Daniel Gonzalez on Growing ‘Accounting to Scale’ Through Relationship Driven Sales & Long-Term Trust

Anthony Codispoti (00:01)
Welcome to another edition of the inspired stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. As you listen today, let one idea shape what you do next. My name is Anthony Cotus Bodie and today’s guest is Daniel Gonzalez, director of business development at accounting to scale, a Miami based firm that delivers tech enabled bookkeeping.

controllership and tax services to small and mid-sized businesses nationwide. The company’s mission is to give owners clear, stress-free financial insight so they can grow with confidence. Over the past 10 years, Accounting to Scale has earned a sterling five-star client rating and has been celebrated in local business networks for its commitment to service and education. Daniel spends his days forging partnerships

guiding new clients and representing the firm in groups like BNI Biscayne Connection and Chambers South. Outside the numbers world, he even penned a lighthearted children’s book called Modern Dad Gets a Flat, showing his creative side and love for family storytelling. Earlier in his career, Daniel honed his relationship building skills in sales roles across South Florida.

experience that now helps him connect quickly with entrepreneurs who need financial clarity. Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Adback Benefits Agency. Listen, if you run a business, you’re likely stuck in the cycle of rising insurance premiums. You’re paying more, but your team is getting less. And many people can’t afford coverage at all. We do things differently. We offer a solution that provides your employees with unlimited access to doctors, therapists,

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Results vary, but the consultation is free. Imagine being the advisor that becomes a hero by introducing this to your clients. See if they qualify today at addbackbenefits.com. All right, back to our guest today, the Director of Business Development at Accounting to Scale, Daniel Gonzalez. Thank you for making the time.

Daniel Gonzalez (02:30)
Thank you, Anthony. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here with you. Thank you so much.

Anthony Codispoti (02:34)
So in the intro, we touched on, you’ve had prior to accounting to scale number of job responsibilities ⁓ in sales and business development across South Florida. What kind of work were you doing before?

Daniel Gonzalez (02:47)
Yeah, so the job prior to this, which really, I think, gave me a lot of the tools I needed. ⁓

to in sales and really life experience was I worked for a roofing company, TNS Roofing. They’re one of like the largest South Florida roofing contractors here in South Florida. They do mostly residential and commercial work. And I did sales there for over nine years. And that really, that position where I was Dad in and out, meeting with homeowners and business owners, you know, face face on one of, you know, very big large ticket item that’s really important to them, their home.

really helped me kind of like hone those skills and people skills and conversation and sales as well as get me some toughness for sure in the sales world.

Anthony Codispoti (03:35)
Was it a competitive market?

Daniel Gonzalez (03:37)
Yeah, roofing down here in South Florida is extremely competitive. You know, there’s a lot of contractors, ⁓ you know, a lot of people doing work uninsured and stuff like that. So competing with that. ⁓ And then on the sales side, one of the things that, you know, I feel like that gave me a lot of ⁓ real world experience was the job was actually commission only. So living like that ⁓ as young, I started there at about 24 years old. ⁓ And it really just gave me a lot of life experience working.

working in a business like that.

Anthony Codispoti (04:10)
Were you kind of on your own like, hey, go figure this out kid, or did you have a good mentor, people that were instructing you on the right way to approach things?

Daniel Gonzalez (04:19)
Yeah, no. Well, the owner of the company, his name is Luis Toledo, definitely was a mentor, definitely a mentor to me. And he would run the sales team, especially when we first started and would get us sales training. And they had a pretty ⁓ decent process that they put in place, ⁓ you know, and he would bring in sales trainers to help with those skills that you need. ⁓ But

⁓ But as far as like the job and making your own schedule, that was advantageous where it really was make your own schedule. And ⁓ you had to be a self-starter at that job because if you didn’t get up and go to your leads, go follow up. If you didn’t close any business, you didn’t make any money. So ⁓ definitely gave you that self-starting that you need.

Anthony Codispoti (05:08)
What were some of the skills, the approaches, the tactics that you learned in that training?

Daniel Gonzalez (05:14)
⁓ So one of the…

I think the most important things I’ve actually even brought back recently is pre-qualifying people and making sure that they’re the right buyer for you, that they’re the right person that’s going to be buying from you. A lot of times in sales or in roofing, know, a lot of people just, they call your, they’ll call and, know, they’ll get four leads, five or four or five companies that are going to come out there and kind of bid the work, which is very common, of course. But.

The roofing company, TNS Roofing was a very high level roofing company and our prices were not the cheapest, right? So ⁓ that presents a challenge in itself when you have to talk about more about the quality and the service that you’re going be receiving when you work with somebody. ⁓ And so one of the things that we really had to learn was making sure that the customer was the right customer for the business.

And ⁓ I’m really throughout there just learning that not every project is right for the business deal, right? You can’t just take anything that comes your way. ⁓ I think that’s something that’s very hard to learn in sales is that not every sale is a good sale. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (06:25)
Yeah, especially when you’re commission only, right? It’s like, oh,

here’s an opportunity. Here’s something I could make, you know, I could make some money on. And so how are you pre qualifying? What are the filters that you’re using?

Daniel Gonzalez (06:38)
So I think in pre-qualifying, one of the most important things you need to do ⁓ is kind of like establish. First, you kind of want to establish a little bit of respect on the call ⁓ between each other. Like let them ⁓ know that you’re professional. So we would. ⁓

Let me kind of get my thoughts together on the pre-qualifying. So with the pre-qualifying you want to just make sure that that they’re looking ⁓ To buy from you. You want to kind of set the the ground rules per se ⁓

which the ground rules will be that letting them know the way the conversation will work. So when you get on a call with somebody, a lot of times they don’t really know how it’s gonna work and they’re kind of confused. So I first like to let them know that we’re gonna run through a few questions and then you better get to know them, better get to know what their needs will be and then figure out if I’ll be able to actually match their needs to our business and we will be a good fit for them. And letting them know that kind of saying like, I’m not sure

if we’re a good fit, but we’ll find out. And that little kind of question of letting them know that I’m not just bringing on anybody into our business kind of lets them know that you are serious. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (07:54)
make it feel like they’re going to be

fortunate to work with you, right? Like this is, you’re vetting them as much as they’re vetting you.

