The Art of Succession

AI is going to replace us as tax

preparers. We fell for the tax return

lie, the tax return trap, because it was

easy recurring revenue. They want a $400

tax return. They can go and they can

find a $400 tax return. I'm going to

prepare tax returns for $40,000. You're

going to exit your business someday. Do

you want to do it on your terms or do

you want to do it on whatever terms are

forced on you? We want all of our

clients to come in with one vision for

what they are going to get from our

firm. We won't have a company legacy to

pass on to another generation unless we

continue to innovate what that company

does and what it brings to the market.

You are paying us on a monthly

subscription for our empathy, our

empowerment, our accountability, and our

foresight. Start asking, "Am I on the

right bus?"

Welcome to the Art of Succession podcast

with Barrett Young. Join us as we

explore the strategies, stories, and

insights that shape the journey of

leadership transitions and business

success. No matter where you find

yourself along the journey, this is the

podcast where you'll find the tools to

make it happen.

My name is Barrett Young and this is the

Art of Succession podcast. It's time for

our first quarterly update. So, uh, at

the start of season 3, I talked about

how one of the changes that I wanted to

make to the podcast this season was to

provide an update on a quarterly basis,

so twice every season of where we at

GWCPA are at in our own succession

journey. So, we are an 80-year-old CPA

firm. My partner Sam and I are the

current partners in the company. She is

6 years away from retirement herself and

then I will take over as managing

partner of the firm. We're currently in

the process of retiring fully another

partner who preceded Sam and myself. And

we're in the process of identifying my

successors, the partners that will

follow along behind me. Our goal as a

company is to have two of those partners

in the pipeline when Sam retires within

six years. Uh and we are currently

working towards that as well. So that's

the big picture of where we are at. We

are a multigenerational business. We

have been around uh for a long time.

We've worked with a lot of clients that

have been around for many decades uh

into the second, third, fourth

generation even for some of these

clients. And that's who we work with.

The Art of Succession is not just a

target market for us. It is us. And so I

wanted to get behind the scenes in these

episodes each quarter and share some of

the own nuts and bolts of our company

every 3 months of where we are at and

how we're making progress towards the

future. Um I'm going to get into

entrepreneurial operating system now.

That's probably the biggest change that

we've made in this quarter. um probably

going to be one of the biggest impacts

we've had on the company um at least in

the past two years since we've rebranded

um and focused our company but probably

as a building block for the future

moving forward probably going to be one

of the biggest changes we've made. Um

but what that's helped also is to bring

focus to who we are and who our target

client is. So for the past two years

we've said that we work on

multigenerational businesses. We help

with the transition. We help with

bridging that gap between the

predecessor generation and the successor

generation. There's a lot of tax

implications there. There's a lot of

systems that need to be in place in

order for that to proceed smoothly and

make sure that the company is able to

operate after that um entrepreneurial

founder generation retires and steps

back from their company.

But we also know that that's a once-

ina-lifetime transaction for most

businesses or a once- ina generation

transaction obviously for a lot of

businesses and it doesn't really capture

who we are, who we work with and how we

want to work with our clients. We do not

want to work with clients in just the

two years leading up to that

transaction. We're not M&A advisors.

We're not business brokers. And really,

if we're only brought in in those last

couple months to do the financial

transaction, the tax return for that

transition, you're really missing out on

the power of what we can offer to our

clients. And so, as we are working

through EOS, we've identified our

leadership team. We're working through

what does our brand say? Why are we

here? One of the clarity moments that

came to us in our last meeting with our

implementer um which is vision day

number one. One of the things that came

to us is that we're not just here for

the transition from one generation to

another because a lot of businesses can

transfer hands who our target market is

is the companies that realize that there

is not going to be a legacy there for

the next generation unless they continue

to innovate the company. So we're also

not just here for the innovative

companies. We're here for the innovative

legacy companies or as we have put it on

our website and as we're starting to

define that innovation to build

longevity. That's who we really want to

work with. On the one side you've got

innovative companies. You've got

startups. You've got Silicon Valley

funded angel investors. You've got

really innovative companies doing really

interesting things that want to cash out

and sell the company. go series fund it

and um cash out of the company within

five to seven years. That's the

innovation side. On the longevity side,

a company that has longevity that

doesn't have innovation is just, you

know, I've built a good living here in

this company. All you need to do as the

successor is step into this role and

continue to run this company the same

way I always have and continue to

receive benefit from it. Continue to

receive the cash flow from it and do the

same thing that I've always done for 20

30 years and don't rock the boat too

much. Don't destroy the engine that

produces the income within this

business. We don't really want to work

with either company in isolation. So

what we identified in our vision day one

is that we really want to work with

companies that realize that innovation

has to be married to longevity. We won't

have a company legacy to pass on to

another generation unless we continue to

innovate what that company does and what

it brings to the market because what a

company needed 15 years ago is not what

a company needs today. What a company

needs today is not going to be what a

company needs 5 10 years from now. We

think that this really does provide

interest to the incoming generation,

that successor generation, because I'm

not just saying step into this and

coast. I'm saying step into this. Put

your innovative entrepreneurial hat on

and how using the foundation of what

we've built in this company, the legacy

of this company, what needs to stay and

what do we need to change? What do we

need to adapt for the next generation of

clients that are going to rely on this

business of staff that are going to work

within this business? And so this has

been really helpful for me as the

marketing partner because it means that

I can talk about innovation on our

YouTube channel, on our blog posts.

