Courtney De Ronde - TDT CPAs and Advisors

Accounting, Shannon, that's one of my favorite things. Isn't it yours?

It's one of my least favorite things, but it's so important. It impacts every aspect of my life and it always has. But I, you know, and I've had some great accountants and. But boy, I've had a few rotten ones too. And. But most of the problems in my accounting I would have to take to be accountable for or caused by myself. And so I'm really excited today to have a CPA with us that I think has a unique outlook on things. And I know we're going to learn a lot about accounting today with a twist well beyond accounting and some really great lessons.

Some really great lessons. I don't want to spoil anything, but I think there's a lesson baked into this, at least one lesson, if perhaps not more baked into this interview that you're about to hear that we will echo back to many, many times over again. It's already imprinted in my brain, which is good.

So yes, I completely agree, man.

I like it. It's good. You know, the other thing that's imprinted into my brain is you need to have the right service providers doing the right jobs for you. And when you need a server for your business, which is probably right away, I don't know how one could run a business these days without one. But when you need a server, you need to check out linode@linode.com SBS that's L I N O-E.com SBS because it doesn't matter what you're doing. It could be managing your enterprise infrastructure, working on even a personal project, or setting up even just a small website for your business. You deserve simple, affordable and accessible cloud computing. And Linode knows what they're doing with this because it's what they do. They are server geeks here. We are business geeks. We're also some tech geeks in different ways, but we all have our geeky things, and they are server geeks there. And server geeks are the people you want managing your server so that you don't have to worry about the geeky stuff. You can just do the stuff for your business. And you can simplify, simplify, sure. But you could also simplify your cloud infrastructure with all of Linux virtual machines, and you can develop and deploy and scale all your applications faster and easier. And this is my favorite part, especially now, because it's new and it's more. You can get started on Linode today with a $100 free credit just for being a listener of the Small Business Show. That's right. You sign up at linode l I n o d e.com SBS and you get $100 in free credit added to your account right away to use right away. So go check it out. Visit linode.com SBS Click on the Create Free account button to and our thanks to Linode for doing that and for sponsoring this episode. All right, Shannon, I'm very excited to get to the interview here with Courtney.

Me too.

Are you anything else from you or are we good to go?

Man? I'm ready to Small business, listen.

Well, let's small business. He is Shannon Jean. I'm Dave Hamilton and this is episode 299 of the Small Business Show.

So you definitely want to minimize your tax liability. But a lot of small business owners focus on trying to pay zero tax. Or they hear things in the news like Amazon doesn't pay any tax. Apple doesn't pay any tax. And they're like, they can do that. Why can't I? I shouldn't be paying any tax. And so what we focus on is minimizing taxes, not eliminating them. So if you want to pay euro tax, don't make any. And that's not the goal. Obviously there are lots of different strategies that you can put into place to minimize taxes. And yeah, maybe one year you'll pay zero tax. But the one year or two years that Amazon paid zero tax, nobody talks about the other years where they paid billions in taxes. So helping people understand that tax planning is a long term strategy, most of the time you need to be thinking years down the road.

Hey, Dave, today, you know, usually I always say I'm really excited I got this, you know, this topic we're talking about and I have a confession to make today. We're going to talk about a topic that is not my favorite. But it is so important for small business owners that you just have to talk about it all the time. And we're going to talk about accounting.

I love accounting.

Oh yeah. Well, that's beautiful.

And.

I understand it. I do it all the time. But it's just one of my least favorite things. But it's so, you know, managing your accounting and your cash flow are just critically important to making your business successful and to make sure it's healthy.

Right?

Right. And I think that the reason it's not my favorite is I'm just not very good at it. So, you know, I always focus most of my career on top line sales and growth. Not always the best technique. So today I'm really Looking forward to learning more about why, you know, choosing the right cpa. Getting a good advisor can help you get better results with your business. And to help educate us, we're joined by Courtney Durandi, a managing partner from TDT CPAs and advis. Courtney, thank you so much for coming on the show and helping to educate me today.

Particularly, yes, thanks for having me especially to talk about your least favorite topic. I feel honored that you let me on.

