Marcus Dillon

Planning a Firm Retreat That Keeps Your Team Aligned All Year

Earmark Team · January 28, 2026 ·

Team retreats can easily become forgettable obligations. People spend a few hours in a conference room, have some general discussion about “next year,” and everyone returns to their desks unchanged. But Marcus and Rachel Dillon have spent nearly a decade figuring out how to make their twice-yearly retreats count for something more.

In this episode of Who’s Really the Boss?, recorded just after a successful year-end team retreat, the Dillons share exactly how they plan and execute gatherings that keep their remote team aligned all year long. This retreat was particularly significant, as it was the first time their entire team came together after two acquisitions that grew their firm from $3 million to $6.5 million in revenue.

Starting with Leadership Alignment

The work that made this retreat effective started in late September. Their leadership team, including Marcus, Rachel, Director of Operations Amy McCarthy, and Director of Accounting and Advisory Lezlie Reeves, met in Saint Louis, Missouri.

They were already there for a meet-and-greet related to their recent acquisition, so they carved out a full day specifically for 2026 planning. The change of location helped them focus beyond daily operations.

“We were out of our normal element, which was great because it changed the pace and place and allowed us to focus better,” Marcus explains.

The team uses a framework originally developed by C12, an organization of Christian business owners, which they’ve adapted for their accounting firm. The framework breaks planning into five key areas:

Revenue Generation. Setting targets and monitoring progress, with flexibility to adjust client onboarding based on team capacity
Operations Management. The steady force that keeps the firm grounded when new opportunities arise
Organizational Development. Team structure, hiring, roles, and succession planning three to five years out
Financial Management. KPIs and reporting—the self-accountability accountants sometimes neglect for their own firms
Ministry. How the firm gives back and serves as good stewards

What emerges is a one-page document with a matrix showing each goal area, the strategic objective, success metrics, who’s responsible (including first and second chair assignments), and deadlines.

“If there’s no timeline, you just keep kicking the can down the road,” Marcus notes. “And those goals never get touched again.”

The leadership conversations extend beyond immediate goals. They discuss where each person sees themselves in three to five years, and what they want to see happen. These discussions require openness from everyone involved.

“As a leader, you have to be prepared for whatever your fellow leaders’ answers may be,” Marcus says. “You have to be open to hearing that.”

Finding the Right Time

The Dillons learned through trial and error that when you hold a retreat matters as much as what you cover. Their timing has evolved over the years.

Initially, they held retreats in January, capturing the new year, fresh goals energy. But that created immediate conflicts. “Taking a day and a half or two days right when you come back from the holidays is tough,” Rachel explains, especially with year-end financials due by the 15th and 1099 work piling up.

They tried pushing it to after January 20th, but that still felt rushed with the January 31st deadline approaching. Moving it any later meant they were already more than a month into the year before rolling out goals.

Their current approach places the retreat in mid-November, the week before Thanksgiving. This timing works because teams have just finished the November 15th deadline for month-end financials. Leadership has ten and a half months of data to review, enough to project year-end performance and celebrate achievements without waiting for perfect December numbers.

“If people are busy and have deadlines and clients waiting and asking for things, they cannot be fully focused and engaged in the retreat,” Rachel emphasizes.

For a remote firm where more than half the team flies in, the schedule runs Sunday arrival, full day Monday, half day Tuesday, with people heading home Tuesday afternoon. This prevents taking up too much of people’s weekend and avoids the stress of same-day travel.

The Logistics That Matter

Every detail either helps team members focus or creates distraction. The Dillons have learned which investments pay off.

They provide hotel rooms for everyone who needs one, including local team members. “Some people took us up on that because they didn’t want to wake up super early, commute, and get ready. That’s just not their normal routine,” Marcus explains.

Food is available throughout both days. Hotel catering costs more than bringing things in, but it simplifies coordination dramatically. The team eats lunch off-site both days, providing mental breaks from the meeting room.

When everyone’s together, they maximize the opportunity. A photographer comes in for professional headshots, and team members cycle through during sessions without disrupting the flow. Only Monday requires professional dress; Tuesday is comfortable.

The Monday evening Christmas party happens at a nearby Brazilian steakhouse, with spouses invited. But first, the team went to Great Big Game Show, a venue where groups compete in TV-style game show formats.

“It was less than $40 per person. It was an hour and a half event,” Rachel notes. “So it was fairly cost effective but very memorable for the team.”

“It doesn’t have to be expensive to be memorable,” Marcus says.

Building Trust Through Transparency

What happens in the room determines whether the retreat creates lasting change or fades by the following week. The Dillons’ approach centers on transparency about the firm’s actual performance.

They share real revenue data, including year-to-date numbers, projections, where the firm stands against goals. Many firm owners hesitate at this level of openness, but the Dillons have only seen positive results.

“There has never been an instance where someone has come to us and said that we are unfair based on a revenue number,” Rachel says. “The only things that have come from us sharing more has been positive response and feedback.”

