The Intersection of Tech and Faith: True Firm Leadership with Marcus Mire

Marcus Mire is the founder of Mire Group CPAs and the host of the Make It Count podcast. He joins John Randolph for Episode 31 of CPA Life to discuss the impact of cloud accounting on his accounting practice, the effect of COVID-19 on firm operations, and more. Marcus shares his advice for new firm owners and talks about the growth and core values of the Mire Group, exploring the transition to a subscription-based model, community involvement, and the role of faith-based leadership.

Transcript:

Hey, everybody! Welcome to another episode of CPA Life podcast where we spend time talking to firm leaders and industry insiders who are across the country that are passionate about building firms that are going against the grain of the old school, same as last year, CPA firms of the last century. And today, we’re joined by one of those leaders, Marcus Mire, who is the founder of Mire Group CPAs in Lafayette, Louisiana. Marcus, welcome to the show.

Hey, John. Thanks. This is going to be fun. It’s going to be enjoyable. First and most important thing, because I know that everybody’s kinda sensitive about this that I’ve talked to you from Louisiana. Do you pronounce it Lah-fay-ette, or is it another way to pronounce it?

You know, it’s funny. I was talking to somebody about this earlier today about the pronunciation of words here locally. So you would think with all the crazy last names we have in different ways of pronunciation that it would be Lafayette. Like, something really sounds cool and French, but it’s actually very, like, anglicanized. Is that the right word? Anglicanized? It’s Laa-fay-ette, very flat. So you would never think in a town where we have all these different Cajun last names that we would say Laa-fay-ette, not Lah-fay-ette, but it’s Laa-fay-ette.

Okay. So we needed to get that cleared and out of the way. You know, one of the things that we we typically do on the show—we’re going to dig into a lot of where you guys are at the Mire Group, what what was the impetus for starting to build a more modern minded CPA firm, some things that you guys are doing, stumbles along the way. But one of the things I think that helps people connect with maybe some of the same things that you’ve dealt with or seen is to understand where you came to, what got you to this point. So give me a little bit of a snapshot of your background, how you got started in public accounting, and how you—I don’t want to say “ended up” like you just kinda fell here, but how you got to where you are today?

Yeah. I got a pretty interesting background in the sense that you know, graduated college in 2004 at LSU, and I worked for a CPA in Baton Rouge for 2 years. So I always kinda was in this world. I’ve done it probably 20 years given that time. But I have an interesting experience in the fact that when I started in 2005, the firm I started at, public accounting, you know, staff accountant, was using green ledger sheets. Like, they were not even using—so I’ve kinda run the gamut from, like , they were definitely not progressive and had that experience of, like, very old school and manual, to running a more progressive firm than we have now. So you know, that was kind of my first experience. 2005 worked for a firm local here in Lafayette.

About 4 years in, started getting my own clients, realized, you know, kinda wanted to do my own thing. My wife always said, you know, when I started my own practice, I was 28, she said, you really didn’t have a plan. I said, I had a plan—I didn’t want to work for those guys. That was my plan! So, you know, started that at 28, did that a couple years, through a mutual connection met a local CPA in town who had a firm with some older partners. They brought me in essentially to buy out one of those partners. Worked on his clients for about 6 months, handed the baton over, I bought him out, kinda took over his practice, and I became a partner of that firm. So at the time, local firm, 5 partners, about 15 staff total, did that for 8 years.

About halfway through those 8 years—o that would probably be somewhere around 2017—I came into contact, and I still do not know how, with the software Xero which a lot of people use, kind of a QBO competitor. And I always was curious trying to do things different, think about how to do it a little differently. When cloud accounting came on my radar, it was like a light bulb for me. I was like, wait a second. Like, I can do all this without the client in the way. I got access to it from web browser, I can go download their information, I can do what I need to do. Like, this is a way better deal. So that kind of put me just on a different path.

Fast forward, I don’t know how Xero put me on their partner advisory council. Again, still to this day, I’m not sure how I made it. I think it’s because they wanted a Cajun with a weird accent. That’s my story. Maybe they were trying to get market share in Southeast Louisiana. I don’t know. But that kinda changed the trajectory of my practice.

So at that time, I was starting to do those things in the firm I was in, you know, the firm with 5 partners, and it just—you know this when you talk to CPA firms. CPA firms with multiple partners are generally a bunch of sole proprietors with shared resources. And what I mean by that is we never could all get on the same page. I was doing cloud stuff, flat rate billing, taking credit cards, wanted to be really proactive with marketing, build a brand. And most of the people didn’t have the same thoughts as me.

So in 2020, I left that firm, started Mire Group, brought three people from that firm, and that’s what we’ve been doing ever since. And I really was able to kinda, you know, put my foot down on the gas pedal in terms of, like, I want to go this direction, and now I really don’t have anybody you know, to argue within a meeting about, you know, accepting credit cards, or fixed rate billing, or treating the staff, you know, with respect and kindness, and not working them to death. So That’s the long story of how I got to Mire Group, you know, about a 20 year process.