You're going to start to see a lot more

posts about innovation, about changing

the systems within your company, not

just setting it up and forgetting it.

And it also helps to clarify, we want to

work with businesses in the 10 years

leading up to that transition. If you

are a client who comes to us and says,

look, succession is not on my radar. I'm

35 years old. I just got this company

started really. My kids are little. It

would probably be 20, 25 years before I

even think about bringing them into the

business to operate anything. Are you

the right fit for me? We can be. We can

be if you are interested in innovating

your business model. we can be if you

are interested in realizing that what

you offer today to the marketplace has

to adapt to a world with AI to a world

with um geopolitical concerns to a world

where attracting staff is going to

continue to be a challenge for

businesses so we can work with you. It

also gives us context for we want to

continue to be involved in that business

after the transition and so that was

always my concern. you know, as

marketing partner, I was always like, is

our target market the buyer or the

seller? On the buyer side, you have

people who are doing like the

entrepreneurial through acquisition uh

game out there, like the Cody Sanchez's

of the world or the acquisitions.com.

These are MBAs who are like, I just want

to own a business. I don't really care

what the business is in. I'm just

looking for a turnkey business that I

can step into and generate cash and

work, you know, buy one of these boring

businesses. That's on the buyer side. I

don't speak to that. I want to speak to

buyers who are like, I love this

profession. I've been doing it for 15

years. I really want to step up into the

ownership of this business and I have to

convince my boss, my parent to trust me

in this business that I am the person to

continue the legacy that we have here,

continue the services that we provide to

the small business market. The flip side

of that is as I'm doing marketing, I'm

like, do I work with the seller? Do I

work with the established business owner

who's probably already got a team of

advisors who's possibly not looking on

YouTube, not listening to podcasts in

order to identify their next uh advisor

or get advice on exit? They very well

could be. I mean, YouTube is huge among

the 50, 60y old generation. But is that

my target market? Is the is it the

buyer? And if that's the case, then how

do I make a case for continuing to use

us as your CPA firm after the

transaction happens? Um, and so this

innovation to build longevity really

relieves a lot of tension in my mind,

brings some clarity for me and then it

also brings clarity for my team. We

found in that vision day one, we spent

the afternoon talking about marketing

and things that are swirling around in

my head. You know, we talk about EOS. I

am the visionary. My partner Sam, she's

definitely an integrator.

I live and breathe what does the future

of our company look like 1015 years from

now. That's always at the forefront of

my mind. And so where I had been living

and breathing or marketing our target

avatar for the past two years, I had not

been doing a good job of communicating

that to our team. And that really came

out in that vision day. huge uh just

shift in the conversation, huge shift in

our company just in the first two

meetings that we've had with our EOS

implement. So I'm going to focus on that

real quickly. Just what is EOS and why

now? So Sam and I have known about EOS.

EOS is Juno Wickman. He wrote these

books. uh traction is his primary like

operating system to run a business. And

then he also wrote another book called

rocket fuel which really gives you that

visionary integrator. Blend those two

things together and it's like fuel and

oxygen to make the ship just take off.

He wrote these two books about 10 15

years ago. We had both read them

previous to us working together. we had

read them and really taken root with

some of the ideas and we tried to

implement a couple things along the way

since I joined here eight years ago. But

we went away to exit planning summit in

Florida back in May and we heard a lot

of things about SEPA certified exit

planning advisor uh which is a

designation that the exit planning

summit has really built its model around

and we heard a lot of things about how

well the EOS and SEPA work together. We

came back from that and we said, you

know, right now is a very transitional

phase for us as we've consolidated our

firm under Sam as the financial

statement and accounting partner under

myself as the tax partner. We are

consolidating marketing under one

person. I am the marketing partner. And

so we don't have CPAs out there building

their own book of business anymore. We

want all of our clients to come in with

one vision for what they are going to

get from our firm.

So this is very pivotal. Uh it's also a

lot of work that falls on both myself

and more on Sam just as the integrator.

And so we really needed to get the

entire team rowing in the same direction

on this boat. Um all heading in the same

direction. EOS talks about right seat,

right uh right person, right seat, and

it really is are you on the right bus.

So, you know, Sam and I have had some

like fights over the past couple months

as we are working through things, as we

are trying to stop miscommunication,

stop just lack of clarity or assumptions

or, you know, identifying who the right

role is and how they're accountable for

that and how they're held accountable

for that. sometimes mostly on my part by

her being the integrator, by me being

the visionary, needing deadlines, but

then also kicking against deadlines. Um,

so we've had some fights and Sam's

retirement is six years away, but it is

going to be here quick. I mean, six

years is a short time. It's been 5 years

since co and some days that seems like

just yesterday. So, her retirement is

coming soon and we don't want to wait

until the last minute. I mean that's our

message to our clients. Don't wait until

the last 6 months or the last year

before retirement to start planning for

this thing to start communicating this

thing. What I don't want and what the

risk having a strong integrator in the

managing partner role of our company the

risk is that Sam would be still involved

in so many things within the business

that when she steps away key man risk

it's one of the biggest destroyers of

value within a company. she steps away

from the company, who's going to be

there to pick up all of these pieces?

Who's going to be there to continue to

work on all the deadlines, all of the

processes that we have in place? And one

of the things that I wanted, you know,

EOS bringing in an impletor outside of

us so that it's not Sam that has to read

the book and figure it out. It's not me

who has to read the book, get excited

about it, and try to explain it to

everybody else. We brought in an outside

implementer so that she could put us on

the right track. She could tell us where

we are off track. She could tell us

where we need to face up and uh face

reality on some things. And she could

empower our leadership team to also

speak truth to us and be open and honest

with us because we have brought them

into this position in leadership. And so

we came back from exit planning summit.

