Episode 25: Everything You Do And Learn Along The Way Matters With Brannon Poe
Often, a career is not a direct line. You could veer off from the path where you first started and recognize along the way that you are meant for something else. Even with that, it remains true that the journeys we take offer learning experiences that help us grow into who we are now. Host, Amy Vetter, interviews Brannon Poe, Founder of Poe Group Advisors, about his career transition from being in a CPA profession to sales and what lessons he took from one to the other. Tracing back as well to his upbringing, Brannon shares how he took a different path from his parents so that he could create a more stable life for his future family. He shares the lessons he has learned on getting the right experience to grow a business and transition it when you are ready. Join in on this discussion to find inspiration on taking that next step in your career.
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Everything You Do And Learn Along The Way Matters With Brannon Poe
I’m interviewing Brannon Poe, the Founder of Poe Group Advisors, who has been facilitating successful accounting practice transitions throughout the US and Canada since 2003. Brannon is the Creator of the Accounting Practice Academy, an online workshop for practice management. He also hosts the Accountant’s Flight Plan Podcast with other thought leaders in the accounting profession. Brannon is an E&Y Alumni. He has authored multiple books, including Accountant’s Flight Plan: Best Practices for Today's Firms and On Your Own!: How to Start Your Own CPA Firm. He is passionate about entrepreneurship and is president-elect of Entrepreneurs’ Organization-Charleston. During my interview with Brannon, we discuss who he took a different path from his parents so that he could create a more stable life for his future family. He shares the lessons he has learned along the way of getting the right experience to grow a business and to transition it when you are ready eventually.
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Brannon, do you want to give a little background on yourself?
I live in Charleston, South Carolina and I've operated as a business broker in the accounting space since 2003. We're now rolling out a virtual workshop called Accounting Practice Academy.
How did you get started in what you do?
When I decided to be a CPA, which I decided when I was in high school. I'd always wanted to be an entrepreneur. My vision of a successful career was to have multiple businesses and be doing a little bit each day with different stuff. My parents were both schoolteachers. They were art teachers. I had no business background whatsoever and I decided I did not want to be a starving artist. I met with this entrepreneur one day when I was in junior high school. I said, “I want to learn about business. How do you learn this stuff?” People aren't born knowing how to do this. He said, “Why don't you go and become a CPA? You will get to see how other business owners are running their businesses and you'll learn.” I said, “That makes sense.” That's what I did.
Before you move forward, I want to back up a little bit into your parents because that's a different background. Did they do their art besides teaching?
My mom is 80 years old and still does her art. She has her pottery studio. My dad was an abstract artist and a photographer and he was a college professor. He's retired now. My mom lived this typical artistic life. She traveled for 3 or 4 years when she was in her twenties and lived all over the world. She traveled in an interesting way. She had this adventurous life.
For that period that your mom was doing that, did she have that generationally? Were her parents like that? How did she have the freedom as a woman traveling on her own like that? That's unique in that time.
I don't know. My grandfather was an adventurous guy. My grandfather was hyperactive when he was a kid and instead of forcing him to go through school, my great grandmother decided to homeschool him until he’s about fifth grade when he calmed down a little bit and could focus. He had a lot of energy and he ended up fine. I guess my family had always figured out their path.
They were free spirits. You watched them in the world they were in. Did you see them struggle? What was the struggle they were having?
They struggled financially. My parental grandfather was a business owner and did well for himself. He was much of the belief that you're on your own as far as my father was concerned. My parents struggled because teaching is not the most profitable profession.
Who were you looking at? There had to have been some comparison. You're seeing your parents struggle. They're living their passion. Were there other kids you were looking at or other parents that you were like, “I wish my home life was more like this.” What are you striving to be for yourself? How would you take yourself out of that mindset from your parents?
I never totally thought about it but looking back, my grandfather on my father's side was a big influence on me when I was a kid. He had a successful career and he was a partner in a successful business. One thing he used to do when I was a kid was he would show me his mutual fund reports. He wanted to impart to me the importance of saving and how money grows over time. I always looked to him as a role model. That was probably one of the things. I want a comfortable life like my grandfather has because he and my grandmother traveled a lot. They had a lot of things and abilities to do stuff that my parents couldn't do. They always had nice cars. They had a good lifestyle.
In your head, you're looking at that and seeing that comparison, then you're seeking mentors and find this entrepreneur that guides you to the CPA profession. What was your next step from there?
I went to school and learned how to study to be an accountant, got out of school, went to work for Ernst & Young in the audit department and immediately knew this is not for me.
Why was that?