This transparency extends to the firm’s direction. In 2021, during their pivot to remote work, they created “Future Direction” statements, which are clear commitments:

Monitor, monetize, or refer annual tax clients outside core services
Operate within a fully connected tech stack
Share industry best practices with peers
Be the model firm in small business accounting
Attract highly qualified, highly motivated team members
Implement travel retreats
Create initiatives to give back locally and abroad

Four years later, they still reference these statements at every retreat. “We can go through and put a check mark next to every single one and point back directly to exactly how we achieved those things,” Rachel explains.

The continuity matters when firms undergo major changes. “When they look back at this, they see it’s not any different than what we said we were going to do,” she notes. “Maybe how we get there or what we use to do it changes, but the overall direction definitely aligns.”

Celebrating Before Charging Forward

The Dillons organize both achievements and initiatives into four categories: Growth (clients and team), Process (procedures and technology), Team Development, and Collective by DBA (their peer network offering). This structure ensures nothing gets forgotten between retreats.

For 2025, there was plenty to celebrate:

Securing 12 out of 15 targeted new organic clients
Two successful firm acquisitions
Multiple director-level additions including Operations, Accounting and Advisory, Technology, and Tax and Financial Planning
Implementing of Double for improved client reporting
Launching monthly role-specific training programs
Growing the team from 15 to 25 people

“I don’t do a great job of stopping to celebrate,” Marcus admits. “So I made sure that it was built in.”

Each year gets a theme. For 2025, it was “Growth, not comfort.” For 2026, they’ve chosen “Lead change, create impact,” reflecting their shift from a growth phase to refinement as they integrate everything they built.

The firm also shares specific quarterly goals and hiring plans. “When we started opening up more transparently with the financials and the overall plan of the business, we could actually invite people who are smarter and better than us in given areas,” Marcus explains.

Even the closing gifts reflect practical thinking. The Dillons receive quite a bit of vendor swag throughout the year, including high-end items from Canopy, Intuit, QuickBooks, ADP, and Double. Rather than letting these accumulate, they share them with the team.

“If you don’t have stuff like that laying around, I’m sure you can reach out to your partners, your technology partners, and they’ll send you some stuff to share with your team,” Marcus suggests.

Making It Work for Your Firm

The difference between retreats that drain resources and those that create momentum is intentional planning that starts months ahead, timing that respects your team’s reality, logistics that remove friction rather than create it, and transparency that turns information sharing into trust building.

Listen to the full episode of Who’s Really the Boss? for more advice for running a successful team retreat. Plus, Rachel offers to share DBA’s actual retreat agendas and planning templates with any firm owner or team member who reaches out. “Don’t feel like you have to reinvent the wheel,” she says. Email her at rachel@collective.com or use the contact form on their website.

As the Dillons have learned through nearly a decade of refinement, when you invest in getting retreats right, a two-day gathering can align and energize your team for the entire year ahead.

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.

How a Small-Town CPA Practice Transformed Into a Million-Dollar Firm

Earmark Team · January 28, 2026 ·

James Buss decided to open a CPA firm on April 1, 2005. Yes, April Fool’s Day, which he now admits was “a bad day to open a CPA firm.” That first year, he had about 50 clients and ended with just $50,000 in revenue. Today, nearly 20 years later, he and his wife Cindy run Buss CPA, a $1.1 million practice from Hartford, South Dakota, a town of 3,000 people just outside Sioux Falls.

In a recent episode of Who’s Really the Boss?, hosts Marcus and Rachel Dillon sat down with James and Cindy to talk about what it’s really like when married couples run accounting firms together. They shared stories of making tough decisions during crises, building systems that take emotion out of business choices, and finding a community of peers who actually share what works.

From Law Enforcement to Million-Dollar Firm

James worked in law enforcement before he became a CPA. He went to school for criminal justice and worked for Minnehaha County for about four years before, as he puts it, he “saw the light.” He’s still an EMT basic and has been a volunteer firefighter since 1995—longer than he’s been a CPA.

This background shapes how he approaches business. Growing up in a family that owned a plumbing and heating business since 1978, James has been around construction his whole life. That’s why today, 70% of his clients are construction companies. He understands their world because he lived in it.

When James opened his firm at 35, he’d already worked in public accounting for about five years and spent two years with a Fortune 500 construction company. But starting from scratch meant building everything from the ground up. About two or three years in, he brought Cindy into the business. As she explains it, she got some advice not to marry a CPA—advice she obviously didn’t take. “Sometimes advice isn’t taken well,” she laughs, “but I think one of the best pieces of advice beyond that is to treat people as you would like to be treated.”

Today, they’re a blended family with six adult children, including one who just graduated with a master’s in social work and another getting married next year who has a master’s in accounting. Between volleyball games and football seasons with the grandkids, they run a firm with four hybrid employees and one remote team member in the Philippines.

When Crisis Forces Change

The 2008 financial crisis changed everything for Buss CPA. James is clear that it was harder than COVID. “In 2008, it was a bumpy ride for companies,” he explains. “We were advising on whether companies should keep their employees, keep a line of business, keep their location, or if they should even stay open.”