So a couple of things out of that, that I want to touch on. One is the timing of all of this. 2020 is what I heard you say.

Yeah.

And that’s—that’s a great time to start your firm, Marcus!

Yeah. I mean, it was almost like I was left no choice. I mean, the firm I was at, it was kind of just blowing up. You know, the partners, it just wasn’t going to work. Different ideas on how to do things, personalities, And, yeah, I mean, we did it in the heat of COVID. We started August 1st of 2020. You know, literally, again, because we were so cloud-oriented, we left that firm on a Friday, started the next firm on a Monday.

Wow.

We moved in over the weekend—Monday morning, we were up and working. And so yeah, it was, I’m looking back and I think about it. I’m like, yeah. We did that right in the middle of COVID, but at the time, we just thought that was the next step to take.

Mmm hmm! You know, and it’s interesting because that was also around the time, you know, speaking from from my standpoint on the recruiting side of our business, you know, COVID hit in March of 2020. We all thought that it was going to be, you know, just a a blip on the radar and, you know, larger firms are reducing headcount, letting people go, and everybody at that point is kind of pulling their horns in because they don’t know what’s going to happen as we get 5, 6, 7 weeks into this. Then the first round of PPP gets out. So it was probably mid part of the summer, latter part of the summer time frame that a lot of those firms that were clients of ours that were smaller firms had really pumped the brakes pretty hard. It was around that time that their phone started ringing like crazy, needing help.

So I would assume stepping out in August—while on paper it doesn’t look like the smartest decision in the world, the reality is that’s kind of the point that the business really started taking off from an accounting perspective.

Yeah. I mean, we were definitely, obviously, like you mentioned, right in the throes of PPP, but then, you know, you kinda fast forward that a year, yeah, a year and a half-ish, then you started doing a lot of the ERC work, you know? Because, so for us, and we did we did quite a bit of that, which was a great shot in the arm for us. Really good work. High value. So, yeah, it kinda dovetailed into that where we had the PPP and really helping clients with that and then into the ERC. And so yeah, hindsight looking back, it was actually kind of, like, almost like a catalyst, I guess.

Yeah. It’s, again, it’s one of those things on paper. If someone says hey, this is what we think you’re going to do, we’re going to project the future here, you probably look at it and go, yeah, starting my own firm in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, you probably don’t want to do that.

Right.

But when you look back, that wasn’t that bad of timing.

Yeah. And I think too, our setup, you know, I mean, I still remember. I mean, again, most firms aren’t very tech savvy. Like, I still remember, like, you know, the “hey, we gotta get people to submit documents electronically and sign things.” That was our DNA. Not that we were super progressive, but we had that figured out, like, from day one, well, you could work with us from anywhere in the world. So that was never a transition issue for us. So it was just, it was kinda seamless.

Yeah, it’s one of those things where you’re not having to work through old school technology or old school mindsets.

Right.

You have to to make some changes and We had a lot of clients that we work with that were pretty solid firms that, you know, as we talk, we don’t deal with big firms, but we we’ve got some clients that were, you know, 10, 15, 20 person firms that were were pretty progressive, but it was still a gut shot to them because they weren’t completely ready to make that step and, you know, whether it be remote with their employees or or go take everything online. And size of company, I don’t think it had anything to do with the technology set on the desk, because around that time, I was dealing with a young lady that was a candidate on a job that we were working with. She was employed by the University of Oklahoma in their tax department when COVID hit, it was right in the middle of spring break. And they get a message that says, hey, don’t come into the office because we’ve had somebody that’s been diagnosed with COVID.

The next day they get another message that says, hey, by the way, we’re going to need you to work. So come and get your computers. And she said, the problem is none of us had laptops.

Oh, gee, yeah!

We’re all working on desktops, and so we’re supposed to go into the office and get our desktop. And she said, so the next day when we’re all kind of going into the office to get our desktop, we get a message that says, oh, by the way, don’t come get your desktop because we don’t have a VPN set up to log in. And this is the University of Oklahoma, probably one of the top 50 universities in the country?

Right.

You know, trying to figure this out. So you know, the fact that you guys are small and nimble enough to be able to make those changes on the fly was probably a big plus for you guys.

Yeah. Absolutely. That’s funny. I’m thinking of the desktop comment because we—I’m still amazed that people are like that, with desktops. Because that’s our DNA, is mobility, you know, we want to be. So we’re all laptops, you know?

So the firm that you started back in 2010 when you started your first time. Would you say that structurally that that probably mirrored more a stereotypical CPA firm than where you are today?

Yeah. Yep. Because at that point, it’s all I really knew.

Yeah.

I knew I needed to do more marketing and build a brand. I mean at that point in time, people didn’t hardly even have a logo. I still remember that, like, firms didn’t even have a brand. And at least thought of that, but from a work standpoint, from a procedural, how we build clients, client experience? No. We were very traditional.

