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What Happens When Your Best Employee Outgrows You?

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Alicia Katz Pollock teaches thousands of accounting professionals how to use QuickBooks. She’s built a training empire at Royalwise, published textbooks, and earned the unofficial title of “QuickBooks Queen.” So when she joined the hosts of She Counts for a special crossover episode, she thought she knew exactly what story she was telling.

She was wrong.

“Oh my God, I’m undervaluing myself,” Alicia said after hosts Questian Telka and Nancy McClelland reflected what they heard. “It wasn’t part of my narrative. And I wasn’t thinking about it that way at all.”

This crossover episode brings together She Counts and the Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast for a conversation that digs into why technically brilliant bookkeepers chronically sell themselves short, and what it takes to finally stop.

When Success Becomes a Mirror

Alicia’s story starts with a bookkeeper she calls Brenda. Brenda was a coaching client in Alicia’s Royalwise On-Demand Web-based Learning Solutions (OWLS) program who had the quality Alicia prizes most: curiosity.

“I could tell she was thinking about the material,” Alicia explained. “Even if she didn’t know what to do, she knew there was something that needed to be done.”

At the time, Alicia was running a small bookkeeping practice alongside her training business. She had about 30 clients, mostly micro businesses, solopreneurs, and therapists. They’re the kind of clients who say, “I don’t need a bookkeeper” or “I can’t afford a bookkeeper,” even though they really need someone to handle monthly reconciliations.

So Alicia brought Brenda on to help. For two years, they developed systems together: Slack communication, technology processes and review protocols. Brenda got better and better. Then she started growing beyond Alicia’s small clients. She bought a couple of Alicia’s personal-books clients that didn’t fit the Royalwise model. She picked up her own $400-a-month client, then a $1,000-a-month client. Finally, a church hired her for $4,000 a month for bookkeeping and administration.

“All of a sudden, she found herself making $10,000 a month,” Alicia said. “And she’s like, ‘Hey, Alicia, I need to give you notice. I can’t do your tiny little clients anymore.'”

Nancy’s reaction captured what everyone listening probably felt. “Two completely opposing feelings at the same time. On the one hand, a huge freaking success story. On the other hand, you taught her everything she knows, and now she’s leaving.”

This wasn’t abstract for Nancy. Her own long-time employee of eight years gave notice just two days before recording. “I feel left behind. I feel trapped,” Nancy admitted.

But then Nancy shared wisdom from Hector Garcia that helped her reframe the problem. When she complained about training someone who left, Hector responded: “Yeah, but what if you don’t teach them everything they need to know and they stay?”

That’s the real mirror moment. As Questian observed, “It forces us to realize the value of what we’ve built.”

From Loss to Expansion

Faced with losing Brenda, Alicia had safe options. She could take the clients back herself, sell the book of business, or drop bookkeeping entirely. She chose none of them.

“If it worked for Brenda, can I repeat the success?” she asked herself. “Can I scale it?”

Showing remarkable vulnerability, Alicia went to her Royalwise OWLS members (the people who pay her for coaching). She asked point-blank, “Is this a good idea or is this a stupid idea?” Brenda was actually there to tell her own story.

The response was enthusiastic. Members said things like “I would love to study under you” and “I would love hands-on experience in real bookkeeping scenarios because every single one is different.”

So Alicia built something ambitious. The incubator model works like this: First, trainees watch while she does the bookkeeping. Then they do it while she talks them through it. After five or six months, they work independently while she reviews.

Beyond bookkeeping, the program includes:

  • Mariette Martinez’s accounting lifecycle course (because knowing QuickBooks isn’t the same as running a practice)
  • Richard Roppa-Roberts Roundtable Labs for peer support
  • Alicia’s intensive hands-on QuickBooks training
  • A grievance space where trainees can discuss problems without Alicia present

“I love that you created a space for grievances,” Questian said. 

The $19,000 Question

When Alicia calculated what all these components would cost if purchased separately, the number came to roughly $19,000 per year.

“Who the heck is going to pay $19,000 to be part of this?” was her first thought.

Questian pushed, “How did it make you feel at that number?”

“I was distinctly uncomfortable with asking anybody for that,” Alicia admitted.

Nancy dug deeper. Was it fear of being seen as greedy? Alicia identified multiple layers, including poverty consciousness, a desire not to price anyone out, and the tension between the need for fair compensation and the need to keep opportunities accessible.