During COVID, it was about navigating Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) programs and rules that changed every weekend. In 2008, it was about survival.

After joining a peer group in 2009, James made a radical decision: fire half the clients, let the staff go, and drop back to just himself. The firm was doing a little over $200,000 at the time, which was solid growth from that first $50,000, but the mix wasn’t working.

“We kept what we call now CAS,” James says, noting that the term might be new but the concept isn’t. They also went virtual after their server died, which turned out to be perfect preparation for COVID a decade later. “Going virtual during COVID was nothing new for us. We had been virtual for years.”

The crisis also pushed James to rethink pricing. He remembers pitching his first fixed-fee client around 2009, offering monthly accounting for about $900 instead of a $2,000 to $3,000 spring cleanup bill. The client’s response was, “So my wife won’t have to do this on the weekends?” Deal closed.

James had to abandon hourly billing simply because, “as the software got better, the hours went down. So in theory I’d be doing $50 tax returns now.” When clients push back on fixed pricing, he uses an analogy they understand. “When you bought your truck, did you ask them how many hours it took to put the truck together?”

Today, about 75 of their clients are on fixed-fee contracts, representing 70% to 75% of revenue. They’ve cut their tax-only work from nearly 1,000 returns to about 450, with more staff to handle them.

Taking Emotion Out of the Equation

One smart move Buss CPA made was creating systems that remove owner emotion from critical decisions. James no longer decides which clients to accept. Instead, a committee of two client managers and Cindy makes those calls.

“I don’t know if I can ever get out of this mindset that every client’s a new client. It might be my last one,” James admits. The committee asks questions prospects won’t answer honestly to the owner. They can find out if someone hasn’t filed taxes for four years or doesn’t believe in paying taxes—things they might not tell James directly.

The same approach works for pricing. Their current average monthly fee is about $900, with new clients coming in at $1,000 to $1,500. James is planning a 5% to 7% increase for January 1st, pushed through systematically using Ignition. One client who initially rejected their pricing came back after trying another firm. His comment? “My wife is really mad at me for not taking your fixed-fee contract.” He’ll now pay more than the original quote because, as James notes, “we have something called inflation.”

They also charge onboarding fees of about $1,500, sometimes quoting $2,500 initially then “negotiating” down. “It gives you that buffer for them to feel like when they walked out that they did some negotiation,” James explains, while still covering the 20 minutes it takes staff to set up a sales tax license and other setup work.

Even succession planning gets the emotion-free treatment. Back in 2021, Cindy announced she’d retire in December 2024. Now she’s taking Wednesdays off and edging toward the door more gradually. “When we get tired, we don’t have to quit. We can rest,” Rachel observed during the conversation. Cindy might stay two more years part-time while they search for the right operations manager. It’s hard to find someone you trust with the books, invoicing, and “all those things near and dear to us that we don’t necessarily want everybody in the world to know.”

Finding Your People

Perhaps the biggest accelerator for the Buss firm’s growth has been community, specifically Collective by DBA, a group of accounting firm owners who share what actually works in their practices.

“I can’t get five accounting firm owners from Sioux Falls together in a room to talk about how we run our businesses,” James says. “Everything’s top secret.”

But in Collective by DBA, he has a Rolodex of people to call with specific questions. Should we use a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) now that we have seven employees? How did you implement fixed-fee pricing? Why is my tech stack so expensive? He couldn’t ask his old firm these questions because they’re still in suits and ties with everyone in the office—not dealing with hybrid teams and virtual infrastructure.

James participates in forums where ten firms take turns being the “focus,” sharing deep challenges and getting candid feedback. When it was his turn, they gave him nine different perspectives on hiring challenges.

He compares it to a military obstacle course. “The community lifts one person up so they can reach to the top of the wall and pull themselves up. Then they can reach down and grab you and pull you up over the wall.”

The results are concrete. James wouldn’t have his team member in the Philippines without community. He wouldn’t charge onboarding fees. “I don’t think we’d be at $1.1 million in revenue if we didn’t have this.”

For Cindy, it’s about more than tactics. “It’s the safe spot to go to. We’ve made great friends through community. Nobody makes you feel bad if you ask kind of a dumb question.”

The Real Secret: Communication

The importance of communication is a recurring theme throughout the conversation. “People don’t remember what you did for them. They remember how they felt,” James says, paraphrasing the poet Maya Angelou.

This belief drives everything from client service to team management. CPAs are notorious for not returning phone calls, but James and Cindy make communication a priority. “All you have to do is communicate with your clients and you’re 80% or more ahead of the game,” James says.

He shared a recent example where he got double-scheduled and missed a call. His message to the team member who made the mistake was clear. “You gotta remember that this person’s not going to remember how I took care of their IRS issue. They’re going to remember that we skipped their telephone call.”

Building Together, Growing Together

After nearly 20 years of working together, James and Cindy have built something remarkable from that risky April Fool’s Day start. They’ve weathered the 2008 crisis, adapted to virtual work before it was necessary, and built systems that let them make better decisions than either could alone.

