409 He Made $152k In 2024 Running A 2-Person Accounting Firm

The man himself, Accounting zone. Logan Graff is here to tell us about his annual video that he does where he breaks down how much money his firms make or how much money it doesn't make. There's no hiding when you post your full P and L online for anybody to tear apart. So we talk through kind of what worked this year, what didn't work, the emotional roller coaster that is being that visible. Like props to him, I think. I think his annual video where he shares how much money he's making is probably the single greatest advertisement for folks coming into launching their own firms. But always fun chatting with Logan. We covered all sorts of things. I think you're going to like this one. Without further ado, here's Logan GR. Okay, Logan Graph. If anybody hasn't bumped into you in the wild yet, seen you online, what's, what's the 30 second Logan graph intro?

What's up Logan graph? I'm a CPA firm owner.

Full YouTube intro. Okay.

I'm, I'm, I'm ready. So yeah, CPA firm owner based out of Austin, Texas. But I also create content for accountants. Basically I'm like Jason, but the lazy version. I also have a accounting community firm called Counter.

So why we are we're chatting here today is you on an annual basis have decided it's a good idea to disclose the financials of your firm for open ridicule. And that's what we're going to do here today. So we will, I should, I should say we'll point everybody to the video in the show notes. I think it's probably the single best advertisement for launching your own firm. I don't know any, any what. What was your like the process of putting that video together is kind of a forcing function to make you go back through all that data. Right? Like what were, what were kind of your main emotions coming out of that doing that this year?

So 2024, the story was, was about like each year I kind of have a story essentially of, of how the year went because without a proper story to video, it's not very fun to watch. My opinion. So 2024 story is really just a refining of my firm and just basically the results of what happens when you put your efforts elsewhere outside of the firm. So I was really trying to dial back quality of life in 2024. And so I had a full time employee for throughout the full year. So I took home less money compared to the year before and made less money overall. But I was able to kind of put energy into another business Essentially, you.

Sent me some of the data and boy, do I have some questions. Oh, oh, no, you for first question, you only worked 1658 hours last year. That's an average of under 32 hours a week. Do you still call yourself an accountant?

That is probably like I didn't show up in work, as they say. That's a reference from way back during PPP days, stimulus days when I didn't make an. I made too little money to where I wasn't phased out of it. So I got ridiculed for being eligible for the stimulus right after I just started my own firm.

Oh, that's right. I remember that you were talking on Twitter about being eligible for it. And the people immediately came in, came in and were like, your firm. You don't make enough money to be phased out of this. I forgot about that.

There's no way I would be anywhere near the title of an, of an accountant right now.

Okay, so less than 32 hours a week. What did he say your peak was? It was some like, like 50 something hours in April.

Yeah, it was about like 54ish, 56ish hours. And that was like my top hours for the week. Top weekly hour. I don't know what I just said. That's the most hours I worked that week for the full year.

It was your weekly. Hang on. Most of this will get cut. It was your houriest week of the year. It was 50. You said 54 about.

So. Yeah.

Yeah. Those are some rookie numbers. Is that the, is that the least you've ever worked in a year, you think since coming into the profession?

Yes. Except for Covid, that Covid years were where that was a little weird. But every year I've owned a firm, I've been working less, but pretty much been making more money essentially. And then before owning a firm, I was working way, way, way, way, way, way more than I am now.

What was the norm for you when you were working for somebody else?

Like 60, 65 hours in the chair, in the office every week. And you know, you're away from home essentially the whole time you're, you're in an office.

Okay, so the, the big headline here is you made less money, but that was trading away time, obviously. That was trading away you having to do all of the technical heavy lifting because you made a hire.

Yeah, hired. I had a full time hire, 2024. He had come on the late, later half of 2023. So I was expecting to take home less money. The pretty much the equivalent of his salary in 2024. And that was the case. So. And my revenues were down just a little bit as well. So took home less money, made less money.

