Accountant's Flight Plan

Business owners are no longer only searching Google for an accountant. They are asking ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity who to hire, then uploading proposals, websites, and LinkedIn profiles and asking the AI whether a firm is the right fit. Ross Simmonds, founder and CEO of the B2B content marketing agency Foundation and founder of Distribution.ai, joins Brannon Poe to explain what this shift means for CPA firm owners.

Ross is the author of the Amazon bestseller Create Once, Distribute Forever and has been ranked by BuzzSumo among the top content marketers in the world. In...

Many CPA firm owners wait until they're ready to retire to ask who can replace them. Susan Stutzel, CPA, business performance coach, and co-owner of Partners Coach Inc., believes that question should start the day a new hire walks in the door. In this episode of The Accountant's Flight Plan, Brannon Poe and Susan explore how developing leadership and professional skills at every level builds a stronger accounting practice and a smoother path to firm succession.

Susan brings more than 25 years of experience in public accounting, including roles at a top five national firm, a regional firm...

One CPA firm owner received 11 offers and chose the buyer he liked best. That buyer paid above asking price even after learning the firm's cash flow was lower than reported. Outcomes like that happen when sellers have leverage. In this episode of The Accountant's Flight Plan, Brannon Poe and Morry Brown, Poe Group Advisors' Regional Market Leader for California, look at what matters after price in accounting firm M&A: buyer fit, leverage, and control of the timeline.

About a third of CPA firm owners on Poe Group Advisors webinars say they have received an unsolicited letter...

Ed Rivera is a director with BDO Alliance USA, a network of 255 CPA firms and 180 Business Resource Network firms across the country. As an accounting firm owner or practice leader, the question Ed hears most is whether ownership structure determines success. His answer: it does not. Across the public accounting firms he works with, what separates growing practices from stalled ones is leadership alignment, not whether the firm is a traditional partnership, private equity backed, or an ESOP.

In this episode, Ed and Brannon dig into the volume of private equity interest reaching CPA firm owners today...

Brannon Poe and Bailey Ball, Chief Growth Officer at Poe Group Advisors, sit down to talk through the questions coming up most often on sales calls with accounting firm owners right now. Bailey brings a recent listing to life: a CPA firm with a large individual tax practice went to market with updated cash flow numbers, drew a wave of private equity interest, and saw its valuation move from the original asking range to double. The buyers driving that competition had access to AI tools that automate simple tax returns, which meant higher margins on the acquired practice and...

Private equity has pushed CPA firm valuations higher than anyone expected, and Brannon Poe says the accounting profession still has significant runway left. In this solo episode, Brannon steps away from the usual guest format to share a market update: where private equity stands in accounting M&A, how AI is reshaping which practices are in demand, and what firm owners should understand about valuation before they consider a sale.

Brannon walks through why the accounting industry remains more fragmented than sectors like veterinary, dental, and healthcare, and why that suggests more consolidation is ahead. He explains...

Rebekah Brown Olson didn't plan to lead a state CPA society. A single leadership assessment during a firm training session reframed how she saw her own strengths, and thirteen years later she's the CEO of the Maryland Association of CPAs, connecting firm leaders across the profession every day. In this conversation, Brannon Poe talks with Rebekah about what's really driving change in accounting right now, and why she believes community, not information, is what separates firms that thrive from firms that struggle.

Rebekah shares an encouraging read on the student pipeline, pointing to strong turnout and impressive...

Kristen McGarr has spent over 20 years helping businesses implement CRM systems that actually work. Her core belief is that the future of CRM isn't about more technology, it's about more humanity. For CPA firm owners who have tried a CRM, abandoned it, or never started one at all, that perspective changes the conversation entirely.

Kristen is the founder of Adroit Insights and CRM Growth, a growth strategist, fractional chief revenue officer, and CRM implementation specialist. She works across platforms like Zoho, HubSpot, and ActiveCampaign, and she is known for making complex systems genuinely approachable. In this conversation...

Frank Longobardi started a five-person CPA firm in Hartford, Connecticut on November 1st, 1984, with a first-year revenue goal of $300,000. For the next 23 consecutive years, the firm grew both top and bottom line, every single year. By the time he and his partner decided to merge up, they had built a $14.5 million firm with over 100 people and ten partners.

In this conversation, Frank walks through every phase of that journey with the kind of candor that only comes from having lived it. He talks about the early days of working 3,000-plus hours a year, the moment he realized...

Brian Gray made partner at a top 100 CPA firm, built a career advising billionaires and high-net-worth families on complex tax strategies, and then realized that none of it had made him any happier.

Brian is a tax partner, award-winning CPA, frequent speaker at the USC Tax Institute, and the author of Suck Less, Laugh More. He has had a front-row seat to some of the world's most successful entrepreneurs and noticed a pattern: about 10% of them get the balance right and 90% are still searching. By his early forties, he recognized himself in that pattern. He was helping...