It was monotonous and it was detail-oriented. When I was in school, I enjoyed learning the concepts, but when I was in practice and I had to grind it out, it’s not for me. I knew it early on and plus the hours back then. I started at E&Y in ‘92. Back then, probably your experience, you were expected to work whatever hours they expected of you. At the time where I was, 80 to 90 hours a week was standard. Even into the summer, I didn't get any relief because I was put on a summer audit out of town. I was traveling and we were working seven days a week on that summer audit. I was like, “This is crazy.”
How did you move out of that or decide that you were not going to do that anymore?
I interviewed on campus with Elliot Davidson Company, which was a large firm in South Carolina. They're regionally known now. I always liked them and they had more variety of work. If you went to work for them, you could do tax, you could do an audit, you could get closer to the small business clients. Remember back, my original goal was to learn how the business operated. I wasn't learning anything but auditing large public companies. I was learning how to audit cash, but that didn't apply to how do I run 4 or 5 different small companies. I thought, “If I go to Elliott, I'll get more exposure to the small business side.” That was what I did. In terms of the schedule, that was a little bit saner. We only worked six days a week instead of seven. It was a good decision.
Learning Experiences: It's very important with somebody's sales that they're truly ready and ready to let go.
How long were you at Elliot? What work were you doing there?
I was at Elliott 3, 4 years and I felt that was a good baseline of experience. I did a little bit of everything. We did some audit work, but that was limited. Most of what I did was tax. I learned how to do payroll tax returns. I learned pretty much everything involved with a small business. That was what I wanted to do. I got more exposure to small business entrepreneurs and it was fun. I remember I had this client that owned a lot of Pizza Huts. He was on a lot of different franchises. This guy had been an orphan and he had become a multimillionaire and started with literally nothing. I remember he took a whole afternoon when I was on his job and talked to me. No one had ever done that before.
Why would he do that?
I can't remember, this is a long time ago, but maybe he saw something in me. He talked me out of being in public accounting. He felt I was capable of branching out and probably would be happier if I did so. I remember that conversation very vividly. That was the point where I decided that I didn't want to stay in public practice.
What did you do then?
It took a while to figure it out, but I decided that I wanted to do some sales work because I felt I wanted to be rewarded directly based on what I was doing. I didn't want to be an employee. Sales were that first step of becoming your boss. I thought, “How can I do that? How can I jump from the CPA profession into sales?” A friend of mine called me. He and his dad operated a plumbing distribution company. I don't know if you have Ferguson where you are. They're a national chain. It was a company that sold bathtubs, plumbing pipes and pipe fittings. His father had started the business. My friend Sean that I went to high school with has gone into the business and they needed a bookkeeper. I said, “You don't need to hire a CPA if you need a bookkeeper.”
He said, “We want you to be more involved in that.” I talked to the father, his name is Johnny. I said, “I want to get into sales. Will you put me into sales? I can do the books for 15, 20 hours a week and then you let me go out and call on customers.” He had known me since the eighth grade. He said, “Sure, I'll teach you how to go out and call.” I was calling on plumbers and contractors. It was a rough mix of both. I figured if I could sell to these people, I could learn. It happened to be that Johnny, the dad, was a good salesperson. He was an extraordinary salesperson and never had any formal training but knew how to do it. He gave me a lot of guidance when I was coming up in that.
It's an interesting point as well that sometimes a career is not this direct line. You have to go sideways in order to go up. You recognize you had a gap in your skillset, which is important because I don't think a lot of people spend enough time getting sales training. We go to school for what we're good at. We have that expertise. Typically, no matter what your path is to have that sales understanding helps you in no matter what you're doing. When you lack it, it can get in your way, even if you're the smartest person in the room.
Sales are something that takes a lot of practice and you have to do a lot of it to get good at it.
How long were you there doing that?
I was there for another 3, 4 years and I was a partner in the business. We started another company that was a spinoff company and I was a partner in that business. We looked to sell that company. That was my first exposure to selling a company and I liked it.
Isn't that strange how you ended up where you are? You went through that process and then you're like, “I want to do this more.”
I liked it. It didn't hit me until later that I wanted to do it more. It hit me by accident. I went and started a CPA firm and it took me a lot longer to get it off the ground than I had ever anticipated. I was living in a small town. I was living in Greenwood, South Carolina. There wasn't a vibrant business community there that was growing. That was when I moved to Charleston. I moved to Charleston in the year 2000 and I went to work as a controller for a waste management company. I was in a temporary spot. When I left the plumbing company. There were some things going on. Johnny was an alcoholic and it wasn't a pleasant workplace environment.
