Provide quality bookkeeping, tax, and QOE nationwide. Inspired Or Acquired Podcast host. Acquired 3 firms. Fly fisherman and small business geek. NH and COđ
Joined April 2014
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3 Feb 2023
Updating my bio for new followers - Iâve acquired 3 accounting firms. Appletree provides bookkeeping, tax and consulting to small businesses nationwide. Previous background was sales and advisory. Dad of 3 boys.
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Business buyers and fly fishermen:
âYou shouldâve been here earlier. Last year was better. What used to work isnât working.â
Either way you just gotta get in the game.
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Jun 10
If youâre selling your business you have to keep your foot on the GAS all the way to the closing table. Much easier said than done when youâre tired and selling the business is another part time job.
But if trailing 12 months financials start to dip then buyers get scared, walk away, or beat you down in price. Then you lose a buyer and have to grind to get the business performing again and go to market all over again.
If trailing 12 looks steady youâre good.
But if trailing 12 is trending up - youâll have much easier negotiations, faster close, and life is good.
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I did same door to door sales program in college for 4 summers. 80 hours per week, straight commission, away from home. Hardest thing Iâve ever done and learned so much. And every summer I have nightmares Iâm back selling again sitting on 0 sales (16 years later).
I walk the walk and talk the talk.
A door to door salesman came by selling books.
We bought them.
Small price to pay to support essential workers.
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The key to growing a great professional services or medical services firm is your 2nd layer staff - staff accountants, nurse practitioners, paralegals, vet techs, etc.
Treat them and pay them very well. Develop and train them to do nearly everything the 1st layer does.
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Otherwise your 1st layer will burn out, hold you hostage, or be wildly inefficient as they have to do everything.
I remember Michael Aubrey speaking at HBS after he rolled up 330 veterinary clinics stating how one of their pillars was taking vet tech wages from below the poverty line to 2x prior wages. My wife is a vet and has been on the other side where the PE buyer cut vet techs in half and she couldnât serve clients well or hit production metrics.
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Weâre helping a plumbing client migrate off Quickbooks desktop and Quickbooks payroll. Owner thought half the employees would freak out and insist on paper checks still, then 100% opted into direct deposit and did it easily. Rip the band aid folks.
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âI could do another one.â How it feels about 2 years after an acquisition and you donât quite remember how painful and messy the last one was. Kinda like having kids.
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The day Iâm sure we canât outgrow our churn will be the day I sell or quit.
Every business with recurring revenue has to face the reality of client churn. Accounting, digital marketing, property management, cleaning, etc. all lose a certain % of clients each year.
For most accounting firms client churn is 15% per year, digital marketing agencies are closer to 40% client churn per year.
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The churn monster is another reason why I think thereâs sweet spots in team size in professional services where you can optimize product and profit. But if youâre caught in between stages youâll have more stress and less cashflow - especially if the churn tides change.
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Our retention has improved the last 12 months as weâve gotten better at training and client selection. But every time I see a client leave it hurts.
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Every mountain town has its own special feel. Steamboat is my favorite.
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May 28
âEverybody saying they want their own big bad family office but not everybody wanna pay for fractional family office services. Yeah buddyâŚâ
- Ronnie Coleman, 8x family office champion
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May 27
Got an email newsletter today from Hoka and was surprised to see a picture of my best friend I grew up with smiling back at meâŚ
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May 27
âYou risk your life running ridges in Patagonia to sell shoes to dads. Thatâs showbiz baby!â đ
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May 26
Quality of earnings and financial due diligence projects weâve worked on this month:
- Non medical home health
- Marketing automation
- Behavioral health clinic
- Excavation services
- Pickleball business
- Property management
- Car wash
- Pest control
Yes itâs competitive but deals are still getting done.
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May 21
When the seller rolls equity and stays on for the culture in a role that doesnât make sense
May 21
Ed Orgeron is returning to LSU and will serve as the special assistant to recruiting and defense for the Tigers
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May 20
Stay paranoid, stay hungry, live below your means. This tweet from Austin and this other from Molson below are very sobering
May 20
When people ask me why we sold Morning Brew, I just show them this chart.
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May 20
Iâve been thinking about this one for a few days. Will the glory days of accounting pass and Iâll be saying something similar in 10 years?
May 17
In 2016, selling on Amazon was not only super profitable, but also very hot.
I was lucky, in a way, to ride that wave.
I was reflecting on many of the people I met over those 10 years...
Not only did most sellers not survive, but a lot committed fraud and ended up in prison.
And those who didn't blow up, the ones who sold at the right time to private equity, many of them ultimately had their lives blow up in another way, through things like divorce.
When you compare that class of 2016 Amazon entrepreneurs to the people I graduated college with, the Amazon entrepreneurs were something like 100x more likely to end up in a really bad situation.
I have many good friends among them who are good people, but there is definitely something about entrepreneurship that attracts the more daring and, let's say, "flexible" people.
So, in a way, I understand why entrepreneurship without the imprimatur of a venture capital firm or an stock exchange listing is met by apprehension by the employees of the world, the same ones who I graduated college with.
Entrepreneurship is for the wild ones.
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