But the trainees are paid employees earning 60% of client fees for their work. When Alicia’s lawyer said they had to be employees rather than contractors, she suddenly found herself hiring five part-time salaried employees, effectively doubling her company overnight.

She also secured sponsorship from Dext to create scholarships, offered payment plans with discounts, and gave credits to existing members. People signed up across all payment options.

What ultimately justified the price was Brenda’s success. “The demonstrated outcome of working with me is somebody who is pulling in $10,000 a month,” Alicia reasoned. “$19,000 a year is a valuable investment to be able to get to that place.”

Why We Can’t See Our Own Worth

A notable pattern emerged during this conversation: None of the hosts could see their own blind spots without help.

Alicia didn’t recognize her burnout until hearing a She Counts episode. She didn’t see her undervaluation until Questian pointed it out. Nancy admitted she’d still be doing every webinar for free if Questian hadn’t pushed her to charge. And someone recently told Questian she runs her business like a nonprofit.

“Human beings are wired for insecurity,” Alicia said simply.

“You can look at the QuickBooks Queen herself right here struggling with undervaluing herself,” Nancy said, putting the conversation in perspective. “To me, that says I’m not alone.”

The conversation also brought up a critical distinction. Technical mastery doesn’t equal business leadership. As Nancy said, “Technical mastery of something doesn’t prepare us for stepping into authority and leadership.”

Alicia drew the parallel. “People think that because they know how to use QuickBooks, they know how to do bookkeeping. They’re not the same.”

Do It Anyway

What makes this story powerful is that Alicia is building her pilot program publicly, in real-time, with complete transparency about not having all the answers.

“I got the idea two months ago,” she said. “Asked my folks six weeks ago. Got the yeses and have been actively putting it in place.”

She doesn’t yet know whether there will be a new cohort next year or whether trainees will become permanent staff or become trainers themselves. “I don’t know what next year is going to hold,” Alicia said.

This level of public uncertainty would terrify most people. But as Questian shared about her own business transition, “I’m on the right track because I am absolutely terrified.”

Nancy pushed back against toxic positivity. “Don’t tell somebody not to be afraid. Of course we are afraid. Our brains are trying to protect us.” The point isn’t to eliminate fear. It’s to act despite it.

“The ability to expand really happens when you step into your own worth,” Alicia said, connecting every thread.

Your Turn to Look in the Mirror

This conversation between three accomplished women in accounting proves we all have blind spots about our value, and we need community to see them clearly.

Alicia’s story shows that when someone you’ve trained outgrows you, it’s not a failure; it’s proof of the value you create. The question is, are you capturing the value you clearly know how to build?

Listen to the full episode to hear all the vulnerability, specific numbers, and moments where the hosts surprised themselves with their own revelations.

Then ask yourself: What’s an example of when you’ve undervalued yourself, and how did you move past it? Share your answer on the She Counts LinkedIn page or in the Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast LinkedIn group to keep this conversation going.

Because if the QuickBooks Queen can have this blind spot, you’re allowed to have yours too. The difference is what you do once someone helps you see it.

Why This Firm Owner Woke Up Unable to Move After Planning Her Path to $3 Million

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Picture being six months pregnant, climbing a ladder—not stairs, a ladder—in slingback heels to reach your desk in a famous New York fashion stylist’s loft. For most people, this would be a wake-up call about workplace safety. For Justine Lackey, it became the spark that pioneered virtual bookkeeping in the early 1990s, using FedEx, zip drives, and messengers to revolutionize an entire industry before online banking even existed.

In this episode of She Counts, hosts Nancy McClelland and Questian Telka welcome Lackey, a true trailblazer who built and sold a successful bookkeeping firm while challenging every assumption about what business success should look like. As McClelland shares in her introduction, Lackey is “a devoted mother to three and mentor and coach in her incubator program for bookkeepers and accountants growing their firms.”

When Your Body Knows What Your Mind Won’t Admit

“I’m an accidental entrepreneur,” Lackey explains early in the conversation. She landed in bookkeeping through a roommate’s invitation and never planned to build what she calls “the H&R Block of bookkeeping firms.” Without a college degree (she didn’t finish until 2009, well after she established her firm, Good Cents Management) or corporate experience, she lacked the traditional frameworks most firm owners bring to their businesses.

This lack of traditional structure had consequences. “Everybody says, ‘I wanna be successful,’ but that’s ambiguous,” Lackey says. “You have to get into the details of it. I wanna make $250,000 a year, or $500,000 a year. I wanna work 20 hours. I wanna have a team of five.” Without this clarity, she found herself swept along by what she identifies as cultural pressure to constantly expand.