It took about a month or two for us to

have some fights and really say we have

to prioritize this. And so we did. We

had our first meeting in July. We had

our second meeting a couple weeks later

that vision day one. We have got our

third meeting at here at the end of

September and then we've also invited

her to our annual planning retreat in

May uh when we go to Rahobath Beach,

Delaware. So she has brought a lot of

clarity to us in the company already.

One of the things you know saying we are

heading in this direction and we want a

leadership team to be on board with that

does confront people to start asking am

I on the right bus. One of the

unfortunate side effects of this but

necessary side effects of this is that

we've had a team member who's decided

that she doesn't want to be on this bus

anymore. 25 plus years of experience in

public accounting and she has decided

that it would be best if she leave

public accounting and she's gone and

taken a position with one of our larger

clients uh as their accounting

department as their controller. We wish

her the best in this. um we know that

it's going to be a great fit for the

client and it's going to be a great fit

for her because we would rather have a

team member get put in a position where

they're going to be happy somewhere else

if they're not able to be happy here. So

very difficult uh transition. We're

still in the process of doing that as

this episode airs, but that's the

clarity that we've gained through EOS.

One of the cool things that's also come

from it is we have another team member

who we're in talks with right now.

Hopefully by the time this airs, she

will have agreed to come back in. But

she worked with us about six or seven

years ago. She left to go to government.

Uh she left public accounting because of

the culture that we had, the firm, the

traditional model that we had at the

time. She had worked with us for about

five or six years up to that point and

left and went to government. She has

since come back. She was actually

brought back into the company by this um

accounting manager who's who's leaving

the company. She was brought back in.

She's seen how we've changed. She's seen

what Sam and I have done for the future

of this company. And it's become the

company that she always wanted to work

for. And so we are in talks of bringing

her back in to join the company as a as

a manager. And so that's been really

encouraging just to have somebody come

back. You know, I left public

accounting. I was out for about five and

a half years. I left because of time

sheets and I left because of just the

cyclical nature of tax season. I left

because clients I would only see them

once a year, do a quick tax return and

it would be like, "Bye, peace out. I'll

see you next February. Hopefully, you

call me or you email me before you make

any big decisions, but more than likely

I'm going to find out about it about a

year and a half after you've already

executed on that decision." And so I got

really burned out on these kind of

transactional relationships, handling

200 something transactional

relationships on an annual basis for

businesses where I'm like, you really

would benefit from having a CPA in your

corner year round, talking with you

regularly, growing your company, doing

more than just the tax preparation. So

that's one of the reasons I left public

accounting. I didn't leave GW. I didn't

work at GW prior to that, but I worked

at two other firms and I saw what public

accounting was like. So, I left for 5

and a half years. Sam actually left

public accounting at one point. She was

here at GW. She left and went to

government accounting for about a year

and a half, two years, uh, and ended up

coming back as well. So, we totally

understand. Sometimes staff need to go

and see the grass on the other side

looks greener, but it's usually covered

in manure. Um, I love that saying

because it has been so true in my own

life. Every time I'm like, I'm

dissatisfied. It's because of this. And

then I change that and I go try

something else. It's like six months

later I'm like, I'm dissatisfied again.

It's got to be this. And it's like, no,

the common thread in all of those things

was you, Barrett. And it was that

realization for me at about 28, 29 years

old, about the time I became a CPA and

then started my own company. It's like,

no, you've chosen to be dissatisfied

everywhere you go. Um, because you are

letting your situation determine your

satisfaction. You're letting your

situation determine the ambition that

you apply to the work that you do. And I

got off on a rabbit trail on this one,

but I I I want to say, you know, that's

that's the realization that really

matured me in my career and caused me to

make long-term decisions and not just I

hate Monday mornings and so obviously I

need to change jobs.

I don't know where that came from, but

that was just my personal rant on

passion, loving what you do. I read a

book about the same time, probably a

little bit after, I'd already made some

of those decisions. Cal Newport's book,

So Good They Can't Ignore You. Um, I

absolutely recommend this book to

anybody who is stuck in a career, stuck

in I don't feel like I'm passionate

about what I do on a daily basis. Cal

Newport's book is that skills trump

passion in the pursuit of work that you

love. He is absolutely not against

loving the work that you do. I think

everybody is going to appreciate their

career a lot more when they're work

doing work that they love. but chasing

um passion as the world understands

passion of this like almost romantic

feeling of oh I wake up every single day

and I can't wait to get to work and I

absolutely am in love with what I do

every single day. That's not real

passion. I mean the root word of

passion, you know, the passion of the

Christ. The root word, the Latin word

for passion is blood. It's like what are

you so passionate about doing that you

would continue to do it even when you

suffer.

That is what passion actually is. It's

not that there's not going to be ever

any Mondays where you're like, I don't

want to go to work. I'm obviously not

passionate about what I do. No, it's

what do you care so much about that even

when it stops being fun, even when you

go through periods, 6 months, a year,

two years where it is a grind, it is a

struggle, you're still so passionate

about it that you continue to show up

and you continue to do that work. So Cal

Newport's book, So Good They Can't

Ignore You, really flips that on its

head and says, "Instead of chasing work

that you're passionate about, you should

chase work that you are good at where

you're going to be able to gain some

autonomy." Um, you know, going to back

to Dan Pink's like cornerstone book for

my career, drive, autonomy, mastery, and

purpose. This is what gives you freedom

in your career. So skills lead to the

ability to say who you work with and who

you don't work with. That's in Cal

Newport's book. And people who are

skilled are able to set their own

schedule. They're able to determine what

kind of work they're going to do. And he

says that kind of work with being able

to say yes to certain things and say no

to other things. That is where passion

actually comes from in the long term. So

that is a long rant. That's not part of

this quarterly update for the company.