Daniel Gonzalez (08:02)
Exactly. So vetting

them. You also want to try if possible, if you could give them like a price range, ⁓ you know, let them know if there is a way of you having an idea of what like the price will be and you’re able to give them a range from the beginning. I think that’s important.

because there’s times where you can give a range of price that you know that’s where you’ll be within. And if that’s out of their range, they’ll immediately tell you. And I think that if you’re able to get to a no faster, it’s actually a win in sales. either getting to yes, getting to a no, or even getting to the next step, the clear next step is what’s important. You know, a lot of times in sales, you end up just kind of out in limbo and people don’t follow up.

you know, you get busy, calling and following up becomes kind of tiring. So getting to a yes or getting to a no within the first call is definitely a big win. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (08:59)
So if you get to a

no in that first call, it’s not the result that you ultimately want, but at least that way you can move on. You’re not gonna spend time driving out to somebody’s location to give them, you know, write up an actual proposal. It just frees up your schedule to move on to another prospect.

Daniel Gonzalez (09:15)
Correct. Exactly. like, you know, if you’re able to go through a few questions, ⁓ you give them the price range and they’re like, no, that’s I’ve gotten through, they already tell you they’ve gotten other prices and the prices are way below you. No, thank you. Then they weren’t going to be a customer anyway. Right. So, kind of understanding that is important, but that kind of comes through, I think, ⁓ sort of like maturity in sales. Like you said, like if you’re young and if you’re commission based, a lot of times you just want to take

on anything and everything, of course. ⁓ So I think that through maturity and doing a lot of sales, you kind of learn that these taking these steps upfront save you a lot of time in the backend.

Anthony Codispoti (09:58)
Daniel, can you think of one particularly challenging sales experience during your time doing roofing that you can share with us? Maybe it taught you a lesson that became valuable to you as you move forward.

Daniel Gonzalez (10:13)
⁓ Yes, so I definitely can. ⁓ you know, like I said, when I first, when I was working at the company, it was commission only. And, you know, there’s times where sales are not great and you just want to close everything. And so our company at that time really focused on

⁓ I’m more residential and we didn’t really do a lot of commercial, but I got a great ⁓ lead that came to me ⁓ and it came to me in their commercial building. didn’t seem very complex from my perspective at that time.

Uh, but when we did, you know, and the boss was kind of hesitant, but I kind of pushed it. was like, Hey, we could do it. could do it. He has until he accepted. And then when we did do the job, uh, because of being commercial, it really wasn’t what we do. And that’s also something that I think the business needs to know is like, I think it’s better to do what you do right. Instead of trying to, uh, to go outside of the box sometimes and do what you, know, because you end up kind of, you can burn the customer. You know, if you end up doing.

a

bad job, you could burn the customer, you could burn your relationship with them. And that’s kind of what ended up happening. And the job, you know, went poorly. And then the company lost money. And because of the lost money, ended up, I lost that, you know, I didn’t get any commission either. So everybody lost in that, you know, we ended up finishing the roof and ended up coming out fine, you know, but there are a lot more mistakes that happened doing something outside of the box, or the company was typically used to that.

you we could have avoided, right? And it probably could have been a better experience for everybody. So that was definitely a tough one because I know that I didn’t really like listen and kind of push the, you you push it because you want to close the deal per se, but it ended up not being a great experience for everybody, unfortunately. And it’s something I definitely learned from for sure.

Anthony Codispoti (12:15)
So before we talk about how you came to be a part of Accounting to Scale, quickly tell us how Accounting to Scale came into being itself.

Daniel Gonzalez (12:26)
All right, so Accounting at Scale was actually founded by my wife Tiffany Gonzalez. She’s been a CPA now for over 13 years, and she started the business actually 11 years ago in September. This past September was 11. And she was working at another ⁓ firm doing accounting and bookkeeping work.

And, uh, she was actually let go, uh, for some reasons and, uh, you know, she, she was let go and she actually called me crying. Uh, was at that time we were just dating. We’d been dating, I believe for about like six months or so. And, it was kind of like out of the blue that she was let go. And when she called me crying, asked her, I’ll never forget that asked her, what are you going to do? And she says, I’m going to start my own business. I’m going to Best Buy right now. And to me at that point, uh, you know, that was one of first times I ever heard.

someone say that they’re just gonna start their own business out of nowhere. And she had no other backup plan and she went to Best Buy that Dad, bought a laptop and the next Dad ⁓ started working.

Uh, and literally grew the business from her, from our living room at that point in time. I re I built her, I built her, I built many desks in my life, uh, for this business. And, uh, I built her a desk and she started working that, that next Dad. And, uh, within five years, she actually, uh, we’re already at about five or six employees. And, uh, and we’re about to have our first child five years later. And that’s when she actually asked me to come and join the business.

Anthony Codispoti (14:01)
So she asked you to join when she was five or six years into it. And she already had five or six employees, so obviously a number of clients. Do you remember, do you know how she got her first client?

Daniel Gonzalez (14:05)
Yeah.

⁓ She also is a good networker in her own right, for sure. So she had contacts. ⁓ One of the clients that she brought on early, I will say, was the roofing company I was working at. ⁓ He ended up kind of hiring her. ⁓ It could come in and do like some kind of consulting and accounting work there. And she really used relationships that she had to bring on.

clients and I think it was an attorney that she knew from from her previous job that was looking for an accountant and she ended up hiring her. So I think that was her first client actually.