Yeah, it's just one of those things. I know it's critical, and I actually, you know, like I said, I do it every day. I'm always okay managing this, doing all that. We just. October 15th, I just filed finally got all our business taxes and personal stuff done. And so, I mean, do you hear your comments like mine about accounting being my least favorite topic from other business owners? Is it pretty common? And if so, why? Why do you think that?

Yes. Oh, it's so common, and I've just learned to not take it personally.

That's good.

But I think the reason why is because so much of accounting focuses on what has already happened. It is a mechanism for reporting what's happened in your business and providing it to the people who are requiring you to do that. So you've got to report to your investors, your lenders, the irs, and that feels like a task, an administrative task that has to happen, and that's not very exciting or fun. What we focus on at TDT is obviously, we've got to do that. We want to make sure we're accurately accounting for what's happened. But helping clients understand how this information can be so much more than that. You can use it to actually grow and scale your business, to increase your profitability, to reduce financial surprises. And that's where I think the big difference comes into play, is that a lot of times we think about the stereotypical bean counter who is, you know, trying to nail down exactly what has happened. And once it's already happened, you know, it can be challenging to care a lot about that. And so we focus on also using this information to inform decisions and to be more proactive for influencing your future results.

Yeah, that's cool. So I would imagine you would agree with the statement that if you're only talking to your accountant around tax time, you're not getting all you could out of that relationship. Is that right?

Definitely. That is so true. Because, you know, for accountants, a lot of especially tax accountants, their world revolves around tax season. We kind of joke about that in our firm. There's tax season, and there is after tax season and there's right before next tax season. But small businesses don't operate like that. Your life does not revolve around tax season. That is certainly something that needs to be planned for and managed way before tax filing comes into play. Those strategies have to be in place and a lot of them need to be really long term in order to make them effective. So beyond having the information you need to file your tax return, you should be talking to your accountant and they should be functioning as an advisor to you all year long to help you understand how this information can help you. You mentioned focusing on top line revenue. I mean, you definitely need to focus on revenue. Revenue is kind of the oxygen. Sales is the oxygen of your business. But cash flow and profitability are other aspects that are critically important. That you can end up with tons of sales and very little profit if you're not aware of how your company makes money. And your business can fail because of a cash flow problem even when you're profitable, if you're not managing the timing of your ins and outs. So helping people understand those other aspects of accounting beyond just the reporting and compliance side, that's cool.

That makes good sense. I've certainly been in that scenario, not recently, thankfully, but where? Sometime in April. I'm asking my accountant, well, what if we do this or this? He's like, well, yeah, but we needed to do that before the end of the year. Like, oh, maybe we should have had this conversation a while ago.

So yeah, tax planning is definitely something that you have to be proactive about. And definitely before year end there are things that you want to time out in terms of when you purchase something. If you're going to purchase something, which year does it make more sense to purchase it in for deducting. But that's just a timing thing. A lot of really effective tax planning strategy is a long term plan. It's not just about timing of this year versus next year. It requires some long term planning. And for that to be effective. As CPAs, we have to really have conversations with our clients about what their goals are and what their plans are. And that's not something that you can just sit down once a year when you're preparing a tax return and really know and understand it. It requires a relationship year round where we are considering the tax implications and just the overall business implications of decisions that are being made and using that financial information to help inform those decisions.

Yeah, I love that. This is one of the reasons why I was, I was really truly excited to have you on the show because, you know, it's on your. On your website, you know, @tdtpc.com, it's not just CPAs, accountants, it's end advisors. And we really value advisors here on the show. We talk about creating a board of advisors for your small business, and you're talking about long term. So let's talk a little background here. You've been with TDT for over, you know, incredibly over 18 years. That's awesome. Talk about your journey. And I was looking at LinkedIn and your profile. Starting as a staff accountant and now as, you know, a managing partner with ownership in the business. How has that changed your view of small business over all those years?