But again, this is just the this is how

my visionary brain works for one thing.

But this is why EOS is so important to

us is because I want to engage our team

in that direction saying this is who we

are here for. This is why the work that

we do matters. You know, when you're

just doing a tax return and then you

finish it and you move on to the next

tax return and you do, you know, 50 or

60 of those and then it's like, all

right, that season's over. Get ready for

next season. That can start to drain

you. And I think that that's why public

accounting uh just kills people in our

profession so much because you never

step back and you never see what that

tax return actually enables. That's who

we want to focus on at GW is we want to

work with clients who don't just see us

as a tax processor but see us as an

instrumental part of the success of

their business. Because we are changing

their systems. We are helping them

innovate so that they have a company

that's going to survive into the next

generation. And when we as financial

adviserss get married up to

entrepreneurial business owners who've

got this spark, this thing that they

want to change in the economy, some good

that they want to do within their

community, we are able to again like

rocket fuel, we are able to marry that

up and make sure that the community is

better because of that. I didn't go to

school so that I could fill out all the

lines correctly on a 1065 and process it

for as cheap as possible so that the IRS

would stay off my business owners backs.

That's an important part of what we do.

But that's not why I went to school. I

went to school because I wanted to

understand what business is. I wanted to

understand how that information actually

benefits business owners. And then we

built this barrier between what we know

and what our business owners think that

they're paying us. And so they want to

comply as cheap as possible with this

requirements with the filing deadlines.

And we put this barrier there called the

billable hour. And so they're afraid to

ask us any more complicated questions

than that because they don't want to pay

more than necessary for the tax return.

So for the future of GW, we have got to

get away from tax returns. This is also

what just drives my brain on a regular

basis as the visionary of the company is

I know 6 years from now when Sam steps

away from this company AI is going to be

doing the tax returns. I think it's

going to be sooner than that. But if I

am counting on us continuing to fill out

tax returns and process them and send

them to people who just need tax returns

and then they walk away and we see them

again next year, that business is going

to be gone six years from now. I am

going to buy a business that the engine

has been stripped out by technology

unless we are on the cutting edge of AI

implementation for tax preparation.

Unless we are the ones who are driving

that change, leaning into it and then

saying, "Okay, awesome. Tax return done.

AI prepared the tax return, reviewed by

a human. We are done. Let's move

forward." Now that that has been taken

off of our plates, what can we do with

the time that we've built into this

agreement, with the recurring meetings

that we've built into this agreement so

that you can actually get the advice

that you care about that helps you run

your business? You know, so many

business owners are just wandering

around out there googling and trying to

find as many free tips as they can when

they've got a CPA that they have on, you

know, their top five speed dial or what.

Nobody uses a phone anymore. Some of my

clients do, but I'm trying to get them

away from it. But they've got somebody

in their Rolodex. They've got somebody

in their Outlook address book who would

love to have these conversations with

them, but we're so busy because I've got

to move on and process another 80 of

these tax returns this month so that I

can't answer your question. By building

into that relationship, by becoming that

trusted adviser that all of us got into

this profession to become. We did not

get into this profession to fill out tax

returns. We fell for the tax return lie,

the tax return trap, because it was easy

recurring revenue. It was something that

the government required and our clients

looked to us to do it. But that's not

why we got into this business. That's

not why most of us got into this

business. It is a byproduct. it is a

necessary evil of running a business,

but we really want to talk about how to

grow your business. And most people

don't look at their CPAs that way. Uh

they might look at a coach, they might

look at a consultant that way, but

you've got somebody who's not only got a

degree, but got a rigorous exam, got

other certifications, has annual

training in the principles of running a

business, and all you do is you look at

them and you see tax return. So where

are we going in the future? AI is going

to replace us as tax preparers. AI is

going to replace us even as tax advice

givers. Um tax planning is going to be

done by AI. Bookkeeping obviously is

going to be done by AI. Where we are

going to be in the future. This is what

I love about my realization came about

two months ago from this. You know we

two years ago defined our core values in

GWCPA. Our core values are empathy,

accountability, empowerment and

foresight. These are the human traits

that we bring to our clients. These are

the things that we say are important.

You don't have to have the exact same

core values, but you have to respect our

core values and you have to not violate

our core values in order to be a client

here. And you have to hold us

accountable if we are not living up to

our core values. So, we built this in um

it's not just a statement for us. It's

not just something we have on the wall,

although it is on our wall when you walk

into our office. It is something that we

say this is who we are as a company and

this is what the work we bring to the

work. I was having this realization as

I'm thinking about like who what are

people going to pay for in the future.

They're not going to pay for a tax

return. That's going to be done by AI. I

can fight against that and I can I could

work only with the clients that want

humans to do it, but that's going to be

a losing game. Those clients are

eventually going to die off and 40 50

years from now, nobody's going to think

that anymore. Just the same way most

people don't still walk into a bank.