On the top line is everybody optimizes for different things. You know, a lot of folks are just wired in a very sweaty way where they want to make this make a really big impressive thing, but other people are not coming into 2025. What would you have that look like, like, besides just, oh, make more money and even less time. Do you want to work even less? Like, what are, what are you thinking? Or are you thinking you'll keep it more or less the same?

I want to work about the same in the firm. The thing is, I started a new business essentially last year and if you count content creation of business, that's roughly three businesses that I'm running. And, and so I need the firm hours to stay about the same. I'm going to be hopefully delegating more work to my employee Gary. And so firm, firm hours should reduce, should, should be lower. But I'm hoping to actually make up some revenue and with some advertising and trying to bring on more business clients. Now I said that last year, but I failed in that. But my efforts were spent creating counter, the community for accounting firm owners. And I've, I was just thinking about this. Like, I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn and X and a lot of time creating content. And I was thinking, and it's for accountants, essentially. I was like, well, what if I thought about it and I directed those, directed the audience towards potential clients, like, how much advance would my firm be like, you know, what type of clients would I have in that case? And I think it would be pretty impressive if I directed that energy towards potential clients. But I didn't. I directed it in a different area towards something that's actually gonna make me money for. So for 2025, the accounting community is gonna bring in some good revenue. And that's something that the audience that's listening, that wants to start a firm or is running a firm right now to think about, like, okay, where am I putting my efforts? And, and is this going to pay off in any way? Because I am, I made a choice to, to dial back my firm efforts to work on something else. It could be personal to where it doesn't make any money. But you, you had like an amazing year.

You're.

You took off multiple days a week, every week. You spent a lot of time with your family, you traveled a lot. That wasn't the case for me. I redirected towards counter and that's actually going to be paying off in 2025 more.

So you're that 32 hours a week that included time spent on content creation and social media and, and the community in addition to the firm. Yeah, all, all that. And you were still still just the 32 hours. So we've been throwing hours around like all sorts of different hours. You're using rise, right? To record like basically everything you're doing on a computer.

R I Z E. It's like an automated time tracking software.

Does Gary use that your employee like, is that good enough to actually like capture firm time?

He does. I told him to use it and he, he calculated the hours essentially like throughout 2024 using it and his hourly pay as well. Cause I was like Gary, I want, I want to bet like you almost made as much money as I did hourly because I didn't have that much work for him last year. Uh, he didn't, he didn't come close, which is good thankfully. But he still made a good hourly rate. It was about $50 an hour for G baby. So Gary, I, I knew hiring Gary it would be a lot of training and mentoring and, and building up. So he, he is right now kind of behind the scenes. I'm still on the front line and we're actually working on getting him more on the front line and, and communicating with clients more. That's the goal. And so we're working towards that and hopefully he'll get there pretty soon.

So your take home was 151k this year, is that right or last year?

Yep.

Year before it was something more than that. What was it?

So last year I made about $205,000 take home.

So it went down 50.

Went down about 50k.

Oh my gosh. Are your children going hungry?

That's what happens when you have a full time employee. But that was about the same amount of money that I took home in 2022. We only need about 100k 110k to live off every year from my budgeting I guess for 2024. And so there's actually a good amount left over for savings or putting it in emergency fund.

