. These
(52:28):
were just people that had a job.
You know, it was the two peoplein charge that that did
everything. And so I left thatfirm. So a bunch of my clients
came with me, they didn't knowwhat was going on. They were
legitimate business owners. Andthat's when I started my first
firm in 1994. I was like, oh,and all I did was tax problems.
(52:48):
I specialized in tax problems. Idid that for a while. And, you
know, when you're dealing withjust people that all have
problems, there's a reason why alot of them got into problems,
and they I would fix theproblem. They would wind up in
the same place. And I get thisdisenchanted with that. So
(53:10):
believe it or not, I sold myaccounting practice. This was
like six years later, I sold itto become a web developer, a
data bill, a database webdeveloper, because it was no, it
was exciting. And again, I wentI learned all about that. And I
came to the realization I saidI'm never gonna make money at
(53:34):
this. It was more of a like ahobby. I was like, I loved this.
But that experience helped me ineverything I do now. That
programming, you know, it Ican't even explain how it
helped. But you know, I just Ilearned stuff that regular
(53:55):
accountants don't know. And Itried a jewelry business. So I
you know, like I said, it wasall divine intervention, I wound
up exactly where I'm supposed tobe, which is helping people
people need the most help peoplewho can't afford it, but need
(54:16):
it. I woke up and I said, Oh mygod, we're building something
(54:38):
here. You know, I have 9 teammembers. I'm like, we have
hundreds of clients. We get newclients all the time we get
people signing up for the workso you know all the YouTube
videos. I'm like, oh my god,people are watching them. What
did I create? And I was like,You know what, this is exactly
(55:00):
what I've been trying to do mywhole life. And I realized I
said, You know what, all thisstuff I went through. I had to
go through, you know, thescanning business, I bought a
scanner of $30,000. You could,you could buy the same scanner
for $400. Now, I was going tomake everybody paperless. Well,
(55:21):
I learned about paperless. Itcost me a lot of money. I could
have done it cheaper. But I waslike, You know what, thank you,
God, thank you. For all theexperience, it was painful. A
lot of it was self imposed pain.
I don't think there was wouldhave been any other way. But
(55:46):
what I learned is, pain isinevitable suffering is
optional, if that makes sense.
It's like, you know, a friend ofmine puts it, right. He's like,
when a baby is born, they don'tcome out last one. Right, they
come out, it's painful for themother and for the baby. But if
they don't go through that pain,you don't have life. That's how
(56:08):
I look at businesses. I'm like,business at this is my baby bed
rock is my baby. Now. That's howI looked at it.
Alyssa Stanley (56:19):
I want to know if when you were an accountant
for this scam place, if when yougot those notices on your desk,
you're like, well, crap, they'refinally coming after me for my
casino at 10 years old. Here itgoes.
Joe DiChiara (56:34):
I knew that the statute of limitations had
already run on the casinos. Theycouldn't get me on that. Oh, no,
you know, I had a job to do. Ilooked at every time a client
had an issue. Because when Iwalked in there that all the
everything was in disarray. Thatdepartment was just it was a
(56:58):
nightmare. So I came in therewith like, 50 cases that were in
all different levels of of WoW,of the system. And, you know, I
got I got some really, reallyinteresting audits. And, you
know, I learned that the IRSdoes not like going to tax
(57:19):
court, and that you have allkinds of appeals available. So
when people tell me, they'reafraid of the IRS, I'm like,
unless you're actuallycommitting a crime, there's
nothing to be afraid of. If youare committing a crime, then you
need a tax attorney, not me. AndI do I do get clients like that.
I'm like, I'm not doing yourstuff. You need a tax attorney.
(57:44):
But yeah, it was another anotherproject. It was actually
exciting. Because I was like,Man, I never I never saw a
letter like this. This isinteresting,
Alyssa Stanley (57:56):
Boy they really messed up this time.
Joe DiChiara (57:58):
And then when I found out I was like, I'll never
forget when I went to my boss,he was like, Joe, what's going
on with that case? I'm like,Well, it's interesting, because
they're investigating you. Andhe turned white. Yeah, so...
That's a great story. I mean, Iall like of course, you know,
(58:20):
Midwest boy here, all you see islike Tony Soprano, leading the
whole church. And you're going,I'm out of here, like, now,
I would like to make a pointbecause we're on. So I do do a
thing on, you know, criminal,because unfortunately, a lot of
the tax scams come fromaccounts, there's a whole thing
with earned income credits. Wereaccountants used to actually
(58:42):
sell other people's dependents.
They were like, Oh, he's got sixkids, you can buy three of them
and use them on your return. Soit became a whole scam. There's
all kinds of telephone scamsnow. But what happens is people
unknowingly can get caught up insomebody else's scam. So if you
suspect if you go to with anaccountant, and they say, Oh, I
(59:05):
can get you back, you know, allkinds of money. Nobody can can
promise that. So stay away fromthem. If you and if you suspect
something. You could tell theIRS Listen, there's something
shady going on. And one thingone way to definitely identify
them is if they don't sign yourreturn, they call them ghost
(59:28):
preparers, who those people area problem because the IRS knows
this stuff. They were doingalgorithms before Google, those
guys were even born. They andthat's why the IRS is hiring
over 80,000 revenue agents.
(59:49):
They're hiring auditors andcollection agents. Okay, because
they're like they know who'scheating and they don't have the
manpower to Get them all. Sothis is part of what's the new
economy so there's no morehiding. There's no more under
the table. I call it you got tohide in plain sight. Do
(01:00:12):
everything that they do and runa clean business.
Voiceover (01:00:18):
Thanks for listening to GAIN THE PASSION. Please rate
review and share the podcast anddon't forget to hit the follow
or subscribe button.
Welcome to GAIN THE PASSION with hosts Todd Foster,
Alyssa Stanley and Kelley Skar.
Alyssa Stanley (00:11):
Today we have the opportunity to sit down with
Joe DiChiara. He is the chiefSmall Business architect at
Bedrock Business Builders wherehe helps solopreneurs build
their business foundations onbedrock, through business
consulting, management,consulting and tax advisory.
Thank you so much for sittingdown and chatting with us today
(00:33):
about your business and yourexperiences within a 35 years of
your profession Joe.