There are some holdouts that walk into a

bank and get their cash across the

counter, but most of us have adapted and

become ATM users. You know, there was a

huge fear. I was reading this in an

article about a week or two ago. There

was a huge fear when ATMs came in. It's

like it destroys the banking

relationship. Do you know what

profession has actually thrived in a

different sense in the 20 years since

ATMs have become commonplace? Personal

bankers. So, they're no longer passing

you money across a counter, counting out

the bills and handing it to you know,

they're handling your financial

questions that you have when you do go

into a bank. Now, I don't go into a

bank. I bank online. But there are

people like my in-laws who go into banks

and get cash out, talk to personal

bankers. They want to have somebody

locally that they have a relationship

with. So, that position has shifted, but

it's also thrived. Those bank personal

bankers are no longer bank tellers just

handing money across the counter. They

are now getting more involved in their

clients lives. They are building better

and deeper relationships. There's a lot

fewer of them. But the ones that are

continuing in that profession, the ones

who are moving into that profession are

having a better quality of life. I think

that that's going to be what the future

of CPA profession is. Uh when AI does

the tax return, there's going to be

fewer of us. uh which is great because

there are a lot of us retiring in the

next 10 years as the baby boomers leave

the profession. They're not being

replaced by and large. So there's going

to be future there going to be fewer

CPAs. But as I'm thinking this through,

what are people going to be paying us

for? They're going to be paying us for

empathy, accountability, empowerment,

and foresight specific to GWCPA. You can

get a tax return prepared by AI

anywhere. But if you want us to go over

your finances, help you make business

decisions with empathy, accountability,

empowerment, and foresight. That's going

to be the brand. That's going to be the

flavor of why you come to GWCPA, why you

work with us. We are going to have to

figure out a way to price our core

values and say you are paying us on a

monthly subscription. Not for the number

of hours that we do, not for the product

that we produce. You are paying us on a

monthly subscription for our empathy,

our empowerment, our accountability, and

our foresight. Still working through

what that looks like. And I get not

every business owner is going to want

that. There are going to be business

owners that are like, "I don't need

empathy with my tax return. Just give it

to me as quick as possible and as cheap

as possible." That's fine. There's going

to be preparers out there who will lean

into AI and process, you know, 40,000

tax returns in a year because they've

got the bots that are preparing it and

all they have to do is glance over it

and review it. That's fine. Business

owners can value what business owners

want to value. But the ones that are

like, "AI told me I need to fire this

person, but I am really struggling with

this decision." Or, "AI told me in order

to survive, my business model needs to

shift and I need to move in this

direction for income." and I am having a

really hard time wrapping my head around

how to do this or if it's the right

decision. Those are the kind of

conversations we're going to be having

with business owners. That is empathy,

accountability, empowerment, and

foresight. That's it for now. I'm done

ranting on this. I obviously can do a

lot longer than this, but this is

supposed to be a quarterly update, and

that is like

five to 50year vision, Barrett, that

you've gotten talking uh right now. So

what do we what are some of the actual

things we've done here in the third

quarter 2025

uh to move in this direction. So just a

couple highlights like I said one team

member leaving another possible team

member coming in. We are looking for a

tax partner who's going to come in and

replace that role for me so that I can

do marketing so that I can do that

visionary role full-time. We are working

to bring in a financial statement

partner so that my partner Sam can step

back from that and run the company as

managing partner more like CEO role

within the company for her last five

years here as we define that role for

her and for her successor were some of

the big shifts that we've seen in this

quarter. So I finished my certified

valuation analyst. That's something that

I've been working on for two years. It

is knowledge that we are able to provide

to our clients in the just the realm of

what your business is worth. Really, I

don't want to get into doing the

valuations necessarily. We will do some

valuations, but similar to audits, you

need to do a lot of them on a very

frequent basis in order to be efficient.

Uh, and with me being the only CVA

within the company, that's another role,

another project that falls on me. uh and

it's not something that we currently

have other staff trained in. So that's

that wasn't the goal. The real goal is

talking to our business owner clients

and saying, "Look, your business is only

worth $2 million right now. And if you

were to retire, sell the business,

retire, walk away from it right now

after taxes, that's probably $900,000

when all is said and done. So, that's

obviously not enough for you to feel

like you've walked away from your life's

work uh and been paid for the value of

the business. However, we still have 3

to 5 years before you have to make this

decision. You know, we can postpone this

3 to 5 years and maybe we can get the

the multiple up to $4 million. Maybe if

we make the right decisions, bring in

people, uh we can get that multiple to

$3 million, but with somebody in this

company who's going to continue to run

it and benefit the community, uh there

might be a discount there just for the

right buyer. In that situation, maybe we

get the multiple up to $7 million, but

the person who's coming in to buy it is

going to know rock solid there's an

engine here that generates the revenue

necessary to be worth $7 million. And so

they say hell yes to that decision to

buy that company for that $7 million.

You know, that's what I love about

business valuation. That's what I love

about identifying where the value of a

business comes from is when it's

actually based on something, it is based

on that owner walking away from the

business. And so if you walk away from

the business and the business collapses,

that's because there's nothing there to

generate revenue after you leave. But if

you've built a business that is worth $7

million after you walk away from it,

that means that it's going to produce

income for anybody that buys that

business. They can step into that role

and they're going to have an engine that

is running, a team that is solid,

processes that continue to move on a

regular basis. And so now they can step

into that engine and they can continue

moving in a direction. They can continue

to innovate that company and really make

some interesting moves. They are not

stepping into it because they have to.

