June 18, 2025 • 28 mins
Episode Summary:
After 11 years scaling Elite Resource Team, Anton Anderson's revenue tripled when he released "The Art of Collaboration" in 2024. He shows how one book became a growth flywheel, why his event is now the "Virtual Family Office Collective," & how AI is speeding—not threatening—progress. Anton previews book #2, "The Art of Proactivity" (co-authored with Paul Latham, who sold his accounting firm for $45M) to help accountants become proactive VFO pros. These titles anchor a four-book series proving collaboration now outperforms competition.
About the Guest:
- Anton Anderson sketched his first "team-based" diagrams on napkins with CPAs. Today, he leads 25 internal staff & a 75-specialist virtual family office, supporting 700+ advisors & accountants. His annual event, now titled Virtual Family Office Collective, showcases that model in action.
Key Concepts Explained:
The Flywheel Effect: Growth gains momentum over time; add a strategic asset (a book) & the wheel accelerates exponentially.
Virtual Family Office (VFO): Members tap a 100-person expert bench without hiring them, delivering "big-firm" depth minus the overhead.
AI-Driven Disruption: As AI handles data & routine tasks, value shifts to relationships, strategy, & coordination—exactly what VFOs amplify.
The Four-Book Vision:
- "The Art of Collaboration" – Advisor + Accountant Playbook
- "The Art of Proactivity" – Accountants become proactive VFO pros
- Client-facing guide to VFO benefits (in development)
- Advisor-focused growth manual (planned 2026)
Strategic Book Leverage:
Beyond Royalties: Success is measured in relationships, not unit sales. Books earn trust, open doors, & anchor speaking invites.
Multi-Use Asset: Lead magnet, onboarding text, event giveaway, & training manual. New members receive "Collaboration" on day one & discuss it with their success manager.
Peer-to-Peer Credibility: "Proactivity" was co-written by Paul Latham, who sold his accounting firm for $45M; accountants listen because it's "one of us" talking.
Market Timing & Opportunity:
Perfect Storm: COVID normalized virtual work; AI threatens "old school" fee models; professionals crave partnership over rivalry.
10X Mindset: Anton targets delivering ten-times the value, not just closing ten-times the deals—fueling retention & referral growth.
Future-Proofing: Information is cheap; process & partnership are priceless. The VFO structure is built for the next decade of tech upheaval.
Implementation Insights:
Rock-Climber Rhythm: Surge upward, pause to secure footing, then climb again; this guards culture & quality during hyper-growth.
Community-Driven Innovation: Members co-create new ideas, challenge assumptions, & keep ego in check.
Systematic Integration: Books, events, AI tools, & VFO experts are woven into one seamless client experience.
Connect with Anton
- Company: Elite Resource Team
- Event: Virtual Family Office Collective
- Books: "The Art of Collaboration" & "The Art of Proactivity"<
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Imagine your business as a massive flywheel.
You've built momentum overyears.
It's spinning steadily,generating great revenue.
Then you add one strategicelement a book, and suddenly
that wheel accelerates to speedsyou never imagined.
That's exactly what AntonAnderson discovered this past
year.
For over a decade, Anton hadbuilt elite resource team into a
(00:24):
thriving business.
He was already successful byany measure, but when he
published the Art ofCollaboration last year,
something extraordinary happened.
His already impressive revenuetripled, pivotal role in his
(00:46):
massive growth, why heimmediately published a second
one, and his ambitious plans tocomplete a four-book series that
promises to reshape howadvisors and accountants
collaborate.
Anton Anderson, how are youdoing?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Life is good.
Mr Paul McManus, Great to be onwith you, man.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Yeah, super excited to be talking to you today and I
was thinking about it right now.
This is your third time on mypodcast.
I don't know that I've had manytwo-timers.
In reality, we've actually donea kind of a webinar slash
podcast, so technically thiscould be number four.
So you know there's somethingabout you that I must like
because this is your fourth timeback on the podcast.
(01:28):
So welcome back.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Wow, see, now you made my day.
Thank you very much.
The feelings are mutual.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
It's been a year since the Elite Growth Academy,
the EGA, in San Diego, june 2024.
And here we are in June 2025.
And I guess the premise ofwanting to have you back on the
podcast was just to hear fromyou what's been, what's
transpired this past year.
I know that we published yourfirst book, the Art of
Collaboration, roughly a yearago.
(01:55):
You already have moved intoyour second book, so we want to
get some updates on howeverything is going.
And then you have your next bigevent this month, which is it
called the EGA or have yourenamed it?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
We rebranded yeah, I can speak to why if you want,
but we rebranded that VirtualFamily Office Collective.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
And what was the basis for the rebrand?
Speaker 2 (02:14):
We were looking at the growth over the years and
just really seeing how much theVirtual Family Office value
proposition has been resonatingwith clients Both our clients,
meaning the advisors and theCPAs, as well as their end user
clients.
And the better we've gotten attelling that story and the
history of the family office andhow family offices have evolved
(02:35):
today and what a multifamilyoffice, fractional family office
, virtual family office, howmuch value they bring clients,
the more we've realized itreally is one of our, I'd say,
two unique positions in themarketplace and what I'm
incredibly passionate about,because, at the end of the day,
a virtual family office is justcollaboration.
It's literally a different namefor the team-based model, which
(02:57):
is what we started calling this11 years ago when we launched
Elite Resource Team and what Iwas drawing out on napkins 12,
13 years ago with CPAs and otherpartners at that time.
And so it's just been a reallyfun journey and I'm so excited
on how much people are waking up, how outdated the mindset of
competition is and how much morepeople are recognizing the
(03:19):
power of collaboration.
Hence the book, the Art ofCollaboration, and the second
book that you referenced, theArt of Proactivity.
So that's partly why the eventwas rebranded from Elite Growth
Academy, which is a little bitmore generic and vague to the
Vocational Development OfficeCollective.
We're just really leaning inand owning that identity.
I would say more.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Is there anything new or different in terms of this
year's, Is it similar to lastyear's or is there going to be
anything materially different?
Or in terms of this year's Isit similar to last year's or is
it going to be anythingmaterially different from last
year?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Definitely a lot of similarities.
So if you've been to events inthe past, you'll know this is an
event hosted by Elite ResourceTeam.
I think the general philosophyis going to be there, but we're
just going to be even more, I'dsay, clear with the vision and
inviting for those that reallyresonate with the idea of
leveraging a virtual familyoffice and forming strategic
(04:10):
partnerships and I referenced amoment ago, I think, the virtual
family office is one of the twothings that I think we've
really wrapped our arms aroundand found a true passion in.
And the second is thecollaboration, of course,
between the advisors and theCPAs.
Those partnerships, or I shouldsay more generically, the
advisors and the accountants,those partnerships, when they
really come together withintention, as we've been
(04:32):
preaching for a while, and thenthey leverage a virtual family
office to fill in the gaps wherethey're not a specialist.
The power of that one too isjust, I think it's unmatched in
the marketplace.
Hence a lot of the growth ofboth the event, the members of
the community, our company thatwill certainly be front and
center at the event, is justreally how substantial this
(04:53):
opportunity is, share a lot ofstories and data from behind the
scenes, the members there andhelp them understand.
From our perspective, it's onlythe beginning, like literally,
paul, I think you and I weretalking for a few minutes before
we started the recording andjust talking about visions and
goals and such, and I've justmore than ever really found a
(05:13):
deep passion behind how I thinkdisruptive this opportunity is
going to be in the traditionalmarket space and how excited I
am to be a part of thatdisruption well, I want to grow
10X from where I'm at today.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
How do I do that?
And so I've been thinking aboutthis question and ultimately, I
need to bring 10X more value tothe marketplace.
So it's not about just selling10 times more stuff and saying,
hey, I've sold 10 times morestuff.
I think that's fundamentallythe wrong approach.
What else can I sell?
It's really more fundamentallyhow can I bring 10X more value
to my clients and, by extension,to the marketplace?
And that's how you actuallycreate 10x growth.
(05:50):
And so what I'm extrapolatingfrom your growth is that if
you're growing at that clip atthis point in your business,
it's because you're addingsignificant value to your
members, and that's what'spropelling your growth.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Yeah, I like to think so.
I hope so.
That's the motivation behindwhy we do what we do, and I
think it's absolutely what youjust said.
There's a degree of the rockcutter's creed where you just
keep chipping away at somethingyou believe in and put aside the
fact that you're not seeing theimmediate result of each time
the hammer hits the rock, butjust having the faith that what
(06:23):
you're doing is actually makinga difference.
And then you have these years,like last year for us, three
times the size of our company,and that's what we've been
chipping away for the last threeyears before that and then
finally it was boom, one or twomore hits of the hammer and the
rock cracks.
And so now where are we at?
Well, it'll be interesting tosee.
The year has started off strongfor us.
But I, using a second analogy Igrew up with a father who loved
(06:46):
the outdoors and rock climbingand I really like that analogy
of you climb up to a certainheight above the last carabiner
you put in and then youintentionally kind of slow down
and evaluate the circumstanceand look for a place to hit the
next carabiner into the rock,and then you climb some more
from there.
So it might be a slower way togrow, but what you end up doing,
if you look back at now, 11years of our company, is you
(07:07):
strategically grow over time andyou intentionally make sure
that the foundation is solid.
So you might miss someopportunities and you might make
some mistakes which allcompanies do and we certainly
have but ideally you only fallwhatever, that is, 10 feet, 15
feet, and you catch yourselfbefore you really have something
catastrophic.
So I think, in terms of ourvision and our goal, we
(07:30):
experienced growth that exceededwhat we anticipated last year
and we are intentionally lookingat the foundation of the team
and the value proposition andthe community, breathing a
little bit, trying to make surewe have our carabiners in the
right spot, while simultaneouslylooking at what's the next path
, where we grow from here.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
There's the old saying that you become the five
people that you spend the mosttime with, and you referenced
John Cutton earlier.
He has his own monster size,rapidly growing business.
Who have been the biggestinfluences on your way of
thinking?
Whether it's people that youknow in real life, like John
Cutton, or just people thatmaybe you follow online.
Who inspires you to thinkbigger and pursue that and
(08:11):
pursue the vision that, in thepath that you're on, it's across
the board.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
When you ask that question, paul Latham, one of my
business partners.
He's had phenomenal backgroundsold his accounting firm for
over 45 million, taken a companypublic, sold another company
for 50 million, and his level ofjust business awareness in
terms of the foundational leversthat move a company, I think is
very inspiring and I learned alot from there's some members of
our community that have reallychallenged my thinking and have
(08:35):
given so many good ideas and,I'd say, collectively added to
what is being built in a waythat's been so humbling and
inspiring.
Because it's one thing when yousee yourself as the one that's
like cheering on the missionright but when the mission
starts gaining momentum and itcreates a life of its own, you
(08:56):
have these moments where youlook around and you go, oh, my
goodness, this thing is so muchbigger than me.
There's so many more peoplethat are talented, that are
smart, that are driven, that areinnovative, and you realize I
want to be a part of this, but Idon't want to hold this thing
back, like I can't let my egoget in the way, and so I'm
looking at some of the membersof the community and just going,
(09:16):
wow, how exciting is this thatI get to play ball with not only
business partners now at thatlevel or mentors, but also other
clients, our clients, theadvisors and the CPAs,
accountants.
So that's been really excitingand pushing a lot of innovation
and growth and challenging mymindset.
And then I've got an executivecoach that I started working
with late in 2024, who worksmore with CEOs, entrepreneurs,
(09:41):
regardless of the industrythey're in and similar.
He's very much been pushing mymindset and growth.
His first name is Ray.
Shout out to you, ray.
If you listen to this podcastand overall Paul, I feel like
it's just being fortunate, in away, with believing in an idea
and then being in the rightplace at the right time.
To an extent, I mean the ideaof a virtual family office.
(10:03):
If it wasn't for COVID, itwouldn't have accelerated the
virtual aspect and people beingon Zooms every day and not being
normal or Teams.
And then the other thing that'shappening right now, which I
think is where some of thegrowth last year came from, and
certainly some of the growthright now is AI and just the
traditional way that people haveserved their end user clients,
whether it's in the accountingspace or the wealth management
(10:23):
space, is being disrupted andthey're scared of that.
And they should be, because ifyou're used to running your
business one way and you can seethat there's technology that's
making your traditional offeringeither outdated or less
valuable, you should beproactively looking at how do I
get ahead of this change so thatway I can position my value in
the marketplace.
So I'm not actually replaced bywhatever the disruption is, but
(10:48):
AI in this circumstance, butI'm actually leveraging the AI.
So I think AI and virtual hasmade our model even more
powerful and valuable than itwas five years ago and I think
in the next six to 12 to 18months it's only going to
continue on that pace, becausethe more AI disrupts the or
gives people the ability to haveaccess to the information and
(11:08):
the knowledge, the more valuabledisrupts the or gives people
the ability to have access tothe information and the
knowledge, the more valuable therelationship and the process
becomes.
So if you don't have a processthat leverages relationships and
collaboration and you're justpurely competing on product or
information, as soon asinformation is readily available
through AI, chat, gpt, etc.
Etc.
You know now people don't needyou for that.
(11:29):
I can go and create investmentsummary accounts, I can create
legal documents.
There's so many things I canuse chat GPT for now, and it
won't be long before it's doingtax returns and managing assets
and all of these things.
Now, all of a sudden, I go,okay, well, what don't I have?
I don't have a center point ofcommunication where my
professionals are allcollaborating on my behalf to
(11:50):
make sure that the AI isactually being led appropriately
, if that makes sense blowing upand becoming popular, and I've
just leaned into it the wholetime, and so some days I think,
okay, am I an AI company?
Speaker 1 (12:01):
And it's maybe I don't know, but it's definitely
been leaning into it for thepast three years, I guess now
and the ironic thing is is thatI have this vision in my head
that I want to be like the firstbillion dollar solo
(12:21):
entrepreneur company where theAI does everything for me.