This episode is sponsored in part by liveflow, the folks that give your spreadsheets and your financial dashboards superpowers. 2. Two superpowers that LifeLow gives you. One, a button in your Excel and your Google sheets to pull in data from any old client accounting file you have in QBO or 0. Imagine just having that a button away all the time. Being able to pull that stuff into a spreadsheet, either a one time poll or an ongoing like continuous sync. Second superpower they give you is the ability to throw together super quick, as simple or as complex as you want. Financial dashboards that your clients will actually use because you can make them more actionable than financial statements and it doesn't require this big old like rigid reporting platform that they then have to go log into or something. You create these dashboards, you share them with a link. Just like with the spreadsheets. It can be a one time data push or it can be an ongoing sync so the client just keeps going back to that same like super smart stuff. Particularly if your clients aren't making sense of those financial statements because that's not an easy thing for most business owners to do. Learn more about liveflow. Check out the link down in the show Notes this episode is sponsored in part by Team Up. Hello sir or Madam, I would like to discuss with you an opportunity to use our vast accounting staffing resources with expertise that is vast and world leading. Signed every DM that I get on LinkedIn. It is like peak offshoring. Outbound inbound accountants are inundated with everybody and their mom offering some sort of offshore solution for getting accounting work done. If only it were such a nice easy silver bullet, right? Here's the thing, gang. I don't know how to make heads or tails of virtually any of it. But what I do know is that there are two groups that were heavily recommended to me and are the only two groups that I run sponsorships for. And we continue to run sponsorships for them because we're sending a bunch of people to them like it is working. That's why these companies continue to buy ads on my channel. And so very often I run into listeners who use these services and I stop and I say, how was it? Was it good? Was it bad? Tell me everything about it. And we continue to run sponsorships for these groups because they're good, because people are having really good success with them. Team up what they do really, really well. They help you find talented accountants in the Philippines that you work with directly. No middleman, no ongoing fees. No. Like the way I did it back in the day in my firm, I was actually paying a group and almost half of my monthly payments were going to the group, not going to the individual. So if you want to work with these super talented people directly, get on the horn with Team Up. They've got recruiterments on the ground in the Philippines. They'll find you some really good People learn more. Check out the link down in the show notes. What would Logan back when he was working for somebody else and didn't know anything about launching your firm, what would Logan back then have said? If he could see your financial statements.

Now, he would have been like, absolutely amazed. Because when you're an employee, you don't make that much all things now. So I was pretty much an employee pre Covid. So that kind of changed salaries for the better for accountants. So my first year as a CPA, I was making like $45,000 in 2014, probably about, and that, that was okay. Like, that was good. And then like, I always thought making six figures was amazing. And so looking back now at, you know, what I took home in 2024, it was about 150k is, is incredible because I'm probably working half the amount as I was when I first started as being a cpa. So that's, that's really what it really comes down to. You can make a lot of money, but you know, how much of your life did it take for from you? That's perfectly fine if you make a lot of money. But did you see your family? Did you gain £30 during the year? Are you going to die at your desk? The list goes on and on.

I think most people in your position struggle with lifestyle bloat and the existential dread of going backwards and the fear of that and just running harder and harder on the hamster wheel because it's just so uncomfortable to go backwards. I, I, I don't know. Are you, are you doing something, something different? Like what, what advice would you have with people who struggle with that ability to say, like, no, we're actually crushing it right now and we don't need to kill ourselves to just do more for the sake of doing more?

Yeah, that's what I'm hoping the 2024 video takeaway is for a lot of people. Like, you don't have to crush it every year. You don't have to increase your revenue every year to, to be able to like dial it back a little bit and gain control of your life. Like that is a success. Like, you have to, it's really all it comes down to is like, how, how much are you content with what you have? Because if you can't be content with a little, you can't be content with a lot, in my opinion. And so I've really been struggling, or I had been struggling as a business owner, new firm owner for the past few years of being content with the enough money that I need to survive off of. And we think we just need more, more and more and more, but that's really not the case because you end up making the money that you thought would make you happy. And then you're like, man, what did I do last year other than work? You know, I had to say no to my family a lot. I had to spend time in the office a lot. I was constantly thinking about work. I, I didn't really have fun per se. You know, burnout levels were, were topping out and I was like, you know, 2023, it was like I made a ton of money, but I don't think this was worth it. And coming back to 2024 and thinking about, you know, how much money I made, I was like, I'm perfectly okay with it because I worked a lot less. And I think it allowed me to do something that I've been wanting to do, which is what launch a community. Like putting your efforts somewhere else, family or other business or hobbies is, is what makes it worth it. And I think taking a step or taking a step back in the firm revenue is, is going to be worth it.

