Overwhelmed by the challenge of scaling? You're not alone

Scaling an accounting or bookkeeping business can be challenging at any revenue level. Ashley Connell, CEO of Prowess Project, is an expert at connecting CEOs with online business managers that have the right set of operations skills for their next stage of growth. Here, she shares tactical advice on how to overcome common pain points, especially when your firm reaches specific revenue plateaus.  

—Interview by Lauren Ward, edited by Bianca Prieto

What are the biggest pain points you hear from CPA firm owners as they try to scale their businesses?

Such a good question, and I suspect there will be lots of readers nodding their heads while reading this. 

Before focusing on serving accounting, CAS and tax firms, I interviewed 50 firm owners. Bottomline, they are doing too many jobs. They are trying to be both the owners of the business, strategy, sales, growth; and the operators — day-to-day execution, project management, tech.  It’s impossible. But we aren’t taught another way. 

Here’s what it looks like. The firm owners are the escalation point for every issue, they are the sales person, they are the decision maker, they are the project manager, they press “pay” on every invoice.  

Of the firm owners who I spoke to who reached the 7-figure mark, they all had expert operators.  Not a bookkeeper turned operator or a friend who knows Zapier, but a true operations expert who the firm owner can hand off ownership to. That’s the difference.

For firm owners who want to spend more time on strategy, client relationships or growth, what types of work most often need to be removed from the owner’s role? 

First, let’s assume that strategy, client relationships and growth are all areas of the business that light up the owner—or are in their zone of genius, where passion meets your innate strength. Otherwise, they will resent the activity and it won’t happen.

I learned this the hard way. As a business owner, I tried to do it all, and it seems that many firm owners follow this same trajectory. 

First, designing workflows and building the tech, automation and AI around them. Things like client management need a solid operational foundation, not just another band-aid fix.

Second, project, task, and team management. Making sure everyone knows what they're doing and actually does it without the owner chasing them down.

Third, dashboarding and reporting. This includes capacity planning and real-time progress indicators so the CEO is finally making decisions based on data instead of gut feel.

Here’s the kicker, those three are the responsibilities that are taken off of the owners plate, but the real effect is that now you're removing the fact that everything relies on the owner. The ownership of the firm is shared with an operator—an expert in running the day-to-day and who will be responsible for the above.

 That frees up part of the mental load so that the owner has time and energy for what he/she wants to be doing. I see it time and time again.

You’ve talked about the risk of hitting a revenue plateau at different levels. Where do you most frequently see those plateaus occur and how do you help clients assess the best steps forward?

This lends itself to the old adage, what got you here won’t get you there. 

There are certain revenue thresholds where you outgrow your current systems, tools and sometimes people.  It’s not a bad thing—you could think of it as a celebration that you’ve reached the next level of growth. 

At $100K–$250K, you're drowning in client work. You're either handling everything yourself, or you have helpers who can't actually remove work from your plate. You need someone to set up foundational systems so you stop being the system. 

At $250K–$500K, you've hit max capacity. You have a doer, but tasks only move because you're still pushing everything forward. The business needs someone to actually take over client delivery and team management so you can grow.

At $500K–$1M, the business depends on you too much. This is the transformation point—you need a real operator who designs workflows, owns tech adoption, manages the team, and removes decisions from your plate.

At $1M+, you're ready for operational leadership at scale. Your operator runs the business. You grow it. I outlined this in a brief I recently published on my website.

One often-overlooked challenge for CPA founders is unexpected loneliness. What are some tips for finding a community of peers?

The number one thing is to be vulnerable. Start telling others that you feel lonely and that you crave someone who you can talk shop with. You’ll be shocked at how common this feeling of isolation really is among firm owners (speaking from experience). 

As for a small step, check out Unbalanced CPA. This podcast is GOLD. The hosts Candy Bellau and Sam Hallburn do an outstanding job sharing the nitty-gritty of firm ownership. Tuning in feels like a breath of fresh air. 

Also, and a bit of a duh, but huge…conferences. I’m stoked to hit the accounting conference scene this year starting with Scaling New Heights. If you're going, please come say hi! 

And lastly, you are welcome to join our peer-to-peer CPA owner roundtable. 

For some founders, especially women, traditional conferences and travel-heavy networking just aren't realistic. I have two little girls, so Scaling is the first in-person accounting conference I’m going to since they were born.  So we host free, virtual firm-owner roundtables over lunch. Lunch is on us. No pitch. Just one topic and everyone shares the good, the bad and the ugly. If you're interested, message me.

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The Net Gains is curated and written by Lauren Ward and edited by Bianca Prieto.