The breaking point came during an Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) planning session with her team. Together, they mapped out a roadmap to $3 million in revenue. The math was clear: seven to nine bookkeeping teams with redundancy meant 14 to 18 bookkeepers. Add client service managers and a true integrator or COO, and they’d need approximately 28 employees.

“The energy in the room was like, yeah, woo!” Lackey recalls. “Like when you’re at conference world and you’re walking on hot coals.” Everyone left excited, including Lackey—until the next morning.

“I woke up and I literally could not move my right shoulder,” she shares. The pain was so severe her massage therapist couldn’t even work through the tension. “What is this weight on your shoulders?” the therapist asked. As Lackey recounted the previous day’s planning, the connection became clear. This wasn’t an injury; it was her body rejecting a path that violated her values.

The Hard Conversation Nobody Wants to Have

Recognizing she didn’t want to build a 28-person company meant facing her excited team with a complete reversal. “That’s ethical leadership in action,” Lackey explains. “That’s hard conversations.”

Lackey returned to her team with honesty, “It was really exciting and I believe this can be done. But at the end of the day, this is my life. I don’t wanna do that.”

“It’s terrifying to put your tail between your legs,” she admits. But as Telka points out, “Admitting that you have taken a wrong turn builds a lot of respect.”

This moment revealed a deeper truth about integrity. “We often talk about integrity in relation to other people,” Lackey notes, “but we don’t talk about integrity in relation to ourselves. When we’re out of alignment with integrity, that causes inner conflict and stress.”

Why Growing Sideways Beats Growing Up

The conversation then turns to a concept that challenges everything the industry teaches about success: lateral growth versus vertical growth.

“Whenever people on LinkedIn talk about having a successful firm, they always talk about revenue,” McClelland observes. “They almost never, ever, ever talk about profit or net income margins.”

Telka adds her favorite quote, “Revenue is vanity, profit is sanity.”

Lackey explains the difference. “Vertical growth is the most common type of growth people discuss—raising your revenue number and client acquisition. Those are really sexy numbers.” But lateral growth—the systems, processes, technology, and team development—”requires patience. It is very detailed, hard work.”

The challenge is that small firms can’t do both simultaneously. “There are very few people, particularly in smaller firms, who can do this all at once,” Lackey emphasizes. “So you need to make a choice.”

Her choice involved intentional constraints that seemed counterintuitive. She worked exclusively with QuickBooks Online, turning away Xero users even when they begged. She refused wholesale clients with inventory because she “hated counting bits and bobs and COGS.” These weren’t limitations; they were strategic decisions to build deep expertise.

Even technology decisions followed this principle. When Good Cents invested months implementing a new practice management system that the team hated, they made a shocking choice: abandon it entirely and return to Google Sheets. “Sometimes lo-fi is hi-fi,” Lackey explains. “Technology platforms are like people, and not all people are your people.”

The Blindfold Moment That Changed Everything

Perhaps the most powerful part of the conversation comes when Lackey shares how she discovered her business was actually a sellable asset. “When you live in a scarcity-based poverty mentality,” she explains, “it is hard for you to see a different reality for yourself.”

During one particularly frustrating period, she vented to a designer friend, “I’m so frustrated. I just wanna quit.”

“But you could just sell it,” the designer replied casually.

“Sell what?” Lackey asked, genuinely confused.

“It’s like I was blindfolded and somebody snatched the blindfold off,” she recalls. The designer pointed out the obvious: recurring revenue, strong operations, great clients. “You’re a great business. You could sell it.”

This revelation sent Lackey on a research journey. She devoured “Built to Sell” by John Warrillow in a single day and discovered firms were selling for about one times annual revenue. Her firm was worth more than her 960-square-foot cottage.

“I couldn’t even see what was possible for myself,” she admits.

When she eventually sold Good Cents in 2023, 28 potential buyers courted her. The relationships she’d built—including one client who’d been with her 22 years and had hosted her baby shower— created incredible value. “Relationships are assets,” Lackey emphasizes, “even if we can’t line item them on a balance sheet.”

The Secret Every Firm Owner Needs to Hear

Near the end of the conversation, Lackey shares what she calls “a secret that nobody talks about.” Every firm owner wants help.

This insight applies whether you run your own firm or work in someone else’s. “When you can come into a conversation and say, ‘I really like working here and I really like the work I’m doing, but these are the recurring problems and this is the solution I propose’—that takes courage,” she explains.