When I left there, it's not one of those situations where you can plot and plan. It blew up a little bit. I was reeling a little bit at that point. I was 30 years old. I moved to Charleston and I love it here. I had a stable steady career for a few years. I wanted to do something else and I wanted to have a business for myself. I thought, “Maybe I'll buy a CPA firm.” It's funny, I went to CPE with a friend of mine who's a CPA in Columbia, South Carolina. He said, “There's this guy, that brokers CPA firms. All he does is sell CPA firms. You should call him and see if there's a firm for sale in Charleston.”
We were shooting pool and drinking beer and I forgot the guy's name. I got back to Charleston and I said, “What was that guy's name? I couldn't remember.” I Googled the wrong guy. I Googled the founder of Accounting Practice Sales in Dallas, Howard Holmes. Howard wrote me back and he said, “I don't have anybody in South Carolina, do you want to sell CPA firms?” I said, “Maybe I do.” I got on a plane. I went down to Dallas and talked with him. He signed me up that day. He said, “You can start this on the side if you want.” I did and I would get up early in the morning. I'd go make phone calls. I'd sit in my car that was parked by the river and make calls and do emails at night. I was working crazy hours for a couple of years, but it got the business off the ground.
It's an important thing for people to understand about going into the business too. It's not glamorous. It seems like it's glamorous to have your own business, but it's that grind. You're trying to make something of nothing. That means it's on the phone. It's all the work that you weren't doing before someone else was doing.
Honestly, it did not feel like a grind. It felt like the work did it. Not that it did itself because I was obviously working. Not only do I enjoy it, I knew something was there. I knew this was different than having someone ask you to do something. You're doing it for them and you don't even realize. You're not sure if it should even be done. This is important. When you're doing it for yourself, there is a different feeling around the work.
What did you learn through that period that might have been surprising for you about yourself? It took you a long time to get to your dream of owning a business. Was it different than what you thought was going to be when you were a junior in high school?
Learning Experiences: As far as helping others, the best thing you can do is ask the right questions.
It was different than I thought. All of the things that you've learned along the way that you haven't even taken note of coming alive when you start a business. In business, running one on your own for the first time is challenging. You learn what you're made of and what you found along the way. I also learned that I was good at sales. I had sold more of a commodity product, but I never sold a service like this. I learned I was probably better at selling a service than I was a product because when you're competing with a product, it's hard to differentiate. It's a lot easier to differentiate a service.
In what way?
A product is a product. If I'm selling bathtubs, anybody can get that same bathtub somewhere else. I might be able to be a better salesperson and they might like me more, but there's more price pressure. When you're selling a service, you are the product and the salesperson all at once. That's the difference.
When was the tipping point with the business when it started getting off the ground and you're like, “This is what I saw with my grandfather?”
I was successful rapidly. I started in December of 2003 and by May, I had signed ten listings. I had a knack for it. I realized, “I've found something here.” That was good for me. It takes a while to close transactions. I started in December. I don't think I got any income until April or May. That was a five-month lag. July, I closed a large transaction in Charlotte, North Carolina. I knew maybe I could break away from the job and quit the job. That summer I went to the owner who I'm still good friends with. I told him, “I've started this thing on the side. I want to focus on it full time. However, I'm not quite ready to break away full time. How would you feel about me working 20 hours a week until you can get another controller in here and then I can focus on this more, but not full time yet?” He agreed. It helps him out and I help find my replacement, and then I worked for another six months until I would go full time with it. I had three small children at the time too when I started the business. My kids were all under the age of seven and my wife was not working.
You had to have a belief in yourself and you wanted to do it. Even though it's not art, it's a risky choice to make where your family was empowered to make those choices.
It especially risky because it's not a recurring revenue stream. You sell a business and your client is gone.
You have to know you have enough in the pipeline. From all of the businesses that have come through your business, what are some things that you see with leaders of those businesses or people that are selling businesses or buying businesses where you might notice some belief systems in them right away and you're like, “This may be a problem.” Immediately you can catch where someone's going to get in their way in a sales process?
If you're talking about a seller, there are a lot of ways they can get in their way.
They could be how they run their business or how they believe about their business versus what the actual value is.
One of the biggest things is they believe it can't run without them. They can't envision how it runs without them. That can be a little bit of a problem because the question in my mind is one, are they truly ready to exit? The second is, are they going to try to micromanage the buyer? If they try to micromanage the buyer, then you're going to have operational issues. You're going to have problems with the clients and the staff moving over. It's very important with somebody who sells that they're truly ready and ready to let go.
How do you give them the advice to do that?