Yeah. It’s kind of a common thing when I talk to firm owners that you said, when you talked to your wife, and she said, you really didn’t have a plan. You know, your plan was you just knew you didn’t want to work for those guys.

Yeah.

There’s so many firm leaders that we talked to that are, you know, at about your size, about your level of firm experience—maybe a little bit more of it. The first 2 to 3 years either in their firm that they have today, or the legacy firm that they started and left behind, all they knew was I don’t want to do it like those guys, but I don’t know how I want to do it. I just know I don’t want to do it like that.

Right. Right. Yeah. You know what you don’t want to do.

Yeah. The problem with that is there’s the necessity to make money, and, you know, you don’t want to do it that way, but the only way you know how to make money is that way.

Yeah.

And so you look up 2 to 3 years later, and that’s the way you’re doing it.

Yeah. I think if anybody’s building a firm—one of the things I always tell people is you have to be willing. I mean and maybe your situation doesn’t afford you this opportunity, but you always have to be willing to take a step back a little bit. Step back to go forward, and realize that you have to be intentional. I know some people might not have that luxury. Like you said, I mean, there’s miles to feed and housing to pay for. But generally speaking, if you can, in the long run, take some steps back to look at what you have, work on the business, think about how you want to go forward, you’ll be much better off, and then you’ll get intentional about where you’re going. Versus you can look up 4 or 5 years building an unintentional firm, have a lot of clients that don’t fit, software that doesn’t work, not thought out how you want it to staff and process it. It just happens unintentionally because you just take, take, take whatever client comes on. So I always tell people if you can, take a little step back to go forward is always my suggestion in, you know, a new firm startup.

Yeah. The analogy that I use a lot of times with people is in I don’t know what kind of highway system you had in Lafayette, but in the Dallas Metroplex area and even in Houston, we had full roads and HOV lanes all over the place. You know, tell people it’s kinda like driving in the middle of the interstate and you look three lanes over and you see the HOV lanes moving pretty swiftly. But to get over there, you’ve gotta pump the brakes, slow down, let some cars pass you, weave over a couple of lanes, maybe back up from where you were, so to speak, to eventually get in that lane where you can go as fast as you want to go.

Right.

And sometimes running your business, you have to do that. So looking at your business today, What would you say are 2 or 3 of the biggest things that you have been passionate about in starting the Mire Group in 2020 that you have said, hey, stake in the ground, this is who we are, and we’re not wavering from this.

Customer experience and using technology, one thing, major. So that was the biggest thing. Thinking through how I like to interact with the brands and businesses I work with. I want it to be frictionless. I want it to be simple. I want it to be seamless. Adding value, you know, and that gets into how we bill. Wanted to really, I mean, do we have some clients over the years that we’ve billed by the hour? Yes. But it’s the exception more than the rule.

You know, wanted to be a subscription model, a place where you knew what you were paying for, what you could expect from us, that you could call us and that it was built into your price. I hated all the nickel and diming that you get from attorneys.

Mhmm.

And if you ever work with one, everybody across the board, I think, would say that if you’ve worked with an attorney, it’s just not a great experience. Didn’t want to be that. So it was the technology, it was the transparency around the billing, and then how we wanted to just treat people. One of our core values here is fun, and we want to have a place, like, if you’re going to work, let’s enjoy it. Let’s get some fulfillment out of it. Let’s build a place that’s cool to be at.

It’s fun to work in, and we do meaningful things. We have fun doing it, and we really enjoy each other’s company. So that was kind of the vision. You know, it’s changed over time and you adapt, but those were the core kind of anchors of how we wanted to do things.

You know, you mentioned when you left and started your firm in 2020, I think you said there were three people that went with you. So a total of four counting you. Where are you guys today with respect to FTEs?

Yeah. So we’ve got, so three full time, another, I would call it three-quarter, you know, kind of an office coordinator person who’s majority full time, but not all the way, and then an intern. We would probably about, I would say, want to grow where we’re going to need one for sure, like, a higher level tax person, and then I could see us having a staff person, you know, into the next 12 to 18 months.

Right. When you look at the makeup of your business and you are considering, you know, the types of clients you want to pursue, the types of business you want to get, how much of your business is client accounting services, outsourced accounting versus tax work, tax planning, tax strategy, tax compliance?

I would say—man, that’s a really good question. I should know this probably better. Probably around 50/50. Because I would say most of the new—ah, maybe 40/60 accounting to tax, but most of our new stuff is always coming in from the accounting leading the charge, meaning, because we preach that. We say, and I think that’s somewhat by design, because we tell people if we don’t have a hand in your books, it’s some way, whether we review it or we do it, that we cannot work with you. And there’s caveats, but generally speaking, that’s the rule. So I would say it’s 40/60, but that’s growing. I think that pendulum is shifting toward doing more of the accounting and then 50% being kind of compliance and planning structure.

You know, I think there’s some shade in there, whether it’s on the accounting or the tax side related to software consulting, efficiency planning, that kind of stuff as well.