But ironically, the more wegrow while leaning into AI, the
more people I need, and soeverybody that works with us.
They leverage AI tools, butit's the growth has created the
need for people workingefficiently with AI, and I
imagine that's going to be thetrend at least.
(12:42):
For I was going to say theforeseeable future, and the
foreseeable future at this pointis probably about three to five
years versus 10 years, andwe're 10 years out.
That could be a whole differentscenario.
I want to shift gears a littlebit and let's talk about books.
You published your first book,the Art of Collaboration,
roughly a year ago.
I'm just on your behalf.
I'm going to assert that yourgrowth was primarily your three
(13:04):
X growth over the past year wasdriven primarily through the
fact that you wrote that book.
That's my assertion 100%.
Because what's interesting isthat what I tell people is that
it's not about book sales, it'swho cares about book sales
although I think you've had afew royalties, which is always
fun but it's really about howyou strategically leverage the
book and, at the end of the day,it's how you insert it into
everything that you do.
(13:24):
You've already had a, I'd say,a well-established brand before
the book.
I think the book just becameone more lever or one more piece
of marketing collateral thatyou could integrate into what
you're already doing.
To create a flywheel that spinsfaster is kind of my outsider,
my view.
Tell us from your perspective,what have you done with the book
that's been successful?
How has it played a role inyour growth and is there any
(13:46):
lessons learned Like oh, I wishI shouldn't have done that or
anything like that, but anadvisor can listen to and learn
from.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
A hundred percent.
It's been a big part of theflywheel that you referenced.
In that concept of the flywheel, if somebody is not familiar
with it, it's just you startmoving and you get a little
momentum, and the more you canadd to that flywheel, the more
the momentum becomesself-generating or perpetuating
and the faster and faster itbecomes.
And so in business, with mostthings as well, you have either
(14:12):
a positive spiraling flywheel ornegative, if you kind of get
real lazy and you stop doingthings and you are late for
meetings, and then you have thisnegative spiral flywheel.
On the other hand, if you'reinvesting more energy, you're
reading, you're listening topodcasts, you write a book, you
improve your client delivery,all of these things become this
kind of upward spinning flywheel.
(14:32):
I would say the book has beensignificant.
First of all, it was a greatexercise to put.
As you can tell, I'm, hopefullyfrom this podcast, a passionate
individual with a lot of wordsto say around this topic, and so
it forces you to really refinethat message and put it in
writing, which is a really goodexercise, and then what it
allows you to do is deliver thatmessage.
So there are some people thatlearn from YouTube videos, right
(14:55):
, and we've got a ton of YouTubevideos.
There's some people that learnfrom listening to podcasts.
There's other people that learnfrom books and having a
different communication methodthat matches your individual
clients learning style.
It's hard to, I think, put aspecific value on that, because
there's people that absolutelywould have either shut off our
message or would have notresonated in the same way if
(15:17):
they hadn't read it in the book.
So that's the people thatactually read it and, like,
absorb it.
And then, besides that, from apurely like marketing and
branding perspective, having abook and having it on a specific
area, that you kind of I usethis term with you in the past
but you put your flag in theground and say I'm taking
ownership of this area, I'm anexpert in this, I'm a specialist
(15:37):
in this.
It's not that I just jumped onthe bandwagon, but actually I've
been doing it.
I wrote a book on it.
I can speak about it all daylong.
You know it adds to thatcredibility and that the fact
that you're an author in thatspace.
So those are all really likefun, I'd say meaningful results.
And then, in terms of how we useit so we use it in marketing as
(15:58):
kind of a lead magnet.
We also use it when somebodyjoins our company in terms of a
new member of our company, ourteam.
So we have member successmanagers that will meet new
clients and the first thingthey'll do is ask have you read
our collaboration?
If not, be happy to send you afree copy If you can read it by
the next time we meet in twoweeks.
We'd love to hear your feedbackon it.
So we use it like that.
We've got the audio version, soif people go ah, you know I'm a
(16:21):
little busy, no problem,there's a version on Audible and
you can listen to it in acouple hours get some of the
same overall message.
I had a bunch of interviewrequests.
Obviously, we did a booksigning at our event last year,
which was fun, I think, wentpretty well and it led to the
discussion of the second book,which we just published about a
month ago.
There's ultimately a vision nowfor this to be a four-part
(16:41):
series.
So the first book was writtentowards the advisor and
accountant in mind, on how theycollaborate with one another.
That was the art ofcollaboration yeah, how the
advisor and accountantcollaborate.
The second book was the art ofproactivity how the traditional
accountant can become a virtualfamily office professional, and
obviously that's all writtentowards the accountant in mind.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Tell us a little bit more about the art of
proactivity.
What's the premise of it?
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Sure, so it was written.
It opens up, talking about PaulLatham, my business partner's
experience with growing his firm, latham's, which ultimately
sold for roughly 45 million.
At that time, virtual wasn'tnearly as effective or popular
and they had over 225 employees.
So it was a very large, verywell-run accounting firm and the
(17:28):
reason they got over 45 millionis it was incredibly
forward-looking, it was veryproactive and they had a family
office.
In essence, it just wasn'tvirtual and because they had 225
employees, they hired all ofthese people in-house.
So the art of proactivity islooking at what really were the
lessons that were learned thereand then how have we taken a lot
of those lessons and appliedthem to a 2025 environment where
(17:51):
now we can leverage a virtualfamily office, so you don't need
225 employees.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Could you imagine that you're an educational
training company at the heart ofwhat you do?
Could you imagine having abusiness model where you were
bringing on advisors and say,yeah, so part of our model is
you have to go hire 200specialists to do this?
I think we sometimes we allface our challenges today and
problems whatever.
But just to step back and look20 years ago or so to what the
reality was in terms of if youwanted to deliver what you can
(18:17):
deliver today seamlessly and Idon't want to say effortlessly,
but just virtually and just itseems elegant and seamless the
contrast is huge.
It's massive.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Yeah, and that's partly why I referenced early in
the podcast, like my optimismand my commitment level of
really seeing this visionthrough is it's just higher than
it's ever been, and our companyhas roughly 25 internal team
members or employees and we'vegot a virtual family office of
roughly 75 specialists.
So you add those two together,you got a hundred people.
(18:47):
Now a member can join ourcommunity and tap into a team of
roughly a hundred.
All of a sudden, that's amassive resource.
That's called leverage.
Right, you don't have to havethe payroll of a hundred people
the HR issues but you canleverage other people's
experience, skillset, payroll,et cetera to be able to offer a
similar experience.
That's a lot of what we talkabout in that book is, in
(19:08):
essence, paul's journey and thenhow to take the lessons from
that but then apply it to a 2025opportunity with a virtual
family office, ai, partnerships,et cetera.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
And that book was written to the accountant, to
the CPA, not to the financialadvisor.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Right.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
And how are you getting that?
How are you either creatingawareness for it or how are you
getting that into the hands ofthe accountant?
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Good question.