McClelland adds her own experience, “My best mentor ever taught me that important lesson. She said, ‘Come to me with solutions, not problems.’”

Your Next Step Toward Intentional Growth

Lackey now channels these lessons through her Modern Firm Challenge, a free five-day program running one hour per day. “My personal mission statement is that I help the world by helping people,” she shares. The challenge focuses on the biggest pain points: onboarding, monthly close, pricing, and increasingly, technology and AI.

“You’re not gonna fix all the things,” she tells participants. “You’re gonna look at the lessons and say, this is what I’m gonna focus on right now.”

McClelland predicts some firm owners might initially resist. “You’re telling me I need to slow down to speed up? I don’t have five days to take off to do this.”

But Lackey’s response is practical: “The classes are only an hour a day. We run them from one to two.” Plus, they record everything for those who can’t attend live.

The results speak for themselves. As Lackey notes, “I’m not here to tell you you can build a million dollar firm overnight. I’m here to tell you you can do whatever you wanna do, but it’s going to take time.”

Permission to Choose Your Own Path

The conversation closes with McClelland sharing a powerful quote from author Laurie Perez: “I reserve the right to evolve. What I think and feel today is subject to revision tomorrow.”

This perfectly captures what Lackey has given listeners: permission to have clarity about what they want and to change their minds when their goals no longer serve them.

Ready to build the business you actually want? Sign up to get on the VIP list for Lackey’s next Modern Firm Challenge at justinelackey.com/register. You can also find her on LinkedIn or join her free Facebook group, The Incubator, with about 4,000 members building community together.

As this episode of She Counts proves, building with intention rather than endless expansion might just be the key to creating the valuable, sustainable business you’ve always dreamed of, even if you didn’t know it was possible.

Construction’s Tech Revolution: How Generational Change is Driving Digital Transformation

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For decades, construction businesses have balanced hammers in one hand and paper ledgers in the other. However, a significant shift is underway, according to Angela Nelson, a 15-year Sage veteran and three-time Platinum Club member.

In a recent episode of The Unofficial Sage Intacct Podcast, Nelson shared insights into how the construction industry is embracing technology after years of resistance.

From Support to Sales: Angela’s Construction Journey

Nelson brings a unique perspective to construction technology. Beyond her professional experience, she has personal ties to the industry—her father worked in construction, and her brother-in-law owned a concrete company.

“I’ve been with Sage for 15 years, always in construction and real estate,” explains Nelson. “I started my career at Sage in support, so I got to know the customer base very well. Then I moved to sales and have held almost every position in sales.”

For the past four years, Nelson has been a Partner Account Manager (PAM), supporting Sage’s network of partners selling to construction businesses. While most PAMs in her division manage 4-5 partners, Nelson handles 14—a testament to her expertise with legacy products and newer cloud solutions.

“I am more of a facilitator than a manager,” she says of her role. “What can I do to help you sell? What can I do to facilitate between what Sage’s goals are and what your goals are?”

Why Construction Has Resisted Technology

Construction companies have traditionally been slow to adopt new technology. This resistance has deep roots in the industry’s practical, hands-on culture. 

“A lot of these guys start these businesses and they just go and they do it,” Nelson explains. “They’re not worried about reporting and all this other kind of thing until they get to a certain point.”

Many construction business owners begin with trade skills rather than technological expertise. Their focus centers on completing projects and managing crews, not implementing sophisticated financial systems. Paper-based processes and basic spreadsheets have dominated simply because they are functional enough for immediate needs.

The Generational Shift Changing Everything

A profound change is happening as aging business owners pass their companies to the next generation.

“All the people that are my age that are now like, ‘You know what, I’m getting tired of swinging a hammer. I’m getting tired of getting shocked when I’m installing an electrical outlet.’ These guys are now like, ‘I’m going to give this to my kids. I want my kids to take over the business,'” Nelson says.

This succession planning has become a catalyst for digital transformation. “These kids have grown up with technology,” she continues. “So now what we’re seeing is all of a sudden, it feels like a rush to get these companies that were using pencil and paper and Excel to do everything. Now they’re all like, ‘Nope, that’s not what we want to do. We need all these guys to be using iPads in the field and iPhones. And we want a cloud-based system.'”

The impact can be transformative. Podcast co-host Matt Lescault shared his experience working with a steel fabricator in 2005 that was still handwriting every invoice. By implementing proper systems over two years, the company grew from roughly $600,000 in revenue to $3.6 million—a six-fold increase enabled mainly through technology.