Yeah, that's a great question. So my journey, as you mentioned, I started with TDT as a staff accountant. Even before that, I was an intern. So before I graduated from college. And I joined the firm right out of the University of Northern Iowa accounting program and was able to stay in the firm and grow and develop and evolve. So I feel like I've had a lot of different jobs and a lot of different experience, but it's all been in the same firm. Part of that is because our culture at TDT is very focused on growth and innovation. And so I've been able to see things that I really enjoyed doing or that I was passionate about or that could be better and be part of evolving, you know, that within our firm internally or the way we serve clients. So I. I've been able to, you know, have a really dynamic career, even though it's all been in the same firm. So I've served clients for most of my career. That's been my path, serving clients. We were much. When I started, we were a lot smaller. I did some tax and some auditing. As we grew, I was able to be part of developing our audit practice. And so I got a lot of experience managing clients, developing people, running a division of the firm. And then when I became a partner about eight years ago, I was right away elected to our firm's executive committee. So all of a sudden, I got this firsthand exposure to firm leadership. I wasn't the managing partner, but I was on the executive committee working directly with the managing partner. So I got exposure, exposed to running a small business, not just leading a division. And then that has led to where I am now with taking over as managing partner as our previous managing partner retired. And in the last couple years, I also transitioned to less client service, to leading our business development efforts. In preparing for this leadership transition of managing partners, So I have the benefit of the experience serving clients. I know what we do and how we help. And that allows me on the business development side to recognize opportunities for how we can help clients and prospects and how I can match them with the people within our team who are best suited to be a long term relationship with them. And then overall managing partner role is really the leadership side of the firm, the visionary for the firm. How do we remain relevant to our clients and build a firm that develops and grows people as well?

You said something there that I want to highlight. You said, I know what we do and how we help our customers. And that is key. I know it sounds obvious, but it really is important to zoom out and know, okay, here's the widget we make, or here's the product or here's the service we provide, but how do we help our, how does that, whatever we do, how does that help our customers? And that's an important distinction and a really important question to answer. And I like that. I think that's something all small business owners, all business owners at any size can take away. So thank you for saying that.

Yeah, well, yeah, I'm glad that that stood out to you because I think it's something that is kind of unique for us. We feel in professional services, because a lot of times in professional services, if you're talking about CPAs or architects, engineers, people who have a lot of technical expertise can get really wrapped up in the technical aspects of what they do. And that's why, back to your first question about people kind of dreading the topic of accounting, because most times when you talk to an accountant, they talk about the technical aspects and the solutions, not the problem and how it actually helps you. And so my perspective, having done the client service, compared to most people selling professional services, they haven't ever served in that capacity. So I understand the technical aspect, but I also understand the problems it solves and why people need this and the bigger impact it makes, which has been a wonderful way for me to feel like I'm making a difference in serving small businesses. Even though I don't have as many client relationships that I manage as I did in the past, I still feel like I'm helping, you know, because I am connecting with the solutions that clients need to solve their problems with the right person who can serve them long term.

That's a good job, a good way to look at, you know, a management position, especially if you're someone who's focused on clients, like knowing how you fit into that picture. How am I helping the company help our clients. And it's good. It's good. Yeah.

So, you know, this has been a crazy year for all of us and you know, so many small businesses are really struggling while trying to figure out how to get prepared to pull out of this. You know, we're all hoping 2021 is going to be, you know, just gangbusters. You have lots of small businesses even like this show that have taken advantage of the PPP or the Eidl loans to get through things. So do you have any, what kind of guidance can you give small business owners? Are there anything they should focus on? Do you think might have the biggest impact for them going forward?

That's a really good question. I think that there's two primary things, maybe three, but I'll for sure hit on two of them that we advise our clients on right now during this time that are so crucial and the things that are important anytime, but sometimes it takes some economic uncertainty or a little bit of concern to get people to really focus on these areas. So the first one is really about profitability and understanding how your business makes money. A lot of times we feel like as business owners we have kind of in our gut or in our head, like we know where we make money and we know the margin on our products or services. But we've been encouraging our clients to really dig, dig into the data and understand the mix of your revenue. Which customers make you the most money or which services, which locations. Get a true data based handle on where your revenue comes from and how profitable that revenue is. Not just top line revenue, but how profitable is that, Whether that's by product, by location, some kind of measure that makes sense for your business. And once you have that data, you can see there are certain aspects of your business that make you more money than others. Focus on the mix of what makes you money and what is most helpful to your customers right now. Because right now it might be different than what you had originally planned for 2020 might be different than you had planned or what you had adapted to seven months ago. Constantly thinking about where is the mix of what I know how to do profitably that matches up with what my customer base needs from me. Now that's where you have to focus. That's where you need to put your marketing efforts around, put your operations efforts around and some of that other stuff that's not as profitable or not as relevant right now. Don't waste your time and energy on it because you're going to be the most profitable if you Find that right mix of what you can do well, that makes you money, that also serves the needs your customers have. So that's one of them.