Joe DiChiara (00:38):
Thank you so much for having me, it's an honor, I
always love to get a chance totalk about Bedrock and how we
might be able to help the smallbusiness owner.
Alyssa Stanley (00:49):
And I think you have so much to offer small
businesses and just yourknowledge within this field in
the last 35 years. And those aredefinitely things that I want to
dive deep into later. But first,let's kind of go back to the
beginning. How did you even getstarted in this field? And stay
this long with? I mean, it's anever ever evolutionary field.
Joe DiChiara (01:13):
Yeah, well I've tried to get out of it a number
of times. Actually, I'm anentrepreneur that happens to
have a CPA license. And I seeTodd chuckling, you know, I've
learned in the last three orfour years that I was actually
born to do what I'm doing rightnow. I've been blessed. So my
first business was when I was 10years old, I did a casino in my
(01:37):
driveway. And I rememberspecifically, yep, and that came
from we had a carnival two weeksearlier. And I loved it. It was
for charity. And I said, Oh, Iwant to do that. Again. I
invited a bunch of my friendsover. We had all you know, dice
cards, roulette. I made likethree or four bucks, which that
(01:58):
was a lot of money for a 10 yearold 1970. My parents shot me
down. So it was only a one nightthing. They didn't like the fact
that I was doing, you know,casino. But I remember
specifically asking my mother Isaid, why do people get a job
when they could just make moneyand have fun, you know? And when
(02:19):
I was 17, you know, kids, I grewup with a I grew up in a pretty
rough neighborhood, we werewearing leather jackets, my
friends, were getting tattoos.
And my grandmother looked downand said, You know, I don't like
the kids that you're hanging outwith. And I didn't understand
what she was saying. But, youknow, I was going down the not a
(02:40):
good path. So we were at afamily picnic. And my father
said, you know, he pointed toone of my cousins and he said,
That guy's a CPA. Like, that'sgreat dad, what the heck is a
CPA? And he said, Well, they runbusinesses, they start
businesses and business ownersgo to them for advice. So I was
(03:00):
like, then I'm going to be aCPA. I never thought twice about
it. All my friends in collegewould change in their majors.
I'm like, I'm going to be a CPA.
I actually didn't know that thatmeant I was going to be an
accountant. I thought I thought,well, if you're a CPA, you're
(03:21):
going to run just like my fathersaid. And I resented my father
for a long time. Because I said,Now I'm doing bank recs, payroll
taxes, how am I going to changethe world and become a multi,
you know, billionaire doingthis. And so like I said, I'm an
entrepreneur. I've had my shareof failures, some successes, but
(03:43):
I always got drawn back intoaccounting because I have a as
as you see, you know, myexperience is pretty broad. And
I love what I'm doing now. Sothank you, Dad, thank you for
tricking me.
I want to go back to the casinoin the driveway. So you're 10
years old. You don't get shutdown by the police. You get shut
down by the parents. And thenafter that, you thought you
(04:09):
wanted to be a CPA, yet, if youlook back at 10 years old, you'd
like numbers back then. I mean,a CPA is all about numbers. What
made you decide not to get intothe whole gambling thing? Or are
you?
Honestly my father was agambler, and I saw the bad bad
side of that. And you know, thatjust again, that was another
(04:30):
thing that Thank you, Dad, forshowing me what not to do. And,
you know, that's that's thetruth. You know, I just didn't I
didn't like losing money. Okay,I don't like lose. I don't know
who does, but I didn't likerisking money. I'm not in the
stock market. I just investedlike 500 bucks in crypto and I'm
(04:55):
checking it out. The next day itwas 700. And I'm like Oh my god,
this is great. And then wentback down to 400. And I'm like,
Okay, I'm not I'm not doingthis. I just don't like be in
the house, the casino the house,the house always makes money so
that that was good.
(05:20):
I grew up in Long Island. I wasborn in Brooklyn. Most of my
family came from lived inBrooklyn. So I have, you know,
we traveled back and forth. Ihave a lot of cousins that lived
in Brooklyn. Now. They all livein Staten Island in New Jersey
for some reason.
So what took your family fromBrooklyn to Long Island?
My grandparents when this waswow, like 19 I was a baby. I was
(05:48):
like two years old, and mygrandfather built a house. He
was a trendsetter. No, but theywanted to be out in the country.
Okay, that they liked growingvegetables. And they bought land
out in Bay Shore. And, you know,that's when Long Island was all
woods. It was all, you know,undeveloped. And they built
(06:13):
their own house. And my my momand dad, follow them. And that's
what brought us to Long Island.
And now if you know anythingabout Long Island, there's no
more it's all developed. The,you know, it's changed a lot.
Was your father also a CPA? Orwas he number numbers?
(06:35):
Okay, now. All right.
So you're the first one thatreally likes numbers and the
family that's making some moneydoing it correct.
I was the first one, you know,my family, you know, we're
electricians, plumbers, unionpeople, but for some reason they
put in my head that I could doanything. From when I was a
(06:59):
little child, you could doanything that you put your mind
to. And they just told me I wasgone to college. Nobody else in
my family ever went to college.
So like, you know, like a goodboy, I just listened. And, you
know, most of my friends didn'teven graduate high school, they
all dropped out. Most of themdidn't go to college. And I
(07:21):
remember set, telling them I'mlike, What are you going to do
with your life? You know, don'tyou have a plan? And no, they
did. And, and that's what mygrandmother meant when she said,
You know, I don't like the guysthat you're hanging out with.
So, you know, I went off tocollege to be a CPA. And, you
know, early in my career, I gotthe shock of my life. That
(07:44):
business was not as easy as Ithought it was, you know, that
casino was was so easy than I,you know, I did. I was always
making money shoveling snowmowing lawns, whatever I could
always, you know, trying to makemoney on the side, however I
(08:07):
could. I'm an entrepreneur, youknow, when I saw a problem, it
was like, I could fix that. Andso, before I graduated, I leased
an ice cream truck, which I haddone summers before. But, you
know, it was more like Cheechand Chung's nice dreams. You
know, my friends? Oh, yeah, myfriends still remember that. So
(08:30):
the last time I said, I'm goingto run this, like a business,
and I'm going to prove that I'man entrepreneur. So I kept books
and records. You know, I signeddocuments. I didn't even know
what I was signing at the time,but it was all legit. And I made
money I'll never forget, it wasAugust of 1984. And I remember
(08:51):
turning down this tree lineStreet, it was right waters part
of Bay Shore. And I was going tothis little private beach to
sell ice cream to kids. And Iwas like the hero. So and I made
a lot of money at that time,more than if I had a job. And
(09:13):
I'm like, who's better than me?