We have over 300 accountantsthat are part of our membership
community currently, and then wehave advisors more than that
probably 400, call it roughlyadvisors that are part of one of
our membership tiers andthey're all working with, or at
least building relationshipswith, accountants.
And so lots of advisors bought20, 30 copies and just said I'm
(19:57):
going to give this to each ofthe accountants that I'm forming
relationships with because Iwant them to read it and
understand it, and then we sharethem with the accountants.
And we have strategicpartnerships like Tax Plan IQ,
and offered three copies forpeople that were on webinars.
We did with them and obviouslywe'll have the event in a few
weeks.
We'll have copies for peoplethere.
It's just one more way to tryto get the message out.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
In this case Paul Latham primarily wrote the draft
and then we helped you do stufflike copy editing and
publishing and things of thatnature.
And so I've read it, and it wasinteresting because it was all
from most of it.
Not much of it was from PaulLatham's point of view, because
it was about his story andbackground, but I definitely
appreciated his humor showing upat parts throughout it.
I think what I wanted to say,though, was that it's
(20:39):
interesting because this is likeaccountant to accountant, and
so we have our tribes and wekind of trust the people that
are in our tribes, and thenyou've built this super tribe
that you're bringing togetheradvisors and accountants
together, but I can imagine that, again, a couple of things
about book is that it'seducational value, so it's not
seen as promotional generally,it's seen as educational, and
it's coming from the accountant,and so I can see what, how much
(21:00):
more effective this could befor an advisor to share this
book with an accountant so thatthey can evaluate it and
determine for themselves is thisan approach that they want to
take or not?
Paul makes a very compellingcase about what he was able to
accomplish.
You make a very compelling caseabout where we are today and
what the future looks like.
What has the reaction been fromaccountants?
Speaker 2 (21:20):
I think it's been positive.
I mean it really resonates withthe accountants that know
things are coming and some ofthem have started shifting their
business.
They're moving in thatdirection and this message helps
them to continue acceleratingthat change.
And others, maybe they're awareof it but they're still on the
sidelines a little bit, justkind of wondering where do I go
(21:40):
from here, how do I get started,what do I do, what are my
options?
And so for them.
Hopefully, we're laying out apath to let them know they're
not alone and they don't have toinvest a ton of money in hiring
a private consultant to come infor 20 grand and reinvest their
firm, redesign their firm orsomething that's.
There's a good shift happeningand so they can align with a
(22:01):
community and use leverage tolearn from other people.
They can align with a communityand use leverage to learn from
other people.
Even if you're an advisor, Ithink understanding the journey
that the accountant's going on,if you want to be a good partner
to them, you have to understandwhat it's like to be in their
shoes.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
I think that's it.
I think it's seeing if, beingable to honestly see it from
their point of view, and thatdesire.
Could you imagine if it's like,okay, we need to make changes,
but I don't know what to do andI'm on my own versus?
Oh, I can just plug into whatyou've already done over the
past 11 years now.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Something that's vetted, proven, all those
lessons, all the things that youprovide to allow someone to
much more seamlessly startprogressing in this direction.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
I think that's well said and the reality is most of
the accountants I mean much likeadvisors, but it's not like
they haven't been replaced.
They still have hundreds ofclients that have their own
needs and demands, and taxseasons are a real thing, and so
, even if they want to change orhave started changing, they're
(22:58):
juggling a lot.
There's a lot of weight ontheir shoulders, and so giving
them an easier way to begin thatjourney and a clearer path to
go down, I think can beabsolutely career changing and,
in many ways, life changing.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
What you bring up.
This is fresh on my mind.
I'm actually in the process ofworking with one of our mutual
colleagues, john Randall, who isa coach for advisors.
We're working on his book andone of the things that he talks
about that I've learned from himis just one of the biggest
challenges is just constraint.
It's not always bringing on newpeople.
Think I need more revenue, butit's really.
It's how busy an advisor is,how busy at least the people
(23:34):
that he works with are dealingwith similar issues B and C
level clients that may or maynot be profitable and for that
CEO, owner level advisor thatthe first thing that they need
to do is they need to free uptheir time.
They need to be able to developthe team effectively.
Look at their list, see whomakes a good sense so that
they're in a position to be ableto grow with A-level clients.
(23:57):
It's just the parallels thatI'm seeing between what you
teach and what he teaches arevery similar.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Absolutely.
I think it's something probablymost business owners or
entrepreneurs wrestle with, butI think CPAs are uniquely
positioned right now to wrestlewith that.
It's a little bit of a perfectstorm.
It's already little bit of aperfect storm.
It's already a very demandingbusiness model traditional
running a traditional accountingpractice and then you have so
much chaos going on at the IRSthat it becomes even harder to
(24:23):
run a profitable practice.
It's very time consuming anddemanding, and then you have a
model that traditionally isn'tvery profitable either, so
hiring good staff becomes verydifficult.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Here listening to you and reading his book.
It's like I think you can putit into a niche or industry CPA
advisor but I'm neither.
But it's like, oh wait, that'skind of the journey of most
business owners, right?
That's even what you and I weretalking about how you've
developed this great team, thisgreat company, and you're still
in the progressively freeingyourself up so that you can
focus more on the visionary role.
(24:53):
It's a common journey.
I think each of it has itsparticulars, but to any business
owner, I think it's somethingthat we can all relate to to
some degree.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Yeah, absolutely, well said.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Tell me about the other books.
We talked about the Art ofCollaboration, the Art of
Productivity.
What are the other?
I think you said two books.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Yeah.
So, first one, the art ofcollaboration how advisors and
accountants can collaborate.
The second one, the art ofproactivity how accountants, in
essence, can become moreproactive leveraging a virtual
family office.
The third one, which we don'tnecessarily have a working title
yet, but it's going to bewritten for the end user client
in mind, I'd say our general,the clients that the model helps
the most is probably the massaffluent, the high income
(25:37):
earners, business owners.
It's really written with them inmind to help them understand
the power of leveraging avirtual family office and
working with an advisor andaccountant in partnership.
That will be obviously with you, of course, as well, and that
will be our first kind of clientfacing book and the idea there
will be advisors or accountantscould use it as a tool to share
with prospects, to share withcurrent clients that they're
(25:58):
interested in inviting intotheir virtual family office
client experience.
So the fourth book will bewritten, and this is more of a
2026 project, with the advisorin mind, health manager in mind,
and it will be the equivalentof the accountant facing book,
but purely for advisors, to helpthem understand, at the end of
the day, really how it is suchan effective tool to help them
(26:20):
build their business and bringmore value to clients.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Anything we haven't talked about or anything, just
your excitement for the upcomingevent or your vision for this
year.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Two thoughts come to mind.
I mean one is when we talkabout the books and you you know
I laughingly joked I'm all in,but I really am, and in a
meaningful way.
You do so much in your life andin your career that I think
sometimes it's helpful to havethese almost again like flags in
the ground where you go.
This was something that Iworked on and was a solid
(26:52):
project and I put my name behindand I'm proud of, and a book is
, in my opinion, one of thosethings.