Anthony Codispoti (14:55)
Okay, so five or six years and she invites you to join because why.

Daniel Gonzalez (15:02)
So it was on the five, pretty much on the five year mark, we were having our first kid, son Rain. And at that point we kind of, I’ve been doing roofing for over nine years and I kind of did, was kind of, you know, interested in doing something else. you know, I’ve been at it nine years and getting on roofs is also the great career, but it’s also a little dangerous. And so with having the first kid, she was like, why don’t you come?

And you know, you’ve done a great job building this other business. Why don’t you come join this business and we’ll grow it together. And, ⁓ and then from there, I really did see as a great opportunity to do more than just sales. Cause at the roofing company, was.

More, you know, I did some at the beginning, some help with like the marketing, but for the most part, it was just a salesperson. And I saw this as an opportunity to be more on the creative side and do more for, and, know, really build a sales kind of department and sales strategies and such. And, uh, it was really a great opportunity, I think.

and exciting to do, but it was really based off of our kid and being able to have a little bit more free time as well. You know, not free time, but flexibility because of the small business is no free time.

Anthony Codispoti (16:14)
Mm.

Yeah. So before I want to dive into what you’re doing there and in your roles, but before we do that, let’s dive into what the company does. Let’s talk very specifically about the services that you guys

Daniel Gonzalez (16:32)
Perfect.

Yeah, so accounting and scale, like you mentioned before, one of the things we specialize in the controllership for small businesses. So we have plenty of business owners that we work with that we handle the entire accounting department for the business owner. So we come in to your accounting department. We do everything fully, fully remote, you know, and we could do everything from data entry to accounts receivable accounts payable financial reporting,

financials, payroll execution, and sales tax, and really just handle the whole accounting department for a small business owner. The niche that we fall into as a business owner that…

Is that they’re tired of doing it themselves or maybe we have a lot of clients that they have multiple businesses that they cannot handle the accounting for. And then so we fall into that niche before a business owner brings in someone maybe full time or a business owner has a full accounting department in house.

So a lot of times we’ll have owner operator businesses that maybe they’re typically operating and we’re doing the books at one point and then now they want to take that off their hands. We also have a lot of attorney client attorneys. So managing like their trust accounting and doing things like that is very important. Doing it right when you need professional accounting services versus like having a maybe in-house bookkeeper that you’re coping. They’re doing the numbers right. We’re a CPA firm as well. And one of the things

that really kind of sets us apart is that we do mix in the bookkeeping and tax strategy throughout the year. So that’s one of things we do the bookkeeping, you know, on a monthly basis where you have your meeting with accounting specialist reviewing financials, but then we have, you know, mid-year tax rejection meeting that we hold with our clients. So at that point in July, we’re like looking at the numbers and seeing what we could do to reduce your tax bill. And then again, ⁓ quarter, four, October, November.

another tax writing planning meeting. So what we could do to reduce your tax bill before the year ends. that’s one of our really kind big differentiators.

Anthony Codispoti (18:49)
So you don’t typically see that in a bookkeeping accounting firm where they’re offering those tax advisory services. Hey, how can we, you know, still coloring in the lines, how can we reduce your liability here?

Daniel Gonzalez (19:03)
Correct. That something that we’ve really seen and when we look at it, because we are working with these small business owners, we know that they need like a partner that handles the full suite of their life and the accounting, right? So we’re looking out for not just their ⁓ bookkeeping and finances, but also thinking about like their personal wealth even, right? So some of the strategies that we’re implementing are like your 401ks and IRAs and retirement accounts and reducing the tax bill through there ⁓ and looking at their whole financial picture.

right?

Because this business owner maybe doesn’t have time to manage. So we’ve seen our business owners, you know, be able to create some wealth from their business, ⁓ all while saving money, because we, like you said, not every bookkeeper does this. And we kind of forced the meeting, to be honest with that we learned that ⁓ it’s like our value add. And so we kind of put that meeting in place and our clients really do love it because

We used to, you know, previously we used to send out a request and they didn’t reply, but we learned that putting it on their calendar creates the value for them.

Anthony Codispoti (20:10)
Describe your ideal client, Daniel.

Daniel Gonzalez (20:15)
Our deal client, let’s say, would be a great client for us, would be an attorney practice, maybe like three attorneys, three to five attorneys with number of paralegals where we are doing weekly data entry for them, trust reconciliation on a weekly basis, maybe paying the bills, and then…

and paying the bills and delivering them financial reports. The firm probably will be doing between like, you know, three to $7 million in revenue and have usually about, you know, five to 20 employees per se. Also franchise businesses, have like, or like barber shops, medical spas are really great for us as well. So a medical spa where they’re doing, you know, like very popular, we’re from Miami,

So there’s a lot of those here in Miami where they’re doing Botox and lip filler and all those, and they need an accountant to make sure that everything, their finances are running well. So those kinds of practices are great for us as well. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (21:26)
And the

franchises that you do, are they specifically the med spa and the barbership, ⁓ barbershop industry?

Daniel Gonzalez (21:29)
We actually have different

franchises. So we have daycares. ⁓ We have a daycare franchise company that we work with as well as another that’s a pest control company that’s been growing as well. So it could be anything from the daycare, so the pest control, the barber shops, like I mentioned, with the franchise that we work with as well.

Anthony Codispoti (21:53)
Okay. All right. So let’s talk about how you’ve been able to take the sales and the business development experience from the roofing industry into the accounting space. How, in the time that you’ve been there, how have you approached business development?

Daniel Gonzalez (22:11)
⁓ You know, I would say that in this role, in the business development role at Accounting and Skills, where I’ve had to really like ⁓ develop myself and kind of my own, ⁓ you know, my own strategies per se, ⁓ because it was more, you know, like I didn’t have that mentor or the company that was bringing us the leads and such. So. ⁓

You know, I think that one of the things I guess was B &I and the B &I like that’s mentioned, I would been part of it when I was in the roofing company and I joined the county and scale also. then really kind of, guess, come build off of like the relationship. I think everything starts with relationships that you have with people. And then from there with a business like ours, because we’re targeting that small business owner.