I'm making my own hours, I couldtake off, I made money. This is
going to be easy. So I graduate,I get my first CPA job six
months into the job. I get aletter from New York State. I
open it up. It's got a big redstamp on it that says tax
(09:37):
warrant. And so now I'm workingat a CPA firm and I'm like, my
career is over. I need a taxattorney. I don't know what I
was like, was I doing moneylaundering tax evasion. I don't
know. You know, I must have donesomething to get their
attention. And you know, I stillremember it because Is it was
(10:01):
real fear. Three days and nightsI tortured myself. I, I didn't
have the courage, I wasembarrassed to ask why now I'm
working at a CPA firm, the CPAs.
All I had to do was ask them,but I was embarrassed. Finally,
I showed the letter to some,like, what do I do? It's like,
why don't you try calling thenumber on the ladder. So I call
(10:23):
doc, and it was frightening. Andthey were like, Oh, you were an
ice cream guy. And so one of theforms I filled out was to
register as a sales tax vendor.
That's what the truck leasingcompany made me do. There was no
sales tax on ice cream. I wasn'tI wasn't involved in any
(10:45):
criminal activity. And all I hadto do was fill out a form
saying, I was only in businessfor for three months, and I'm
out of business, no penalty,nothing. But that opened my
eyes. I was like, Oh, my God,there's more to business than
than just doing business. Youknow, there's this whole other
(11:07):
side of you know, now you got toanswer to people, there's I
gotta fill out forms.
It was all unknown. And I tookthat experience. And
unconsciously, I applied it towhat I did in my, in my job and
my business. Because all of theclients that came in most of my
(11:29):
career I spent with smallbusiness owners, you know, I did
do you know, a large companyaccounting, I didn't like that
it was boring, I didn't make adifference. So I always
gravitated towards the smallfirms with the small business
owners. And they would getletters. And I would say they
would come in, like, Why doesghost and I knew how that felt.
(11:54):
So it became my job to help themit was less, and this was
shocking to is less about thenumbers, and more about the
psychology of money, the fear,because that's it, they were
just afraid they didn't knowwhat it was, a lot of times they
would wind up paying the taxnotices when they didn't even
(12:15):
owe money. People still do thatto this day. And you know,
that's why, you know, and Imentioned before I was born to
do this, this is what we do weeducate people about these
situations, how to deal with thegovernment, you know, the
importance of having aprofessional. And you know, it's
(12:36):
lonely as an entrepreneur. Youknow, you've heard it's lonely
at the top. Well, when you're anentrepreneur, you're at the top,
like it or not, and you take allthe responsibility, including
the financial responsibility.
And most people they're great atbeing a carpenter. They're great
at painting, the gradedconsulting, but the if they were
good at accounting, they'd beaccountants. Right?
(13:05):
Absolutely. And one thing thatprobably was the best thing ever
happened to you was that youreceived that letter at a 21
year old, 22 year old self,because I know of many people
out there small business ownersand nine contractors who have no
idea what their taxes are,because as soon as they get that
lump sum, it's all mine tospend. And so when you think
(13:29):
about that, I My question is,first of all, what happened to
ice cream truck after that?
Oh, you want to know something?
I dream about going back to thatsometimes. It was probably the
best besides the casino, but thecasino comes with legal issues.
But the ice cream truck I lookin them. The only thing that's
changed is is a snow cones likefive bucks now. It was 50 cents
(13:53):
when I but you know it's one ofthe only businesses with
technology it you don't use youcan't use a debit card in the
eye. At least I don't think so.
I haven't seen one with a with acredit card machine. But it's
the same it's it's peaceful. Youknow, to me, it's it's, it was
(14:16):
simple. It's still a simplebusiness. It's probably one of
the only truly simple businessesthat are out there.
When it goes back to supply anddemand. Like you said snow cones
are now $5. And the reason whyit's sure cost of goods have
went up it also supply anddemand. I mean, if you had your
(14:37):
ice cream truck out right nowtoday, in February drumroll on
Long Island, you're probably notgoing to have as much demand as
you would for the same productin July at the beach. Right?
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Youknow, that goes without saying.
So I love that you said smallbusiness owners and
entrepreneurs must takeresponsibility, especially for
(14:58):
their financials. Can you tellus more about exactly what a
person should be looking for? Attheir financials? Because most
people, it seems like correct meif I'm wrong. Small business
owners have one checkingaccount, personal business,
everything goes in the samething, then they have no idea
what they owe the government.
And then they get this huge billat the end of the year saying,
by the way you owe such and suchmoney, then it goes into
(15:20):
quarterly payments or monthlypayments, or fees, interest
fines. Can you go into that andtell us exactly what we should
be looking for out there?
That's a great question. Youknow, any successful
entrepreneur will admit thatthey've made all the mistakes.
(15:41):
Any mistake that could be made,I've made with the exception of
the accounting, obviously. Butwhen it came to marketing
relationships, you know, I'mstill learning you, I don't
think you ever get it all. And Ithank God for that, because it
keeps it interesting for me. Butevery really successful
(16:02):
entrepreneur will tell you thatyou need to know your numbers.
Okay, now that scares people,most people are afraid of
numbers. And I understand that.
And when you start a business,the first thing you're thinking
about is how can I make money,you need two things to be
successful in a business, youneed to have something that
(16:24):
somebody will pay for, and youneed cash flow. Okay? So what
does an entrepreneur do, they goout and they try to sell ice
cream. If I didn't sell any icecream, the first week, I would
have got a job at McDonald's. Soif they're lucky enough, they
start making money. Mostentrepreneurs do not make money,
(16:47):
it takes a long time. The peoplethat start out making money
right away, are lucky, okay? Orthey had a big client from a job
and they followed them, youknow, so it happens. It happens
rarely, though. So they're outthere pounding the pavement. So
assuming that they're good atwhat they do, okay, they already
(17:11):
got one, you need three things,you need to have a product, you
have to be able to sell it. Andyou need to have the
administration. Well, if theystart out with the product or
service, they're good. If the ifthey're good, they're probably
selling it, even if they don'tknow how to sell, you know, the
(17:33):
word will get out. So they gotthe first two covered, it's the
administration that comes last.