You have a business orbusinesses that you grow and,
hopefully, you love and you'reproud of.
You have memories with yourfamily or homes that you bought
or remodeled and you have a bookor books that you wrote.
It's there with the things thatI'm most proud of, and not an
(27:13):
ego way, but in a.
I put a lot of love, sweat andtears into communicating
something I believe in and nowother people have it in their
hands and if something was tohappen to me and I was wiped out
, that book is there tocommunicate the message that I
was trying to share from aprofessional perspective with
other people and that's why,ultimately, this has to be a
four part series.
(27:34):
Is.
There's four different,essentially stories I want to
tell, and it's important to tellthose with the language and the
experience that resonates witheach of those individual readers
.
So that was just something I'venever really considered or
thought of and, besides that, interms of optimism for the event
or vision for the future, Ithink I probably would just end
(27:55):
where I began, which is it's funand crazy to see how much is
changing, how quickly I getthese little snippets of the AI,
robots that are coming or likejust some of the things that are
so inspiring right now kind ofscary but also inspiring and to
have confidence that we're in alane, a swim lane or a business
(28:16):
model that is not only going tosurvive these changes but
actually thrive from them, isit's hard to put words around
how meaningful it is.
So very excited, veryoptimistic, very appreciative of
your work and the short bookformula and, yeah, I look
forward to the next two books.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Very cool.
Anton Anderson, thank you somuch for your time.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
My pleasure.
Thanks for having me on again,Paul Cheers.
Imagine your business as a massive flywheel.
You've built momentum overyears.
It's spinning steadily,generating great revenue.
Then you add one strategicelement a book, and suddenly
that wheel accelerates to speedsyou never imagined.
That's exactly what AntonAnderson discovered this past
year.
For over a decade, Anton hadbuilt elite resource team into a
(00:24):
thriving business.
He was already successful byany measure, but when he
published the Art ofCollaboration last year,
something extraordinary happened.
His already impressive revenuetripled, pivotal role in his
(00:46):
massive growth, why heimmediately published a second
one, and his ambitious plans tocomplete a four-book series that
promises to reshape howadvisors and accountants
collaborate.
Anton Anderson, how are youdoing?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Life is good.
Mr Paul McManus, Great to be onwith you, man.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Yeah, super excited to be talking to you today and I
was thinking about it right now.
This is your third time on mypodcast.
I don't know that I've had manytwo-timers.
In reality, we've actually donea kind of a webinar slash
podcast, so technically thiscould be number four.
So you know there's somethingabout you that I must like
because this is your fourth timeback on the podcast.
(01:28):
So welcome back.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Wow, see, now you made my day.
Thank you very much.
The feelings are mutual.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
It's been a year since the Elite Growth Academy,
the EGA, in San Diego, june 2024.
And here we are in June 2025.
And I guess the premise ofwanting to have you back on the
podcast was just to hear fromyou what's been, what's
transpired this past year.
I know that we published yourfirst book, the Art of
Collaboration, roughly a yearago.
(01:55):
You already have moved intoyour second book, so we want to
get some updates on howeverything is going.
And then you have your next bigevent this month, which is it
called the EGA or have yourenamed it?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
We rebranded yeah, I can speak to why if you want,
but we rebranded that VirtualFamily Office Collective.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
And what was the basis for the rebrand?
Speaker 2 (02:14):
We were looking at the growth over the years and
just really seeing how much theVirtual Family Office value
proposition has been resonatingwith clients Both our clients,
meaning the advisors and theCPAs, as well as their end user
clients.
And the better we've gotten attelling that story and the
history of the family office andhow family offices have evolved
(02:35):
today and what a multifamilyoffice, fractional family office
, virtual family office, howmuch value they bring clients,
the more we've realized itreally is one of our, I'd say,
two unique positions in themarketplace and what I'm
incredibly passionate about,because, at the end of the day,
a virtual family office is justcollaboration.
It's literally a different namefor the team-based model, which
(02:57):
is what we started calling this11 years ago when we launched
Elite Resource Team and what Iwas drawing out on napkins 12,
13 years ago with CPAs and otherpartners at that time.
And so it's just been a reallyfun journey and I'm so excited
on how much people are waking up, how outdated the mindset of
competition is and how much morepeople are recognizing the
(03:19):
power of collaboration.
Hence the book, the Art ofCollaboration, and the second
book that you referenced, theArt of Proactivity.
So that's partly why the eventwas rebranded from Elite Growth
Academy, which is a little bitmore generic and vague to the
Vocational Development OfficeCollective.
We're just really leaning inand owning that identity.
I would say more.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Is there anything new or different in terms of this
year's, Is it similar to lastyear's or is there going to be
anything materially different?
Or in terms of this year's Isit similar to last year's or is
it going to be anythingmaterially different from last
year?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Definitely a lot of similarities.
So if you've been to events inthe past, you'll know this is an
event hosted by Elite ResourceTeam.
I think the general philosophyis going to be there, but we're
just going to be even more, I'dsay, clear with the vision and
inviting for those that reallyresonate with the idea of
leveraging a virtual familyoffice and forming strategic
(04:10):
partnerships and I referenced amoment ago, I think, the virtual
family office is one of the twothings that I think we've
really wrapped our arms aroundand found a true passion in.
And the second is thecollaboration, of course,
between the advisors and theCPAs.
Those partnerships, or I shouldsay more generically, the
advisors and the accountants,those partnerships, when they
really come together withintention, as we've been
(04:32):
preaching for a while, and thenthey leverage a virtual family
office to fill in the gaps wherethey're not a specialist.
The power of that one too isjust, I think it's unmatched in
the marketplace.
Hence a lot of the growth ofboth the event, the members of
the community, our company thatwill certainly be front and
center at the event, is justreally how substantial this
(04:53):
opportunity is, share a lot ofstories and data from behind the
scenes, the members there andhelp them understand.
From our perspective, it's onlythe beginning, like literally,
paul, I think you and I weretalking for a few minutes before
we started the recording andjust talking about visions and
goals and such, and I've justmore than ever really found a
(05:13):
deep passion behind how I thinkdisruptive this opportunity is
going to be in the traditionalmarket space and how excited I
am to be a part of thatdisruption well, I want to grow
10X from where I'm at today.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
How do I do that?
And so I've been thinking aboutthis question and ultimately, I
need to bring 10X more value tothe marketplace.
So it's not about just selling10 times more stuff and saying,
hey, I've sold 10 times morestuff.
I think that's fundamentallythe wrong approach.
What else can I sell?
It's really more fundamentallyhow can I bring 10X more value
to my clients and, by extension,to the marketplace?
And that's how you actuallycreate 10x growth.
(05:50):
And so what I'm extrapolatingfrom your growth is that if
you're growing at that clip atthis point in your business,
it's because you're addingsignificant value to your
members, and that's what'spropelling your growth.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Yeah, I like to think so.
I hope so.
That's the motivation behindwhy we do what we do, and I
think it's absolutely what youjust said.