Yeah, you, and you mentioned spending time creating content for the firm, like client facing content. You're doing more things than most accountants do. Do you worry about fragmenting that attention too much so that you're doing kind of juggling too many different things?

Yes, that's a huge concern for me. And it's something that I'm going to kind of have to learn the hard way this year to figure out where, you know, where my limits are for each kind of business, essentially. And. But something new that I'm doing this year is the scheduling your tax return with my 1040 client. So you've done a whole series on that. Thank you very much for, for that series. So that, that's something that I'm going to be able to create content on like a lame accountant content creator, according to the Redditors. So I did that purposefully because there's no way I could have, I could also run a community business for, for accountants. And full steam ahead during busy season, working 45 plus hours a week. So I created capacity with that scheduling system and some indirect firings through price increases.

What are you, what workload are you looking at for tax season? With that scheduled approach, how many hours are you anticipating spending on firm things?

I'm hoping the firm hours top out 40 hours a week or even less. And that's gonna allow me capacity for, you know, I could, I can spend A little bit extra time between January and April with the community, you know, so it'll shift the firm hours, essentially. I'll, I'll be working less firm hours, but it'll be replaced potentially with community hours.

So you definitely, you go out, you share your financial statements, all that stuff. You definitely put a target on your back. Recently there was, you had an incredible R slash accounting on Reddit. They basically shared something that you had shared from Reddit, poking fun at Reddit. And then they absolutely went wild. And I think my favorite was that you had a very punchable face. Are there days where, like, it's easy to laugh at it, but I also know sometimes, and this is myself speaking, you can simultaneously laugh at it while crying on the inside. Are there days where, like, being this transparent and sharing what you're doing, Are there days where it's like, like, is this actually worth it, putting myself out there?

Yeah, that day I was laughing on the outside, crying on the inside. For sure. Reddit was, I was not expecting just the, the uncalled for, like, vitriol. Yeah, vitriol critique of who I am. And the title that I gave myself as a content creator for some reason flamed up. This eternal hatred, this deep down hatred for influencers, maybe, I don't know, but it was wild. I was, I was pretty upset at the beginning of that, but then I was like, this is actually kind of sad in a way that people would judge someone for, for that. But yeah, so, like, those kind of days is hard, but I know they, they weren't, they weren't critiquing me in the sense that of, of what I was actually doing. They were critiquing me on the outside. So the, the punchable face, the title content creation creator, that's what they were judging me on. So it didn't hurt that much. And, and I talk a lot about how I'm at my firm, you know, putting all the numbers out there. That's a huge thing for someone to do, like putting your finances out for the world to see. And I guess I have no shame in that. And it's really easy for if someone were to critique how much money I made for me to not care, because I know exactly what that money does for me and what it means for me, and they can't do anything about it. I'm only trying to help improve accountants or, you know, help support and encourage other accountants and the industry as a whole. And knowing that that's my mission and someone being negative towards that, I know that they're just misdirected in some way and there's just some sort of block for some reason, for some reason they're triggered about it. And I know that, like, I don't think they really mean ill will towards me.

It's not about you, it's about them.

They're probably hating their lives and just trying to make themselves feel better by releasing it on me.

I mean, that's our accounting is just a whole lot of complaining about the accounting profession in general, I think. But boy, were there. There was just a whole lot of so much material from there.

I read it and that's great. And what's great is I turned it around as I made content from that post and the responses. So props. I know a lot of people from that subreddit are now following me on LinkedIn because of that. So I don't know.

So that's the thing. Like there are super mean people, but all that negative engagement was still engagement and caused a whole bunch more people to see it. I have to think that you picked up loads of people from that.

Yeah, I win. I won. It's the, it's the Walter White, you know, phone call at the end. Like, I won.