They’re in the community. these are the people, a lot of our business comes from referrals, you’re not getting them from online ads per se that are national. We’re a small business, so we don’t have some huge accounting marketing budget, So really about building the relationships, building the trust with people in the community.

And that’s something that I took from the roofing company that I brought in here and have continued to develop the relationships I have. And then on the marketing side, learning the consistency that they used in the roofing company, they would be constant with like the different types of advertisements they would do. And for us, you know, we do it more organic, but being very consistent in the way we put out our marketing materials as far as like

posting on social media or YouTube channel. I think that that’s something that’s important.

Anthony Codispoti (24:01)
What is BNI and how has that been helpful to you?

Daniel Gonzalez (24:04)
Yeah. So BMI is a business networking international, and it’s a networking group that’s all over the world. ⁓ And the way it works is that there are different chapters all over, like I mentioned, all over the world. And it’s category specific. And so you have to basically be accepted into the group. have to have a seat open and then be accepted into the group. And then you meet every single week. ⁓ Every single week you meet.

You get to know these people and you have like, you’ll usually have at least a 30 second commercial. And then one of the things that makes them different is the tracking. They make sure you track the amount of referrals, the amount of business that’s passed.

The amount of one-to-one, so meeting with other members is tracked as well. And the whole idea behind BI is really building relationships. And it’s not about selling to the people that’s in your room. It’s about making those people sell for you.

You know, you want, you know, I’m part of this game connection, which is the largest chapter in South Florida. have over 63 members. And so every single week we get together and get to know each other. And, ⁓ you know, I’m just trying to make sure that when they’re out, ⁓ you know, in the street and doing their business and someone mentions or talks about accounting or bookkeeping that they’re going to think of me and put and refer me. So it’s really about getting to know the people in the room, understanding them and, really

the biggest idea behind BNI is called is givers game, one of their values. And so really want to be able to give to the people in the room and you know it will come back to you in the future for sure.

Anthony Codispoti (25:49)
Can you walk me through an example of a time that you were able to refer somebody to one of your BNI compadres?

Daniel Gonzalez (25:58)
Yeah, so one of the things that helped, have a friend of mine that was actually looking to. ⁓

to purchase ⁓ a business. It was actually a daycare, funny enough. But yeah, looking to purchase a daycare. And he needed help from a banker to get a loan. And we have a great banker in our group. name is Sergio Pinto. I was able to refer him. And the bank was able to come through with the SBA loan because they were purchased the building. was a pretty big win. was ⁓ last year, I believe it was, that they closed on a daycare. So that was pretty great for both parties.

and was able to get a great rate and help with the loan. And my friend, Serge, was able to close the deal.

Anthony Codispoti (26:42)
How about the other way when some of your colleagues from BNI were able to send you some business?

Daniel Gonzalez (26:48)
Yep. So I say one of the most recent referrals that we had was to a lawyer. He’s really more of an entrepreneur. He’s got a lot of different businesses going on. And it was referred to us by a business attorney that’s helping the gentleman with different contracts. I guess I think he had purchased another business it was, and then he was looking for a bookkeeper for that business. And so our business attorney that did the work.

referred us over and ⁓ getting to know this gentleman, we were able to bring out his law firm that he has, he has actually a three person law firm, as well as ⁓ he has an import export business as well, and then a trust.

Kind of a trust that needed accounting as well for different real estate properties that he has. So it was a really great referral because this person has a lot of different things going on, but they want all their accounting to be taken care of in one space by one person and then professionally.

Anthony Codispoti (27:54)
You mentioned Daniel that you guys use socials, right? You’re posting there, being active in those channels. Are you seeing any business come directly from that? You post something, somebody gives you a call, or do you look at it as more of a brand building exercise?

Daniel Gonzalez (28:11)
I think it does two different things. think that there’s definitely more in the brand building, cause the social media posting, you know, there’s different, different types of posts, right? So we have posts that go out on a regular basis that I do think is more like the brand recognition and just kind of staying in people’s faces that those will be a little bit more generic posts that might go out. those, honestly, they don’t do that great.

but that’s more brand recognition is just like, oh, you’ll see a kind of scale. They posted something, you know, might have a quote, it might have, uh, you know, a team photo, but nothing too, like not too much accounting information. Um, those kinds of just stay in people’s face. And then our YouTube channel, um, that we’ve had, we’ve had it now actually for, for six years. I see that one, uh, as a value add and people do call from our YouTube channel. then.

⁓ What it really does is that if people see like, you know, we’ve been putting these videos out for a very long time and for they might just go to our channel and see the amount of videos that we put out. They see that we’ve been, you know, around for a while that we’re serious. ⁓ And then they get to know Tiffany, who’s the star, really the star of the YouTube page. ⁓

You know, they get to know her and want to work with her. So it’s done that where people just get to know you like you trust you. And then they want to work with you, of course. So seeing, seeing her face, seeing her talk, think adds brings clients that way, brings people that way. And then also for us as an accounting firm, it’s added a lot of value having financial information where sometimes clients have questions and we’re able to just redirect them to a YouTube video that we’ve made.

And that’s been really great as well.

Anthony Codispoti (30:02)
And to find this YouTube channel, folks just search for accounting to scale.

Daniel Gonzalez (30:07)
Yeah, accounting to scale on YouTube. We have over five or six hundred, about five hundred and sixty videos or so that we’ve been putting out to a week. That’s one thing that I I really believe in consistency in everything that you do. And so we started the YouTube channel when in 2020, right when COVID hit and I joined the company, I didn’t really have much to do. And we decided to buy a camera and I never really had a video before, but.