There's a degree of the rockcutter's creed where you just
keep chipping away at somethingyou believe in and put aside the
fact that you're not seeing theimmediate result of each time
the hammer hits the rock, butjust having the faith that what
(06:23):
you're doing is actually makinga difference.
And then you have these years,like last year for us, three
times the size of our company,and that's what we've been
chipping away for the last threeyears before that and then
finally it was boom, one or twomore hits of the hammer and the
rock cracks.
And so now where are we at?
Well, it'll be interesting tosee.
The year has started off strongfor us.
But I, using a second analogy Igrew up with a father who loved
(06:46):
the outdoors and rock climbingand I really like that analogy
of you climb up to a certainheight above the last carabiner
you put in and then youintentionally kind of slow down
and evaluate the circumstanceand look for a place to hit the
next carabiner into the rock,and then you climb some more
from there.
So it might be a slower way togrow, but what you end up doing,
if you look back at now, 11years of our company, is you
(07:07):
strategically grow over time andyou intentionally make sure
that the foundation is solid.
So you might miss someopportunities and you might make
some mistakes which allcompanies do and we certainly
have but ideally you only fallwhatever, that is, 10 feet, 15
feet, and you catch yourselfbefore you really have something
catastrophic.
So I think, in terms of ourvision and our goal, we
(07:30):
experienced growth that exceededwhat we anticipated last year
and we are intentionally lookingat the foundation of the team
and the value proposition andthe community, breathing a
little bit, trying to make surewe have our carabiners in the
right spot, while simultaneouslylooking at what's the next path
, where we grow from here.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
There's the old saying that you become the five
people that you spend the mosttime with, and you referenced
John Cutton earlier.
He has his own monster size,rapidly growing business.
Who have been the biggestinfluences on your way of
thinking?
Whether it's people that youknow in real life, like John
Cutton, or just people thatmaybe you follow online.
Who inspires you to thinkbigger and pursue that and
(08:11):
pursue the vision that, in thepath that you're on, it's across
the board.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
When you ask that question, paul Latham, one of my
business partners.
He's had phenomenal backgroundsold his accounting firm for
over 45 million, taken a companypublic, sold another company
for 50 million, and his level ofjust business awareness in
terms of the foundational leversthat move a company, I think is
very inspiring and I learned alot from there's some members of
our community that have reallychallenged my thinking and have
(08:35):
given so many good ideas and,I'd say, collectively added to
what is being built in a waythat's been so humbling and
inspiring.
Because it's one thing when yousee yourself as the one that's
like cheering on the missionright but when the mission
starts gaining momentum and itcreates a life of its own, you
(08:56):
have these moments where youlook around and you go, oh, my
goodness, this thing is so muchbigger than me.
There's so many more peoplethat are talented, that are
smart, that are driven, that areinnovative, and you realize I
want to be a part of this, but Idon't want to hold this thing
back, like I can't let my egoget in the way, and so I'm
looking at some of the membersof the community and just going,
(09:16):
wow, how exciting is this thatI get to play ball with not only
business partners now at thatlevel or mentors, but also other
clients, our clients, theadvisors and the CPAs,
accountants.
So that's been really excitingand pushing a lot of innovation
and growth and challenging mymindset.
And then I've got an executivecoach that I started working
with late in 2024, who worksmore with CEOs, entrepreneurs,
(09:41):
regardless of the industrythey're in and similar.
He's very much been pushing mymindset and growth.
His first name is Ray.
Shout out to you, ray.
If you listen to this podcastand overall Paul, I feel like
it's just being fortunate, in away, with believing in an idea
and then being in the rightplace at the right time.
To an extent, I mean the ideaof a virtual family office.
(10:03):
If it wasn't for COVID, itwouldn't have accelerated the
virtual aspect and people beingon Zooms every day and not being
normal or Teams.
And then the other thing that'shappening right now, which I
think is where some of thegrowth last year came from, and
certainly some of the growthright now is AI and just the
traditional way that people haveserved their end user clients,
whether it's in the accountingspace or the wealth management
(10:23):
space, is being disrupted andthey're scared of that.
And they should be, because ifyou're used to running your
business one way and you can seethat there's technology that's
making your traditional offeringeither outdated or less
valuable, you should beproactively looking at how do I
get ahead of this change so thatway I can position my value in
the marketplace.
So I'm not actually replaced bywhatever the disruption is, but
(10:48):
AI in this circumstance, butI'm actually leveraging the AI.
So I think AI and virtual hasmade our model even more
powerful and valuable than itwas five years ago and I think
in the next six to 12 to 18months it's only going to
continue on that pace, becausethe more AI disrupts the or
gives people the ability to haveaccess to the information and
(11:08):
the knowledge, the more valuabledisrupts the or gives people
the ability to have access tothe information and the
knowledge, the more valuable therelationship and the process
becomes.
So if you don't have a processthat leverages relationships and
collaboration and you're justpurely competing on product or
information, as soon asinformation is readily available
through AI, chat, gpt, etc.
Etc.
You know now people don't needyou for that.
(11:29):
I can go and create investmentsummary accounts, I can create
legal documents.
There's so many things I canuse chat GPT for now, and it
won't be long before it's doingtax returns and managing assets
and all of these things.
Now, all of a sudden, I go,okay, well, what don't I have?
I don't have a center point ofcommunication where my
professionals are allcollaborating on my behalf to
(11:50):
make sure that the AI isactually being led appropriately
, if that makes sense blowing upand becoming popular, and I've
just leaned into it the wholetime, and so some days I think,
okay, am I an AI company?
Speaker 1 (12:01):
And it's maybe I don't know, but it's definitely
been leaning into it for thepast three years, I guess now
and the ironic thing is is thatI have this vision in my head
that I want to be like the firstbillion dollar solo
(12:21):
entrepreneur company where theAI does everything for me.
But ironically, the more wegrow while leaning into AI, the
more people I need, and soeverybody that works with us.
They leverage AI tools, butit's the growth has created the
need for people workingefficiently with AI, and I
imagine that's going to be thetrend at least.
(12:42):
For I was going to say theforeseeable future, and the
foreseeable future at this pointis probably about three to five
years versus 10 years, andwe're 10 years out.
That could be a whole differentscenario.
I want to shift gears a littlebit and let's talk about books.
You published your first book,the Art of Collaboration,
roughly a year ago.
I'm just on your behalf.
I'm going to assert that yourgrowth was primarily your three
(13:04):
X growth over the past year wasdriven primarily through the
fact that you wrote that book.
That's my assertion 100%.
Because what's interesting isthat what I tell people is that
it's not about book sales, it'swho cares about book sales
although I think you've had afew royalties, which is always
fun but it's really about howyou strategically leverage the
book and, at the end of the day,it's how you insert it into
everything that you do.
(13:24):
You've already had a, I'd say,a well-established brand before
the book.
I think the book just becameone more lever or one more piece
of marketing collateral thatyou could integrate into what
you're already doing.
To create a flywheel that spinsfaster is kind of my outsider,
my view.
Tell us from your perspective,what have you done with the book
that's been successful?