Okay, enough talking about Reddit. So going back 22, 23, 241 to 10, what number would the family give to each of those three years?

Like how Logan did. Like the quality of Logan between those three years.

One was like, didn't even see him. Ten was like, saw him a lot and it was great.

I would say it goes so starting from the furthest year away, so three years away, probably a four, and then probably jumped to a six and then probably to a seven and a half. And then this year is going to be even better because a lot of that is weighted very heavily between January and April. You know that January April weighs you down tremendously, which is almost a third of the year or a quarter to a third of the year, which people don't really realize because I always cringe so hard or I don't get a good feeling when people are like, I'd rather work really hard now and have a free summer. They just don't understand how much of their life is actually being taken up by between January and April. But anyway, so this year it's going to be even better. Because of the scheduling system, clients know what to expect. They know that they I'm preparing the return. I'm starting it on the date that they choose. I only allowed a certain amount of dates to be selected between January and April. And it's gonna, it's gonna be amazing because now clients are expecting that versus expecting me to do their work when all 30 of them upload on March 1st, which is terrible.

So you were 7 and 7.5 last year. Uh, you were 75 and you, you made 151,000, bottom line, last year. What would you pay for each additional point? Like, how much of that would you give up to get to an 8.5?

That's hard. So if, if, if I could get to an 8.5, that would probably need another, another $50,000 in staff costs. My. That'd be my guess. So, so another 50k to get that extra point.

So just doing that mental exercise, like, would that be worthwhile? Like, would you, like, lifestyle wise, would you go back to a hundred K if you knew it would get you an 8.5?

That's actually a great question. Like, totally. Like, if I know how much money I need to make for the year and I can reverse engineer that be like, okay, well, if I have an extra 40k. 40, 50k to spend on a staff member, yeah, I think that's, that's a great exercise. I think everybody needs to do that, honestly. Cause that, that's what helped me hire Gary. Cause I, I kind of did some. I did this exercise, like, all right, if I had about 50k less money next year, would I be okay? And I was like, I think I will be, and it'll. And it allowed me to work on other stuff. And so I'm definitely okay with how much money we made, and I'm happy with what I've accomplished over the last year. Because if I didn't spend all the time that I do trying to build a brand on LinkedIn and Twitter and trying to pump content and push people towards the community, that's a tremendous amount of time. And that if I didn't do that stuff, I could conquer the world, basically, if I either directed it towards my business or my firm, or I could travel the world and not really worry about, you know, how much I'm working, because it's, it's really not that much.

It's funny how in that, that exercise, like, dollars relative to the number, like the, like, the goal is always 10. Like, I feel like if you zoom out in life, like, the goal is the 10. But I think we oftentimes do, like, what we just did, where you frame money first and then the goal, where it's like, you know, how much money are you willing to trade off to get to the 10? When it's like we have this notion in our head of how much money we need to maintain our current, you know, level of means or whatever, but it's like, wipe out all those means. Isn't the. Isn't the goal ultimately the 10?

Yeah, I don't think. I don't think 10 is possible, but.

Oh, it's not.

I don't know if it is, because that's. That's like perfection. Right? So I think trying to get as high as possible while still maining, maintaining your. Your finances is the goal. Like, I don't know if we can ever reach 10.

You don't think 10 is possible? I mean, 11 isn't possible, but this is my scale, and it ends at 10. You don't think 10's possible?

Maybe. What's a 10 for you?

What is a 10 for me? 10 is, I'm always patient with the children. 10 is my wife will look me in the eye and have the utmost respect for me. My parents don't think I withhold the availability of my children from them. It's just. It's everything coming together. It's watching the game with, you know, the buddies every Sunday, and it's like a Buffalo Wild Wings commercial. I don't know. It's. Everybody's vibing. It's not really a money thing. Like, you could do it. I mean, you walk into a Buffalo Wild Wings for free. It's not a money thing. So it's probably just like everybody getting along and finding that kind of. Kind of harmony that oftentimes is. I don't know. Oftentimes that harmony is, like, framed as it is something that's in conflict with work.