I YouTube how to edit videos, how to work it. And ⁓ yeah, we got to making videos at that time. There was a lot of content to make because it was a PBP program and different ⁓ COVID information regarding taxes. And so everything was changing on a Dad-to-day basis. And really we just started putting out content. ⁓

And it worked. It’s relatively popular. But I think, like I said, you just get more value out of being able to tell customers, check this out. And then a lot of people just get to know you better.

Anthony Codispoti (31:12)
Let’s talk about because you mentioned this briefly, but we didn’t really go into any detail. You guys are very much focused on remote bookkeeping, remote accounting, right? A lot of folks, it’s like a traditional bookkeeping firm. It’s like, ⁓ I’m just working with folks that are kind of in my geographic circle, know, 10, 20, 30 miles away from me. But the the tech stack that you guys have in place allows you to work with folks anywhere in the country.

Talk to us about some of those innovative solutions that you put in place to enable.

Daniel Gonzalez (31:48)
Yeah, so. ⁓

One of the main software that we work in is QuickBooks Online. They’re the market leader in accounting software. ⁓ And they’re very robust accounting software. ⁓ And then from there, one of the things that really has helped our clients out is we’ve recently added advanced reporting ⁓ that’s tied into QuickBooks. ⁓ And we found that our clients really like, typically as an accountant, you get like a balance sheet of profit and loss.

kind of numbers on the page. And something that we’ve come to understand is not every business owner is a professional, is an accountant, right? Not everybody understands the numbers. They know what they’re doing. They’re great at what they do, but maybe a balance sheet isn’t the best for them. So we’ve taken advice from our clients and we added another software called Keeper that gives advanced reporting such as like charts and graphs, gives different KPIs that we could put in there that make it easier for a business owner to look at.

look at a year to date or look at ⁓ previous years of their accounting ⁓ much easier and simpler. One of those softwares we use on the tax side, ⁓ recently implemented new software as well ⁓ called Stay Anchor. That’s pretty good. That’s been working very well for us. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (33:12)
What does that do?

Daniel Gonzalez (33:13)
That one ⁓ helps us with sending out the proposal, ⁓ payment systems, as well as when they start uploading their documents in, it kind of gives them a checklist of everything that we need. And they’re able to kind of like check off boxes on what it is that we need for the tax preparation. Because that’s one of the things that… ⁓

it becomes a delay or a bottleneck really is that sometimes you’re waiting on one document here and there the client might not know. And with that software we’re able to for the following year we’ll know hey we need all these documents again and remind them because sometimes clients will forget a document and they hope that their account remembers for them so this helps with that you know making sure that everybody remembers what’s necessary and needed.

Anthony Codispoti (34:08)
Do you find any resistant from new clients to going all digital, going all online with the bookkeeping and accounting services?

Daniel Gonzalez (34:17)
So that kind of goes back to actually like the pre-qualification, right? That I mentioned earlier. So as a business, you have to know ⁓ who you are and what you do and what works well. And you have to be the expert in it, right? So when a client does come to you and they’re like, no, want, you know, this is what I want to do. ⁓ For the most part, you have to say no and be like, this is the way it works. This is the way we work. ⁓ Because what we’ve found is that if you get off of the

track that you run on, that’s when you end up having issues. I mean, you can’t be super rigid. There are some clients, ⁓ like let’s say we have ⁓ a few senior citizens that they want to come in and drop off their documents and pay. We honestly would make that exception a lot of times as an older client.

But if they want to drop it off, they still have to drop it off, let’s say, in advance. Because we always want everything in advance to be able to prepare everything. So we’ll make that kind of ⁓ concession. ⁓ But it is more on like ⁓ who it is, what the concession really has to be. But if they’re just very resistant or we find that they’re upset that we don’t want to follow their process, ⁓

A lot of times I’ll end up not being our customer.

Anthony Codispoti (35:42)
you know, ⁓ as I was growing up, I don’t know if you’re familiar with this term, but I heard a lot of people say, that guy’s such he’s so good at sales, he could sell ice to an Eskimo. And I always kind of thought like that was the goal. And as I’ve gotten further in life, it’s like, No, it’s very much what you’re describing. It’s it’s very much relationship driven, you know, and I hear that carrying over not just from the roofing space, but also into what you’re doing in ⁓

you accounting to scale. It’s very much about, right, I’m going to pre-qualify this person. Are they a good fit for us? ⁓ Tell us more about how you do that relationship building. You talk to somebody today, you know, they’re not going to sign the contract. What’s your process? How do you keep in touch with them? Keep that conversation.

Daniel Gonzalez (36:26)
⁓ I would say more like the relationship building. I find ⁓ first off, understanding like center of influences as well with sales. You want to find, I think is.

is people that will be able to refer you ⁓ more. ⁓ Somebody, think like even like mentioning kind of BNI, that networking group that’s category exclusive, know, I have 60 something people in that room, but not everybody, you know, deals with.

the finances of a business, right? Where they might get that question posed to them more than one time. You know, everybody might have a small business that at one point in time might need an accountant and you’ll be able to refer me, but really kind of understanding centers of influence and who might be able to refer you and then, you know, taking those people out to coffee, you know, checking on them and having genuine interest in people and like, and their lives I think is really important.

A lot of people ask how you’re doing and they move on to the next question before that person even answers. Actually listening to people I think is important and being able to.

Just being kind to people on trying to be that every single Dad because you never know when people are having bad days and that means a lot to them and you never know when they’ll be able to repay that to you.

Anthony Codispoti (37:58)
So in your work in accounting to scale, who were the centers of influence for you? Who were those good connectors?