They might buy insurance becausethey know they need insurance.
But when it comes to theaccounting, they're like, and
this is the the mindset which weare trying to change. I'll get
(17:55):
an accountant, when I startmaking money. That's the
mistake. Now use, you should getan accountant. Before you even
start, you should consult withan accountant. Okay, now there's
issues with that, which whichI'd like to cover.
(18:17):
But you asked me, you know, whatshould they know? So the basics,
you got to know what a balancesheet is? You got to know what a
profit and loss statement is.
You should look at your taxreturn and where those numbers
go on your tax return and alsohow the accountant gets them.
These are the questions nobodyasked me. How do those numbers
(18:40):
get on the tax return? Itdoesn't they don't just appear
magically. And unfortunately,what you know, I started with
the lead pencil and an addingmachine. Okay, I had to actually
read the tax laws, put themmanually on a return add them
up. Somebody checked my workbefore it went out. And that's
(19:04):
how and we did 1000s of taxreturns. Unbelievable that you
could actually do tax returnslike that. And then they they
created the computer andQuickBooks and it ruined
accounting for small businessowners. Because Intuit tricked
people into thinking they coulddo their own bookkeeping and
(19:24):
save money. Now, now what it didwas it destroyed 10s of millions
of businesses, because theythought they were doing
bookkeeping. QuickBooks is not abookkeeping program. It's a
toll. Okay, so they need to knowthe Enter work. They don't need
(19:45):
to become a bookkeeper or anaccountant, but they need to,
you know, I know that a carneeds an engine and a
transmission and you got to haveoil in the engine And you got to
know where to put the gas. Andyou got to know where to put the
transmission flow ID. Because ifyou don't know those things,
(20:06):
you, you're gonna destroy yourcar. So I don't know how to fix
a car. But I know those basicthings. So when somebody goes
into business, they need toeducate themselves on the
basics. Okay, they need to knowwhat to ask their accountant.
And I just did a video on this,I said, don't assume that your
(20:28):
accountant is doing a good job.
We make mistakes, we missthings. You know, I've had
clients that were doing hundredsof 1000s of dollars in business
through Pay Pal, and they forgotto tell me, and by doing my job
the way I did, I would say whatare these Pay Pal? Transit? Oh,
(20:50):
we didn't know we needed to tellyou. Oh, you forgot? Okay, well,
that's part of your business.
You know, well, they wouldn'thave forgot if they knew that
all of the transactions thatthey do, are going to wind up on
the tax return somehowsomewhere. And if it's missing,
your your all if your numbersare suspect. Suspect I should
(21:13):
say, okay, so you need to havethe at least a minimum of
knowledge, you need to befamiliar with the tax return.
And the you know, the tax forms,and I do this, I teach it, I do
it on on YouTube, I say, look,the tax return is not going to
(21:37):
bite you. You're not going toget the Omicron virus by from
touching your tax return. Lookat it, it's pretty simple. The
numbers there, there's only acouple of different tax returns
that we use. Get familiar withit. So you know, I love it when
I get a client and says, youknow, can we go over our
(22:01):
financials? Because I loveexpired. Love Sharpie, Les, I
know what I'm doing. You know,challenge me ask me something
that I don't know. You know, I'mlooking for the people that I
can say, I don't know, I need toget back to you. And you know,
this Soma, taxes arecomplicated. There's credits.
(22:24):
There's it's changing all thetime. It's changing all the
time. And I reach out to people,I have other accountants, I talk
to groups, I need to keep mysword sharp. And if I know
people are asking me questions,I'm gonna I want to make sure
(22:47):
that I have the answers.
Alyssa Stanley (22:50):
Yeah.
Joe DiChiara (22:51):
That makes sense.
Alyssa Stanley (22:53):
Yeah.
When an entrepreneur goes tostart a business, and they
sometimes there are no expenses,and they can just get going,
especially if it's not aphysical product. But you had
mentioned the money mindset,there really is a huge block
there. And the first thingentrepreneur has to figure out
is okay, so if I do have toinvest in something, where am I
(23:16):
going to put that money? So howwould you handle the objection
of a new entrepreneur saying,Well, Joe, I know I should have
an accountant, but I, I don'thave the money for that right
now. It's not, not somewhere Ican invest?
Joe DiChiara (23:30):
Well, then I would say if you think you don't have
the money, you're you'recorrect. Okay, who was that? I
think Henry Ford said, If youthink you can, or you think you
can't, you're right. So if youstart out saying, Oh, I'll hire
you. When I have the money.
That's never gonna happen. It'snot because in my experience,
(23:50):
small business owners usuallywind up hiring an accountant
when they've gotten intotrouble. They got some kind of
notice they got a ha You know,if they have to hire somebody,
they can just easily go to apayroll company. When they start
getting notices, or they or theygo to h&r block, or somebody or
(24:13):
they do that. A lot of them windup doing their own return. And
then they get oh, you owe us$30,000 And then the light goes
off. Oh, now I need anaccountant. Now I have less
money than what I started with.
And the IRS owes me money. Sothe first thing is to get out of
(24:34):
the mindset of I don't have themoney. When you buy a car. Do
you say I can't afford theinsurance? It's the same thing.
It's like you don't have achoice. If they if they looked
at it like that. They wouldchange their mindset. Now I did
say there are obstacles to thisbecause for for practical
(24:58):
purposes, you know account Let'scharge money. And unfortunately,
there is a huge shortage of goodaccountants out there. There's a
huge shortage of good taxpreparers out there. In fact,
there's a lot of criminal taxpreparers out there. And there's
a lot of incompetent taxpreparers, you can't take an h&r
(25:19):
block course, and put up ashingle that you need at least
five or 10 years experienceworking under a either an
enrolled agent, which issomebody that's, you know, took
a very hard test through theIRS, or a CPA that's that deals
(25:39):
with small business owners. Sowhen you go look, so now there's
a whole thing, well, how do Ifind a good accountant? Well, I
could tell you how to find a badaccountant. If they don't answer
their phone, if you go intotheir office, and it's all
messed up, if the people thatare working for them are all
angry and upset. You don't wantto work with somebody like that.