Their story shows that you don’t need to be in a major market or acquire other firms to build a million-dollar practice. You need the courage to make hard decisions during a crisis, systems that remove emotion from business choices, and a community of peers who’ll share what actually works.

As they look toward the future, with Cindy gradually transitioning toward retirement and James continuing to grow the firm, they’re proof that working with your spouse can work, even in the demanding world of public accounting.

Want to hear more about how James and Cindy navigate working together, including the jokes about age differences and one-room schoolhouses? Listen to the full episode of Who’s Really the Boss? for all the stories, laughs, and wisdom these two couples share about building successful firms with the person you married.

From Stuck to Strategic: How Top CPA Firms Break Free from Endless Problem Loops

Earmark Team · January 15, 2026 ·

Picture a CPA firm owner sitting across from the same colleague at the same conference, one year later, complaining about the exact same problems: the same staffing issues, same client complaints, and same technology frustrations. Marcus Dillon sees this scene too often, and it breaks his heart. “One of the most disappointing things to me,” he shares on the latest episode of Who’s Really the Boss?, “is whenever you have a conversation with somebody a year later and they’re in the same exact place they were when you previously talked to them.”

But in a packed ballroom at Hotel Vin in Grapevine, Texas, 105 accounting professionals gathered this October to make sure they’d never be that person stuck in an endless loop of unaddressed challenges. Over two and a half days in October 2025, firm owners, leaders, and carefully selected team members came together for Gather 2025, an event that offered CPE credits but delivered something far more valuable than continuing education.

About two-thirds of attendees were firm owners and leaders, while the remaining third were team members positioned to create ripple effects back in their firms. “You want to bring a team member who can learn and take part in table discussions, but then also take what they’ve heard and learned back to others on your team,” Marcus explained.

From Growth to Excellence: A New Chapter in Leadership

After a year focused on “the goal is growth, not comfort,” Marcus introduced a new rally cry for 2026 that signals a shift in how successful firms approach leadership: “Lead Change, Create Impact.” This evolution is more than a tagline change; it marks a maturity in thinking about what drives firm success.

“We’ve had a very large growth year,” Marcus reflects. “We added a couple of director level positions, did a couple of acquisitions, and continue to grow Collective by DBA very intentionally. So now we’re going into a season of refinement and then excellence.”

This natural progression, from growth to refinement and excellence, mirrors a cycle that successful firms navigate intentionally. But growth isn’t just about numbers. As Rachel emphasizes, when they adopted their previous rally cry, “We’re really thinking about growth personally and professionally, of what does it look like to delegate to someone else? What does it look like to upskill and learn that next new thing, or say yes to something we don’t feel we have the skill set for?”

Rachel shares a particularly striking insight she heard recently from author Ruth Chou Simons, “You don’t have to be blooming to be growing.” Sometimes the most critical development happens underground, in the roots and foundation of a firm’s culture. These invisible victories, such as saying no to wrong opportunities, developing team members’ skills, or refining internal processes, often matter more than year-end revenue numbers.

The data from Gather 2025 validates this approach. While participating firms showed revenue increases, the standout statistic was a 10% decrease in owner production hours. For an industry where firm owners routinely work 2,000+ hours annually in production, this reduction shows genuine progress. As Marcus points out, this matters enormously for succession planning. “If there was a firm owner working over 2000 hours per year, as a buyer, you probably have to hire two people to replace that outgoing owner.”

The Four P’s Framework: Your Roadmap Through Change

Change doesn’t fail because people resist it, but because leaders haven’t provided the clarity teams need to embrace it. The Four P’s Framework, which Marcus discovered through his C12 leadership group, transforms vague announcements into actionable roadmaps.

“We used to talk about change and how we communicate change to the team,” Marcus recalls. The standard three questions (What’s changing? What’s staying the same? How does this impact me?) weren’t enough. The Four P’s provide a complete structure:

Purpose answers “Why are we changing?” But “the lens that you answer that question through should be your mission, vision and values,” Marcus emphasizes. “You’re not changing your mission vision values based on a change. You’re seeing the change through the lens of those mission vision values.”
Picture addresses “What does success look like?” Marcus admits this is his personal weakness. “You have to paint a great picture of what it looks like on the other side of this change and what it looks like going through this change.” Teams need to visualize both the journey and the destination.
Plan tackles “How do we get there?” This includes specific milestones. “You’ll know when you’re 20%, 50%, or 80% there and you can celebrate and then maybe push or sprint to that next threshold,” Marcus explains.
Part clarifies “What is my role?” This component “helps foster ownership, provide clarity” by making it crystal clear how each person contributes.

The framework came to life during DBA’s recent acquisitions. Purpose aligned with their mission of “impacting others and creating a great place to work.” Picture showed “a fully integrated team under one brand, serving very similar clients in very similar ways.” Plan mapped out specific 30-day and 90-day milestones. And each team member received a clearly defined part. Some continued with existing clients, others mentor new colleagues, and others take ownership of new relationships.