Daniel Gonzalez (38:06)
A great connector for us is our business attorneys. So like I mentioned earlier, that referral that came though, as a person that’s working with somebody, maybe buying a business, ⁓ dealing in contracts is really great for us. ⁓ Bankers are really good as well because they’re dealing with money all the time. If a small business is trying to get a loan, but they don’t have financials, a banker reaches out to us, it is great. ⁓

And then I think something that people don’t understand is as well as like, yes, there’s competition, but there can be competition where ⁓ other CPA firms and other CPAs ⁓ refer us all the time as well.

⁓ You know, we don’t do everything because I have mentioned earlier kind of like staying in your lane and know what you do. Well, there’s a lot of different things within accounting that we don’t touch. And so I’ve made relationships with accounting firms and people in that world. ⁓ And, you know, and then that that really helps. And that comes from just kind of understanding that that there is a lot of business out there and having more of an abundance mindset versus

thinking that this person can’t refer me as they never will.

Anthony Codispoti (39:26)
Let’s shift gears entirely here, Daniel. What inspired you to write the children’s book, Modern Dad Gets a Flat?

Daniel Gonzalez (39:32)
Oh, awesome. So modern Dad gets a flat. Kind of a couple of things. So I think that nowadays, in my home in particular, I think that roles have kind of switched and changed. It’s not the same as before.

think growing up, everyone thought that the dad went out to work and the mom was in the kitchen and doing cleaning. And ⁓ in my house it’s not that, we both work, we both work in the business and ⁓ we do different tasks within the house and you do things that are good. And I think that men these days have to understand that. ⁓

it’s about your family’s greater good and doing things that help your family. ⁓ I also had the idea, or not idea, but I feel like a lot of people are not doing things with their hands nowadays and changing a flat tire. feel like this younger generation, ⁓ the younger generation probably has never really changed the tire. I think it’s kind of a small skill that is being lost or important. So ⁓ in the book itself,

⁓ you know, it’s actually my family is myself and I have my kids in the book as well. So they have their names and, ⁓ the dad, you know, at one point he, he walks by the laundry and he thinks about his wife working long out, like it has like a thought bubble and she’s like at the desk. And so he does laundry, ⁓ in the book. then, ⁓ they are going on a beach Dad and the mom’s making breakfast and dad’s making the lunch. And then we’d go on a beach Dad and then they get a flat tire on the way.

the beach and the book itself actually goes through the steps that you need so it’s kind of instructional like hidden within and teaches you exactly how to correct on how to change a flat tire literally from taking the tire out of the trunk to the jack and and how to work it so kind of easy way to kind of bring that in and definitely like a little bit of lighthearted book but

Anthony Codispoti (41:28)
the instructions on how to change a flat tire. Okay.

Daniel Gonzalez (41:47)
I think it kind of has a balance of family and kind of understanding new family dynamics, as well as teaching how to change a flat tire. You find it on Amazon, ⁓ which Amazon, I will say, is pretty amazing because it was, know, trying to get somebody to publish a book is very hard. you know, I don’t think I can get a Pulitzer Prize for my book or anything like that.

Anthony Codispoti (41:57)
Where can we find this book?

Daniel Gonzalez (42:15)
⁓ So getting, know, and the process of getting a book published is that you literally extend it to publishers and you have to hope that they read it and reach out to you. ⁓ But Amazon allows you to kind of like upload your book. ⁓ You you format it properly, you upload it and they print it for you. And then it lives on their website and they really print and mail directly to whoever buys it. It’s pretty cool.

Anthony Codispoti (42:41)
This might be a stretch, you’ll tell me if it is,

but do you see any parallels between the lessons in that story and your work helping businesses grow?

Daniel Gonzalez (42:53)
⁓ I would say definitely like the parallel more would be for me in like the business life. think this is like kind of like working with my wife is a little bit I think an interesting topic to kind of get into and like

kind of like learning to humble yourself when working, right? like, because our business is an accounting firm, you my wife is the CPA and people want to work with the CPA. The YouTube channel is all Tiffany. You know, so she’s really like the star of the show.

of our business and the challenge for us now is to kind of make other people stars. Like we have another tax manager that we’re making her, but for me as the business development person, as a sales person, salespeople usually have big egos and they want recognition, right? But for me, I’ve had to really understand that for the business to kind of grow.

you have to push this person. then like, and you know, that’s what pushes the business growth. So we’ve won a number of awards that we apply for them, the one like applying for them, and you’re applying for Tiffany and she’s won a number of, you know, she’s got 40 under 40, ⁓ business woman, ⁓ South Florida Business Journal, business woman, you know, think different, different number of awards. And ⁓

I think that the book teaches you and teaches men that you have to humble yourself for the greater good of your family. And I think in this role, I’ve had to humble myself a bit ⁓ for the greater good of the business, right?

Anthony Codispoti (44:39)
How have you handled that? You use the word humbled, you know, and ego there a couple of times. It’s not always easy to do.

Daniel Gonzalez (44:49)
Yeah, no, it’s definitely not easy to do.

It’s, yeah, I mean, it’s kind of been hard. I’ve been told by different people that it probably would be hard for them to handle that, especially, you know, I’m working with my wife and, you know, it’s, and at times, you know, will, you know, they, people always kind of question like, oh, how is it working with your wife?

You know, at times it was definitely like kind of like challenging, especially at the beginning. I’ll say it was ⁓ the most challenging was like kind of really learning ⁓ the roles of the business and learning the roles where we had to actually even hire a business coach to come in and help guide us ⁓ on how to do it because.

When I first joined, mean, the accounting firm was my wife’s baby, right? It’s her, she’s been there for five years. She’s been working every single Dad in it. ⁓ And then I come in and joined and to be a partner in this business and handle the sales, which she’s been doing. I, and I have my own style. She has her style. And so it be a, it was definitely a major clash.

⁓ there. But we ended up having a higher business coach and he came in and really helped us align the fact that, you know, the accounting, the accounting is one thing, the operation is one thing, and the business development is another and kind of have to create two different lanes ⁓ and work side by side, right? ⁓ And so that’s, that was something that was definitely humbling. But in that experience of working with a business coach, I learned, you know, that

that if you want this to work, ⁓ that you’d have to humble yourself and really just do your job. ⁓ Do your job, be successful on it, ⁓ but always keep the eye on the price of growing the business.

