Accountant's Flight Plan
Welcome to The Accountant's Flight Plan, where we guide you toward building a top-tier CPA firm that you would want to buy. With over 20 years of working with accountants in mergers and acquisitions, Brannon Poe, CPA delves into engaging and vital topics with industry leaders. Unpacking everything from transition planning and accounting practice sales to practice management and firm development, Brannon equips you with the tools you need to build the practice of your dreams. Whether you are navigating firm growth or exploring the nuances of succession planning, join us to learn actionable insights that will empower and inspire you to love your firm again.
Episodes
132 episodes
What Buyers Are Really Looking For
A niche accounting firm with 45% cash flow and 1,500 owner hours sold for 5.6 million dollars on 2.6 million in revenue. That is the kind of result possible when a CPA firm owner gets intentional about the factors buyers care about most. In thi...
How Choosing Better Clients Builds More Profitable Accounting Firms
Ric Payne has been thinking about how accountants build better practices for decades. If you have been in the industry for a while, you likely know about Ric Payne. He co-founded Results Accounting Systems in 1992, ran the Accountan...
How a $1.5M Firm Grew to $7M Organically with Jason Ackerman
Jason Ackerman, Co-Managing Partner at BNA Advisors, helped grow the firm from a $1.5 million firm to over $7 million organically, without acquiring a single practice. He joined his father's firm in 2012, scaled the team from 14 to 35 people, a...
How to Get a 4-day Weekend During Tax Season
Chip Summers worked 2,900 hours a year for over 25 years. Every Saturday. Some Sundays. Always behind. Then he made a series of decisions that transformed his firm.He raised prices across the board. He moved on from high-maintenance, lo...
How Niching Down to Veterinarians Built a 15X Practice
Greg Toner kept only his best clients, raised prices, picked one niche, and grew his practice 15X.While many CPAs accept any business that comes their way, Greg found success by being highly selective. He looked at his client lis...
Half a Million in Six Months: How to Transform Firm Value
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...
What Makes an Accounting Firm Prosper? Key Insights from Helping Hundreds of Firm Owners
Part of the Power of Focus Mini-SeriesWhat really separates great accounting firms from the rest?That question is what led Brannon Poe and Ian Brennan to put together this mini-series. And after years of working wi...
Navigating the Sale of a CPA Practice From A Seller Turned Intermediary
Barbara Agerton flunked retirement. After selling her California CPA practice, she thought she'd ride off into the sunset with her husband. Instead, she got bored, picked up the phone, and asked if she could come work for the company that sold ...
The State of CPA Firm M&A: Private Equity, Timing & the Headline Offer Trap
Private equity is flooding into accounting, but taking an offer because of the flashy number on the table isn’t always the best decision.In this crossover episode with the Inside Public Accounting Podcast, Brannon Poe joins host Rob Bro...
The Readiness Test: How to Know If You're Ready to Sell Your Firm
Selling your accounting firm is a major life transition and that often comes with an emotional tax that proper strategy can mitigate.Lisa Handziak, who covers much of the Northeast and Midwest for Poe Group Advisors, has guided owners t...
AI Won't Replace CPAs. It'll Free Them to Do Work That Actually Matters
The firms winning with AI aren't the ones implementing every tool they can find. They're the ones being strategic about what actually moves the needle.Rachel Ferris learned this firsthand when she built TaxStack AI, not because she wante...
Why Now Is the Perfect Time to Build a Firm That Prioritizes Mentorship with Yuri Kapilovich
In this episode, Yuri (aka "The Fun CPA") explains why now is the perfect time to build the kind of firm where people genuinely want to work. He's spent four years building a following on LinkedIn by saying the things that managers and s...
The Retention Advantage: How CPA Firms Win the Talent Game
If your best accountants are walking out the door, it's probably not about the money. In this episode, Tim Schurrer (CEO of David Novak Leadership and author of "The Secret Society of Success") reveals the leadership princ...
When Internal Succession Fails: Why Multi-Partner CPA Firms Are Turning to External Sales
You've spent years developing your next generation of partners, but what happens when they don't want to lead, can't secure financing, or simply aren't the right fit to take over? In this episode, our Ontario Market Le...
From Survival Mode to Sustainable Success in Your CPA Firm with Lisa Smith
In this episode, we sit down with Lisa Smith who is a functional medicine dietitian, gut-health expert, and founder of Lisa Smith Wellness. We explore the realities of deep stress and the health impacts that so many accounting firm owners quiet...
Building an Offshore Staffing Strategy for your CPA Firm with Nick Sinclair
In this episode, we sit down with returning guest Nick Sinclair, founder and chairman of TOA Global, one of the largest accounting outsourcing companies in the world. Nick shares the unlikely origin story...
Building Trust and Value In Your Accounting Firm Through Marketing with Kristen Corey
In this episode of The Accountant’s Flight Plan Podcast, we sit down with Kristen Corey, founder of Media Books Agency, to talk about how accountants can use marketing to strengthen their brand, attract ideal clients, and communicate value b...
The AI-First CPA Firm: Redefining Accounting with Jody Padar, The Radical CPA
In this episode of The Accountant’s Flight Plan Podcast, we sit down with Jody Padar, known across the industry as The Radical CPA, to discuss how artificial intelligence is reshaping the account...
Modern Accounting In the Age of AI: Scaling Your Firm, Adopting AI, and Maximizing Your Capacity with Mike Schwarz
In this episode of The Accountant’s Flight Plan Podcast, we sit down with Mike Schwarz, CEO of MyZone AI, to explore the evolving need for modern accounting firm leaders to adopt AI. In this episode, we discuss how AI ...
Grow Your Business Meaningfully with Rob Dube
Quality leadership that grows your accounting practice isn’t about pushing your team to work harder. While it may sound counterintuitive, modeling a healthy, balanced life is what actually moves the needle. In this episode of The ...
Private Equity Market Update in the Accounting Space: With Guest Morry Brown
The Evolving Role of Private EquityIn this special episode of The Accountant’s Flight Plan, Brannon meets with Morry Brown, regional market leader here at Poe Group Advisors, formerly of Goldman Sachs, to share a t...
Former Seller Raffi Yousefian Talks About How Niching Down Transformed His CPA Firm
From A Big Four Firm to Entrepreneurship In this special episode of The Accountant’s Flight Plan, Brannon sat down with Raffi Yousefian, a NY/DC-based CPA and entrepreneur, to discuss his journey to building a thriving tax p...
From the Archives - The Making of Accounting Practice Academy
We are taking a look back on an episode from the archives! Enjoy this retelling of how Accounting Practice Academy came to be.In this episode of the podcast, we have Ian Brennan (APA’s Creative Director), and my wife Carol Poe (PGA B...
Private Equity, Fit, and the Future of CPA Firm Deals with PGA Intermediary Morry Brown
In this episode of The Accountant’s Flight Plan Podcast, Brannon is joined by Morry Brown, California market leader at Poe Group Advisors and a longtime family friend. Morry shares his journey from Goldman Sachs to helping CPA firm own...
Building a Scalable Firm with Offshoring, AI, and Talent Strategy — with Wayne Findlay
In this episode of The Accountant’s Flight Plan, we are joined by Wayne Findlay—entrepreneur, founder of Findlay & Co., and CEO of The Back Room. Wayne shares his global perspective on how accounting firms can stay competitive in today’s...