Okay, so. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So 10. 10 is possible in that context. So I would say a 10. Like a 10 for me is doable as long as there's no tension between, oh, I have to work and, oh, I have to spend time with family, and, oh, I have to do this fun thing that I want to do. So between those. Those three things, there's no tension between any of them. So you're freely, like, you're free to do any of them without the worry of the other two aspects. You know, does that make sense?

So you're thinking basically any time or attention that goes into work stuff, inherently, it takes away from the other side of the coin. Is that why you can't get to a 10?

No, I take that's what a 10 is. So a 10 is, like your attention on either. Either family, friends, something fun. Like something really fun. And then work. So I guess fun is like doing things on your own, you know, doing what you want to do.

Fun. Fun is doing things without the family. What do you mean, doing things on your own? The fun is solitude. When you close the closet door and they don't know where you are and you have just a moment alone with your tears.

You know, working, like working on your project car, you know, doing stuff that's kind of like, let's say it's a hobby. So between hobby, freedom of solo time, you know, I'm an introvert, dude, so this matters to me. Okay? And then family, friends, and then your work. So what produces income? Like, if there's, if you can be doing any of those without any tension from the other two and those need attention, attention and, and to be worked on and it's not also impacting your. Your mental state of like, oh, I gotta. I gotta do this, I can't do this because I gotta do this, and so on. Then that's a 10. I think that's, that's, that's doable, but that's gonna be really hard. But I think I'm. Honestly, I could probably reach that within five years.

This episode is sponsored in part by Cloud accountant staffing. Nothing grinds my gears quite like a vendor in the accounting space that knows absolutely nothing about how accountants or accounting firms work. And there are, there are all too many of them. Not all of them. There's a ton of smart people in software and all that, but you definitely know what when there's like a sales rep or something that's just tone deaf and doesn't understand what you do. Cloud Accountant Staffing. This was their experience trying to offshore, trying to hire talented folks in the Philippines. And so they kind of just started rolling it themselves. Cloud account staffing. Basically, the founder was an accounting firm owner, had tremendous luck hiring talented people in the Philippines like I did, and eventually just started doing it for some other firms. And it grew and they started advertising on my channel. And now it is a proper big boy business. And the reason they're crushing it is because they get what it's like to run a firm and how to do this stuff and how to even work those people into your team successfully. Okay. If that's something you're exploring. To learn more about cloud accountant staffing, check out the link down in the show notes. Today's episode is sponsored in part by Canopy, the practice management system. Canopy. They're one of the earliest, like, really solid cloud PMs that the accounting space got and they continue to somehow be like, very progressive and kind of at the leading edge of cool new stuff. Unlike a lot of very early cloud tools where they just kind of end up looking long in the teeth, man. Canopy has one of the, if not the most complete feature sets in the biz. And everything that they've got in their practice management system, just super polished, super professional. Something you can proudly put in front of your clients and your clients not have to be like, like give you some grace because they just expect that the tools that you use will suck. Oh my gosh. How long has that been a problem in the accounting industry where they're like, yeah, it's cute. Wow, look at that portal. I'm just impressed. My accountant has a portal. It's like, no, like, we should have really good tech that is professional and works as well as any other apps that that person uses. That's been my experience with Canopy. Just polished from end to end. One of the most comprehensive systems out there. To learn more about Canopy, check out the link down in the show. Notes. I didn't realize we're going to get so deep into philosophy on this one, but to bring this home. You mentioned project car and you've been talking minivan purchase lately. Have you pulled the trigger on a minivan yet? And what impact does that have on your number?

So close. So we were about to buy a minivan. I haven't pulled it triggered yet. So it's a big financial decision. And are you talking about the 10 out of 10? What's that going to do for the number?

No. What impact will that have on your number?