Anthony Codispoti (46:52)
So what was a big structural change that you guys had to make or chose to make when you brought that business coach in to get everything aligned properly?

Daniel Gonzalez (47:04)
I think that the first, ⁓ thing was just giving me more, giving me more autonomy, ⁓ and her really kind of like letting go. And then I had to realize that I had to, to show up as well, right. ⁓ and do the things that they are say or that we agree upon because like any relationship, if you’re not doing your work, ⁓

in it, you could lose trust. And it was about making sure we build trust within the business, even though we’re married. ⁓ Working is two different things. Working and being married are two different things at home. You know, I can do all, you know, take out the trash and all those things that help. But

at the business, had to make sure I was following up with the leads or putting out a good strategy and whatnot. ⁓ Because one of the things I think when working with your spouse, it’s a bigger gamble than just being separate. Because if something goes wrong at the business, it’s impossible for it to not ⁓ go home.

you know, with you. And if you have some kind of crazy blow up at work or some really big issue, you know, your marriage could be definitely on the line because of the work. So that could be something that’s, you know, it’s not, it’s not common. If you work at two different environments, it’s not the same as when you’re seeing each other, you 24 seven, you know, we, you know, our offices are pretty much right next to each other.

Anthony Codispoti (48:43)
Have you guys come up with any rules, any guardrails that sort of help keep the office stuff at the office and the home stuff at home? Or is it just inevitable that they sort of bleed into each other?

Daniel Gonzalez (48:58)
I think it’s inevitable. mean, we’ve tried, you know, we respect each other. there’s been times where I like, I personally just don’t want to talk about work and then she does or vice versa. So just say, you know, maybe at times there’s, you know, there’s obviously different levels. Sometimes I don’t want to, but she just wants to vent and talk to me about it you kind of have to understand it. But yeah, just kind of.

It’s almost impossible to, think, especially as a small business owner, right? If the business was at a different level, maybe it would be less, but where we’re at, I think it’s almost impossible. Most entrepreneurs will tell you they never really turned it off. So it’s kind of it’s always gonna bleed through.

Anthony Codispoti (49:46)
true.

So what is the future of accounting to scale look like Daniel? What’s on the horizon?

Daniel Gonzalez (49:53)
I think for us, want to continue, we do want to continue to grow. ⁓ You know, like I said earlier, I think we’re looking to hopefully make our first purchase of another accounting firm in the near future and really continue growth. ⁓ You know, we’re both very young and you know, part of our, I don’t think that there’s like a ⁓ number of revenue goal that we have in mind.

But I think that we want to continue to expand, help people. have 70 employees that we’ve gotten to, and we do feel like we’ve done good and right by them by building good culture.

⁓ at the company, the things that we offer to them. And, you know, I think that the more people that we can bring onto the team, like I’m a people person and I love the team that we have here in office, you know, our company. And so I think that the more people we could bring on.

I think that will be amazing. I think it’s really cool to see the growth within the company that people, we have team members that have gotten their degrees here, they’ve gotten their masters here, different certifications. And it’s really cool to see that.

Anthony Codispoti (51:16)
So 17 employees now, are they all on site with you or are some of them different parts of the country or world that are able to support you guys since you have this remote tech stack in place?

Daniel Gonzalez (51:27)
Yeah, so for the most part, they’re all here in Miami. We do have a few ⁓ virtual employees as well that are ⁓ in South America and the Philippines as well. So we have people all over the world as well. ⁓ But for the most part, our business here and our idea is to continue to grow employees here.

Anthony Codispoti (51:51)
Yeah. And it sounds like the growth strategy is sort of twofold, right? It’s sort of the traditional, what you have been doing, the building relationships, the networking, the referrals, the word of mouth. And then you’re also potentially on the precipice of your first acquisition, which is an exciting way to really grow the business quickly all at once.

Daniel Gonzalez (52:02)
you

Yeah, good girl.

Yeah, exactly. You know, this is this is new to us. But I think that there’s a saying that says what got you here is not going to take you to the next level. You know, so I think that’s where like the purchasing of business comes in. But I think that at the end of the Dad, our

our business is built on relationships. And we’re just going to continue to push that for sure. But the acquisition is definitely exciting to be able to grow that much quickly.

versus bringing in clients one by one, it will definitely be exciting. But that’s gonna bring in some challenges. Now we have to, just cause you make an acquisition, doesn’t mean that those clients are gonna stay with you. Everybody has free will. those clients find out, aren’t able to make a connection with us, I believe. And that’ll be my job actually, which I’m kind of excited about because it’s gonna be a new way to reach out to clients

you know, because they’re sort of our client, but really the idea is now we have to build trust with them so that they stay our client and stay our client long term. So that’s really an exciting challenge I’m actually looking forward to is figuring out ways that we can make contact with them, let them know who we are and like what makes us different and why they should stay. So I’m looking forward to that challenge.

Anthony Codispoti (53:45)
Yeah. You know, Daniel, in my experience, growth oftentimes, whether it’s personal or professional, growth often comes from overcoming big challenges. What’s a serious challenge that you’ve overcome in your life? And what did you learn going through that?

Daniel Gonzalez (54:05)
So what do you think of that?