Rachel’s reflection provides crucial context. “We have not always done it this way. We communicated the change, but rarely thought through all four parts.” The difference is dramatic. “You as the leader will not be in it on your own, trying to drag people along,” she notes. “You will have people who step into their role and know what it looks like to be successful.”

Solving Problems Together: The Power of Collective Intelligence

While firm owners tackled KPIs and succession planning in one room, team members gathered in another for a revolutionary session called “Borrow a Brain, Share a Solution.” With over 24 anonymously-submitted real firm challenges, participants tackled everything from lead generation to remote team connectivity to AI adoption.

“Even staff members had great ideas for lead generation,” Rachel observes. “It’s not always up to the leader to solve every challenge in the firm.”

The structured approach went beyond brainstorming. Teams identified questions needing answers, developed solutions, assigned implementation responsibilities, and specified necessary tools. They documented all frameworks and made them available through the Collective Community Resource Center, creating a permanent library of tested solutions for the 300+ team members now on the platform.

Angel Sabino, Jr., Dillon Business Advisor’s Director of Technology, demonstrated exactly how firms could build their own AI agents using Microsoft Copilot. “He built this AI agent for internal DBA team members to ask questions,” Marcus explains. “What’s our PTO policy look like? What firm holidays exist? What do I need to do to get this approved?” The agent pulls answers from the firm’s knowledge base, providing instant, accurate responses.

“He can also break it down into simple enough terms and pictures,” Rachel notes. This wasn’t about showcasing technology for its own sake, but solving the real challenge of making standard operating procedures accessible and useful.

The case study sessions added another dimension. Firm owners could submit data anonymously and pose specific questions to peers. Marcus calculated the value. “I did quick math. It was about $20,000 per hour in that room.” But the true value transcended hourly rates. It was about getting honest feedback from people who “truly care about you without having a vested interest.”

Putting It All Into Practice

The event’s structure reinforced its practical focus. After sessions on everything from KPIs to AI implementation, the final afternoon wasn’t filled with more presentations. Instead, teams and firm friends gathered to process what they’d learned and create action plans. “What did you hear? What are you going to work on?” became the guiding questions as DBA and Collective team members wove through conversations offering support.

The result? As one attendee shared with Rachel, “This is the first time I’m leaving feeling confident about what I’m going to do and not feeling overwhelmed and defeated that I’m not doing enough.”

Even the venue contributed to the experience. The Hotel Vin’s European-style food hall offered variety without leaving the building, while The Baked Bear ice cream truck (featuring customizable cookie ice cream sandwiches) provided a sweet networking opportunity in perfect October Texas weather.

Your Next Step Forward

For Collective by DBA members ready to continue this journey, Recharge 2026 awaits in Mexico (April 22-25) at an all-inclusive, adults-only Marriott resort. “We’re going international,” Rachel announces, promising two days of CPE, karaoke, collaborative dinners, and the option to extend your stay. Given that the group will occupy over 50% of the boutique hotel, spaces are limited.

But you don’t need to wait for an event to start implementing these insights. The frameworks, tools, and collaborative approaches shared at Gather 2025 offer immediate value for any firm ready to move beyond the cycle of unsolved problems.

Listen to Rachel and Marcus Dillon’s full conversation to discover how two leaders who’ve “been in this game since 2011” learned to stop dragging people through change and started leading them toward impact.

As Marcus reminds us, when you look back at your biggest wins, you won’t remember the change itself. You’ll remember the people who journeyed alongside you. The question is, will you be remembered as someone who helped others navigate change, or as someone who kept showing up with the same unsolved problems? The choice (and the tools to succeed) are yours.

This CPA Spent Five Years Modernizing His Firm Before Making a Move to Buy It

Earmark Team · November 16, 2025 ·

In 2012, Tim Abbott walked into a Chicago accounting firm that still tracked tax returns on a clipboard. No electronic filing, no digital documents, just alphabetical lists checked off by hand. Eight years and one pandemic later, he owned that practice and another 40-year-old firm, and had transformed both into a thriving $2.4 million modern business while keeping nearly all their legacy clients.

In this episode of “Who’s Really the Boss?”, hosts Rachel and Marcus Dillon get Abbott’s story about acquiring and modernizing two multi-generational accounting firms in the Chicago suburbs. The journey involved a delicate balance between honoring tradition and driving innovation.

Starting With “No Is a Complete Sentence”

Abbott’s path to firm ownership began with an unexpected philosophy. “The best piece of advice I received,” Abbott shares, “is that no is a complete sentence.” This mantra guided his transformation of M.J. Vandenbroucke from a clipboard-based operation into a modern firm serving law offices, financial planners, and medical practices across the Chicago suburbs.

Abbott brought a fresh perspective to a firm frozen in time. With three daughters at home and a wife working as an elementary school nurse, he understood the importance of setting personal and professional boundaries. That discipline proved essential when navigating the complexities of modernizing practices that had operated the same way for decades.

