Part of the Power of Focus Mini-Series

What really separates great accounting firms from the rest?

That question is what led Brannon Poe and Ian Brennan to put together this mini-series. And after years of working with firm owners across the country, lifting up the hood on hundreds of practices, the answer kept coming back to the same thing: focus.

Welcome to the Power of Focus, a mini-series produced in partnership with Accounting Practice Academy. Throughout the series, you'll hear from APA alumni, members of our Poe Group team, and other industry voices sharing real-world perspectives on what happens when firm owners get deliberate about where they put their energy. Whether that's focusing on the right clients, the right staff, the right type of work, or simply on where you as the owner add the most value, the firms that get this right see results that compound over time.

THE CONVERSATION COVERS:

• Why 80% of accounting firms are underperforming, and what the top 20% are doing differently
• Two distinct models for a highly profitable practice (high complexity/high value vs. high volume/high efficiency) and why most firms get stuck between them
• The "closet analogy": why pruning before you can grow is the move most owners resist
• How client selection may be the single biggest lever in your practice
• The fear behind price increases, and why most firm owners are sitting on more pricing power than they realize
• What it looks like when a younger, entrepreneurial owner grabs hold of these concepts and runs with them

Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction and episode overview
01:49 Where Brannon's thinking on focus began: the 80/20 Principle
02:50 What the Pareto Principle is and why it shows up everywhere
04:43 How reviewing hundreds of CPA firm financials revealed the pattern
06:24 A real-world example: $2.3M revenue, $1M owner cash flow, 3 months off
08:06 Two models for a highly profitable CPA firm
10:40 Niching down as a focus strategy, and why it scales faster
12:01 Delivering value as the core of everything
13:04 The closet analogy: you can't add until you prune
16:19 APA alumni spotlight: Bill and Chris Murphy and the first domino
20:09 Why creating capacity through price increases often doesn't work the way you'd hope
21:52 The shortage of CPAs and what it means for your pricing power
23:45 How to identify your right clients (the answer is already in your practice)
25:24 Asking your staff who they love working with
27:40 The mindset obstacle: the belief that you already know it all
28:25 Why change usually waits for a crisis, and how to change before one arrives
29:26 Greg Toner: what happens when a younger owner grabs the vision and runs

Download Now: https://poegroupadvisors.com/accounting-practice-academy/increase-letter/

Price increases are nothing to fear. The real challenge is effectively informing clients of these changes. Our templates will help you demonstrate your value and help clients understand the increases necessary to keep your firm afloat.

*Download now and receive:*
- (1) Major Fee Increase Letter Template
- (1) 20% Fee Increase Letter Template

Barbara Agerton flunked retirement. After selling her California CPA practice, she thought she'd ride off into the sunset with her husband. Instead, she got bored, picked up the phone, and asked if she could come work for the company that sold her firm.

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

Barbara sold her practice after running it remotely from Texas for eight years. She transitioned to the cloud back in 2013, before that was the standard playbook, and built systems that allowed her team to run everything without her in the room. When it came time to sell, her buyer barely called during the transition. Barbara's feelings were a little hurt, but that's actually when she knew she'd done everything right.

The conversation covers:

• How losing two key team members to relocations forced a pivot to cloud-based practice in 2013, and why the trust challenge of going remote was harder than expected
• The emotional reality of selling: "It's like cutting your arms off" when you stop interacting daily with people you've worked with for years
• Why her buyer barely called during transition (which hurt her feelings but proved she'd built systems that didn't need her)
• The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey approach: stop solving every problem yourself and teach your team to find their own answers
• Why she wishes she'd sold sooner instead of waiting, and how most sellers wait until illness or family situations force the decision

Barbara's biggest lesson? Most sellers wait too late. They wait until illness, family situations, or burnout force the sale. The best exits happen when you're selling from a position of strength, not desperation. The firms that sell the easiest are the ones where the owner has already slowly, gradually let go over years of building systems and empowering their team.

The irony? Barbara prepared so well for retirement that she got bored and came back to work. But now she gets to use everything she learned to help other firm owners prepare for their own exits, whether they actually retire or, like her, discover they're not quite done yet.

This episode is for firm owners wondering when to start preparing for an exit, leaders trying to figure out how to let go without losing control, anyone considering a move to a remote or cloud-based accounting practice, and sellers who think their practice isn't "perfect enough" to take to market yet.

Timestamps:

• 00:00 Introduction to Barbara Agerton
• 01:34 Preparing for the Sale of a CPA Practice
• 03:39 Transitioning to a Cloud-Based Accounting Practice
• 07:00 Client Experience During a CPA Firm Transition
• 08:50 Deciding to Sell Your CPA Firm: Personal Motivations
• 09:58 Emotional Challenges of Selling a Tax Practice
• 11:01 The Importance of Team Dynamics
• 13:30 Preparing Your Team for a Sale
• 16:03 Reflections on Timing and Selling any bookkeeping, CPA, or CAS practice
• 18:30 Book Recommendations and Closing Thoughts

Book Recommendation:

Unreasonable Hospitality

Private equity is flooding into accounting, but taking an offer because of the flashy number on the table isn’t always the best decision.

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

Accounting firms check every box private equity investors love: recurring revenue, fragmented ownership, under-optimized systems, and opportunity for scale. But while the market is strong and options are abundant, the real risk isn’t missing out—it’s moving too fast. Headline offers can be enticing, yet the fine print, cultural fit, leadership alignment, and long-term vision ultimately determine whether a deal becomes a win or a regret.

*In this episode, we cover:*
- Why private equity is so aggressively targeting CPA firms right now
- The danger of the “headline offer” and how earnouts can change the real math
- Why selling your firm is rarely just a financial decision
- How to think about opportunity cost and the value of your time
- What buyers actually want today (and why owner dependency kills value)
- The critical $2.5M–$5M growth stretch and why it’s so hard to scale there
- When acquisition creates “escape velocity” for smaller firms
- Why burnout might be telling you: “fix the firm,” not “sell the firm”
- The power of pruning your client base and focusing instead of being everything to everyone
- Why boundaries around time, pricing, and services are strategic rather than restrictive

The M&A market may be active, but urgency is not a strategy. Whether you’re considering a sale, exploring private equity, or simply trying to build a stronger, more valuable firm, this conversation offers clarity in a noisy environment. In a consolidating profession, the firms that win won’t be the ones chasing the biggest multiple—they’ll be the ones making disciplined decisions about timing, focus, and fit.

Download Now: https://poegroupadvisors.com/accounting-practice-academy/increase-letter/

Price increases are nothing to fear. The real challenge is effectively informing clients of these changes. Our templates will help you demonstrate your value and help clients understand the increases necessary to keep your firm afloat.

*Download now and receive:*
- (1) Major Fee Increase Letter Template
- (1) 20% Fee Increase Letter Template