So I think a serious challenge, guess I left the serious challenge a little early, but when we first started working together was incredibly challenging. Like I said, had, know, those months before we got the business coach, right? That wasn’t, the business coach wasn’t like, we immediately thought that, right? We had to go through the challenge of kind of understanding, struggling to make that jump and asking for help, right? So a lot of people don’t want to ask

help I don’t and we we did luckily and definitely helped us out. ⁓ Yeah so that was definitely one business challenge for sure. ⁓ Looking back on my sales career one of the biggest things that

I remember that was a challenge for me was the mental aspect of sales. A lot of times in sales you have big wins and then you have bad months. I used to feel like I used to always ride a roller coaster. Have a big month, you do really well, you get a good paycheck, then you kind of get fat and happy. Then you have an okay month and then you have a bad month. Then once you have a bad

month,

you you could get into a funk and I’m really learning ⁓ how to control my emotions within sales was probably the biggest challenge I ever really faced. And like trying to to be even keel throughout the wins and the losses ⁓ and learning that kind of aspect behind sales was really important to me was important to me. But the biggest change in my life, I think, understanding my emotions and keeping myself ⁓

really just even and not overcome, not let the emotions of a big win or a big loss take over.

Anthony Codispoti (56:09)
How do you do that though? It’s one of those things where you hear somebody say it and you’re like, Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Like, I shouldn’t let the highs get too high or the lows get too low. But you know, your central nervous system kicks in and it sort of seems out of control. Like, how do you grab the steering wheel?

Daniel Gonzalez (56:27)
I think for me it was kind of when I probably…

in the sales sort of hit like almost like a rock bottom. feel like I had like three months in a row of just depression, like almost depression or just bad sales. Uh, and I couldn’t get out of it at that time. You know, I literally ever going out and couldn’t even like afford a cheeseburger, even though I had a job. I was working a number of hours, but it really was the emotion behind the sale behind, you know, that would get out. And that’s why I kind of had mentioned earlier how important it

to

just be real and be genuine because people pick up on that. And if you’re doing, if you’re not doing good in sales, people can pick up on the desperation that we kind of go have talked about earlier and, and just like kind of hitting that and like just learning that I can’t get back to there ⁓ and seeing other people that that would get too happy, you know, where’s the sale and you just like through life experience.

learn to control your emotions and really the practice goes into controlling the happiness because being sad about something ⁓ is a lot more difficult but it’s harder to control. But when you do make that sale, telling yourself, all right, this is great, but I have to move on to the next one to keep the ball rolling is what’s important.

Anthony Codispoti (57:54)
⁓ Daniel, what’s your superpower?

Daniel Gonzalez (57:59)
I think my superpower goes back to is authenticity and honesty. Sometimes my wife tells me I’m too honest and I’m not like a blunt person. not like, I won’t let everything come out per se, but I really just am not someone that can tell a lie. I really try to be honest and real with people.

I’m okay with maybe not conflict, but I’m okay with being direct and being real with people. And I think that they value that. then that even goes back to saying no to people and not getting out of your lane when you tell someone I can’t do this for you. That actually builds trust. They like the fact that you’re not trying to do something that’s gonna leave them in harm’s way. ⁓

So I think that just being authentic and being honest with people is my superpower that’s led to building relationships and just being real with people. I get referrals and opportunities that come from people that you met years ago. And that’s really been amazing for us.

Anthony Codispoti (59:09)
Yeah, those are all really good qualities to have. What’s your favorite thing to do outside of work, Daniel?

Daniel Gonzalez (59:15)
So outside of work, worked in restaurants previous to the roofing company. And so I got into drinking wine when I was younger, like in my early 20s and really wine culture and wine tastings. ⁓ Visiting wineries is something that I really enjoy. ⁓

There’s so much that goes into making wine. It comes from the farming, the stories of the family, the producers, different regions that go into it is really amazing to learn about. And then the people that enjoy wine a lot of times are interesting and fun people as well. So really that, and then I also do jujitsu as well. So between a little bit of balanced hobbies, guess, with drinking a little bit of wine and also training.

jujitsu and that’s a very that’s a humbling no no no and the jujitsu kind of goes back to being hum being humble because you know I’m a 40 year old jujitsu practitioner which means that I’m not that great where I used to wrestle in high school so I have a decent background but

Anthony Codispoti (1:00:08)
Is that is that like back to back that you do that?

Daniel Gonzalez (1:00:31)
⁓ Being 40 compared to a 20 year old is a noticeable difference out there sometimes. know, losing on a regular basis will humble you. ⁓ So that kind of also helps as well.

Anthony Codispoti (1:00:48)
Daniel, I’ve just got one more question for you today. But before I ask, I want to do three quick things for the audience. First of all, ways to get in touch with Daniel Gonzalez and accounting to scale their website, accounting to scale.com, and the YouTube channel that he mentioned before, they’ve got hundreds of great videos, all kinds of really helpful free content in there. So if you go to YouTube, and you search for accounting to scale, you’ll find them. We’ll have a link to that in the show notes.

Daniel Gonzalez (1:00:51)
Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (1:01:16)
And if you’re enjoying our show today, please take a moment to subscribe wherever you’re listening. It sends a signal that helps others discover our show. So thank you for taking a quick moment to do that right now. And as a reminder, you can be the hero advisor that helps clients give their employees access to therapists, doctors, and prescription meds while paradoxically increasing their net profits. Real gains that can change how a business is valued. Contact us today at addbackbenefits.com.

So last question for you, Daniel, a year from now, what is one very specific thing that you hope to be celebrating?

Daniel Gonzalez (1:01:53)
I think a year from now, I hope to be at 20 employees. I think that if we’re at 20, it means that the business has grown, obviously in revenue, but in people. our business is a people business. We’re dealing with business owners, like most important thing, but our product is our people and having 20 employees would be amazing.

that would be the goal of being at 20 employees.

Anthony Codispoti (1:02:26)
of it. Daniel Gonzalez from counting to scale. I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate you being here.

Daniel Gonzalez (1:02:35)
Thank you so much for having me. really appreciate it. It’s been ⁓ great. thank you. I’m very grateful for this opportunity.

Anthony Codispoti (1:02:43)
Absolutely, folks. That’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us. And if one thing stood out, put that into action today.