The firm he joined in 2012 wasn’t broken; it was just stuck. With ten employees, many boasting 20 to 35 years of tenure, M.J. Vandenbroucke had successfully served clients since 1970. But success had bred complacency. The firm ran entity returns through UltraTax while processing individual returns in ProSeries, losing K-1 import capabilities. When Marcus Dillon learned about this setup, lost efficiencies immediately came to mind.

The Art of Incremental Change

Rather than shocking the system with sweeping reforms, Abbott orchestrated a deliberate five-year modernization plan. Each year from 2012 to 2017 brought one major improvement. Electronic filing replaced paper submissions. Digital file cabinets eliminated physical storage. Client portals opened new communication channels. Direct deposit streamlined payments.

“When you’ve been doing things largely the same way for 30 years, it can be challenging to change,” Abbott observed. His measured approach respected the staff’s experience and the clients’ expectations. This patience wasn’t passive; it was strategic.

Abbott received some invaluable advice about acquisitions: “Unless something is functioning horribly, don’t change anything you don’t have to” during the first year. By observing existing workflows and understanding why certain processes existed, he could distinguish between outdated habits and practices that genuinely served clients well.

This incremental approach delivered measurable results. Staff gradually embraced new technologies without feeling overwhelmed. Clients experienced improvements as enhancements rather than disruptions. Most importantly, the firm maintained its operational stability while building capacity for future growth. By 2017, Abbott was ready to acquire the practice, having proven that modernization didn’t require revolution.

When Coffee Leads to Acquisitions

Abbott’s second acquisition offers a lesson in professional serendipity. At a conference, he sat next to a CPA from New Jersey who mentioned knowing someone near Abbott’s Chicago office. “That casual breakfast conversation led to coffee meetings,” Abbott recalls, which evolved over two years into an acquisition agreement finalized in 2020, during the pandemic.

The 75-year-old owner of this second firm had no succession plan. Like M.J. Vandenbroucke, this practice had operated for nearly 40 years with established processes and long-term client relationships. Abbott acquired the business and moved the entire operation to their larger office space, merging two firms with a combined 90 years of history.

Both transitions followed a similar pattern, with previous owners staying on for approximately three years. The first owner planned to work through the 2020 tax season, but when COVID extended deadlines indefinitely, he decided to leave on June 30th. “If we don’t just rip the Band-Aid off, I’m going to be here forever,” he told Abbott.

The second owner maintained his full role for the first year, with Abbott sitting in on client meetings but not directly involved in work. Years two and three saw gradual transitions until Abbott hired a replacement CPA. This extended handoff was crucial for client retention.

Building Trust Through Continuity

Abbott presented the second acquisition as a “merger” rather than a takeover, maintaining all existing staff to ensure continuity. The messaging mattered. “There was actually a pretty big sense of relief that we had a continuity plan in place,” Abbott notes. Clients who had watched their CPA age into his seventies welcomed the security of younger leadership backed by familiar faces.

The human element proved crucial. When a bookkeeper has been working with a client for 22 years and stays through the transition, “there’s a lot of comfort there,” Abbott observed. This continuity helped maintain exceptionally high client retention rates through both acquisitions.

Not all relationships transferred smoothly, though. Referral sources—particularly those with personal connections to previous owners—were harder to retain than clients. “The owner’s friend, people he grew up with, high school buddies, fraternity friends, some of those don’t transfer very well, no matter how hard you try,” Abbott acknowledged.

Marcus Dillon confirmed this challenge from his own experience. “The referral sources who referred clients to the firm while it was owned by another CPA, some of those loyalties go away.” This means firms must activate new business development strategies to replace lost lead sources.

Discovering Hidden Challenges and Strengths

Post-acquisition discoveries revealed problems and unexpected assets. Abbott uncovered situations like clients receiving May financials in September because “they’re always late and we have to call three times.” Marcus Dillon shared similar experiences, noting how sellers suddenly reveal after closing which clients are “awful to work with.”

But Abbott also discovered the firm’s employees had an exceptional ability to explain complex concepts without condescension. “We’ve received several referrals from prospects who said, ‘so and so told me to call you, I need help. And they said you wouldn’t make me feel dumb.’” This skill became a cornerstone of the firm’s value proposition.

The firm’s recent website redesign reflects this evolution. Rather than hiding behind traditional industry opacity, Abbott chose radical transparency with published pricing. “We’re not out here to compete with anybody on price, but you have no reason to hide it.” The new site at mjvcpa.com has already generated upsells from existing clients who discovered services they didn’t know the firm offered.

The Power of Peer Connections

Throughout these transitions, Abbott credits peer relationships as essential to survival. “COVID was brutal for everybody,” he reflects. “I don’t know that I would still be here running a firm without just some of those relationships that got me through the tough times.”

His involvement in mastermind groups and communities like Collective by DBA provided crucial support. “Having the resources of other firm owners that have literally walked in your shoes and faced the same challenges, getting their perspective, wisdom, and advice has always been hugely beneficial to me.”

These connections even facilitated acquisitions within the group. Marcus Dillon recalled how a conversation with one mastermind member led to another acquisition for his firm. The lesson? Professional relationships often yield unexpected opportunities.