They're not stepping into it because

they're feeling guilted into it. They're

stepping into that business that was

worth $2 million three years ago is now

worth $7 million because they know it's

going to generate the revenue that is

going to be able to pay for that $7

million. So that's certified valuation

analyst. That's really my driver for the

discussions that are going to come from

this. talking to business owners about

where their business value comes from

and how we can increase that by focusing

on the right things for the life of that

business, the future of that business.

You know, we went to Exit Planning

Summit back in May. Like I said, that's

the SEPA designation, Exit Planning

Institute. They are the owners of the

copyright, the trade, the certification,

certified exit planning advisor. Sam and

I absolutely loved that designation

through that conference because it was

all focused on increasing the value of a

company. It says exit planning, but it's

really about building a company that you

don't want to exit from. Building a

company where any day you can decide,

no, I'm going to stay here and I'm going

to continue to operate this business

because the value of this business

continues to increase. The value that it

brings to the community continues to

grow. So, SEPA is next on my radar to

finish that. It's got a amazing

curriculum that we can run our business

owners through with the decision gate.

Um, and I can't remember the second gate

right now, but it is really about

bringing business owners to the reality

you are going to exit your business

someday. Do you want to do it on your

terms or do you want to do it on

whatever terms are forced on you by the

urgency of your need to exit? So sea by

the end of the year we plan on anybody

who is a manager or above within the

business we really want them to go for

this designation because we want to be

able to speak this language and have

these conversations uh with our clients.

Honestly I go back to the EOS that's the

reason we also did EOS. We want to have

a framework within GW so that it's not

dependent on Sam's sheer force of will

running the company to continue to

operate, but that 5 years from now, 10

years from now, we could bring in

another EOS integrator for a refresh or

to help train the next generation who

did not go through the original EOS with

us. We also want we chose EOS rather

than something more specific to

accounting because we want to be able to

bring EOS to our clients as well. so

that we can have conversations with

them. Have you identified this as an

issue? Are you talking about it in your

level 10 meetings? Is this one of your

quarterly rocks or are you getting

distracted? How does this fit into that

three-year picture, those 10-year goals?

That's why we chose EOS and that's why

we're going towards SEPA designation as

well because we want to have that common

language that we start to talk about

with our clients so that it sinks in and

they start to grow and build businesses

of value. Couple other changes that

we've done um this quarter with this

episode. You're going to see down in the

show notes below. I have developed a

ownership readiness scorecard. That's

the tentative working title as of the

recording of this episode. Not sure I'm

in love with it. Uh it's better than the

previous one. I had the successive

readiness score or this. Yeah, something

like that. Successive. Uh nobody nobody

says words like that, but it's an

ownership readiness scorecard. This is a

24 question scorecard evaluation that is

designed to be taken in four to five

minutes. As I'm looking at myself and

judging, am I ready to take over this

business? I develop the scorecard so

that our listeners of the artist

succession who are concerned, am I the

person to take over this business? How

close am I going to be? How do I start

to have conversations with the owner of

the company? Uh, and know that I'm

moving in the right direction to be more

confident in the taking over of this

company. We built this scorecard for

that target listener. Again, that target

listener is me. These are the questions

that I lose sleep over. Am I the right

person for this this position? Do I know

the values of this company? Do I know

how the company operates on a financial,

you know, cash flow with debt? All these

different questions are built into this

scorecard. I have built that that is now

available to take for free by following

the link down in the description. We are

launching that live with this episode

and I'm really excited about that.

That's something that I'm going to be

talking about uh with future videos and

going to also be linking to uh in each

of our podcast episodes. The flip side

of that, I want this has been a

long-term project of mine, six months or

so. I've been planning on doing this. um

looking forward to launching it in the

new year. We are going to do a flip side

of that which is going to be like a

succession readiness survey. And what I

really want to do here is I want to

build a long-term annual study of our

clients of our listeners of anybody who

comes across GW through the website

through the blog through YouTube and is

asking am I ready to walk away from this

business? Am I ready to retire yet? This

is going to be the succession readiness

uh survey and really this is going to be

something where you get a score and then

we release the final report in the

spring and then you're able to compare

your score against the average score of

everybody that took the survey and then

we're going to continue to benchmark

that each year. I'm really excited about

that aspect of it. Like I want business

owners to say when I started working

with GW, we would use this for new

clients coming in. When I started

working with GW, my succession readiness

score was a 38. After three years

working with GW, my succession readiness

score was already a 52. Another two

years working with them, it was at a 72.

And I'm ready to step out of the

company. You're never going to be at

100. And that's what I really want, you

know, as I'm talking to the ownership

readiness uh score that you'll see down

in the description for this one. I'm not

at 100% on this. And when I started my

company 15, 13 years ago, I absolutely

probably didn't even score like in the

top 40. I didn't even probably score in

the bottom 40. I don't want you to take

this survey and be like, "Oh my god, I

know nothing. I am not going to be a

good business owner." There is an aspect

of being a business owner, taking over a

company

that is irrational. that is you know we

always used to say it's like jumping off

of a cliff and building your parachute

on the way down uh starting a business

there is something about it that just

takes grit and saying I am going to get

through this and I am going to bear my

teeth and get through get us through

this hard session that you will never

get from passing a survey and getting

100% on it. If you want to run that

company and you're at a point where

you're only scoring like 28 on that

score, don't think that that

disqualifies you. Just go into it

knowing what some of your weaknesses

are, knowing where some of the areas

where you need to shore up those

weaknesses. I will never be 100% on

execution. I will never be 100% on

accountability, one of our core values.