That's great.

Yeah, it's one of those. It's so obvious when you say it, but it really. It's mind blowing. Right? You need to know this stuff.

Yeah. The second one I would say is having visibility about your cash flow. So cash flow is a problem for almost every small business. Even if you're profitable, there's usually as you're growing or as you are starting out, there's different reasons that contribute to cash flow. Cash flow problems are a symptom of some underlying problem that can change depending on your stage of business. But no matter whether there's economic uncertainty or not, cash flow problems are always prevalent in small business. And it actually attributes to a huge percent. I think it's like 80% of small business failures are attributed to cash flow problems. So this is something that we think is a really key area to focus on, especially right now, because there's so much volatility. Even if you've been projecting your cash flow on a monthly basis, you might need to start projecting it on a weekly basis for a season because things are volatile. You know, what if your customer base gets impacted and they start to slow down on paying? What if they've always paid in 20 to 30 days and now they start paying in 30 to 40 days? How does that impact you? Nobody wants a negative financial surprise. Nobody wants to realize, oh my gosh, I don't have the cash to cover payroll on Friday. What am I going to do? Lenders don't typically want to expand line of credits when you need it. Getting visibility around this is something that we highly suggest. So, you know, understanding how much cash you have right now and then using estimates to project week by week for the next, say, 12 to 16 weeks at a time, how much cash do I think is going to be coming in each week and how much cash is going to be going out each week? The outgoing is easier to estimate because you can think about when are my payroll dates, when do I remit payroll taxes, when do I remit sales tax, when's my credit card due? And you have more control over when you pay bills. But either way, you're still estimating what's coming in, what's going out, and then you're looking at that projected cash balance for where it looks like you're going to have a problem. You have low projected cash or negative projected cash. Use that visibility to do something about it. So, okay, now I'm going to see I've got this problem. What's causing this? Are my customers paying slowly? Are we not getting our invoices out quickly enough? Do I need to expand my line of credit? Anticipating that because you have that visibility is the second thing I would say that you have to focus on right now in order to avoid those negative financial surprises in the future.

Yeah, that's great advice. I mean, you're preaching to the choir. We talk cash flow, cash flow, cash flow here all the time. Because those surprises are very painful if you're not managing to that cash flow. For sure, definitely. So one of the things I look at that kind of stuck or struck me when I was reading background stuff and stuff on your website was that there was a comment up there that said, ask us about why paying zero tax shouldn't be a goal of small business owners. And like most small business owners, I work really hard to minimize my tax liability. You never pay zero. But is that not the right approach? Am I missing something by, by having that kind of mindset?

So you definitely want to minimize your tax liability, but a lot of small business owners focus on trying to pay zero tax or they hear things in the news like Amazon doesn't pay any tax, doesn't pay any tax. And they're like, they can do that. Why can't I? Like, I shouldn't be paying any tax. And so what we focus on is minimizing taxes, not eliminating them. So if you want to pay zero tax, don't make any money, you know, that's not the goal. Obviously there are lots of different strategies that you can put into place to minimize taxes. And yeah, maybe one year you'll pay euro tax, but you know, the one year or two years that Amazon paid zero tax, nobody talks about the other years where they paid billions in taxes. You know, there's so helping people understand that tax planning is a long term strategy. Most of the time you need to be thinking years down the road, how do you structure from an entity perspective when all you're doing for tax planning is playing with the timing of when you depreciate items. If that's your sole tax planning strategy is I'm going to buy a bunch of equipment before year end so I can write it off. That's just kicking the can down the road. Because if you are going to sell that asset, you have to recapture that depreciation, then later you're going to pay tax. And if you all of a sudden pay tax in a higher bracket, you may be eliminated tax one year and then two years down the road paid tax at a much higher bracket or a much higher rate because you're in a different bracket than if you would have depreciated it evenly over five years. So the point we make here with zero tax is not the goal, but is to help people understand that tax planning is a multifaceted long term strategy that requires the CPA to understand the goals and the timelines of the business owner. Now, certainly we know, we run our own firm as a small business, we know things don't always feel like you planned and you might not know what's going to happen and something might change. But creating a plan that you can execute and having those more strategic conversations will allow us to pay tax at a, at the lowest rate possible, rather than trying to pay zero tax now, knowing that at some point it's going to come back around and most likely you'll be at a higher rate later on down the road.