Building for the Next 50 Years

Today, M.J. Vandenbroucke employs 13 team members in a hybrid environment, with staff in the office one to four days per week and two fully remote employees.

After years of integration work, they’ve finally standardized processes across both acquired firms. Goals have shifted from survival to optimization. The firm has the capacity to grow without adding headcount.

“When you take the right steps, generally the results follow,” Abbott reflects. His patient approach to building on established foundations while creating new value positions M.J. Vandenbroucke for another 50 years of service.

For accounting professionals considering acquisitions, Abbott’s experience offers valuable lessons. Respect the pace of change. Invest in extended transitions that transfer trust, not just client files. Honestly evaluate what deserves preservation versus transformation. And perhaps most importantly, remember that “no is a complete sentence,” because boundaries matter when managing complex transitions.

Listen to the full episode to discover Abbott’s specific strategies for managing resistant staff, navigating unexpected challenges, and building the critical peer relationships that make these transformations possible. With patience, respect, and strategic thinking, you can honor the past while building for the future.

Rachel and Marcus Dillon, CPA, own a Texas-based, remote client accounting and advisory services firm, Dillon Business Advisors, with a team of 20 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.

Admitting You Don’t Know Everything Became This Young CPA’s Secret Weapon

Earmark Team · August 19, 2025 ·

Picture this: You’re 26 years old with a newborn baby, eating rice and beans from a bulk bag because your accounting firm is three months away from bankruptcy. Your Excel budget calculation was catastrophically wrong, and you’re facing the reality that your entrepreneurial dream might be over before it really began.

That’s exactly where Nate Goodman found himself in 2022. He was staring at his wife across their kitchen table in Black Mountain, North Carolina, wondering if they’d bitten off more than they could chew. “I told my wife, ‘We tried it, I failed. We’re gonna have to eat rice and beans,’” Goodman recalls.

Fast-forward to today, and Goodman’s firm, Goodman CPAs, just closed 2024 with $1.7 million in annual revenue. His team of 12 professionals serves clients across the country, and he’s building toward a $2 million run rate.

His transformation from struggling bookkeeper to successful CPA firm owner didn’t happen because he suddenly became a better accountant. It happened because he discovered something many of us resist: admitting you don’t know everything can be your greatest competitive advantage.

In the latest episode of the Who’s Really the Boss? podcast, Goodman shares the raw details of his journey, including the pivotal moments when crisis became his catalyst for growth.

From Churches to CPAs: The Humble Beginning

Goodman’s story doesn’t start with grand business plans or venture capital. It starts with chickens, three young boys (ages 5, 4, and 2), and a simple desire to help churches with their bookkeeping while maintaining work-life balance.

In December 2019, fresh out of his MBA program, Goodman launched what he thought would be a small bookkeeping practice focused on churches. “I have some mentors doing this and only working 20 or 30 hours a week,” he explains.

But a conversation with Jim, an experienced CPA firm owner, changed everything. When Goodman pitched his church bookkeeping idea, Jim asked the hard question: “What are your credentials? Do you have any experience? Do you have any education?”

Goodman had an MBA but admitted to a limited accounting background. Jim’s response was direct: “Well, no one’s going to trust you if you don’t either have education or experience.”

Instead of getting defensive, Goodman chose to be teachable. Within a week, he re-enrolled in school for his accounting certificate so he could sit for the CPA exam. Jim sweetened the deal: complete a tax course, and he’d bring Goodman on as an intern for the 2020 tax season.

The Crisis That Changed Everything

By 2022, things looked promising on the surface. Goodman had purchased Jim’s practice (Jim was 85 at the time) and another practice through owner financing. But underneath, the numbers weren’t adding up.

The problem was embarrassingly simple and devastatingly expensive. Goodman had built his budget in Excel, but made a critical error. “I got the calculation wrong. My shareholder distributions were being added back to the cash,” he explains. “When I figured it out, I was like, oh, we only have like three months left, and we’re not going to make it to next tax season.”

The timing couldn’t have been worse. The CPA he’d hired was asking for more money than the firm simply couldn’t afford. “That was my first time terminating somebody. And that went very poorly,” Goodman admits.

That’s when the rice and beans period began. “We bought the big bulk bag of rice and did that whole thing to make it work,” he says. They were literally living on the most basic provisions while trying to save their struggling business.

But this rock-bottom moment became Goodman’s turning point. Instead of giving up, he finally discovered something that would transform his business: CPA communities and coaching groups.

“I did not even know that CPA communities existed, that there were other CPA owners out there that would share common knowledge. And so I was just going blind through 2022. And that was a very dark year for the business,” he reflects.

The transformation began in August 2022 when he found coaching groups that taught him proper pricing strategies and service delivery models. “I could price a 1040, but to price a CFO engagement or a bookkeeping engagement, I was just shooting from the hip and hoping for the best.”

The Systematic Turnaround

The results were immediate and dramatic. After implementing the new models and pricing strategies, Goodman’s firm grew from roughly $300,000 to $1.2 million in revenue in 2023—a nearly 300% increase in a single year.

