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Half a Million in Six Months: How to Transform Firm Value
Accountant's Flight Plan
Bill and Chris Murphy increased their firm's value by half a million dollars in six months. They weren't desperate to sell, just ready to work reasonable hours with clients they liked. So they did something about it. They fired almost all their individual tax clients and more than doubled their fees.
The result? They gained revenue and clients happily paid for the valuable work they provided. Their firm had the capacity to provide even better service to their remaining clients. . And when they sold their firm with us back in 2022, they closed for $500,000 more than their original listing price.
This is a husband-and-wife team who merged their separate practices, worked themselves into the ground, and then made the hard decisions that transformed everything. They cut unprofitable clients, raised prices dramatically, restructured staff workload through weekly meetings, and learned to trust the process even when it felt uncomfortable.
Bill and Chris didn't just sell their firm. They sold a better firm, a more profitable firm, a firm that didn't depend on them working unreasonable hours. And they did it by firing clients who don't fit, charging what they're worth, and trusting that the revenue will come back.
This episode is for firm owners who know there is a better way to build a balanced practice, but haven’t known how to get there. This is a success case study on the power focus!
Key Timestamps:
02:21 - Bill's biggest roadblock: staying in the weeds and not developing staff
04:18 - The mental, spiritual, and physical toll of holding onto all the work
07:12 - The big move: firing almost all individual tax clients
08:35 - How the first APA lesson paid for the entire workshop
09:57 - The biggest obstacle to letting clients go: themselves, not the clients
12:49 - How pruning clients created capacity for everything else
13:21 - Doubling fees and the apology that worked
14:37 - "I'm sorry for undercharging you before."
16:02 - You have to put the work in, APA isn't passive
17:14 - Monday morning meetings: agenda, time limit, workload reallocation
19:16 - Driving the bus vs. riding in the back seat
24:24 - Book recommendation: Walk Away Wealthy by Mark Tepper