Oh, that's going to be amazing. I'd say bump it up a quarter percent.

Quarter point just from a minivan.

A quarter of a point, yeah.

Have you landed on a specific model yet?

It's got to be the Kia carnival.

But the 2025 Odyssey, such a punchable van, man.

The 2025 Odyssey is the punchable face. All right. The, the, the, the carnival is where it's at. But the OD, the 2025 Odyssey has a refresh, so which is looking pretty dapper for a van any the last couple years.

Any, like, particularly helpful feedback, like really constructive stuff from your P. Ls that you've gotten from other firm owners? Like this specific thing seems unusually high or low, anything like that?

They're always picking apart my software costs. It's like it's probably on the high end. Like, I think 2023 was the, the highest because last year it was not as much but 2023 I had about $40,000 in software costs which is like that's a person.

How much of that is ultra tax?

Almost half.

Probably 20k for a single seat ultra tax.

Oh we got, we got four seats. You know, three to four seats plus virtual office.

Is that the minimum or something?

I don't know how their billing works man, it's a mystery. I don't think anybody knows.

But it's unknowable.

You just send, you just send like a wheelbarrow of, of like gold to Western Union. Yeah. And they take it. That's, that's how I get my tax software.

Are you sure this isn't going to like a, a Thomas Reuters?

Not.

It's actually going to Thompson Reuters.

That's what they tell me is, is it not? Am I getting scammed?

Just send the Walmart gift card to Thomas Reuterson Shoot.

Yeah, the software is always really high and the, it's, it really started when I added SurePrep and TaxCaddy. So it's like I add a bunch of software to help reduce the soul sucking admin type work and try to increase efficiency and improve the client experience. So that's where I invest a lot of money into. And so that, that's what makes up a lot of the software. It's tax software plus kind of like tax return adjacent software and virtual office. So this next year I'm, I'm cutting. Well, sorry 2025 I will no longer have virtual office and will be using Verito. I don't know if you can include this in your video but I'm saving about $400 a month which is just blows my mind and I get more features essentially with Verito. So I'm super excited to be reducing software costs even more.

Yeah, I've always felt like software costs I can outrun but like human costs, human inputs like that. There's no outrunning that like you, you're just always having to find more people.

Yeah. Delegation is, is huge. So 2025, delegating more, less software costs. It's going to be an amazing year Jason. Probably work with less tax clients. So that's something else that was really surprising over the years is like I am working with less and less clients overall but my tax return fees are going up which is some sort of magic that's happening and I think that's, I think that's what you call price increase things. Price increases.

The magic of your magic of your prices going up and fewer people wanting to work with you.

Yeah, it's it's crazy. Like you end up, you end up making more money but working less. It's, it's wild. I don't know if accountants know this or not, but you can increase your pricing and even if less people work with you, you can still end up making more money. Like magic.

It's the, it's like we super try to like big brain firm running and that's really all that it is. Like if you just went down your client list and every paid you 25% more, like you would just have like 30 to 40% as much time. And like it really is just as simple as that.

It's true. And people dog on it like, oh, everybody always says price increases, but it's literally that's all there is to it. And accountants still need to do it. Like they still need to increase their pricing.

And it's also a justification for investing in anything and everything that improves the client experience. Like that, that then makes the North Star. How can I design this in a way that someone will happily pay more for it? And that could mean spending more on software. It could mean, you know, better, higher quality touch points with the client. But if that's kind of the end all be all solution to freedom and all of that, then it kind of just boils down to how do we get to the point and how do we keep pushing through those plateaus to find folks who will happily pay more. What's the next like big step change and what people would be willing to pay you for what you do?