That makes sense. Absolutely. So what time of the year, I mean, does a small business owner, I mean, we're always so busy and just, you know, grinding it out every day. When do we need to start thinking about having those conversations? I mean, you can't roll in on December 15, right? Certainly not April 5 or April 10 or whatever. But I know we need to do it for the year. Is it after? You know, I always pay my taxes, you know, in business taxes, September personal by October 15th. We always do extensions. Is it after that? You start, hey, we need to meet and talk about any year end planning. We need to do sometime in November. What do you suggest?

Yeah, so definitely October, November is the ideal time at a minimum. So we've got clients right now that we're working on starting this tax planning conversation for the year because we're far enough in that you're able to create some predictions or estimates about what's going to happen between now and the end of the year. And we can give people time to think about what do they want to do. You know, nobody wants to find out on December 15th or December 29th that they need to go, you know, quick, secure a piece of equipment or a vehicle or something so that they can deduct it this year. So having that timeline allows for a more robust conversation and evaluation of the different opportunities and preparing for the cash flow impact of it. If you're going to contribute to an employee benefit plan or you're going to buy a piece of equipment or there's lots of different strategies that could be coming into play. Just gives you more time. So definitely October, November. The other thing is, you know, a lot of clients will pay estimated taxes every quarter throughout the year. So we have clients that we meet with every quarter and evaluate whether or not they should be making a safe harbor estimate or if things are looking a lot higher than the prior year or a lot lower than the prior year. Maybe we want to adjust those so that they're managing their cash flow and nobody should want to get a huge refund when they file their tax return. That's not an efficient use of your cash to way overestimate. But nobody wants to be surprised and have to fork over a bunch of money they hadn't planned on either. So with some clients, we're actually meeting every quarter and evaluating whether they need to change up their estimates from what was set out as a safe harbor.

Can you explain what you mean by safe harbor? This may be a term that people only know about when they think of SEC filings, and it's different when we're talking about small businesses. And I think this would be a good thing to go through.

Yeah. So a safe harbor estimate, it means that you can pay in, as an estimate, the same amount of tax that you owe that you paid in the prior year. And even so, let's say in 2019, your tax bill was $100,000. In 2020, you could pay quarterly estimates totaling the $100,000, and it would be a safe harbor estimate. So Even if in 2020 you owe 125,000, you won't be penalized for underpayment if you paid at least last year's tax. Now, if you're. That's probably a bad example, because if your tax is over a certain amount, if your taxable income is over a certain amount, the safe harbor is actually a little bit higher than 100%. But that's the point that you can. There's an amount you can pay that your accountant could tell you in advance. If you pay at least this, you won't be penalized for underpayment. So a lot of times, you know, we'll just set that up as the default fault. Like, at least do this.

Yeah.

Won't be penalized for underpayment. But if things, you know, if you had a really unusually high taxable income that year, you could end up paying way more estimates that you're going to get back as a refund later. That. That's not necessarily, you know, the best way to utilize your cash.

Got it. Okay. Right. Right. Yep. Okay, thank you.

That's great. That quarterly, you know, even if it's just a phone call where you can have that conversation, how things are going, what does it look like, what's your, you know, what do the numbers look like, as in of terms, you get that advice on how to adjust those safe harbor payments.

Yes, exactly. And, you know, one of the biggest challenges that we have in helping clients with tax planning is that in order to do tax planning, you're being proactive. Right. So you're thinking about what is going to happen and what has already happened so far. To be able to do that effectively, you have to have accurate, up to date financial information. And that's where a lot of small businesses run into trouble, is that they're not spending time keeping their accounting up to date. And like we talked about earlier, maybe the only time that they ever have their accountant review their accounting and make any adjustments is when they prepare the tax return.