So the client that you typically are talking to, you’re touching their books in some way, shape, form or fashion, which obviously makes the backside of the business a little less laborious.

Yeah. I mean, it’s just from from I mean, you could bring on 20 CPAs, they’d probably all say the same thing: It’s just, it’s what slows you down. It’s what you know, the client doesn’t see as much value in it. So we want our hands in it for a couple different reasons. Our value prop is that we’re going to give you real time data, planning with you for taxes proactively and let you know, you know, what are the moves you can make, but also what you have to save to pay for taxes. Well, if you don’t let us in, if we don’t have a good set of books as a foundation to jump off of, we can’t do that stuff. And that’s our value prop is like, hey, we’re along with you. There’s no surprises that you owe a hundred grand. Maybe you didn’t pay it, but we told you. We planned for it. You know what I mean? So we want to be with you along the way. We can’t do that if the very foundation is, you know, what I would call sandy soil. If you have a, you know, it’s, oh, we don’t worry about it. We’ll do the books in any year, we make about this much, it’s like, no. Maybe so, but you’re not our client if you won’t let us into that because we then can’t do our job.

Right. Yeah. It’s one of those things where there’s been a shift, I think, in the small business world where business owners today, I’m speaking for myself. I don’t any longer want to have those conversations, like you said: “Hey, by the way, it’s April 13, we’re going to hit send on your file tomorrow and you gotta cut a check to the IRS for $62,000.” I’m not trying, like, you said, going into the game knowing that, hey, in 2024, I’m going to have to cut a check-in the IRS probably for $62,000, but we made that as a conscious decision together from an advisory standpoint. Maybe it was because we needed that capital grow the business, and we felt we’d get a bigger return on investing that back into the business. Who knows what the reason was, but you know, to think that we ever thought that it was okay to have that conversation is just beyond me, but we did for years.

Yeah. I think too, it’s an interesting dynamic of what’s happening because you’re seeing lots of farm owners who are doing like us who are saying, okay, we can’t do that. But then I had a client call yesterday, a new client, which we’re not going to take on—still kind of, you know, talking out of both sides of the mouth. And this is why I think it’s really hard for CPA firm owners sometimes. Because at the same time he was saying I don’t get any planning, I don’t get any assurance, I mean, I had this big tax bill, and I’m like, but then he was griping about the bill. And I was asking him, I said, did you communicate to your provider that you wanted these services? No, but he should know.

And I said, you know, and so it’s still in this world of ambiguity. I think the CPAs just have it—not “I think,” “I know”—I know haven’t done a good enough job marketing that value proposition of man, if you get these services throughout the year, they will pay for themselves, you’ll have peace of mind, you have a professional behind you, you’ll know that the money in your bank account is yours.

Yeah!

Like, you’ve paid your tax. Like, and still, I don’t think people have done a good enough job selling that value proposition because there’s so much value in that. You know, I still hear clients wanting some of that, but not realizing that it costs.

Yep. You know, and I think that it’s just continuing to educate the consumer out there or the business owner that there’s value in doing this on a proactive basis, and like you said, knowing that what’s sitting in my bank account is mine.

Yeah!

And if there is going to be a bill come April 14th, April 15th, it was by design. It was strategically discussed. It wasn’t a surprise. I would assume that type of environment—I shouldn’t say assume, I know it does, because we we deal with firms daily that are like you guys—that creates a much more… “laid back” may not be the right word, but maybe a much less stressful environment for your people as well.

Yeah. Absolutely. Because we’re not so much thinking about deadlines. I mean, while we are thinking about deadlines, don’t get me wrong. We’re not so much thinking about ticking and tying and boxes checked and compliance. We’re thinking about how can we add value. That’s a different conversation. You know, like, we’re thinking about—give you an example: Lots of our clients in their packages include quarterly meetings. Well, we know that the best outcome of that quarterly meeting is if that business owner gets his ideas down. You know how it is. You’re a business owner. You think of something. We give them a forum to do that. We send an automated email with a Microsoft form once a month: Hey, are you thinking about something about these 3, you know, 3 or 4 easy questions? Drop it here.

My point is, that came from us thinking about how to serve a client better, versus thinking about how to get so many more tax returns done. We can offer a little bit premium service because that is a premium service. And we’re thinking more around value—how can we make it easier to work with us? How can we make it where you think, man, this is, I’m getting a great deal for this?

You know, so it just changes that dynamic of what you think about as a firm. Do you still have compliance and deadlines, of course. But it’s not the focus. I always say for us, tax for me and our firm should be the last thing. Not the main thing.

