About this podcast
"Who's Really the BOSS?" highlights the joys and challenges of running a CPA firm with your spouse or family. From hiring and terminating to improving capacity, cash flow, and culture, our conversations cover leadership, operations, and current accounting industry challenges. Our mission is to strengthen families and accounting firms by helping listeners avoid the mistakes we have made, so they can lead and live happily ever after.
Episodes
The newest 20 of 171 episodes
- Doing More With Less · 52 min · Season 5 Episode 22Marilyn Melendez grew up in her mom’s accounting firm, and taking it over meant trading a “never say no to business” mindset for one built around fit, time, and peace of mind…
- Who Are You Choosing to Do Life With? · 53 min · Season 5 Episode 21When an accounting firm is busy keeping up with changes in technology and the industry, its team and clients can quietly get pushed to the side. Returning guest Matt Kidd joins…
- How to Buy a $400K Accounting Firm for $20K Out of Pocket · 55 min · Season 5 Episode 20SBA loan broker Eric Rabinovich joins Marcus and Rachel to break down what actually gets a bank to say yes to a firm acquisition, from debt service coverage ratios to the rule…
- One Year Post Firm Acquisition: Retention, Revenue, and What We'd Change · 52 min · Season 5 Episode 19A year after closing their second acquisition of 2025, Marcus and Rachel Dillon bring in Amy McCarty to tally up what actually happened once the ink dried. They walk through the…
- Building a Firm That Fits Your Values · 52 min · Season 5 Episode 18Sandra Koch returns to share how she's built a firm around flexibility, trust, responsiveness, and genuine care for both her team and clients. She discusses leading a fully…
- The Tax Advisory Plan: Pricing, Team Structure, and Why It's Not on Our Website · 54 min · Season 5 Episode 17Marcus and Rachel break down their Tax Advisory Plan (TAP), the $500/month individual tax offering built for high-income clients, referrals, and business owners exiting their…
- Stop Guessing, Start Hiring: A FACT-Driven System for Accounting Firms · 57 min · Season 5 Episode 16Fletcher Wimbush of Discover.ai returns to break down his FACT system for hiring at accounting firms: Focus, Attract, Candidate Evaluation, and Training. He explains why most…
- How We Landed 20 New Clients in 6 Months · 57 min · Season 5 Episode 15Marcus and Rachel set a goal of 15 new monthly clients for all of 2026 — and blew past it by June, landing 20. They walk through the $101,415 in onboarding fees that came with…
- Building a Director-Led Accounting Firm · 53 min · Season 5 Episode 14Marcus and Rachel break down how Dillon Business Advisors moved from an owner-led firm to a director-led one, walking through the seven components they use to define every…
- The Year Everything Changed at Once · 47 min · Season 5 Episode 13Marcus is back from five weeks on the conference circuit, from Collective's Recharge to Intuit and ADP councils to Accounting Today's Firm Growth Forum, and he and Rachel unpack…
- Introducing Streamlined OS: The Operating System Built for Accounting Firms · 57 min · Season 5 Episode 12Marcus and Rachel publicly unveil Streamlined OS, the operating system Collective by DBA built specifically for accounting firms to connect strategy, execution, measurement, and…
- Stop Paying Consultants to Tell You What to Automate · 53 min · Season 5 Episode 11Marcus and Rachel introduce the Automation Idea Generator from Collected by DBA, a free tool designed to help accounting firm teams identify what to automate, assess ROI, and get…
- How to Build an Accounting Firm Structure That Actually Works · 45 min · Season 5 Episode 10Sponsors Discover.AI - discover.ai Rachel and Marcus pull back the curtain on how DBA rebuilt their accounting firm from the ground up, moving from a structure where everything…
- The Four Ps of Leading Change in Your Accounting Firm · 1 h 1 min · Season 5 Episode 9Marcus and Rachel introduce their rally cry for 2026, "lead change, create impact," and share the four Ps framework (Purpose, Picture, Plan, and Part) they've adopted at DBA and…
- DBA 3.0: Remote Work, Team of Three, and the Reinvention That Took 15 Years · 58 min · Season 5 Episode 8Marcus and Rachel Dillon pick up where they left off, walking through the third major chapter of Dillon Business Advisors: from the shift to fully remote work and the development…
- 15 Years of DBA: The Origin Story · 1 h 2 min · Season 5 Episode 7Marcus and Rachel Dillon reflect on 15 years of Dillon Business Advisors, tracing the firm's origins from a cold-letter acquisition of a $400K book in 2011 through two distinct…
- Running a Remote Accounting Firm From a Mexican Beach · 56 min · Season 5 Episode 6Sandra Koch founded Aurora Consulting Group in 2011 and spent years chasing the dream of a beautiful brick-and-mortar office — then sold the building, went fully remote, and…
- Building a Referral Pipeline That Actually Works · 52 min · Season 5 Episode 5Rachel and Marcus pull back the curtain on how Dillon Business Advisors went from zero website leads after a botched domain migration to a packed January calendar full of…
- Tax Season Doesn't Have to Control Your Firm · 56 min · Season 5 Episode 4Tax season doesn't have to mean overtime, blackout dates, and pizza-party morale boosts. Marcus and Rachel walk through the operational decisions and team structures that keep…
- Behind the Scenes of Two Accounting Firm Acquisitions in One Year · 53 min · Season 5 Episode 3Marcus and Rachel sit down with Amy McCarty to unpack the reality of DBA's two 2025 acquisitions—from pre-close team meetings and tech stack migrations to payment processor…