Sage’s Journey in Construction Technology

Sage’s position in construction technology has evolved significantly over time. The company entered the market in 2003 by acquiring Timberline, a construction software company that has served the industry since the early 1970s. This product, now known as Sage 300 CRE, remains popular today.

“Timberline is an amazing product,” Nelson reflects. “It may not be pretty, but it’s an amazing product. It works very well and people are very loyal to that.”

Sage expanded its construction offerings around 2008 by acquiring Master Builder (now Sage 100 Contractor), which catered to smaller construction companies. The fundamental transformation began after acquiring Intacct in 2017, followed by the launch of Sage Intacct Construction in 2020.

Recent years have seen Sage double down on construction through strategic acquisitions:

“In 2021, we acquired Corecon, now Sage Construction Management. And then last year, we acquired BidMatrix,” Nelson explains. “The thought process behind this is we want to have a product for every stage of a job, from bidding to winning that bid to handling that project to overseeing the project to doing all of the financial statements.”

This focus marks a significant shift in Sage’s corporate strategy. “This is the vertical that Sage as a whole is focusing on right now because we are the fastest growing vertical there is,” says Nelson.

What makes this evolution particularly remarkable is how the construction division earned this attention. “Up until about 4 or 5 years ago, we were kind of ignored,” Nelson remembers. “Other than the fact that we performed to our goals every year with very, very little support from anything.”

Connecting the Field to the Back Office

Sage’s construction technology is powerful because it integrates field operations with financial management, creating a seamless flow of information.

“The construction module ties in with the financial portion of it very closely,” Nelson explains. Meanwhile, “Sage Construction Management enables project managers and field techs to be able to do their jobs with information. They can record their job costs, the equipment they’re using, and do field reports.”

This integration creates significant time and labor savings compared to traditional methods. Nelson contrasts the old way—”handwriting invoices, doing an Excel spreadsheet and then transferring to another Excel spreadsheet”—with the streamlined approach where “somebody can just enter the information and it flows through easily, and then you push a button and it creates the invoice.”

Cloud-based systems also enhance disaster preparedness. Nelson has seen clients lose everything when storing data on-premise: “When everything is stored in your office, and you experience a disaster… they lost everything.” This vulnerability becomes particularly acute in construction, where project data represents historical knowledge and future revenue potential.

When Is It Time to Upgrade?

Companies typically outgrow basic systems at specific growth milestones. Nelson identifies these triggers: “Once they’re hitting about that 5 million a year mark… Sage Intacct customers average at least 5 million in revenue and about 20 employees.”

Beyond size, she points to three key factors that signal it’s time to move to a cloud solution:

  1. Annual revenue approaching $5 million
  2. Growing to around 20 employees
  3. Increasing job complexity
  4. Understanding the vulnerabilities of on-premise systems

The construction industry’s embrace of technology is evident in Sage Intacct Construction’s rapidly growing user base. “We have over 1,600 companies on Sage Intacct Construction,” Nelson reveals.

Building for Tomorrow

The construction industry has reached a pivotal moment in its technological evolution. The convergence of generational change with Sage’s strategic focus on construction has created perfect conditions for digital transformation in an industry that has historically approached technology with caution.

As founding contractors step away from daily operations, they’re handing leadership to digital natives who understand how integrated, cloud-based systems drive efficiency and growth. This generational handover is accelerating what would otherwise be a much slower technology adoption curve.

The industry’s future belongs to those who can seamlessly connect field operations with financial management through integrated, cloud-based systems. As younger leaders continue to take the reins of established construction businesses, this digital transformation will accelerate, widening the gap between technology adopters and those clinging to traditional methods.

Listen to the full conversation with Angela Nelson on The Unofficial Sage Intacct Podcast to hear more insights about construction’s technological revolution and how Sage’s solutions are transforming the industry.

Why a Smaller Client Base Helped This Firm Accelerate Revenue 

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What if growing your accounting firm meant intentionally serving fewer clients? While this strategy may sound counterintuitive, one firm discovered a leaner client roster was the secret to success: they grew from $2 million to $3 million in revenue while reducing their client base from 2,400 clients to just over 100. 

In a recent episode of the Who’s Really the BOSS? podcast, Rachel and Marcus Dillon shared how their firm achieved this transformation over the past seven years. Instead of endlessly pursuing higher client volumes and ever-expanding tech stacks, they prioritized building a scalable infrastructure and preserving a strong culture—an approach that might turn traditional assumptions about firm growth upside down.