(26:04):
Okay. Any accountant should givea free consultation. Okay, you
have to first of all, you got tohave the chemistry, you know,
you got to know them. You don'thave to be their friends. But
you know, anybody that you'reworking with, you got to have
some kind of chemistry, right.
They should have an introductoryprice for for newbies for people
(26:29):
that are just starting out. Now,unfortunately, if that, you
know, you said about supply anddemand. Well, right now, most
accountants aren't looking fornew clients. It's the middle of
tax season. Okay. I'm alwayslooking for new clients. Yeah,
like I said, I'm anentrepreneur, I'm running a
(26:50):
business. Most accountants don'tbe they run a practice, they own
a job. Okay. And that's whatsets us apart. We have an
onboarding process, we have asystem. A lot of accountants,
unfortunately don't have that.
Okay. But regardless, you know,I tell people, when I get a new
(27:14):
client, and I tell them myexperience, I said, if you think
this is going to be easy, maybeyou shouldn't start a business,
I try to talk a lot of peopleadd to going into business when
I'm like, listen, you'redelusion. Entrepreneurs are
delusional. To begin with, we'recrazy. We do stuff that defies
(27:34):
logic. Look at Elon Musk. Guys,like, oh, I want to go into
outer space. You know, ThomasEdison, I'm going to make the
light bulb that wasn't easy thatwere so I say, Listen, if you're
really an entrepreneur, you'regonna find a way. Don't let the
lack of money stop you. It neverstopped me. You know, I figured
(27:59):
it out. So the very least theycould do go on YouTube, educate
yourself, that's free. You justgot to spend the time. You know,
educate yourself on some ofthese topics. And as you're
educating yourself, if you havethe right mindset, the right
person will appear. You know,you ask your friends, your
(28:21):
relatives, people, you know, inbusiness, most of my clients
come from referrals. So, youknow, that's, that's my story on
that you got to educateyourself.
Alyssa Stanley (28:33):
When you're looking for an accountant. Are
there specialties, for example,we're an ag family, we have we
farm, we ranch. And then I havemy coaching company, something
distinct like that, where it'snot, you know, your average
small business? Do you findsomeone ag related? Or is
accounting accounting as long asthe accounting you hire is
(28:56):
proficient in what they do?
Joe DiChiara (28:58):
No, that's that's a great question. And yeah,
absolutely. You would want tofind somebody that's familiar
with the agricultural business,because there are definitely
nuances. There's probablycredits out there that I'm not
aware of. It's not only federal,there's also state credits,
state and local credits. There'salso state and local
(29:22):
registration and licensingrequirements. Okay, now we do
all 50 states. We happen to havea team where we we can research
every state, every locality.
We've been building up adatabase for years on all the
requirements. But you know, ifyou came to me and say, Oh, we
(29:42):
have a farm, you know, yeah, Iwould, I would take you I would
learn everything I need to, buthonestly, you're much better off
if you find somebody thatalready has, you know, they have
20 foreign clients. Yeah. Andthe way you do that is simply
you go to the farmers around youand you say who's? Who's your
accountant? You know? So yeah,there's basics that are gonna
(30:06):
run a p&l is a p&l. But you ifyou're in a in a specific niche
industry like that, youdefinitely want to find an
accountant in that industry.
Voiceover (30:21):
If you are enjoying this episode, please leave a
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Alyssa Stanley (30:29):
What are the other industries that you can
think of that are niche likethat, that you would you would
recommend finding someoneproficient in that specific
industry?
Joe DiChiara (30:38):
You know, so if you're a larger business, you
know, you could get into likemanufacturing, which has nuances
cost accounting. We don't dotax. We don't do financial
audits or reviews. For everystate has, you know, a specific
and I'm happy about that,because this should have been
(31:02):
some quality control before, youknow, it was like maybe 10 years
ago, anybody if you're a CPA cando an audit? Well, I don't know
how to do an audit. I, I workedon them, but I didn't spend I
didn't like auditing. So youknow, if you're a client, you
got a big line of credit with abank, you need an audit. That's
(31:24):
one, particularly now auditors,people that do tax, financial
audits don't necessarily knowtaxes. Okay. People in the
financial industry, because thefinancial industry, if you're a
broker dealer, a financialadvisor, they have some
(31:48):
regulatory issues that you'reon, I happen to be aware of
them. Because I've had clientsin that industry for a long
time. You know, stuff is comingup. Now we're crypto. Well,
nobody's really an expert incrypto yet. I mean, anybody can
be because the IRS doesn't evenknow how they're going to do it.
(32:12):
But there will be people thatemerge as extra I see them on
YouTube already talking aboutwhat's what's going on. But
yeah, that's, that's an emergingniche, niche field, but for the
most part, you know, we dealwith consultants, attorneys,
(32:34):
professionals. You know, smallbusinesses, that's our niche.
Alyssa Stanley (32:42):
Okay.
Joe DiChiara (32:43):
I like how you said that CPAs are Oh, you
didn't really say that yet, theway I took it as that CAAP CPA
should be almost viewed as beingproactive and said, a reactive
thing. And when you think aboutCPAs, it's not sexy, or fun when
you think of numbers, like manythings in life, yet, it's one of
those things that as a businessowner, you must have. I've
(33:05):
always said that if you don'thave someone who's watched your
books better than you are, youwill be out of business soon.
There are so many things thatcan happen. So my question for
you is this when you have a newcompany, and let's say I'm going
to go sell some widgets? Whatshould I expect to really have
in my relationship with my CPA,when I first start off, is it a
(33:27):
weekly? Is it a monthly? Is it aquarterly, a yearly meeting?
What exactly am I looking at?