Yeah.

So we work with a lot of clients all year long to keep their financial accounting accurate and up to date so that we can be proactive with them. So that's, I'd say that's like a prerequisite if you want to, if you want to try to minimize your taxes, it's done through effective long term tax planning. But you have to have accurate, up to date financial information as a basis for that.

That's powerful. Great advice. So now that you're, you know, you're a small business owner because you've come up through the ranks at tdt, you know, we always put everybody on the spot when they come on the show, and we always were, because we're such big fans of mistakes, we ask everybody who comes on, what would you say was one of your best mistakes? You made something that stuck with you, taught you a, a valuable lesson as a, as a business owner during your career at tdt.

Yeah. So I would say, you know, I thought I've listened to your podcast, so I thought they'll probably ask me about this.

Of course. How did you know?

I didn't nail down and decide like, which mistake should I, which mistake should I talk about? But, you know, thinking through, you know, from a, especially from a leadership perspective, because so much of my career has been in leadership and really the last few years have been really focused on the business ownership side of it. This mistake might be more of a leadership one, but it applies as a business owner. For me, it was not understanding or not really recognizing that not everybody processes things the same way. So for me, figuring out my own emotional intelligence has been a huge impact for me. So. And it led to some, you know, some mistakes, missteps along the way because when you're not, you know, real mature in your own emotional intelligence and you just think that, well, if I think this way about this, everybody else thinks this way about it, you can create lot of messes. So earlier on in my career, leading a team of people and misconstruing that, they all think about this the same way that I do and they just need to get on board and we'll do this thing was a big mistake that I made. And as I went through leadership training and really increased my emotional intelligence and realized one, just because I think it's that way doesn't necessarily mean it's right or that there aren't better ways to go about it. That was huge for me. I remember listening to, I think it's seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And in that book, I mean, I can clearly remember this, listening to this audiobook and he talks about, you know, one of the fault of a lot of leaders as being really independent. I'd always prided myself on being so independent, like a very decisive and independent. And when I listened to that book and he talked about how, you know, you're looking for win win, you're trying to use the different perspectives and experiences of other people to come to a better solution than you could on your own. I was like, really? And I mean, how naive of me to think that. But I mean I, I hate to even admit that because I suppose people hear this, but I mean, I remember thinking, surely not like that's just how, you know, arrogant or inexperienced I was, you know, that's been a huge thing for me.

Yeah, that's a big deal. And we've discussed that on the show before of how, you know, you think you're going to say something and it's going to, they're going to react a certain way. You're best of your people and the people you're leading because you would react that way, of course. And, and then you say it and you see just a bunch of blank stares or even worse, a bunch of like frightened, like what you know, and I think it's terrific advice. I can remember being excited about a bunch of change that was coming up and I brought everybody together. You know, one of my companies, hey, we're going to do this. And it just went over so bad. And I can remember my wife just being like, hey, you know, not everybody loves changing things around. Like, like you do. So you got to step away from that. So.

Yeah, exactly. So for me, I've really been very focused the last few years on increasing my, my self knowledge, you know, through the Enneagram through Colby. You know, just lots of different tools and assessments to better understand myself and to better understand other people so that I can be a much more effective leader and I truly can leverage those differences and not feel like I need to or should be so independent in my decision making.

It takes a long time. That's awesome. Okay, so my last accounting question, I went after this, but not related to accounting, but is so for small business owners. I mean, I've been, you know, you had a number of CPAs over the years and I'm always wondering, you know, what is there one important question if I'm looking for a new prospective accounting firm, what should I be asking them? Is there kind of one or two things that I should bring up and see how they respond to, know if I should run away as fast as I can or if they look like maybe a good fit?