The best advice is what's pulling you out of practice? When you want to go to something else, you need to have something pulling you there. You don't need to try to escape where you are if you're unhappy with your business because that happens a lot. I'll talk with sellers who are burned out or unhappy with their practice and they think selling is going to solve their problem. What they realize is they don't have anything to go to. That might not hit them square in the eyes until they've got an offer on the table or even if they've accepted an offer. If I don't think they're ready, sometimes I've said, “I don't think you're ready,” and see what their reaction is. What they can do is plan that next chapter. That's important. You want to leave, what are you going to do? Do you have another opportunity that's pulling you out? Do you want to travel? Are you moving away? What's causing this transition? Selling a business is a huge transition in life if it's your main business.
It's much more too of it's how you view yourself. I remember my business when I sold it. I was depressed for a couple of weeks. I kept forcing myself to get out and run and something that was a good thing for it to happen. It's like your right arm. Do you remember those days you're out in the car, making all those sales, starting up the business, all the people that have gone through, the clients and the staff? You've affected their families, whatever and it's done. You have to be good at like, “How am I going to reassess who I am now?” Even if it means retirement. You've got to look at who you are and what things you'd be open to doing rather than trying to hold on to something that's over.
That’s why it is easier if something's pulling you out. The easiest ones for me are when someone says, “I've got this other business and it's booming. It's far superior to my CPA practice. I want to sell my CPA firms so I can do that.” Those people are reasonable with every decision involved.
An important human component of transition is to know where you're going when you're leaving one thing behind. Whether it's another business or whether it's quality of life or whatever it is, that you have a vision of what that is that you can let something else go and let it live on its own without feeling you're letting go of yourself by doing so. From the things that you've learned over your journey and how many people have given you advice along the way, how do you help others that work for you or with you on some of the lessons you've learned as well?
As far as helping others, the best thing you can do is ask the right questions. Questions are way more powerful than any advice. Most people that I work with, I try to hire people who are entrepreneurial by nature and those people don't like to be told what to do to start with. What I've learned is if you ask questions, then you can determine if you can help them or not in any way. If I don't even know what they want or what their issues are, how could I help them? If you ask the right questions, I get some thinking. If you know something about what they're doing or if you have some experience with what they're trying to do, then you share it but it's on them. I'm a big believer that people are responsible for their path. If I can help them, I'm happy to help them but it's on them.
As far as the other side of things that you do, I got involved with you because of EO Charleston. That's a startup thing as well. What got you interested in doing that? Also, it's helping to give you a bigger vision of what you can do in the future too.
It's a fun and chaotic organization. It stands for Entrepreneurs’ Organization. There are 14,000 members worldwide. When my nest emptied, when my last kid went off to college, I got bored. My wife says, “What about hobbies? What about volunteering for something or the other?” I couldn't put my finger on what I wanted to do. I said, “Most of my good friends are business owners and those are the people that I enjoy being with. I want more of that in my life. How do I do that?” I'd heard about EO from another business owner that I knew in Texas and they didn't have a chapter in Charleston. I decided to contact EO and see what it would take to start a chapter. They had wanted to get one going here. Our chapter was officially launched.
It's an important thing to highlight that you can look at that as more work, but it's what fills you that you get excited to do where you can release from your other work and from your day. It doesn't mean you're overworking because you choose to do something that is the business focus if that's what you enjoy. If art is in your blood but not something that excites you like it did your parents, you can be doing other things that expand your mind and get you excited. That's what's important.
I need those other things too. If it was all business in EO, I'd probably get overtaxed. I'm good about time off and I like to travel. I feel travel is one of the ways that gets me in a place where I'm not thinking about work and I'm thinking about the moment. That's where I could be the most present when I'm in a new place.
It's important too when you're leading a team that if you're not taking time off, you can say to take time off, but if they do not see you enjoy your time off. Entrepreneurs are the worst about taking time off because you might be taking time off and taking phone calls and emails the whole time. How you show the example is important so that people enjoy working for you as a business owner too.
Learning Experiences: Experiences make you happy and providing for your family is one of the greatest honors you can have.
We tell people, “You take vacation the same way I do.” The way I take it is I don't take my cell phone with me. I don't take a computer or a cell phone. When I go, I'm unplugged and that's what I expect my team to do as well. There's value in going on vacation and not working. There's a tremendous amount of value to the business because of two things, they'll come back rejuvenated and who else is going to offer them that? Who else is going to say do not work when you're away? I do not want you working when you're on vacation. Leave the phone here. If they email me or text me, I'm like, “What are you doing? Why are you contacting the office?” It creates a lot of longevity. Where are they going to find that? It makes them sticky.
We're going to end with some rapid-fire questions and you're going to pick a category which is family and friends, money, spiritual or health.
Money.
You are an entrepreneur. Things or actions that I don't have that I want.
It’s a little more space in my schedule. My EO buddies give me a hard time because I have a whole lot of that. What I find is that the more I get my schedule right, the more the money comes in. It's counterintuitive.
You're in a better place and a better mindset. Things or actions that I do have that I want with the money.
I get to travel. I go to cool places and I don't worry about money when I'm traveling. I like hotels that are nice. That's what I spend my money on.
Things or actions that I don't have that I don't want with money.
I'm not obsessed with it. It's not healthy to be single-mindedly focused on it. I'm not that way at all. I realized that it gets me the things that I want for my family. I don't consider myself a big consumer because I don't think consumption makes you happy. Experiences make you happy and providing for your family is one of the greatest honors you can have.
Things or actions that I do have that I don't want with money.
I don't know. I'm going to pass on that one.
You think you handle your money well.
I think I'm good there.
That's good. That's the CPA in you. Is there anything before we close out that you want to make sure people come away from this conversation?
I've always been optimistic and that's a good trait to have. Believe in what you're doing and follow that dream.
Thank you for being on and I love the stories you shared and hopefully, our readers will get a lot out of it.
Thank you, Amy.
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It's time for our mindful moments about the interview that I had with Brannon and some of the life lessons that he taught us that he's learned along the way. To start off, mentorship was such an important piece of this discussion. Oftentimes we don't realize because of our individual experiences that other people don't know what we know. If we don't take the time to stop and pause and help others or give people perspective or experience that they don't already have, they don't even know how to take the first step into a long-term goal that they have. Early on, he realized that maybe the career path that his parents took wasn't for him. It wasn't the lifestyle that he wanted in the future. Had his grandfather not stepped in and given him perspective on what the business world was like, or had the entrepreneur that was a mentor during his high school years not stepped in and given him a flavor for what it's like to own a business, or when he worked at Elliot Davis and he had a client that saw something in him that was different and unique and paused in his day rather than continued to work, but take time with Brannon and give him advice on what next steps he could take. How could the door ever open for him?
Brannon and any of us, when we're given advice, have to be open to it and want it. If someone doesn't take the time to give it to us, it's hard for us ever to accomplish those things in our life. When he was encouraged to branch out, it was interesting as a second lesson in this that he didn't necessarily go in his career to the next level. He went sideways. If not sideways but learning something completely new, which is hard. When we become an expert in something, we keep driving ourselves toward one direction even if it's not the right direction for us because we don't want not to be the expert once we know what we're doing. If we step back and look at a longer-term vision, we know there are certain skills that we need in order to get there.
The skill that he was lacking was sales, which many of us end up lacking the skill. It becomes one of the most important skills in not only succeeding in your career but also being a business owner. When he went back to learn how to be a salesperson, this helped him to be able to hit what he wanted to do eventually was on business. I loved that story where it was a complete fluke that he ended up opening a business where he buys themselves accounting firms all because he Googled the wrong name. However, that was another opening that whether it's destiny or mistake, who knows? That person that he called that was the wrong person opened up the door for him and gave him the time to learn about the business that he was doing. It created his whole future going forward.
It's important that one of the third points that he made was about there might have been stops along the way that he didn't enjoy as much as others, but there was no stop he could not have taken. All of those stops mattered in order to gain the experience to do the things that he wanted to do for his future and eventually be successful in business. I asked him some questions about the people he encounters that are selling businesses and are in this path of wanting to transition. I thought he brought up a couple of important points. You have to make sure that if you're ready to transition that not only have you prepared the business to do it, but that the business can run without you. You also are truly ready to let it go. You know what your next phase is. You're not walking into the abyss. You understand what that vision looks like, so that you can be excited to make that next transition in your business and not get in the way of what you want.
The last important lesson that I took away from this was how he ran the business of making sure that he takes time for himself. However, he goes on vacations, he knows as an example for the people that work for him. When he vacations, he doesn't take his cell phone or his computer. He uses that as an example and a guideline for the people that he works with and works for him so that they do the same. He is vigilant about it when they start working on vacation. It is important that we aren't all talk. We are the example that we want to put out into the world and make sure that the people that work for us see us doing the things that we're preaching. If we want them to enjoy their life, then we have to enjoy our life as well.
Important Links:
Accountant’s Flight Plan Podcast - YouTube
https://www.Facebook.com/pages/Poe-Group-Advisors/665530950152852
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