You know, I could just tell youwhat we do. And the people that
come to us what they had,because they're not coming to
us, if they're happy with theiraccountant, they've either had a
(33:48):
problem, the accountant isn'tpicking up the phone now. Or
unfortunately, maybe maybe theaccounting retired or moved away
that you know, so. So what we doour processes we want to know as
much as we can about thebusiness and their personal
finances before we start, weactually developed our own
(34:10):
internal software, we have aquestionnaire. We also have a
secure portal where we we setthem up. So before we take take
them on as a client, I'm lookingat the last two years business
returns if they've been inbusiness, and their personal
returns. This gives me ahistory. And then we have them
(34:32):
fill out a questionnaire howmany you know, how long have you
been in business? What are youryou know, what do you want to do
with the business? So beforeI've even met with them, I have
a good idea of what's going on.
Okay, I ask a lot of questions.
Have you ever been in thisbusiness before? What do you
(34:54):
expect? You know, so especiallywhen I get somebody No, I try to
brace them for for what's aboutto happen. I say, listen, be
careful, we asked for, you know,if you're good at what you do
you get a mock, the worst thingthat could happen because it
happened in May, is yourmarketing works. And you don't
(35:16):
have the infrastructure tohandle it. And then you see all
that time and effort you spentbuilding this, it collapses,
that implodes. So you know, andalso I tell them business is one
problem after another, it'snever going to be a smooth ride.
(35:36):
So, you know, just expect that,if you think you're going to
quit your day job, and you'regoing to have freedom, you're
going to work more than you havebefore. Okay, and I encourage
them to ask me questions, all ofmy clients, I say you have
unlimited access to me for aslong as I can, you know, be
(35:57):
unlimited. But we've also as abusiness, we've handled that
because, you know, we have somany clients now, I couldn't be
available to everybody. So we weweed out the simple questions
that everybody asks, like, howdo I find, you know, my tax
refund? Well, everybody on myteam knows that we have
(36:20):
frequently asked questions, yougo to the IRS site, here's a
link. So instead of me spendingmy time with them, but I tell
them at least, at least at themidpoint of the year, I want to
have a discussion with Yeah. Andif they're not making an
appointment with me, I'm lookingat their financials and I'm
sending them questions. It's upto them if they want to follow
(36:44):
through or not. To me, I'm like,it's like, if I wanted to learn
accounting, what fascinated mewas I said, Oh, I could be a CPA
and then I don't have to asksomebody all these questions. So
you know, yeah, yeah, we we areproactive if you get it. So if
(37:11):
you're looking for anaccountant, here's a tip. And
they say, Oh, you just give usall your numbers at the end of
the year and we'll do yourtaxes. That's not somebody
that's a tax preparer. That'snot an accountant. Okay, h&r
block. I mean, I love them. It'sa great company. I remember
(37:31):
Henry block growing up, youknow, the 10 reasons why you
should use h&r. That wasbrilliant, brilliant. But
they're tax preparers. You go tothem with your data, and they
fill out a form. You're notgonna get tax advice. They'll
give you a little bit ofdirection, but they're not doing
(37:53):
tax minimum that they're closedafter tax season. So, you know,
do you want an accountant or doyou want a tax preparer?
(38:15):
Well, the first, you know, likeI said, the first thing is you
have to educate yourself. If youlook lucky enough to find an
accountant that wants to educateyou, you pick their brain, ask
them questions, you know, askthem as many questions as you
can. You want to know, don't askthem what can I do docked?
(38:38):
Everybody wants to know, whatcan I do docked? And the way I
answer that is, it's easy totell you what you can't deduct.
You can't deduct your haircuts,even though Donald Trump tries
to you can't deduct your yourfamily meals, your family
vacation, you can't deductanything that's personal in
(38:58):
nature. Okay, but if it has anyconnection to your business, and
it's ordinary and necessary, youcan deduct it. I just did a
workshop on strange deductionsthat the IRS didn't like them,
but the Tax Court did. Okay, forinstance, there was a stripper
that deducted breastaugmentation surgery. The IRS
(39:23):
did not like that. The the TaxCourt said it was a depreciable
asset Believe it or not, therewas a woman that was deducting
cat food and vet bills, and theIRS didn't like that she wants
to tax court. And it turned outthat she owned a junk yard and
the cats were keeping the ratsand the snakes out so the Tax
(39:45):
Court allowed it. Okay. So ifit's related to your business,
it's deductible. Okay. You alsowant to know how do you get the
information Listen to me, okay?
The smart clients say, Okay, Ihave all this information that's
gonna go on my tax return. Howdo you handle it? How do you
(40:07):
want me to give it to you? Doyou want me to email it to you?
Do you want access to my bankaccount? How are you going to?
What are the mechanics behindyou taking my information and
putting it on my tax return?
That's what you want to askpeople. If they look at your
cross-eyed, then they might notbe for that.
(40:32):
So let's go to your currentcompany Bedrock. First off, my
question for you is I know youweren't around during the
Flintstone era.
How do you know?
Todd Foster (40:40):
In terms of at least living there. Where did
the name bedrock come from?
Joe DiChiara (40:46):
I was looking for a word that that people could
get a visualization of a firmfoundation. So I had a company
called cornerstones cornerstonesof business. And that just
didn't fly for me. And thensomehow, I've, you know, I was
(41:06):
doing research on this. And Iwas like, I came across bedrock.
It's like, what's, what's betterthe build something on bedrock?
You know, that that's thedrawback is, you know, so
bedrock Business Builders, a lotof people mistake us for a
construction company. Yeah, Iget once in a while, I get
(41:30):
people asking me for a quote, tobuild a building or something.
But the people that know that,you know who we are. I think it
works. So that's where we gotbedrock from. And I did think
about using the Flintstones, butthen I have a friend that's a
marketing expert. And I said, Idon't want to get sued by Hanna
(41:50):
Barbera are a lot bigger thanme. So we're not going to use
the funds bonds.
So you have bedrock? At whatpoint did you say, wow, I've
made it because if I recall yousaying earlier? You've been
doing this for about 35 years?
Yeah, you just realized, likefour years ago that you're doing
what you've always should beendoing the first place.
(42:11):
I'm so glad you asked me that.
Because there's a time and Italk about this. When I got my
first office in 1994. Iremember, you know, I just gone
out on my own. I rented anoffice. I didn't have enough
business for full time. But Ihad enough business to keep me
busy for three or four days aweek. And I worked per diem for
(42:33):
another firm. But I remembersitting at my desk, saying I've
arrived, I've done it. And thenI lasted for about 30 seconds.