I think really understanding the CPA's approach to how they serve is a really good question. And what I mean by that is how will you interact with me? What will our relationship look like? And if they're kind of like, oh, well, you'll drop off your stuff and I'll prepare your return and Susie will call you when it's ready, that's a pretty good indicator that that's going to be a transactional relationship and which isn't really a relationship, that's going to be a transaction for them. And that certainly has its place. I mean, there are people generally not small business owners, but there are people who just need their tax return filed, you know, and so if that's what you're looking for, you know, that's the way they would respond to that. And if they say, you know, our approach is to first listen and understand the challenges that you face in your business and then provide you with guidance on how we are able to come alongside you and help you get from where you are to where you're going by supporting decision making and making sure you've got accurate, relevant financial information and a long term tax plan, then that's somebody that's going to really be an advantage advisor to you, proactive advisor. And so I think having a feel for what you're looking for and then asking questions about their approach to serving is a, is a great way to sort of assess that. And those are maybe two extremes. There's lots of different variables of service in between those two extremes. But that's. I would say that's one question that I would suggest that you. That you ask about. And that's typically, you know, when we talk to prospective clients, that's a big part of what I talk about is our approach to service, because it's not the right fit for everybody, but it is how we approach client service. So if this matches with what you're looking for, you know, we're going to be a great fit. And if it doesn't match with what you're looking for, we, you know, we're probably not a right fit for you.

Yeah, that's great. I think, I think it's great advice because. Because you do have some people that I just want somebody to do my taxes I can do or whatever, you know, that kind of thing. But then you get like, my accounting firm, you know, they're always calling me, hey, what's going on with this? What's that? And making recommendations, you know, we. I just opened up a new solo 401k because my life is different now. I sold, you know, my last big business a few years ago and kind of solopreneur now and paying healthcare and everything. And my. It's my accountant that's like, well, you need to put your wife, she needs to be on your payroll. She's working for you. And then we can write off the healthcare costs and you can do this solo 401k. That kind of relationship was what I'm looking for. But somebody else may just say, hey, I just want you to do my taxes.

Right, right. Exactly. Yeah. And I think, like, what you're mentioning there, that's very proactive. And not all CPAs are like that. Some CPAs are more reactive. It's like, well, if you call me and say, should I put my wife on my payroll? I will answer you. But not every CPA will proactively be thinking about that and reach out to you. And so a lot of people in this profession are, like I said earlier, very technical. And technical people like to have the answers. And so if you really want that proactive relationship with somebody, you've got to find a CPA who's comfortable not knowing all the answers, who's more comfortable asking questions and learning about what you're trying to accomplish and seeking out strategies and other, you know, service providers that have expertise in different areas that can help get there, regardless of whether or not they're the one that knows the right answer off the top of their head.

Yeah. That's huge. That's great. Okay, so I've learned so much today, it's awesome. The last question we like to ask now is all about action because we really have started to think of the term small business as a verb, not a noun. Because action is so important and you just need to get out there and start and you know, not. So is there one action item that you can recommend to our small business owner listeners, something they could do today or this week that would help them be more successful?

So I think I'm a big proponent of this as well. And I think that people need to stop waiting for certainty. Like right now there's so much uncertainty around the economy and the global health pandemic, the election. There's just so much uncertainty and people are waiting. Small business owners are waiting to see what's going to happen with any one or all of those items and a host of other things. What I think you need to do is stop waiting for certainty and just pick something that you are clear about and do it. Like take action. There was a podcast episode by the Table group that talked about this. They called it plant your friggin tree. The Chinese proverb that the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today. And that has been with me in this season as we've been running our own small business. It doesn't have to be perfect. I don't have to be certain. I just have to do it and be willing to make mistakes and adapt and course correct along the way. So I know your listeners all have something out there that they're holding onto in their back pocket is as soon as I feel more certain about this, then we can do that. My advice would be stop waiting for certainty because you're going to be moving backwards. Everybody else that is willing to take those risks going to be passing you by. And when you come up with your certainty, you'll be way behind. And so take that thing out of your back pocket and do something. Knowing that you can course correct along the way doesn't have to to be perfect.

That is perfect advice, especially with the tag, because you're going to be moving backwards. I'm going to be teaching a class to some college students in the spring and I'm about podcasting and business and I'm definitely going to start the class with that. Like stop waiting. Nobody here knows how to do this. We're all going to do it anyway. Let's go.

You know, it's just a great mantra for your life Too.

Right.