But I am 150% on foresight. I am, you

know, I know what my strengths are and I

know what my weaknesses are and I think

those are actually some of the questions

at the end of the exam. Um, if I haven't

combined those into one question yet,

but knowing what your strengths are,

work with other people who can shore up

those weaknesses. Don't feel like you

have to be 100% across the board in

order to be a successful business owner

because there are successful business

owners who are who never get above a 30

or 40%. They've just built a great team

around themselves and there are failures

in business who would score a 90 or

100%. So it's not supposed to be a

disqualifying thing. It's not supposed

to be a disheartening thing. It is

supposed to be a self evaluation, a self

assessment to say I really want to take

over this business within two years but

I am clueless on this part of running a

business and so these are the

conversations that I need to have with

my boss in order to feel like yes I can

take over this business. How do you

actually run this business rather than

the sales or the technical aspect that

I've been doing up to this point? How do

you deal with conflict within the

company? How do you deal with the

unknown? How do you operate a business

based off of the financials? Having

those conversations with the business

owner and I think that the business

owner, if they are somebody that you are

trying to convince to sell the business

to you, they're really going to

appreciate the initiative of you

bringing something like this exam to

them and saying, "Look, I really want to

start to focus on this. If we could

start to have these kind of

conversations on a monthly basis, I

think within, you know, 8 months, 16

months, 3 years from now, I'm going to

be ready to buy this company from you

because that's what business owners say

there are not enough of. I had a

conversation with a client the other day

and they were talking about how it was

their uncle actually was saying I have

built this business and it is successful

and I could franchise this easily and

other people could step in and operate

this and be very successful but I have

all employees and not one of them thinks

that they could do it. Not one of them

sees themselves as entrepreneurial. Not

one of them sees themselves as somebody

who could step into the role of being a

business owner. And so I want to build

this assessment so that you say, "I kind

of want to, but I'm not sure if I'm

ready." Take this simple assessment and

find out where uh you still need to

work. Some some areas where you still

need development. And see if it spurs

you on. See if it ignites something in

you knowing where you're at with this

assessment. But don't take it as

completely debilitating or as like a

failure. if you got a 60 on this

assessment, you're actually doing really

good, even though that's technically an

F, uh, you know, just from the old days

with school. So, um, you can find that

assessment down below. That's something

that we've been developing this quarter.

Uh, really excited to bring that to the

market. All right, I'm bringing this

thing in for a landing. It's been a long

episode already. Hopefully, this has

been beneficial to you just to see how

my brain works and the questions that

I'm pondering, going over in my head on

a regular basis. This is a day in the

life of Barrett, visionary in a

80-year-old CPA firm. So, I apologize if

it's rambly, but that's how my brain

works. I get excited about something and

that's all I can focus on for a very

burst of energy. Um, and you get to

benefit from that. So, hopefully these

quarterly updates are beneficial to you.

You gain some insight or you gain some

excitement about your own business. Uh,

I'll bring it in for a landing. I've got

another one of these coming out in three

months. So, I'm not really going to talk

about upcoming tax season necessarily in

this quarterly update. Uh, that we'll

save that one for December's update.

That's an appropriate time to talk about

tax season. Um, some of the big projects

that we've got coming up that we're

excited about. This is how we also work

with our clients outside of doing the

taxes is we've got some accounting

system conversions, massive accounting

system conversions for, you know, deca

milliondoll companies. These are not uh

send it to into it and have them convert

you from QuickBooks Desktop to

QuickBooks Online. These are big deals.

These have a lot of moving parts.

Payroll is involved. AR's involved. Uh

payment subscriptions are involved.

There's all of these moving parts. So,

we've got two of these coming up with

some of our bigger clients this fall.

Those are awesome opportunities for us

to show the value that we bring to our

clients. They're also huge

responsibilities because we are saying

we will review even if there's external

parties at work like with payroll even

if ADP is involved in this we are going

to be reviewing their work and signing

off on it and and taking control taking

charge of the result that they produce.

So I'm really excited about some of

these bigger projects. These are the

kind of things that we live for with our

clients. Um, these are the kind of

things that need to be done every 10 to

15 years within your business to

position it for the future. So many

companies don't think about these kind

of things, but if you are still running

your business based off of a pen and

paper or an Excel file or even like

QuickBooks Desktop or something like

that, your business is behind. Your

business is not going to be successful

moving into the future. And so you need

to continually refresh some of these

things. And those are the kind of

projects we do enjoy tackling with our

client because it it allows us to show

the value of what we're providing. Make

things simpler, make things clearer.

It's a chance for a refresh. It's a

chance for us to say, "All right, what

are the reports that we actually want to

pull from this new system so that you

can run your business?" So, those are

some of the things, you know, that we

have exciting as far as projects go here

before the end of the year. Again, tax

season right around the corner. We start

prepping for that in October at about

the same time the previous tax season

ends on October 15th. You know, we take

a breather and we start working

preparing admin wise, planning wise. We

are moving up some of our clients to

have even earlier discussions about

year-end planning and renewals because

we are trying to get all of that out of

tax season where it's very consolidated.