Then it was like, I needed abigger office. I needed more
clients. So that I use that asI'm like you never arrive. You
(42:58):
know. You never actually look atbillionaires. You ever wonder
why somebody like Elon Muskkeeps Bill Gates like they keep
creating things. You're anentrepreneur, you never arrive.
Okay. But, and I share this withmy team on like, I'm blessed on
(43:19):
white because all these yearsI've been trying to build
something that was special.
That's what I was trying to getout of accounting. I was like,
I'm, I'm limited. I tried hireand staff. I didn't do it.
Right. One of my mistakes. Itried all the things that people
(43:42):
do to build a business, I builta nice job for myself, I was
very profitable. And I spentmost of my time trying to figure
it out. To be honest with you, Itraveled a lot and educated
myself. Like what what am I notdoing right? And my clients
(44:03):
actually helped me I got sickand tired of people asking me to
commit felonies to commitinsurance fraud. Okay, because
that that's the kind of people Iwas attracting. I always got
clients, and I always firedthem. Because I'm like, Listen,
I don't I'm not committingcrimes for myself, why do you
(44:25):
think I'm going to commit acrime to you? And if you're an
account and you know, they alleventually put you in that
position. Okay. And I said, thisain't working for me working for
you know, established businessowners that they they don't
listen. They think they knoweverything unfortunate. I said,
(44:48):
I want people I can teach. And Idid some research and my, my
best client, actually my mostprofitable client was my
smallest client Never heard fromshe never complained always paid
her bill. She did what I askedher to do if she she always
called me and asked mequestions, and she listened to
(45:10):
me. So when I when I was rereorganizing, I said I need 1000
of lenders, I need 1000 lenders,low maintenance, she wants to
learn, she's hungry forknowledge, she listens. And
she's, she's successful. She'snot a multimillionaire, but she
(45:33):
she had to raise two autisticchildren. So being able to work
from home and running herbusiness that that made all the
difference for her. Now she'spart of my team. She builds
software, she built the softwarefor my team. So I said, well,
and this goes to the to theprice, you know, accountants are
(45:56):
expensive. And I said, How am Igoing to attract all of these
people? Because they're juststarting out? They have the
mindset that, oh, I'm gonna hirean accountant, when I start
making money. How do we overcomethose obstacles? Because to me,
that's all it was. It's anobstacle. So, you know, we came
(46:16):
up with a system. We call it ourCFO package, it starts at only
$57 a month. So I'm like, if youcan't afford to start your
business at $57 a month for thekind of service that we provide
you, you know, come on, youspend more than that at
Starbucks. So I took money outof the equation as being an
(46:39):
obstacle. Okay. We designededucation programs that they can
join for free, we have a monthlya weekly mastermind meeting is
free. You come in, you could askme any question you want, not
only me, we have other clients,other entrepreneurs, it's
unbelievable. We have a monthlyworkshop, it might wind up being
(47:06):
twice a month, we're going to dosomething for our clients, once
some once a month and one forthe general public. I mean, very
easily in social media, justGoogle my name Joe de Chera. Or
you can go to bedrock businessbuilders or if you want to take
me up bed dry businessbuilders.com. Or, very easily,
(47:33):
you can sign up for ourmastermind, it's mastermind with
joe.com. We meet every Fridayand I want to add, we have a CFO
in our in our company, the chieffun officer. That's one of one
of my my assistants, Elizabeth,she's brilliant. She runs she
(47:54):
created this game game calledyour party, which we play during
the mastermind. But one of ourcore values is fun. I have a
woman I was introduced to a verysuccessful entrepreneur, and she
introduced me to, to a prospectand she's like, she's like Josie
(48:18):
only accountant. I know thatactually has fun. That said, I'm
like because one of the thingsif you're in business, I'm not
here to be miserable. I'm not onthis earth to be miserable, to
trudge along, like whatever I'mdoing, if I'm not having fun. I
don't want to do it. And part ofeverybody in our team, I said,
(48:40):
if you're not having fun, thenElizabeth's not doing her job.
Because that's her. She's achief fun officer.
I love that position that asespecially when you are in a
business that is known for beingkind of...
dry?
Todd Foster (48:58):
Just ugh.
Alyssa Stanley (48:59):
Yeah. Wow. Yeah.
I mean, you think about it,people dread numbers. And then
you attach those numbers totheir bank account. And it's,
but you add fun to it, andeducation and mean, I, I want to
take a minute and shift to theentrepreneurial mindset that you
have, because that has preservedyou for 35 years.
(49:21):
Congratulations on that numberone because that I mean, that's
quite the accomplishment. And Ihave been thinking about your
story where you are going to bea CPA, and then you realize, oh,
crap, I have to stare ataccounts all day like, well,
this is not quite what Ithought. You know, it would have
been that would have been a goodtime to go back into day work,
(49:45):
shift work, things that youwere, you know, raised by those
kinds of positions. But you wereable to shift yourself and
figure out okay, well this isnot the way of me Is this I
thought it was going to be, buthow can I make it my mission and
my purpose? What was what wasyour mindset to get you through
(50:06):
that?
Joe DiChiara (50:08):
Well, I did make it clear that I tried to get out
of it for a while, I could tellyou some of my crazy
entrepreneurial endeavors, I didtry to sell insurance at one
price, and I'm going to use myfinancial knowledge to sell
insurance. And then what Irealized was my bosses were
trying to get me to sellexpensive insurance that nobody
could afford. It's like, I don'twant to do this, you know. So I
(50:32):
went back into accounting. Andevery time I went back, I
learned another aspect ofaccount there. So you know, this
is all divine intervention, someodd an entrepreneur, but all the
position, I look at everyposition I had, like, Oh, my
God, I spent a year at a firmthat was actually a criminal
(50:55):
enterprise. They were a CPA firmthat wasn't a CPA firm. I didn't
know this. My job was to handleall of the tax problems, tax
audits, criminal investigations,offers and compromise. Anything
that had so I got a realeducation on how the system
really works, is it don't workthe way they want you to think
(51:18):
it works. Okay. A couple of ourclients started getting the
letters saying please contactspecial revenue officer, so and
so six of them. So it came on mydesk, I gotta find all here's
another tax problem. I found outthey were investigating the
firm. They had a massivecharitable deduction scam going
(51:42):
on, it was going on for decades.