How has it played a role inyour growth and is there any
(13:46):
lessons learned Like oh, I wishI shouldn't have done that or
anything like that, but anadvisor can listen to and learn
from.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
A hundred percent.
It's been a big part of theflywheel that you referenced.
In that concept of the flywheel, if somebody is not familiar
with it, it's just you startmoving and you get a little
momentum, and the more you canadd to that flywheel, the more
the momentum becomesself-generating or perpetuating
and the faster and faster itbecomes.
And so in business, with mostthings as well, you have either
(14:12):
a positive spiraling flywheel ornegative, if you kind of get
real lazy and you stop doingthings and you are late for
meetings, and then you have thisnegative spiral flywheel.
On the other hand, if you'reinvesting more energy, you're
reading, you're listening topodcasts, you write a book, you
improve your client delivery,all of these things become this
kind of upward spinning flywheel.
(14:32):
I would say the book has beensignificant.
First of all, it was a greatexercise to put.
As you can tell, I'm, hopefullyfrom this podcast, a passionate
individual with a lot of wordsto say around this topic, and so
it forces you to really refinethat message and put it in
writing, which is a really goodexercise, and then what it
allows you to do is deliver thatmessage.
So there are some people thatlearn from YouTube videos, right
(14:55):
, and we've got a ton of YouTubevideos.
There's some people that learnfrom listening to podcasts.
There's other people that learnfrom books and having a
different communication methodthat matches your individual
clients learning style.
It's hard to, I think, put aspecific value on that, because
there's people that absolutelywould have either shut off our
message or would have notresonated in the same way if
(15:17):
they hadn't read it in the book.
So that's the people thatactually read it and, like,
absorb it.
And then, besides that, from apurely like marketing and
branding perspective, having abook and having it on a specific
area, that you kind of I usethis term with you in the past
but you put your flag in theground and say I'm taking
ownership of this area, I'm anexpert in this, I'm a specialist
(15:37):
in this.
It's not that I just jumped onthe bandwagon, but actually I've
been doing it.
I wrote a book on it.
I can speak about it all daylong.
You know it adds to thatcredibility and that the fact
that you're an author in thatspace.
So those are all really likefun, I'd say meaningful results.
And then, in terms of how we useit so we use it in marketing as
(15:58):
kind of a lead magnet.
We also use it when somebodyjoins our company in terms of a
new member of our company, ourteam.
So we have member successmanagers that will meet new
clients and the first thingthey'll do is ask have you read
our collaboration?
If not, be happy to send you afree copy If you can read it by
the next time we meet in twoweeks.
We'd love to hear your feedbackon it.
So we use it like that.
We've got the audio version, soif people go ah, you know I'm a
(16:21):
little busy, no problem,there's a version on Audible and
you can listen to it in acouple hours get some of the
same overall message.
I had a bunch of interviewrequests.
Obviously, we did a booksigning at our event last year,
which was fun, I think, wentpretty well and it led to the
discussion of the second book,which we just published about a
month ago.
There's ultimately a vision nowfor this to be a four-part
(16:41):
series.
So the first book was writtentowards the advisor and
accountant in mind, on how theycollaborate with one another.
That was the art ofcollaboration yeah, how the
advisor and accountantcollaborate.
The second book was the art ofproactivity how the traditional
accountant can become a virtualfamily office professional, and
obviously that's all writtentowards the accountant in mind.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Tell us a little bit more about the art of
proactivity.
What's the premise of it?
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Sure, so it was written.
It opens up, talking about PaulLatham, my business partner's
experience with growing his firm, latham's, which ultimately
sold for roughly 45 million.
At that time, virtual wasn'tnearly as effective or popular
and they had over 225 employees.
So it was a very large, verywell-run accounting firm and the
(17:28):
reason they got over 45 millionis it was incredibly
forward-looking, it was veryproactive and they had a family
office.
In essence, it just wasn'tvirtual and because they had 225
employees, they hired all ofthese people in-house.
So the art of proactivity islooking at what really were the
lessons that were learned thereand then how have we taken a lot
of those lessons and appliedthem to a 2025 environment where
(17:51):
now we can leverage a virtualfamily office, so you don't need
225 employees.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Could you imagine that you're an educational
training company at the heart ofwhat you do?
Could you imagine having abusiness model where you were
bringing on advisors and say,yeah, so part of our model is
you have to go hire 200specialists to do this?
I think we sometimes we allface our challenges today and
problems whatever.
But just to step back and look20 years ago or so to what the
reality was in terms of if youwanted to deliver what you can
(18:17):
deliver today seamlessly and Idon't want to say effortlessly,
but just virtually and just itseems elegant and seamless the
contrast is huge.
It's massive.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Yeah, and that's partly why I referenced early in
the podcast, like my optimismand my commitment level of
really seeing this visionthrough is it's just higher than
it's ever been, and our companyhas roughly 25 internal team
members or employees and we'vegot a virtual family office of
roughly 75 specialists.
So you add those two together,you got a hundred people.
(18:47):
Now a member can join ourcommunity and tap into a team of
roughly a hundred.
All of a sudden, that's amassive resource.
That's called leverage.
Right, you don't have to havethe payroll of a hundred people
the HR issues but you canleverage other people's
experience, skillset, payroll,et cetera to be able to offer a
similar experience.
That's a lot of what we talkabout in that book is, in
(19:08):
essence, paul's journey and thenhow to take the lessons from
that but then apply it to a 2025opportunity with a virtual
family office, ai, partnerships,et cetera.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
And that book was written to the accountant, to
the CPA, not to the financialadvisor.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Right.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
And how are you getting that?
How are you either creatingawareness for it or how are you
getting that into the hands ofthe accountant?
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Good question.
We have over 300 accountantsthat are part of our membership
community currently, and then wehave advisors more than that
probably 400, call it roughlyadvisors that are part of one of
our membership tiers andthey're all working with, or at
least building relationshipswith, accountants.
And so lots of advisors bought20, 30 copies and just said I'm
(19:57):
going to give this to each ofthe accountants that I'm forming
relationships with because Iwant them to read it and
understand it, and then we sharethem with the accountants.
And we have strategicpartnerships like Tax Plan IQ,
and offered three copies forpeople that were on webinars.
We did with them and obviouslywe'll have the event in a few
weeks.
We'll have copies for peoplethere.
It's just one more way to tryto get the message out.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
In this case Paul Latham primarily wrote the draft
and then we helped you do stufflike copy editing and
publishing and things of thatnature.
And so I've read it, and it wasinteresting because it was all
from most of it.
Not much of it was from PaulLatham's point of view, because
it was about his story andbackground, but I definitely
appreciated his humor showing upat parts throughout it.
I think what I wanted to say,though, was that it's
(20:39):
interesting because this is likeaccountant to accountant, and
so we have our tribes and wekind of trust the people that
are in our tribes, and thenyou've built this super tribe
that you're bringing togetheradvisors and accountants
together, but I can imagine that, again, a couple of things
about book is that it'seducational value, so it's not
seen as promotional generally,it's seen as educational, and
it's coming from the accountant,and so I can see what, how much
(21:00):
more effective this could befor an advisor to share this
book with an accountant so thatthey can evaluate it and
determine for themselves is thisan approach that they want to
take or not?