It's very crunched. We did an experiment

this past tax season where we extended

all of our clients. Some of our clients

were really receptive to this. Some of

them pushed back a lot and we think that

a lot of those clients probably will not

renew with us this next tax year. But

we're going to continue leaning into

that because again we want to emphasize

that our value is not by preparing this

return by March 15th. Our value is in

being involved in your business

throughout the year. And that means

getting started on tax season earlier

than January. So, we've got some larger

clients that we're going to be having

conversations, uh, clear expectations on

which returns we're preparing for them,

what transactions happened, uh, this

year that we want to plan ahead for

moving into tax season so we're not

caught off guard uh, once we actually

get in and start doing the work. So,

that's what we have coming up in fourth

quarter. We are still in the process.

We're going to be finishing the process

of moving our project management system

from Thompson Reuters desktopbased

practice CS to Carbon, a cloud-based

practice management system. I've been

spearheading that conversion project

within the business uh with about four

or five of my team who've been, you

know, taking the various components,

whatever is under their jurisdiction,

making sure that that all comes

together. So, that's in process right

now. We're going to be training the team

on that in the month of October, going

live with that in November. We've got

pricing renewals. We've got engagement

letters going out start in November. We

have a lot of our business clients that

were on monthly retainer. We're going to

gross up those retainers. Um have those

uncomfortable conversations. We're

trying to move more of our clients away

from retainer and hourly billing to a

subscription model where we just say

this is what the fee is monthly. uh and

this is what you've agreed to for the

year 2026. So, we're trying to move more

of our clients in that direction. Again,

for me as the visionary, it's what is

the right mix for a subscription? Making

sure that we're not tying it to that

product that will go away uh so that we

are clear. It's about transformation.

It's about we are going to be with you

in your corner as a business owner. uh

whether it's one tax return or whether

it's three tax returns or you know more

than that whatever the case might be the

value is that we are going to be there

in your corner we are going to be on

your side we are going to get through

this with you so having those

conversations at renewals that's always

um a fun period at the end of the year

because we think we provide a value to

our clients and they have a value in

their minds of what we provide and

there's some can sometimes be a mismatch

there. We often focus on the negative

mismatch there where I say what we're

providing to you is worth $25,000 and

they're like, "Nope, not even close. It

was worth, you know, 8,000." That's a

mismatch. There's a mismatch in the

other direction, too. And this is the

one that you have to test by continuing

to repric your services and continuing

to find out what your clients actually

value. I have this conversation with my

team. I have this conversation with

other new business owners. You as the

business owner cannot put cannot say

what your services are worth to that

client. What you can do is you can

present them with a price and say is

this where my services fall. They aren't

going to know how much they value you

until they see that price and until they

say yes or no. We can't and CPAs are

terrible about about this. They will

say, "Oh, the client's never going to

pay for that." We don't even put that

option in their minds. We don't even

present that to them because we are so

conflict averse that we're like, I can't

bring myself to put that price in front

of them. There are clients who will pay

more than that price, but because you

never presented it to them, you're never

going to find out that they value you,

you know, you're going to continue to

bill $200 for a tax return when that

client would have paid $800 had you just

said the price is $800. That's a very

small example of that value. But I see

CPAs that are out there that are

charging $200 still for tax returns. And

I'm like, I did not go to business

school. I did not get certified to

charge less than H&R Block to charge

less than somebody who took a weekend

tax certification course uh and you know

is preparing their first ever tax return

and charging $600 for it. Again, I could

get into a rant on that. Maybe I will in

a future video. I'm sure I will in a

future video as we continue to be

squeezed by technology and by lower

higher volume lower value services uh

that continue to chip away at our not

target market. We have to continue to

say I'm not going to I'm not going to go

after that business. That business can

exist for the H&R Blocks of the world

because that's what those clients value.

I'm not going to lower my expectation,

my price to try and compete with that.

They want a $400 tax return, they can go

and they can find a $400 tax return. I'm

going to prepare tax returns for

$40,000. And I'm only going to work with

the clients that see the value in us

preparing a $40,000 tax return. Is that

the majority of tax preparers? Hell no.

That's like a fraction of a percentage

of the businesses that are out there

that would say $40,000 is a fair and

reasonable price for what you're

providing for me. Again, ranting,

pricing, this conversation needs to end.

This uh episode has already gone too

long.

This has been the third quarter update.

I want to thank you guys for listening.

We will be back to interviews uh on the

next episode in October. I've really got

some awesome interviews here and I'm

also already booking up interviews for

the springtime season. Um

I really appreciate you being along for

the ride with the artist succession.

Hopefully these quarterly updates u

provide just a little bit of a break in

the interviews and also you find value

in just seeing behind the scenes of how

our firm is working through succession

is working as a multi-generational

business. If these are valuable to you,

leave comments, leave me feedback. You

know, there's a feedback form in the

description below. Obviously, you can

see our ownership readiness scorecard

down there as well. Um if these are

beneficial to you, let me know. Um, I

will continue to do them if they're

beneficial. If you're just like, "Nope,

I want to go back to an interview." I'm

going to see that in the retention rate

uh on the YouTube video. So, you don't

need to say anything. But I really do

obviously clearly enjoy the conversation

to talk the opportunity to talk shop and

let you behind the scenes of our

company. And so, again, if this is

beneficial for you, let me know. I want

to thank you for listening to the artist

succession. If you're interested in

being a guest on our show, of course,

you can find the interview form down in

the description below. We'll be back

again in October with regular interviews

with business owners with their own

succession stories. If this has been

valuable for you, if it has been

something that you have enjoyed, please

share it with somebody else. That really

helps the show out. It really helps to

grow uh the show and encourages us that

we are on the right track with the

artist succession, bringing it to you on

a regular basis. Want to thank you for

watching and I will see you on the next

one.

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