I'm totally going to steal that. My kids are going to be hearing that. It's like, oh, dad, they say they listen to the podcast, but they probably don't. So I get to then sound much smarter than I actually am.

And for me, like personality wise, I'm an enneagram one, the perfectionist or the improver. And so I can, I mean this, I'm preaching to my own self here and saying sometimes I have to like smack myself upside the head and be like, you can't wait for perfection. I think startups are really good about this. Startups are inherently good at like, you've got to find your first customer. You got to get out there and figure out, you know, what is it that I'm selling. And we'll figure out all the details later. But once we're in established businesses in a growth or maturity stage, I think we get kind of hesitant to we're afraid we're going to make a mistake or we're afraid we're going to look foolish or afraid we're going to do something wrong or it's not going to be perfect. And we've got to get over that.

Yeah. At least you've convinced yourself you have more to lose so you become more conservative, more risk averse, you know, and that's. Yeah, that's so great.

It's really good. I'm going to go back and listen to this again while I'm editing it. So, Courtney, thank you so much for coming on the show today. We've learned so much about accounting, but just well, well beyond that too, which I really love. What's the best way for our listeners to connect with you and to learn more about TDT, CPAs and advisors?

We would love for your listeners to go to tdtpc.com or text blindspot to 33777. Both of those avenues will get them connected to our website as well as a place to download a free guide that we have available that talks about the business blind spot. So we've been helping business owners navigate these unexpected things that come up along the way. As you're growing and scaling your business, there's problems and opportunities that you didn't see coming. We call them blind spots. We created a guide that helps business owners identify and overcome those blind spots. And you can access that from tdtpc.com blindspot or by texting blindspot to 33777. Both of those will allow you to download that guide as well as navigate to any other part of our website that's great.

We're going to put that in the show notes as well. And thanks again for, you know, spending your valuable time today with us and helping us educate our listeners as well as me, which might be the most important. So that's great.

It's my pleasure. Thank you for this conversation. I really enjoyed it.

Oh, man.

You know, one of my least favorite.

Topics and then rolls right into one of my favorite shows. That's awesome.

Stop waiting for certainty. If you folks are not yet sick of us hearing us say don't make fear based decisions, you're going to get sick of that eventually. And you're also going to get sick of us saying, stop waiting for certainty. That's a, that's one of the new money quotes here because it's so true. You just heard it.

I thought that should be on a T shirt.

Yeah, yeah, right. Forget about business. Like just in life there's no certainty ever. Ever. Yeah. Oh, gosh. Such.

Yeah.

Such good advice. Yeah, yeah.

And I love hearing, you know, we learned a lot about accounting and, but just also Courtney's story, you know, of, of going from an introductory intern all the way to ownership of the, of the, you know, business and along the way and just all the things, you know, so much of that stuff is, you know, it's just critically important and how you manage it and if you have a good accountant like that, they can help you in so many different ways. And like I said, it's not my favorite topic, but it's really important.

It's super important. No, and being proactive about it and making your accountant, you know, your advisor and your partner. It was great to hear that coming from kind of the other side of this. Not that there's sides, but, you know, from someone with her experience and her perspective, you know, saying the same thing, it's like, okay, great. And some of those questions, like asking how does your business make money? That's huge. And it's. Yeah, it's such an obvious question that many small business owners don't know the answer to. In fact, there have been times in my career where I don't know the answer. And as she was asking, I'm like, do I know it now? Like, what?

I thought it was one thing, but it turns out you're like, wow, you know, that's not your most profitable, you know, market. You know, this other thing that maybe is a little boring is really generating all the revenue. So.

Yeah, do this instead. Yeah, exactly.

Really some great advice.

Yeah, it's good stuff.

We hope you enjoyed the show today. One thing we'd love for to to get from you is some feedback. Let us know feedbackusiness show co. You can also leave us an honest review up at any podcast directory that you use. You know, like every other show, they want a five star review. We just want your honest review. We love the the good and the criticism and it helps us make us better. And totally that's what we're trying to do here.

Yeah. Keep us. Keep us posted on what you're doing. We would love to hear from you and, and keep living that charmed life, would you we that that's really what we're after here. So thanks for listening folks.

We'll see you.