Paul makes a very compellingcase about what he was able to
accomplish.
You make a very compelling caseabout where we are today and
what the future looks like.
What has the reaction been fromaccountants?
Speaker 2 (21:20):
I think it's been positive.
I mean it really resonates withthe accountants that know
things are coming and some ofthem have started shifting their
business.
They're moving in thatdirection and this message helps
them to continue acceleratingthat change.
And others, maybe they're awareof it but they're still on the
sidelines a little bit, justkind of wondering where do I go
(21:40):
from here, how do I get started,what do I do, what are my
options?
And so for them.
Hopefully, we're laying out apath to let them know they're
not alone and they don't have toinvest a ton of money in hiring
a private consultant to come infor 20 grand and reinvest their
firm, redesign their firm orsomething that's.
There's a good shift happeningand so they can align with a
(22:01):
community and use leverage tolearn from other people.
They can align with a communityand use leverage to learn from
other people.
Even if you're an advisor, Ithink understanding the journey
that the accountant's going on,if you want to be a good partner
to them, you have to understandwhat it's like to be in their
shoes.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
I think that's it.
I think it's seeing if, beingable to honestly see it from
their point of view, and thatdesire.
Could you imagine if it's like,okay, we need to make changes,
but I don't know what to do andI'm on my own versus?
Oh, I can just plug into whatyou've already done over the
past 11 years now.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Something that's vetted, proven, all those
lessons, all the things that youprovide to allow someone to
much more seamlessly startprogressing in this direction.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
I think that's well said and the reality is most of
the accountants I mean much likeadvisors, but it's not like
they haven't been replaced.
They still have hundreds ofclients that have their own
needs and demands, and taxseasons are a real thing, and so
, even if they want to change orhave started changing, they're
(22:58):
juggling a lot.
There's a lot of weight ontheir shoulders, and so giving
them an easier way to begin thatjourney and a clearer path to
go down, I think can beabsolutely career changing and,
in many ways, life changing.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
What you bring up.
This is fresh on my mind.
I'm actually in the process ofworking with one of our mutual
colleagues, john Randall, who isa coach for advisors.
We're working on his book andone of the things that he talks
about that I've learned from himis just one of the biggest
challenges is just constraint.
It's not always bringing on newpeople.
Think I need more revenue, butit's really.
It's how busy an advisor is,how busy at least the people
(23:34):
that he works with are dealingwith similar issues B and C
level clients that may or maynot be profitable and for that
CEO, owner level advisor thatthe first thing that they need
to do is they need to free uptheir time.
They need to be able to developthe team effectively.
Look at their list, see whomakes a good sense so that
they're in a position to be ableto grow with A-level clients.
(23:57):
It's just the parallels thatI'm seeing between what you
teach and what he teaches arevery similar.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Absolutely.
I think it's something probablymost business owners or
entrepreneurs wrestle with, butI think CPAs are uniquely
positioned right now to wrestlewith that.
It's a little bit of a perfectstorm.
It's already little bit of aperfect storm.
It's already a very demandingbusiness model traditional
running a traditional accountingpractice and then you have so
much chaos going on at the IRSthat it becomes even harder to
(24:23):
run a profitable practice.
It's very time consuming anddemanding, and then you have a
model that traditionally isn'tvery profitable either, so
hiring good staff becomes verydifficult.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Here listening to you and reading his book.
It's like I think you can putit into a niche or industry CPA
advisor but I'm neither.
But it's like, oh wait, that'skind of the journey of most
business owners, right?
That's even what you and I weretalking about how you've
developed this great team, thisgreat company, and you're still
in the progressively freeingyourself up so that you can
focus more on the visionary role.
(24:53):
It's a common journey.
I think each of it has itsparticulars, but to any business
owner, I think it's somethingthat we can all relate to to
some degree.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Yeah, absolutely, well said.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Tell me about the other books.
We talked about the Art ofCollaboration, the Art of
Productivity.
What are the other?
I think you said two books.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Yeah.
So, first one, the art ofcollaboration how advisors and
accountants can collaborate.
The second one, the art ofproactivity how accountants, in
essence, can become moreproactive leveraging a virtual
family office.
The third one, which we don'tnecessarily have a working title
yet, but it's going to bewritten for the end user client
in mind, I'd say our general,the clients that the model helps
the most is probably the massaffluent, the high income
(25:37):
earners, business owners.
It's really written with them inmind to help them understand
the power of leveraging avirtual family office and
working with an advisor andaccountant in partnership.
That will be obviously with you, of course, as well, and that
will be our first kind of clientfacing book and the idea there
will be advisors or accountantscould use it as a tool to share
with prospects, to share withcurrent clients that they're
(25:58):
interested in inviting intotheir virtual family office
client experience.
So the fourth book will bewritten, and this is more of a
2026 project, with the advisorin mind, health manager in mind,
and it will be the equivalentof the accountant facing book,
but purely for advisors, to helpthem understand, at the end of
the day, really how it is suchan effective tool to help them
(26:20):
build their business and bringmore value to clients.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Anything we haven't talked about or anything, just
your excitement for the upcomingevent or your vision for this
year.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Two thoughts come to mind.
I mean one is when we talkabout the books and you you know
I laughingly joked I'm all in,but I really am, and in a
meaningful way.
You do so much in your life andin your career that I think
sometimes it's helpful to havethese almost again like flags in
the ground where you go.
This was something that Iworked on and was a solid
(26:52):
project and I put my name behindand I'm proud of, and a book is
, in my opinion, one of thosethings.
You have a business orbusinesses that you grow and,
hopefully, you love and you'reproud of.
You have memories with yourfamily or homes that you bought
or remodeled and you have a bookor books that you wrote.
It's there with the things thatI'm most proud of, and not an
(27:13):
ego way, but in a.
I put a lot of love, sweat andtears into communicating
something I believe in and nowother people have it in their
hands and if something was tohappen to me and I was wiped out
, that book is there tocommunicate the message that I
was trying to share from aprofessional perspective with
other people and that's why,ultimately, this has to be a
four part series.
(27:34):
Is.
There's four different,essentially stories I want to
tell, and it's important to tellthose with the language and the
experience that resonates witheach of those individual readers
.
So that was just something I'venever really considered or
thought of and, besides that, interms of optimism for the event
or vision for the future, Ithink I probably would just end
(27:55):
where I began, which is it's funand crazy to see how much is
changing, how quickly I getthese little snippets of the AI,
robots that are coming or likejust some of the things that are
so inspiring right now kind ofscary but also inspiring and to
have confidence that we're in alane, a swim lane or a business
(28:16):
model that is not only going tosurvive these changes but
actually thrive from them, isit's hard to put words around
how meaningful it is.
So very excited, veryoptimistic, very appreciative of
your work and the short bookformula and, yeah, I look
forward to the next two books.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Very cool.
Anton Anderson, thank you somuch for your time.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
My pleasure.
Thanks for having me on again,Paul Cheers.
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