It’s interesting you say that because we still have what I refer to as our transaction side of the business, where we’ve got a client that has a one off hire that we may take on, but we have really worked part of the last year to a year and a half to begin to migrate our business to a subscription-based model where we are having more proactive conversations with our clients like you’re talking about—monthly, quarterly—versus the November 15th phone call that we get of, hey, holy crap, I just looked at my calendar and I see it’s November. I gotta hire 3 tax people. We’re having those conversations on a consistent basis like you’re talking about, and at least kicking these things around, saying in May, hey, if business trends continue like this, I’m thinking I’m probably going to need to do x, y, and z. We may not act on it today in May. But at least like you’re talking about, we’re having conversations and really at the end of the day from an advising standpoint, isn’t that what you want to be able to do with your client, is have those conversations, you know, versus, like you used to do, probably look at the books and call and go, hey, there was a warehouse that was on our books last year, and I don’t see it. Where is it? Oh, we sold it in August

Oh, well, it would’ve been great to know that!

Yeah!

I always say, I tell my clients, like, I don’t always have the best agenda when we sit down for those meetings, but that’s not really the point. The point is that it’s just a forum, and so I want to even make that forum better. I want you to capture your ideas such that when we sit down, I go to you and say, hey, you put these 4 things on the form, you might have forgotten about them already, but I’m going to bring them up because you thought they were important at the time, you know, on a Saturday at 2 o’clock, you jotted that down, and you were able to forget about it, and we just want to give you the place to say, hey, I was thinking about this, or I heard this, or what are your thoughts on this? The things that come out of those meetings are things I would’ve—I tell clients all the time and say, listen, I don’t know. I can’t know all the things about your business, but If we sit down and we talk, I can get better and better and better. And that’s just the forum to do it. It’s to sit down or do like you and I are doing virtually and just go over things. Hey. What’s up? What keeps you up at night? That kind of thing.

Yep. And I think that your client base is a small to midsized business owner that doesn’t probably have an extensive operational or executive leadership team around them—so all of this stuff is in their head, running around a hundred miles an hour—and some of it may or may not really have an impact on the business today. But it’s stuff that they just need to talk through. And while it may not be accounting specific related or tax specific related, the fact that from an advisory standpoint, you’re dealing with 5, 10, 15, 25, other small to midsize business owners that are probably dealing with similar problems. I’m assuming you have the ability to say, you know, what? We had a conversation with a client 2 months ago to his something very similar to this, these are some of the things that we talk about. You might kick this around or try that.

Absolutely. I mean, it’s, as I have these meetings and have more correspondence, just get it just makes me better. And like you said, there’s a depth of knowledge I’m gaining from other business owners that are my clients, like you said, just to bring, you know, bring more resources, bring ideas to those meetings.

Yep. Absolutely. One of the things that we do within our model, and you guys may do the same things, you know, so many times we’ll be talking to firms that are trying to transition their business to more forward-thinking firms, than the reactionary firms of yesteryear. And a lot of times, we’ll say, look, we got a firm that 2 years ago was going through the exact same thing that you’re going to through. How about if I connect you with the guy that’s the managing partner of that firm, and you guys can bang your heads together and figure out what did he do, and where were the potholes on the road that he traveled 2 years ago? Maybe you don’t have to hit those potholes today.

Right. Absolutely. No, that’s a great point. I’ve even thought about that in terms of, like, putting a community, putting my clients together, you know, just like you’re doing. You’re putting your clients together.

Yep. Absolutely. I want to change the path we’re talking about a little bit. You talked about community. One of the things that you’re pretty passionate about on LinkedIn with your posting, some of the things you discuss, also, in the questionnaire that I sent you, is your community of of other C12 leaders, and other faith based leaders.

Right.

Talk to me a little bit about that. Kind of what is that for those people that aren’t familiar with C12 and really, how has that helped you as a business owner / business leader?

Yeah. So quick background on C12—most people are familiar with Vistage. Vistage, you know, is kind of a peer advisory group, business owners or executives meet once a month. C12 is a very similar mold, it’s for small business owners and executives that are Christians who are living out their faith. And one of the tenets of C12 is greater businesses for a greater purpose. And so the premise is, God has clearly called those of us who are in business. He’s given us a platform. He’s given us resources. He’s given us people to shepherd. He’s given us resources to steward. And C12 wants you to empower you to do it better, to lead your people better. And quite honestly, the impact in the marketplace that you can have as a business owner with the amount of clients you touch, employees you touch, vendors is way more—than if you just do the math, what a pastor or a priest or anybody that that could reach in their congregation.

And so we believe it’s C12 that the biggest—”revival” is maybe not a good word—but, where people can experience the love of Christ and get to know His Gospel is in the marketplace.

Mmm hmm.

And so C12 just equips us. And what I love about it is it shows us how because you know, like, one of the things we say in C12 is that Jesus never called a part time disciple. It’s not like, hey, I I called you as a disciple on Sunday, but Monday, when you put that suit and tie on, you go into the secular world and you drop that stuff. No—it’s, how can I lead in a confident, and also humble, way, lead these people and show them why I want to treat them the way I do, is because Christ loved me first. And so I want to impact them with that.

And C12 gives us the tools to do that, how to run what do they call it business as a ministry—how to do it right, how to infuse your faith in everything you do, and it authentic way, but also how to run a great business because running a great business honors God. I mean, he if he’s giving you talents and resources, you know, it’s clear from scripture that you’re supposed to do something with that.