I'm like very close to not allowing 1040 only clients to work with me. So like only 1040 prep clients, I guess you'd say. So there'd have to be some other extra service that they buy into like a consultation or planning or you know, access to me in some way. Or I just say like no, you have to have a business that we also work with. That would, that would be an even bigger jump for me. So I'm, I'm very close to, to having pretty much, I think I would just say we have a threshold, a minimum threshold to work with us. You basically have to buy X amount of services to become a client. And so it may be, I could see $2,000 being that number because my minimum right now is about $1,500 and it doesn't take that much. You know, $500 more is like a tax projection or access to me for the year. So it doesn't take too much now to get to $2,000 a year. That would be me being really brave and doing that. And like, the next step, me being more brave would be okay. If you're not like a business owner, we're not doing your accounting as well. We can't work together. So that scares me. And it's funny. It's like, I've taken these huge steps in firm ownership, and I'm still scared about making big steps, even though I've made big steps in the past. Like, a few years ago, I raised pricing on about 40 to 50 clients. I raised pricing more than the average, was over 50%. Some people were raised. I raised over 200%, and that was huge. And I ended up making more money overall with less clients. And so that was a big jump, emotional jump for me. Now the next emotional jump for me is, you know, really limiting who, who I work with. And that'll. Yeah, that'll help accelerate firm revenue and, and really allow, like, high. You know, it'll allow a lower number of clients that want to work with me, but the revenue will be higher per client and the relationship will be better overall.

Yeah, it's almost like unless you're living in that slightly scary spot, then you're probably not growing as fast as you could be because you forget about. You forget about all the past scary adjustments that you made. Like, you, you immediately are just thinking about the next one and the. And two steps ahead. It looks terrifying, but, like, the most viable, like, the reason why you take one step is so that the second step is less scary. And, and like, you have all these doubts about, is this a thing that I can actually do? But as soon as you made that previous step, like, you just kind of forget about it. Like, you block it out and you forget that, like, oh, what I was doing 18 months ago, if I could see what I'm doing now, like, this is the thing that would look incredibly terrifying.

Yeah. And the one way to get rid of that or one way to help you get over that step is community. So plug for realize, like, is having a community of support to be, to look at somebody and be like, hey, I just took this big step, and guess what? It was great. And I'm going to show you exactly how to do that and help support you along the way. Like, that is the way that helps you advance as a business owner, is being around other people that have been there and done that before you. Because a lot of the stuff that I have done, a lot of the big jumps that I have, I've. I've made, has only been because of the Encouragement and what I've seen from other people do. There's. There's really. It'd be really hard for me to make that jump on my own. Like, it. The huge emotional toll and mental toll that it takes to do something like that is. Is really hard, at least for me. And so I imagine other people can relate to that as well.

That's such a big hack. When you see something that else that is, like, unthinkable. Like when somebody says something and you just kind of dismiss it. Cause you're like, I don't understand how that could even work. And I kind of don't even believe you that it is such a powerful hack to immerse yourself in an environment where those people are hanging out because it just inevitably makes those things the norm for you.

Yeah, it's. It's like normal. Yep.

So you mentioned bringing on. Bringing on gear. Bear an employee. How did that change your. Your package setup? Like, you have clients that only exclusively work with him. Like, did it create sort of a divide in the folks that work with directly with you versus don't, or are you still the face and he's kind of just doing the grunt work in the back?

Yeah. The level that I hired at was a lower, lower level beginner type staff member. So Gary had just about a year maybe worth of experience with accounting and taxes. So keeping that, keep that in mind when you hire somebody, you know, are you hiring somebody to handhold and to guide along the way and to kind of do grunt work type work? Are you hiring somebody that can connect the dots between A to B? You give them a B task and they know how to get there on their own and can work it out.

Logan, we've covered philosophy, we've covered money, we've covered minivans. If people want more of this, and I honestly don't know how they couldn't. Where should we send them? Where do they find you online?

Check me out on X LinkedIn. I also have a community for firm owners called Counter because we're counter to the traditional way of running public accounting firms. And I'm on YouTube, so check me out. Look forward to seeing all of y' all there and really appreciate Jason for having me on here.

You bet. Thanks for coming on, man.