A Masterclass on the Fundamental Leadership Skills to Scale Up Your Firm – Insights from Brandon Hall, CPA

Scaling an accounting firm is not just about acquiring more clients or increasing revenue. Many firms grow to one or even three million dollars by working harder, hiring more staff, and raising prices. But what happens when you hit a ceiling?

At WorkflowCon 2024, Brandon Hall, CPA, shared the hard-earned leadership lessons that transformed his firm into an IPA Top 500 practice generating 12.2 million dollars annually. His message was clear: if you want to scale beyond a few million dollars, you must stop being a service provider and start being a leader.

This masterclass on leadership for accounting firm owners is a step-by-step guide based on Hall’s insights, breaking down the key leadership skills necessary to scale your firm effectively.

Shift from Client Work to Leadership Leverage

Most accounting firm owners start their businesses as highly skilled practitioners. They handle tax filings, financial reports, and advisory services with precision. But as the firm grows, many owners find themselves overwhelmed, trying to manage an increasing client load while also overseeing employees and firm operations.

Brandon Hall warns that this approach has a hard ceiling. If you are still the primary service provider in your firm, you are the bottleneck to growth.

What Is Platform Management?

Platform management is the transition from being a service provider to being a leader of a structured, scalable business. It involves:

• Developing and documenting workflows that allow your firm to run without your daily involvement.
• Training managers and senior staff to take ownership of service delivery so you are not the primary point of contact.
• Creating and enforcing firm-wide systems for quality control, onboarding, and client service.
• Shifting from focusing on individual clients needs to managing firm-wide performance and profitability.

Brandon Hall emphasizes that this shift is not optional for firm owners who want to exceed the three—to five-million dollar revenue ceiling.

The Three Stages of Leadership Growth

Hall outlines three distinct leadership shifts that accounting firm owners must undergo to transition from client work to true leadership.

Stage 1: Leading Yourself (Startup Phase, $0-$1M in Revenue)

At this stage, you wear multiple hats—serving clients, handling sales, and managing operations. This is necessary initially, but many firm owners stay in this stage too long because they believe they are “saving money” by doing everything themselves.

The mistake? They fail to delegate and systematize.

The key focus at this stage should be:

• Creating repeatable systems for client work
• Learning how to delegate lower-value tasks
• Shifting from doing the work to building a team that does the work

Stage 2: Leading a Small Team ($1M-$3M in Revenue)

At this level, firm owners should be focused on building a strong leadership team and removing themselves from direct client work.

The mistake? Many firm owners keep taking on “just a few” clients themselves, thinking they are helping the firm, when in reality they are holding it back.

Hall stresses that firm owners at this stage must:

• Build a middle management layer (senior accountants, department heads)
• Develop processes for team accountability so work is completed without direct oversight
• Focus on business growth, team culture, and leadership development rather than individual client problems

Stage 3: Leading a Scalable Organization ($3M-$10M+ in Revenue)

At this level, the firm should be running on systems, processes, and leadership teams, not dependent on the owner.

The mistake? Firm owners who fail to fully empower their teams often hit a plateau because they still insert themselves into too many decisions.

At this stage, the firm owner must:

• Fully remove themselves from daily client service work
• Focus on hiring, culture, and strategic decision-making
• Develop company-wide accountability systems that drive efficiency

Set Clear Goals and Expectations

One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a leader is assuming your team knows what you expect from them. Without clear, measurable, and documented expectations, you will constantly deal with confusion, missed deadlines, and inconsistent results.

Brandon Hall makes it clear: the lack of clear expectations is a leadership failure, not an employee failure.

If your employees are not meeting expectations, the first question you should ask yourself is whether you communicated them clearly. Did you define the task? Did you set a specific deadline? Did you confirm they understood it? If not, then you are the one responsible for the breakdown.

Why Vague Expectations Are Costing You Time and Money

When you are not clear in your instructions, you create bottlenecks in your firm that lead to:

• Missed deadlines and incomplete work because employees are unsure of the priority level.
• Repeated work and errors due to miscommunication about the expected outcome.
• Frustrated employees who feel lost and unsure of whether they are doing their job correctly.