Absolutely.

And so, for me, to answer your question, what has C12 done for me? It’s made me a better man, a better leader, better father, better husband. I’ve been made keenly aware, not in an accusatory way, but of the things I need to work on. But then I’ve also been encouraged by a group of guys going through the exact same thing who can encourage me, hold me accountable. So it’s been a game changer for me. I think my people would attest to that. I’m confident they would. And I hope it comes through in a way that I treat them and care for them.

Well, yeah, I I think the fact that, you know, leaving a firm and having three people come with you and and hang their hat with you as you speak volumes to that.

Talking about the setup of the firm today: Are you guys 100% in office? Are you hybrid? What drove that decision to be whatever it is that you guys are, and how’s that worked? And is that kind of the plan moving forward?

Yeah. You know, it’s funny, I’ve been thinking about this a lot because I, like I told you before we start recording, I really want to hire a tax manager. And so I started thinking, like, you know, would remote work for us? And so I’ll answer your question kinda in that regard, we’ve all kind of agreed: We really like coming to the office. We enjoy each other, we laugh. Not to say that you couldn’t—because I know firms have really done well mentoring people virtually, and you have to be very intentional. I just don’t think it would be my DNA to run a firm virtually.

Because I like to see my people. I enjoy them. I want to come to the office because I want to say hello and drink a cup of coffee and ask how your kids are doing. And, hey, I know your son had a basketball game. Like, I just enjoy that. And so I think, right or wrong, the firm has kind of followed my lead in that, and that we’ve got people that all enjoy that.

Now that said, we have the most flexible setup you’d ever want. Like, we’re all, like, we talked about. We’re all on laptops. We work with—everything we do is on a web browser. So I work at home probably a half a day to a day a week, and that’s just because I have a home office and some days, you know what? I want to go to the gym. I want to work out. I want to go back home and come after lunch. And everybody here has that opportunity with flexibility for kids stuff, family stuff, whatever you got going on, but we just like coming. You know?

So I think if you ask me how we’re going to grow, I’ve said this before, and this will kinda goes hand in hand with being on-site—I want to build a really cool, progressive firm with a bunch of Cajun people. And you know, and and just say, you know what? We’re all from here. Let’s embrace this thing. We got accents and funny last names. But let’s build something really cool in Lafayette, Louisiana in house with a bunch of Cajun people, and, and let’s see how we do.

You know, I think you touched on something Marcus that is so important for firm leaders in my opinion to wrap their head around, and that’s the whole mindset that whatever you decide isn’t wrong.

Yeah.

We had a saying in our family for years when our kids were little and growing up, and we still embrace that today, and I brought it into the office years ago and still use it today. And that is not wrong, just different. And and there’s so many things in life that they’re not wrong. They’re just different. And you don’t need to apologize for them. You don’t need to make justifications for them. It’s just who we are. It’s just what we do.

And I think that what you’re talking about is a cultural thing that, you know, you guys have looked at it and said, hey, we’ve been successful with this. This is what’s worked. You know, and you continue to move forward and you continue to build with that, especially if you’ve got an organization that absolutely works with.

And you know, I’ve got a client in Dallas that’s in a suburb that’s not the easiest to get to, and they’re kinda like you guys. They’ve got a very flexible remote policy, but they have an office. Most of the people enjoy coming into the office, but if you have something going on and you can’t be there, just work from the house! Go to the doctor’s appointment, go do what you need to do. Just get your work done.

Yep.

And I think that kind of embraces the whole model of and mindset of where I think firms do need to get to, and I think this is where we do get to a wrong-different mindset. I think that firms are going to have to start to embrace and understand that we gotta let go of the billable hour that is the shackle and the bane of so many people’s existence.

Oh, yeah.

Now I know that you guys, most of your pricing is fixed fee pricing, subscription based pricing. Right?

Yep. Right.

So that allows you to just lean on your people to in effect, hey, let’s get the job done.

Yeah. Absolutely. I have this conversation all the time. I mean, it’s, if you’re in the CPA circles, obviously, I think probably 90% people probably still bill by the hour if I had to guess. At least 80.

Yeah.

It’s just a different mindset. I mean, I think what the billable hour does— it protects the downside, but it sure limits the upside. And you know, it’s interesting—we did our strategic planning as a firm last Friday. Look, I’m not gloating here, but everybody was saying, we like what’s going on, we’re really enjoying this. But one of the questions we had—in fact, I had one of my old employees who retired, lead our strategic planning. And we said, the question was, if this, what are we doing at this firm, what’s the most annoying thing here, that if we got rid of it, your experience would even go up a notch? And everybody said tracking time.

Really!

And so it was just like another thing where I was like, okay, we’re billing flat fee, value billing, subscription. Why are we still tracking time? And now we’re making efforts and strides because we have the tools to do it, to just be like, you know what? We’re not going back. Let’s get rid of keeping time. Let’s go all in, and this will be another thing we can point to when we go to hire somebody and say, hey, and by the way, we don’t track time.