Oh, my God, it started itretired and sold it to two of
his employees, neither of whichwas CPAs. But there was still
operate. They were still signingoff on finance. I had no idea. I
was only there for nine months.
And I was the only one the FBIand the IRS did not interview.
(52:05):
And I was thinking I'm like, Oh,my God, they must be targeting
may. But the truth is, theydidn't need me. I wasn't there
long enough. I wasn't doing andand most of the people that I
would just workers, you know,and even the people that were
helping them, I mean, they weredoing money laundering. These
(52:28):
were just people that had a job.
You know, it was the two peoplein charge that that did
everything. And so I left thatfirm. So a bunch of my clients
came with me, they didn't knowwhat was going on. They were
legitimate business owners. Andthat's when I started my first
firm in 1994. I was like, oh,and all I did was tax problems.
(52:48):
I specialized in tax problems. Idid that for a while. And, you
know, when you're dealing withjust people that all have
problems, there's a reason why alot of them got into problems,
and they I would fix theproblem. They would wind up in
the same place. And I get thisdisenchanted with that. So
(53:10):
believe it or not, I sold myaccounting practice. This was
like six years later, I sold itto become a web developer, a
data bill, a database webdeveloper, because it was no, it
was exciting. And again, I wentI learned all about that. And I
came to the realization I saidI'm never gonna make money at
(53:34):
this. It was more of a like ahobby. I was like, I loved this.
But that experience helped me ineverything I do now. That
programming, you know, it Ican't even explain how it
helped. But you know, I just Ilearned stuff that regular
(53:55):
accountants don't know. And Itried a jewelry business. So I
you know, like I said, it wasall divine intervention, I wound
up exactly where I'm supposed tobe, which is helping people
people need the most help peoplewho can't afford it, but need
(54:16):
it. I woke up and I said, Oh mygod, we're building something
(54:38):
here. You know, I have 9 teammembers. I'm like, we have
hundreds of clients. We get newclients all the time we get
people signing up for the workso you know all the YouTube
videos. I'm like, oh my god,people are watching them. What
did I create? And I was like,You know what, this is exactly
(55:00):
what I've been trying to do mywhole life. And I realized I
said, You know what, all thisstuff I went through. I had to
go through, you know, thescanning business, I bought a
scanner of $30,000. You could,you could buy the same scanner
for $400. Now, I was going tomake everybody paperless. Well,
(55:21):
I learned about paperless. Itcost me a lot of money. I could
have done it cheaper. But I waslike, You know what, thank you,
God, thank you. For all theexperience, it was painful. A
lot of it was self imposed pain.
I don't think there was wouldhave been any other way. But
(55:46):
what I learned is, pain isinevitable suffering is
optional, if that makes sense.
It's like, you know, a friend ofmine puts it, right. He's like,
when a baby is born, they don'tcome out last one. Right, they
come out, it's painful for themother and for the baby. But if
they don't go through that pain,you don't have life. That's how
(56:08):
I look at businesses. I'm like,business at this is my baby bed
rock is my baby. Now. That's howI looked at it.
Alyssa Stanley (56:19):
I want to know if when you were an accountant
for this scam place, if when yougot those notices on your desk,
you're like, well, crap, they'refinally coming after me for my
casino at 10 years old. Here itgoes.
Joe DiChiara (56:34):
I knew that the statute of limitations had
already run on the casinos. Theycouldn't get me on that. Oh, no,
you know, I had a job to do. Ilooked at every time a client
had an issue. Because when Iwalked in there that all the
everything was in disarray. Thatdepartment was just it was a
(56:58):
nightmare. So I came in therewith like, 50 cases that were in
all different levels of of WoW,of the system. And, you know, I
got I got some really, reallyinteresting audits. And, you
know, I learned that the IRSdoes not like going to tax
(57:19):
court, and that you have allkinds of appeals available. So
when people tell me, they'reafraid of the IRS, I'm like,
unless you're actuallycommitting a crime, there's
nothing to be afraid of. If youare committing a crime, then you
need a tax attorney, not me. AndI do I do get clients like that.
I'm like, I'm not doing yourstuff. You need a tax attorney.
(57:44):
But yeah, it was another anotherproject. It was actually
exciting. Because I was like,Man, I never I never saw a
letter like this. This isinteresting,
Alyssa Stanley (57:56):
Boy they really messed up this time.
Joe DiChiara (57:58):
And then when I found out I was like, I'll never
forget when I went to my boss,he was like, Joe, what's going
on with that case? I'm like,Well, it's interesting, because
they're investigating you. Andhe turned white. Yeah, so...
That's a great story. I mean, Iall like of course, you know,
(58:20):
Midwest boy here, all you see islike Tony Soprano, leading the
whole church. And you're going,I'm out of here, like, now,
I would like to make a pointbecause we're on. So I do do a
thing on, you know, criminal,because unfortunately, a lot of
the tax scams come fromaccounts, there's a whole thing
with earned income credits. Wereaccountants used to actually
(58:42):
sell other people's dependents.
They were like, Oh, he's got sixkids, you can buy three of them
and use them on your return. Soit became a whole scam. There's
all kinds of telephone scamsnow. But what happens is people
unknowingly can get caught up insomebody else's scam. So if you
suspect if you go to with anaccountant, and they say, Oh, I
(59:05):
can get you back, you know, allkinds of money. Nobody can can
promise that. So stay away fromthem. If you and if you suspect
something. You could tell theIRS Listen, there's something
shady going on. And one thingone way to definitely identify
them is if they don't sign yourreturn, they call them ghost
(59:28):
preparers, who those people area problem because the IRS knows
this stuff. They were doingalgorithms before Google, those
guys were even born. They andthat's why the IRS is hiring
over 80,000 revenue agents.
(59:49):
They're hiring auditors andcollection agents. Okay, because
they're like they know who'scheating and they don't have the
manpower to Get them all. Sothis is part of what's the new
economy so there's no morehiding. There's no more under
the table. I call it you got tohide in plain sight. Do
(01:00:12):
everything that they do and runa clean business.
Voiceover (01:00:18):
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