Clarity is not just about making work easier for your team. It directly affects your bottom line. The more time your staff spends redoing work, asking for clarification, or waiting for feedback, the less efficient your firm becomes.

How to Communicate Expectations Clearly

Setting expectations is not just about giving instructions. It is about making sure your team understands and accepts them.

1. Write It Down
   • Verbal instructions get forgotten or misinterpreted. Always document expectations in an email, Slack message, or project management tool.
   • If an expectation is not written down, it does not exist.
2. Confirm Understanding
   • Ask your employees to repeat back what they understood in their own words.
   • If they cannot summarize it correctly, rephrase it and clarify.
3. Set Accountability Checkpoints
   • Break down larger projects into smaller milestones with individual deadlines.
   • Instead of saying, “Have this done by the end of the month,” check in weekly to track progress.
4. Use Accounting Task Management Tools
   • Assign tasks in a system like Financial Cents.
   • There is no room for confusion when expectations are transparent, trackable, and documented.

Build a Culture of Accountability

You cannot scale your firm if you do not hold your team accountable. Many firm owners struggle with this because they fear being seen as too demanding or micromanaging. But as Brandon Hall emphasizes, accountability is not about control—it is about ensuring that commitments are met.

If you do not have a system for accountability, your firm will fall into a cycle of missed deadlines, inconsistent performance, and wasted time. Your employees need to know that when they commit to something, it matters. Otherwise, deadlines will slip, work will pile up, and you will constantly feel like you have to step in to fix things.

Use Data-Driven Decisions, Not Gut Instincts

You might be making decisions based on experience and intuition, but if you are not backing them up with data, you are limiting your firm’s ability to scale. Many firm owners rely on gut instinct when it comes to hiring, pricing, and client management, but Brandon Hall stresses that data-driven leadership is what separates high-growth firms from stagnant ones.

Why Data-Driven Leadership Matters

If you want predictable and sustainable growth, you need to base your decisions on hard numbers, not just how you feel in the moment.

Relying on data helps you:

• Make better hiring and staffing decisions. Instead of assuming when to hire, track workload and efficiency metrics to determine the right time.
• Identify bottlenecks in your processes. If deadlines are consistently missed, data will show whether the issue is staffing, workflow inefficiencies, or lack of accountability.
• Set pricing with confidence. Instead of guessing what to charge, analyze profit margins, client service costs, and industry benchmarks.

How to Make Leadership Decisions Based on Data

If you are not already using data to guide your firm’s growth, start by implementing these steps:

1. Track Your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
   • Identify the top five metrics that determine your firm’s health.
   • Common KPIs include client retention rate, revenue per employee, billable hours vs. non-billable hours, and project completion times.
2. Benchmark Against Industry Standards
   • Compare your performance to other firms using surveys like the IPA Survey and Rosenberg Survey.
   • If your firm’s profit margins are below industry averages, you need to adjust pricing or reduce inefficiencies.
3. Use Data to Set Employee Goals
   • Instead of vague expectations, tie employee performance to measurable outcomes.
   • Example: Instead of telling your team to “be more efficient,” set a goal to reduce project turnaround time by 10 percent over the next quarter.
4. Review and Adjust Based on Trends
   • If you notice declining revenue from specific service lines, analyze whether you need to increase fees, improve efficiency, or eliminate unprofitable services.
   • Track client churn rates to identify if there are customer service or pricing issues.

Leadership Is the True Growth Multiplier

You might believe that working harder is the key to growing your firm, but true scalability comes from leading better, not working more. You will eventually hit a ceiling if you are constantly stuck in client work, micromanaging your team, or making decisions based on gut instinct.

Brandon Hall makes it clear that firms that fail to develop leadership skills will struggle to scale—regardless of how many clients they bring in or how much they raise their prices. If you want to break through that ceiling, you need to shift your mindset from being a service provider to being a business leader.

If you start applying these principles, you will create a firm that runs efficiently, retains top talent, and continues to grow beyond your personal capacity. The future of accounting belongs to firm owners who can lead, delegate, and make strategic decisions—not just those who work the hardest.

Now is the time to step up and build the scalable, high-performing firm you have always envisioned. The question is, are you ready to lead?