Part of this growth came from strategic acquisitions. The acquired practices brought about $150,000 in revenue, and a third acquisition added $275,000. But the real growth came from transforming how they served existing clients.

“We were able to present to them, hey, instead of getting your financials once a year, what if we did your bookkeeping once a month, and you could make some more decisions? And what if we could save you $30,000 in taxes next year, and it’ll cost you a fraction of that, but it’s more than you’re paying now?” Goodman explains.

The firm also benefited from being the only CPA practice in Black Mountain. “We’re the only people here that can provide this service now,” Goodman notes, which helped with client retention during the transition.

Building Systems That Weather Storms (Literally)

By 2024, the firm had grown to 12 team members working in a hybrid model. Some work in the office, others are fully remote, and they even have team members in the Philippines. But their systems faced the ultimate test in September 2024 when Hurricane Helene hit.

“The eye of the storm went through our town,” Goodman explains. “About a 10th of a mile down from our house turned into a lake.” While their community was devastated, with power lines down and infrastructure destroyed, Goodman made a crucial decision.

“We’re like, well, we could take the server, take the networking equipment so people can VPN to the office, and we can set it up at my parents’ house in Roanoke, Virginia,” he recalls. “So we drove to Roanoke, plugged in the server, hooked it up to their internet, and then our team could work from my parents’ living room.”

This wasn’t just crisis management—it showed how the firm’s systems had evolved to handle unexpected challenges. The team maintained operations while their entire region struggled with basic utilities.

The Power of Peer Networks

Goodman’s discovery of peer communities happened almost by accident, but it became a game-changer for his business. During summer 2024, while mowing his lawn and trying to complete CPE requirements, he discovered he could listen to accounting podcasts instead of sitting through webinars.

“A friend of mine told me about Earmark to earn CPE with podcasts. I was like, ‘This is great. Now I don’t have to sit down for like a webinar or something,’” he explains.

That’s when he found the “Who’s Really the Boss?” podcast and heard discussions about fractional CFO services and team structures, and listening to the podcast helped him discover the team structure the firm needed to move toward.

The remarkable part? His firm had just overhauled its structure two months earlier. But instead of sticking with something that wasn’t working, Goodman brought the new model to his leadership team with complete honesty. A willingness to abandon recent work in favor of proven systems accelerated their growth significantly.

Current Focus and Future Goals

Today, Goodman’s firm operates with metrics and systems that would impress much larger practices. Team members earn performance bonuses based on four specific metrics: maintaining accuracy above 90%, achieving client satisfaction scores of 90% or above, keeping client retention at 90% or above, and completing month-end closes by the 15th.

The firm also specializes in serving direct primary care practices—doctors who’ve left the traditional healthcare system for a subscription-based model. “We really believe in what they’re doing and the model they’re building. So we’re trying to be the great back office so they can focus on patient care,” Goodman explains.

They’ve even hired a dedicated salesperson with a compensation structure of $50,000 base plus 8% on collected revenue and 4% on first-year residuals. It’s a sophisticated operation for a firm that’s only five years old.

The firm’s current focus is on process optimization and AI implementation to help their team work more efficiently. Their goal? A 36-hour workweek with half-day Fridays while maintaining their growth trajectory toward $2.5 million in revenue.

The Lessons That Matter

Looking back, Goodman’s transformation offers clear lessons for other firm owners:

Be willing to admit what you don’t know. “I’ve been surprised at how many people are relatively open with what they’re doing and willing and wanting to help you and your development,” he reflects. “And so just asking the question, asking for a virtual coffee has been extremely helpful.”
Find your community. The isolation of trying to figure everything out alone nearly destroyed Goodman’s business. Once he found coaching groups and peer networks, his growth accelerated dramatically.
Implement proven systems rather than reinventing them. Goodman’s breakthrough came when he stopped trying to create everything from scratch and started following blueprints that other successful firms had already tested.
Stay teachable. When Goodman discovered the team-of-three structure just months after reorganizing his firm, he didn’t let pride prevent him from making another change. That flexibility to adapt has been crucial to his success.

At 29 years old, Goodman is quick to acknowledge he still has much to learn. “I love to learn from people who have been here and done that,” he says.

His advice to other young firm owners facing similar challenges is simple: “Don’t stress out so much. It will work out.” But pair that with action: seek mentorship, join communities, and be willing to admit when you need help.

Your Next Step

Goodman’s story offers insights into pricing strategies, team structures, acquisition approaches, and the systems that enabled his dramatic growth. If you’re ready to move beyond struggling alone and start leveraging the collective wisdom of successful practitioners, listen to his full interview on “Who’s Really the Boss?

Sometimes the difference between eating rice and beans and building a multi-million dollar firm isn’t what you know; it’s your willingness to learn from those who’ve already walked the path.

The crisis that could have ended Goodman’s entrepreneurial dreams became the foundation for extraordinary growth. Your current challenges might be setting the stage for your own breakthrough if you’re willing to be teachable enough to find it.