Rethinking Growth: Less Can Be More

2017, Dillon Business Advisors brought in an average of $2M annually in revenue from 2,400 tax clients—what many would view as a thriving practice. But despite its profitability, this high-volume model came with challenges. Tax work accounted for 80% of revenue, leading to heavy accounts receivable cycles and intense tax seasons that strained the team and its infrastructure.

In a bold and seemingly paradoxical move, the firm began strategically exiting large blocks of clients. 

“We exited blocks of clients that equated to more than $1 million of revenue,” Marcus explains. “And that growth from $2 million to $3 million while exiting clients was very hard.”

This shift required restructuring leadership, implementing new processes, and thoroughly rethinking client service. Along the way, the Dillons solidified the philosophy that true, lasting growth depends on establishing a solid base first—before taking on new business.

Today, the firm supports about 100 monthly clients and 10 to 15 family groups, generating $3M in revenue, with 75% arriving through monthly recurring revenue. This deliberate, high-value approach replaced the burn-and-churn cycle of their previous volume-focused model.

Building a Scalable Foundation

Armed with lessons from their challenging transition, the Dillons focused on building infrastructure through two main channels: technology consolidation and process refinement.

Streamlining Technology

Instead of adding more applications, the firm focused on maximizing its core technology stack.

“Your client base and where you’re at revenue-wise should drive the processes and the technology you use, not the opposite way around,” says Marcus.

While the average accounting firm might rely on 30 different apps, Dillon Business Advisors consolidated. Rather than deploying specialized reporting tools, they maximized features in their existing software. They also merged communication platforms, moving their phone system to Zoom to unify it with their video conferencing solution.

Perfecting Processes Before Automating

Dillon Business Advisors applied the same philosophy to refining operational processes, especially for onboarding new clients. The firm adopted a “team of three” model—assigning a client service manager, controller, and CFO to guide each client’s onboarding. Before adding automation, they made sure the manual process ran smoothly.

“We had to look at the process and figure out exactly what we needed to solve for,” explains Rachel. “And then we chose the technology to put in that place.”

As a result, the team now completes a full client onboarding—including bookkeeping setup, tax review and proforma, and initial financial reporting—in just two to three weeks, all without sacrificing service quality for existing clients.

Cultivating Culture for Sustainable Growth

Alongside technology and process refinement, the Dillons knew preserving firm culture was vital for sustainable expansion. They introduced two key strategies: creating development paths for existing staff and adopting a culture-first approach to acquisitions.

Developing Internal Leadership

In mid-2024, Dillon Business Advisors launched a Subject Matter Expert (SME) program, enabling employees to grow their leadership skills without changing roles. SMEs receive extra compensation for staying up-to-date on industry changes and mentoring team members in specific areas like payroll, tax, or QuickBooks Online.

“They don’t have to move to a different role within the firm,” Rachel says, “And they don’t have to look outside the firm to work on their leadership development.”

This initiative helped the firm retain top talent while cultivating deep in-house expertise.

Culture-First Acquisitions

Their cultural focus also shapes the firm’s acquisition strategy. Rather than scooping up just any practice, the Dillons specifically target sub-$1 million firms with teams of five or fewer. Cultural alignment, not potential revenue, drives their decisions.

“We definitely want to maintain everything we’ve built at DBA and not dissolve into another brand or another culture,” Marcus adds.

Applying these selective criteria ensures each new addition strengthens rather than dilutes the firm’s carefully nurtured culture.

Conclusion: Build First, Then Grow

Dillon Business Advisors’ evolution from a sprawling 2,400-client roster to a specialized firm illustrates that growth isn’t just about scaling up in size. By consolidating technology, refining processes, and investing in culture, they’ve built a more profitable and resilient business model that runs on monthly recurring revenue rather than seasonal peaks.

For firm owners looking to grow more sustainably, the Dillons recommend building the foundation first. Then, when your people, processes, and technology are in place, growth can happen without the chaos that often accompanies rapid expansion.

For deeper insights into these strategies, listen to the full episode of the Who’s Really the BOSS? podcast. The Dillons share practical, real-world guidance for any firm owner on a growth journey.

Rachel and Marcus Dillon, CPA, own a Texas-based, remote client accounting and advisory services firm, Dillon Business Advisors, with a team of 15 professionals. Their latest organization, Collective by DBA, supports and guides accounting firm owners and leaders with firm resources, education, and operational strategy through community, groups, and one-on-one advisory.