And it’s interesting, Marcus, because I think that if you pack a hundred people that are CPAs working for a firm—leadership and boots on the ground people—and you asked them that same question, what drives you crazy? I guarantee you that the biggest answer from boots on the ground would be tracking time, and one of the biggest answers in leadership would be tracking time.

Yeah!

And with that being said, it just boggles my mind why somebody doesn’t try to find a silver bullet answer, and say, you know what? If we all hate it, get rid of it. Let’s get rid of it!

Yeah. I think it’s one of those, “the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.” Like, to bring that point forward, if you were to get rid of hours, what is your product? If your product is hours, if your product is selling time and literally CPAs tell me—one of the old partners I used to work with said, we sell time. And I said, no, we sell value. But if you sell time and you get rid of time, you’re in a real pickle. So you’ve gotta think through what it is you deliver.

And so for us, we just said, okay, if we deliver value, let’s bring more of it for the price we’re selling it for. Hence, the reason we’re trying technology, more of it. Hence, the reason we want to make the client experience better. It’s because none of those things I think about through the time prism, I think about them through the value prism. If you derive so much value from us, you’re going to be willing to pay for it.

Yep.

We’ll make what we need to make.

I’ve said this countless times, to other people on the podcast, and and I’ll say this you know, a lot of times the clients that are on the fence of their pricing model, and I’ll tell them, look, as a consumer of your services that pays for a subscription model, and has for now 4 years, I’ve never asked my CPA how long did it take you to get my tax return done?

That’s great, that’s great.

I don’t care.

You don’t care!

I do not care how long it takes. What I do care about is that when I’m trying to understand something, when I’m trying to wrap my head around something from a numbers, business perspective, that I don’t have to worry about getting an invoice because I have a question. I can send an email. I can have a phone call. I can do whatever I need to do to get that question answered, and be able to move my business forward.

Absolutely.

That to me is valuable, and I’m willing to pay a premium to have that. Now somebody else may say, you know what? That’s not me. Okay. Well, then you may not be a good client for us.

That’s, see, and that gets into another point, which is you have to be clear about who your client is. So for us, we know our client is the guy who wants to pay for access. But if you don’t want to pay for access, well, that’s what I’m selling. We’re going to be like this: way far apart. Because if I’m selling access and you don’t value access, well, you don’t want to pay for it. And that’s fine. You’re just not our client. But you have to know that. For the guy or gal who wants access and wants a quick answer, wants advice, wants to be able to pick up the phone, they see value in it. But for the ones that don’t, don’t.

Yep. I had on our podcast, a few episodes back, a gentleman by the name of Chris Vanover who has created a subscription-based model on the audit side of the business. And you talk about access and will people pay for it? They make it very clear to their clients: they have different they have, I think, they have 2 or 3 tiers that they charge for, and most of those tiers give you access to them Monday through Thursday.

That’s cool.

That’s it. Not on Friday. If you want Friday access to us, there’s a premium to that. Because we guard our Fridays—that’s our time. That’s where we catch up, and we’re committed to only working 40 to 45 hours a week, and that’s how we do it. You want us on Friday? You gotta pay for it. And I asked him, you know, do you have clients to do that? It’s like, you’d be surprised how many clients are willing to do that.

That’s great.

They want to be able to know, we want to reach you on Friday if we have to because most of the problems that their clients are dealing with where they they need an answer, that can’s been kicked down the road till Friday afternoon at about 3 o’clock.

Right. That’s funny.

So they’re willing to pay for it.

When you think about where you want to go in the future and how you’re going to get there and and the clients that you’re going after, are you geographically agnostic with your client base, or do you focus on serving clients in the Lafayette marketplace, greater Lafayette area?

Yeah. I mean, no, we’re not—we would take on a client anywhere. If we had the expertise, you know. If they had some states where really state specific stuff might be tough on tax side, maybe we would say that’s not for us, but that generally hadn’t been the case. It’s not that we either know or can figure out or get a resource to. So no. We just want to work with people who want to work kinda like you just described on a subscription basis, who want real time data, want us to have access to it, help them plan proactively for taxes and walk alongside them. And so that’s a guy in Kansas City? Great. That’s a guy here in Lafayette? That’s great too.

That’s awesome. I think that most most of the clients that we deal with, most of the people that we talk to, are like you. We live in a world today where people don’t necessarily need to feel, you know, the ability to drive around the quarter and take my box of receipts and, you know, my green paper spreadsheet to my accountant to get my taxes done. You know, when I got that in from you and I and I read that, I couldn’t help the chuckle. I’ve got a client in Houston that bought a 42-year-old firm 2 years ago. And and you want to talk about, you know, just just not being able to understand what they’re dealing with. That firm was running CCH access. They were filing their returns on CCH access. But all of their pre-work was manual.

Oh, wow.

