237: Alicia Maples – Build Your Wealth By Firing Your Clients

244: The Finale

It’s hard to believe, but after a little over 5 years and 240+ episodes, we are going to be shutting down the podcast… at least for now. The journey of starting from zero and building the collection of interviews one-by-one over this 5 year time period has been incredibly fun and humbling.  I’ve been so grateful for all the guests that said ‘yes’ to being on the program.  And I’ve been even more grateful for you, the listeners, who continue to show up and download the shows every week.  It truly has been an amazing experience. I think we have proven our purpose – that you truly can do practically anything when you start with a background in accounting, and so I’m comfortable that we can discontinue the show for now. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us if we can be of any assistance to you with your own career journey going forward though.  We are always happy to help in any way that we can. Thank you for listening!  🙂

243: Mansour Farhat – Continuing To Make Life Easier for Accounting Students

Professor Mansour Farhat, a previous guest on our show, came back for this episode of Where Accountants Go to tell us about a new offering he has helped make available for accounting students. If you weren’t already aware of Mansour from his 1900+ Youtube videos on accounting topics, you definitely should go back in our archives to episode 107 where we delve even more in-depth into how he got started in the Youtube world (107: Mansour Farhat – Saving Accounting Students One YouTube Video At A Time | MGR Accounting Recruiters (mgrar.com) [https://mgrar.com/107-mansour-farhat-saving-accounting-students-one-youtube-video-at-a-time/]). Professor Farhat [https://farhatlectures.com/] started producing accounting educational videos simply because he was very busy teaching classes at two different schools at one point.  He started his Youtube channel as a way to be more efficient with his time, and it ended up being a resource that is now used by accounting students all over the globe.  After a friend called his attention to how popular the channel had become, he decided to greatly expand it and make it even more searchable.  Fast forward a little bit, and Mansour now has over 1900 videos online, and produces supplemental material to be used in conjunction with popular CPA review courses as well! The new offering we talk about in this episode though is that of helping students that need to meet the 150 hour credit requirement for the CPA exam get those credits in a more economical and efficient manner.  Mansour co-founded an organization called CPACredits.com [https://cpacredits.com/] that allows students to take courses online, in about half the time, and at a very economical rate in order to get the ten to thirty extra credits they may need to sit for the CPA exam.  While this would benefit just about anyone looking to meet that requirement, I believe that it will be a game-changer for those individuals that didn’t get the hours earlier in life, and now feel that they can’t due to complications with returning to school.  For those people already several years into their careers and family lives, this could be the solution that allows them to get certified. For more information on CPACredits.com or Mansour’s other video offerings, please click on the links in the text above. To listen to this interview with Mansour Farhat, please use the player below:

242: Hitendra Patil – Becoming An Accountaneur ™

Hitendra Patil of AccountantsWorld, who also frequently appears on the list of the Top 100 Most Influential People In Accounting, joined us for this episode of Where Accountants Go, the Accounting Careers Podcast. We like to cover a variety of career topics for accounting professionals on this show, and entrepreneurship-done-well is definitely one of them.  In this episode, Hitendra discusses the concept of how to become an “Accountaneur”.  This particular term, which Hitendra has trademarked, encompasses the idea of not just being a self-employed accountant, but being successful in the endeavor from both the earnings standpoint and the desired lifestyle perspective.  You will need to listen to the audio interview for a complete definition, but a large part of what Hitendra discusses is how to evolve past simply being a client’s chosen accountant, and going further to learn their business and the nuances of how they become successful.  This allows the Accountaneur to become more of the trusted advisor that we all aspire to be.  It really is a good discussion we have in this approximate 1-hour episode. For other episodes you may enjoy, check out: John Garrett [https://mgrar.com/094-the-recovering-cpa-an-interview-with-john-garrett/] and Lindsay Stevenson [https://mgrar.com/124-perseverance-determination-building-a-dream-lindsay-stevenson-cpa/] To listen to this episode with Hitendra Patil, please use the player below:

237: Alicia Maples – Build Your Wealth By Firing Your Clients

Alicia Maples, a professional business coach that I personally have worked with for many years, joined us for this episode of Where Accountants Go, The Accounting Careers Podcast.  In this special edition episode, we have a very direct and practical conversation about managing the client base in a public accounting firm.  If you are in business already, or just starting to think about starting your own firm, this episode will be beneficial to you. The main topic we discuss is how to let go of clients that don’t fit your desired end goals, but we also discuss how keeping bad clients can affect not just your lifestyle, but that of your team as well! If you would like to find out more about Alicia, or take her 5 Day Credibility Challenge [https://brilliantsmb.com/creating-online-credibility-that-converts/], make sure you visit www.brilliantsmb.com [http://www.brilliantsmb.com] To listen in on this interview with Alicia Maples, please use the player below:

236: Andrew Jordan – COO of FinancePal

Andrew Jordan, CPA and COO of FinancePal, joined us for this episode of Where Accountants Go, the Accounting Careers Podcast.  We touch on many topics in this particular show, from finding the right career fit for your own needs, all the way to starting and merging a firm.  And we even cover a story of fraud in the middle of the interview!  Many, many lessons in this episode. Andrew’s career journey started as many do… he worked hard to do well in college and was hired by one of the national firms right out of school.  He passed the CPA exam early, and was on his way to have the ‘dream career’ in large public accounting.  What he didn’t realize at the time was that it was typical for the firm to over-hire, and then make adjustments after busy season.  Unfortunately this meant he was left without a job even after passing the CPA exam.  However, this ended up being a blessing as it launched him on a new path of joining a smaller firm and continuing his career progression there. Not too many years later, he was recruited by a client tech company for their CFO role.  It was a tremendous opportunity.  He learned quite a bit, but unfortunately part of that was about the fraud that was occurring within the company.  He survived that tumultuous time though and helped the company recover.  Later on, due to decisions made by the private equity owners, the company closed down and Andrew decided to start his own practice. For the story of how he started and grew his practice, and eventually merged it into FinancePal [https://www.financepal.com/], make sure to listen to the full audio interview.  Andrew was very open and transparent with the story of his journey – something we always really appreciate. For other episodes you may enjoy, listen to these prior shows: Kelly Richmond-Pope [https://mgrar.com/143-forensics-education-and-making-movies-an-interview-with-kelly-richmond-pope/] and Ryan Lazanis [https://mgrar.com/224-ryan-lazanis-of-future-firm-creating-a-modern-scalable-practice/] To listen in on this interview with Andrew Jordan, please use the player below: