046 Melissa McCarthy for Accounting Professionals (feat. Dawn Brolin, CPA)

Episode 46 | Recorded January 3, 2022  

Dawn Brolin, a self-proclaimed number-splatter expert, has a heart of gold, but she’s also the hammer. She’s about providing the most effective service possible. If clients won’t hold up their end of the bargain, she’s not afraid to fire them. 

 • Dawn's penned two books, The Designated Motivator and The Designated Motivator for Accountants  

• What’s nice v. kind?  

• Shout out to all you New Englanders! We love you! We really do! We will not F*&% with you!  

• What’s the difference between an accountant and a sex worker on TikTok? Go ahead, guess ..!  

• Future goals – succession planning. Dawn’s planning on nine more years, and her tech stack is the key to her exit!  

• Why firms should definitely have a PIA fee  

• Competition v. Collaboration  What’s most important is the way clients treat her, and her staff.  

You can use your established processes to A) get the information you need, but also B) to figure out which clients have their shit together.  

Pricing – what works best for you and your firm? Dawn, Scott and Jason talk about the pain points, and best practices for pricing your services.  

Also, we’ll talk about how Dawn took some negative assessments of herself and used them to fuel her talent and even appearance. What do you do when someone tells you that you won’t ever be able to do something? You do it! What do you do when someone hands you personal “feedback”? First of all, be YOU. Then, take what’s useful from that feedback, and make it your own! The most amazing things happen when you take off the reins and run!  

Dawn also shares how babysitting staff annihilates her soul and who you need to find to make everything run smoothly. You need runners – the people who are going to keep up with you, the people who want to learn, and the people who aren’t afraid to help you!  

Measuring success, to Dawn, is about getting the work done. It means having the time to live a real-life, and not be tied to that to work 24/7. 

She follows a lot of the principles from Mike Michalowicz’s book, “Profit First” and shares a bit of useful information on your own money methodology.  

App and other special shout outs: Ignition, Ron Saharyan, Profit First Professionals- It's your business. Shouldn't your profit come first? Anderson Brolin & Coba CPAs, LLC Lacerte Software Corporation, 🚀  Liz Mason, Dawn’s website – dawnbrolin.com, Gaynor Hardy (Meilke), MS, CBC, CTC Charisma Ink, abuser-friendly Intuit QuickBooks, Ron Baker, Relay Financial, Joseph Scarano, FloQast Studios, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans CLO bullet-proof vests, Hazmat suits, body bags, Rick and Morty, Lil Wayne, Sandra Bullock, Gwyneth Paltrow, Katherine Heigl, Knocked Up, and Waze