Meghan Hickman has spent over three years as our EOS implementer at Poe Group Advisors, and this conversation is one we have been looking forward to sharing. Meghan works with entrepreneurial leadership teams to help them build structure, create accountability, and scale with intention. She has helped over 40 organizations do exactly that, including ours.

The conversation covers:

Joe Woodard has trained over 150,000 accounting professionals and spent his career studying what separates firms that grow from firms that stay stuck. His answer? It almost always starts with pricing.

In this conversation, Joe walks through the Woodard Ideal Practice Model, which focuses on seven key areas of operational excellence: brand, services, clients, technology, process, engagements, and team. But the most actionable insight he shares is simpler than a seven-part framework. He says the very first lever any firm should pull is pricing, and he lays out a specific strategy for doing it. Double the price on...

Seven episodes. Dozens of real-world examples. One recurring answer.

Brannon Poe and Ian Brennan sit down one more time to close out the Power of Focus series. Throughout this series, the pattern that emerges is hard to ignore: the firms that get results are the ones that get intentional about where they put their energy.

This episode is for accounting firm owners who have listened to the series and are ready to identify their first move, practitioners curious about how the 80/20 Principle applies to their client list and services, leaders wondering how to...

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 this episode, Brannon Poe sits down with Laurens Ball, a highly accomplished intermediary at Poe Group Advisors, to break down what really drives practice valuations in today's market.

This is the latest episode in our Power of Focus series, where we explore how CPA firm owners use focus as a strategic advantage. Laurens brings real-world case studies...

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 Accountants Boot Camp across multiple continents, and worked with thousands of firms around the world. 

His conclusion? High-performing firms are selective about who they work with. 

The conversation also features Ian Brennan, director of Accounting Practice Academy (APA), a PGA workshop. Ian and Ric discuss how intentional client selection is foundational to everything else a firm tri...

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, and built systems that allow the firm to handle more than 2,000 individual tax returns per year. His approach combines practical technology adoption, intentional pricing strategy, and a long view on people and talent.

This is the fifth episode in our Power of Focus series and Jason's story is a strong example of what is possible when a firm stops trying to...

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, low-return clients. He gave up control and let his staff handle work from start to finish. He invested in technology that made everyone more efficient. And in December 2025, for the first time in over 25 years, he was caught up. He had almost nothing to do. It felt weird, but wonderful.

Today, Chip's eight-person firm in Orangeburg, South Carolina...

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 list, identified the bottom 10% who weren't getting value from his work, and let them go. Then he raised fees on the clients who remained. His team didn't complain. His revenue didn't drop. And the capacity he created allowed him to focus exclusively on serving veterinarians across Canada.

Today, Greg works with 360 vet practices from...

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...

Part of the Power of Focus Mini-Series

What 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 with firm owners across the country, lifting up the hood on hundreds of practices, the answer kept coming back to the same thing: focus.

Welcome to the Power of Focus, a mini-series produced in partnership with Accounting Practice Academy. Throughout the series, you'll hear from APA alumni, members of our Poe Group team, and other...

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 her firm.

Now she's an intermediary at Poe Group Advisors, which means she gets to help other firm owners navigate the exact journey she just completed. Barbara knows what it feels like to let go of the practice you built, to wonder if you're doing the right thing, and to discover that the transition you were...

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 Brown to break down what’s really happening in CPA firm M&A right now. After attending a private equity conference at Harvard Business School, Brannon shares why this may be the most exciting—and chaotic—era he’s seen since entering the M&A space in 2003.

Accounting firms check every box private equity investors love: recurring...

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 through successful exits. She's learned that the sellers who thrive during this transition aren't the ones who avoid emotions; they're the ones who understand how to channel them productively. Take confidentiality, for example. Sellers often feel guilty keeping the sale from their staff, but Lisa reframes it completely: You're not keeping a secret. You're creating stability. When you...

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 wanted to start a software company, but because she needed a solution that didn't exist. As a tax advisor specializing in Puerto Rico's Act 60, she was spending hours researching complex state-specific cases. ChatGPT seemed like the answer, until it started citing Reddit and Quora as sources. When she'd call it out, it would cheerfully admit, "You're right, that's actually...

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 senior accountants at big firms are thinking but can't say out loud. 

His mission is to change the perception of accounting by showing what's possible when you prioritize people, mentorship, and actually enjoying the work you do.

The good news is that students aren't avoiding accounting because they don't want m...

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 principle that grew Yum! Brands from $4 billion to $32 billion, and it has everything to do with solving what's plaguing CPA firms right now: the talent crisis.

Here's the reality: when your senior accountant flawlessly closes out another month, files returns ahead of deadline, or navigates a complex client situation without you even knowing there w...