Today's Technology for Tomorrow's Firm.
Issue link: https://cpapracticeadvisor.epubxp.com/i/123770
MY PERSPECTIVE thought were the best things to achieve growth. We moved our offices to a new, more appealing location, and I started building relationships with bankers, attorneys, and other business leaders in town to generating new business leads. And we did indeed grow. Within the frst fve years, we took annual gross annual revenue from $120K to $800K and had increased our staf to more than 20. By this time, the late 1980s, the technology revolution was starting change along with their enterprises. Gerber told the story of a bakery owner who started the business based on her passion for baking. Te business became successful and soon the owner was overwhelmed with managing a growing business while trying to continue being the baker. Instead of being liberating, her dream of bei ng her ow n boss beca me frm operated and earned revenue, from technologies and workf low management to staffing and new business development. Slowly and steadily, I felt myself reclaiming my personal life and controlling my business, rather than the business controlling me. I found myself no longer overwhelmed by being a technician—I was able to work 'on' THE BIG LESSON WAS THIS: I COULD NO LONGER DO IT ALL MYSELF. to f undamentally change the profession. This, along w ith our rapid growth, began to underscore the polar extremes of how Dad and I practiced accounting. We decided that it would be best for him to be able to continue in his practice while I started my own frm. I launched Root & Associates CPAs, with an intense focus on growth. With each new client, I reinvested in the frm, acquiring new software, an email server, mobile phones, and other technologies that boosted our ability to handle more work. But there was an underlying problem—the more the frm grew, the more life began to pass me by. I had simply recreated the same basic work environment that I experie n c e d i n m y d a d 's f i r m a n d Deloite—LONG HOURS. One weekend, tired and discouraged, I picked up Michael Gerber's book, The E-Myth, a study of the lifecycles of small businesses and how entrepreneurs need to grow and enslaving. She was merely a technician within her business—working in the bakery, while at the same time trying to lead it. Tis story immediately struck a chord with me. It was my story. I was a good technician and good at cultivating growth, but now I was about to choke on the very success that I worked so hard to achieve. Te big lesson was this: I could no longer do it all myself. My frm had to be able to function with or without me present. To accomplish this, I needed to build a system for staf to work within effectively and efficiently. This was the real turning point for my business, and it was liberating, both personally and professionally. It took a period of several years to make the change. I had to rethink virtually every aspect of how my similar struggles today, I realized just how important it is to share my experience with others. In 2006, I assembled a small team to create RootWorks LLC. Together, we worked to compile and articulate the concepts, methods, and models that transfor med my f ir m and extend them to the community of sma l l accounting f ir ms across America. We move frms along the same path that I carved out for my own practice, helping them to avoid the pitfalls and giving them an accelerated start with all of the essentials. Reaching leaders of sma l l f i r ms t h rough RootWorks and in my role as Executive Editor of CPA Practice Advisor has become a way to realize what has become my greatest passion— working to change our profession f rom t he inside out and create a beter quality of life for us all in the process. I never imagined I'd IN A WORLD WHERE QUALITY CAREER OPPORTUNITIES APPEAR TO BE INCREASINGLY SCARCE, OUR INDUSTRY OFFERS INCREDIBLE PROMISE FOR THIS AND FUTURE GENERATIONS OF PRACTITIONERS. my business, rather than 'in' my busi ness. I was ea r n i ng more, work ing a reasonable, hea lt hy number of hours and enjoying it all more than ever before. It was a long journey with a lot of pain points along the way, but it was worth every efort. It changed my outlook dramatically, and it made me realize that if this approach can transform my practice, it can change t he ent i re profession. W hen I recalled the long hours my father worked, and considered nearly 140,000 small frms that are facing get a second wind like this more than halfway through my career. But I'm motivated by what our profession has to ofer. In a world where quality career opportunities appear to be i ncreasi ng ly sca rce, ou r industry ofers incredible promise for this and future generations of practitioners. I'm proud to be part of this profession, and I'm energized to make it something greater than ever before. I hope you are, too. May 2013 • www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com 5