Everything they were doing was manual. And she said there was, so a lot of stuff they had on green ledgers.

Oof.

And they’re a fully remote firm. So it was a great acquisition because of some things that came from it, but she said, John, it was—trying to get my people to go on the site that were in Houston after being remote for 5 years was not an easy thing to do, but, you know, you do what you gotta do.

One of the things that I think is always interesting when I talk to firm owners, firm leaders, when you look at the accounting industry today versus when you stepped into it, you know, what’s your message today to people that are coming out of school that think that hey, my only option is PwC, Deloitte, Baker Tilly, Moss Adams? If I want to make money and have a good career, I gotta go to work for a Big Four firm. I gotta go to work for a top 25 firm. What’s your message to that person that is either kicking that around or feels like, hey, that’s my only option, and I’m 2 years into my career. You know, I either leave this, or I stay miserable?

Yeah. I think I would say I would kinda contrast it from the selling point of the big firm. I think their selling point always is, yeah. Maybe we will really work you a lot, but you’ll get exposure to some really high level concepts. And maybe that’s true. But what I would say is you can get some really great fulfillment, tough work, at small, medium sized firms. And in fact, a lot of these firms are a lot more nimble, building brands, doing things kinda on the cutting edge. Cutting out the fat of some of the big organizations, going really lean so they can compete competitively on salaries and benefits and offer things that maybe you weren’t even thinking of.

Like, I’ve seen, some other people, they offer, like, days for, like, to pursue your hobbies. Some firms, I saw, she was saying their firm, they shut down for 2 weeks a year. Like, there’s some really cool things happening at the 5, 10, 15, 20 person firms. That notwithstanding, they compete on salary. So I think you just have to think about what is important to you.

And I know sometimes it’s hard when you’re 24, 25, you haven’t quite figured that out. Shoot, maybe sometimes I don’t know if I’ve figured that out yet. But I think you have to start thinking like there’s more to it than the, hey, I could make partner one day at a big firm, and work on these types of clients, because I think you can get a lot of that same fulfillment at the smaller firms with a better work-life balance.

Absolutely. I could not agree more with you. The reality is also that I think that with 80 to 90% of the job growth being small to midsize businesses. That person coming out of a Big Four firm is a tougher transition, stepping into a small company looking at the entire financial picture of an organization because they’ve been so narrowly focused at that Big Four firm.

Yeah. I mean, they might have been in deferred taxes, you know, for insurance companies. You know? I love my background as a small firm guy with a generalist background. I mean, I can help clients with payroll setup and benefit plans and income tax. Obviously, planning on software. I’m a small business owner, so I use all these tools. So when I’m talking to a small business, I could say, look we use Xero, Gusto, Routable. We use all these tools. Like, I know the benefits of them. So to me, it’s giving me a great background to do some really great things, that you can make a really nice living, you can enjoy what you do. And I think that message is getting out a little bit more. But I still do think the case because of the way the Big Four are ingrained in college life and college recruiting that that’s still the message. I think it’s changing. But I think that’s still overwhelmingly the message.

I think you got a lot of platforms, like Going Concern, Reddit, Fishbowl that are shining a brighter spotlight on the other side of what exists there, and the options that exist outside of there. So I think that’ll continue.

Marcus, you’ve obviously built an amazing infrastructure and are continuing to evolve and grow your firm into a more modern-minded, people-centered firm, and I applaud you for that. Congratulations on what you’ve done. If there are folks that are interested in learning more about you, your firm, your journey, whether it’s as an employee or another firm owner that’s kinda scratching their head and wondering, hey, how do I do some of the things that Marcus has done or has has walked through already with the Mire Group—if someone wants to reach out to you, pick your brain a little talking about opportunities, what’s the best way for them to do that?

Yeah. The easiest way would be on LinkedIn is a great way to get me pretty active there. Just my name, Marcus Mire, M-I-R-E. Email, easy way to get me, and I will tell you, so many people have helped me along the way. I’d be glad to pay it forward. If I can get somebody unstuck, lend an ear, a wise word, I’d be glad to do that. You can email me marcus@mire.group. No dot com. And if you want to know what we’re up to and kinda keep up to date on what I do, that’s a lot on my podcast. So it’s the Make It Count Podcast with Marcus Mire. We’re pushing a hundred episodes, we’re at 95. And we talk kinda all things: tax, accounting, software, what we call how to do better business, and make things in life count, so you’re not working 70 hours, and so we talk about how to do that.

That’s awesome. I got to consume some of that over the last couple of weeks listening to it. So you guys have done a great job with that, and I’ll make sure that we put those links in the show notes as well, so people can grab a hold of that and track you down, find you, or listen to your podcast.

For those listening today, I want to thank you guys for giving us a little bit of your time and investing and learning more about what is needed in today’s CPA firm world and what leaders like Marcus are doing to help deliver on those needs. If you don’t want to miss any future episodes and see daylight podcasts hit the subscribe button so you’ll be notified every time that we drop a new episode until next time, you guys have a great day.

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