Michael Voie
Business Name: Stallcup & Voie LLP
Website URL: http://www.stallcupandvoie.
Email Address: mike@stallcupandvoie.com
Year Founded: 2007
Number of Employees: 7
What does your company do?: We are a CPA firm that provides high quality accounting, tax and consulting services.
Was there a specific turning point when you realized your business was moving to the next level?: No specific turning point. Over time, our client attrition rates have been well under 1% per year. We continue to see clients move to our firm from some of our major competitors (the reverse has never happened) due to the quality of work we have and continue to consistently deliver. Our clients rave about us in Yelp reviews and as referrals to new clients. All of these things and more have given us the confidence to realize that our focus on quality, customer service and client relations has paid off.
What processes or procedures have you implemented that have helped grow your company?:
Our business is definitely a people business. We need to leverage employees to grow the business. To that end, we must hire and train managers that can consistently exceed our expectations and take strong ownership in the firm. We stumbled a bit with this in the beginning, but eventually figured out the right type of skill set and personality that was necessary to make this happen. Our current team is given a healthy bit of free reign and accountability. This frees us up to focus on client development and the often mundane, but extremely important aspects of administration and actually thinking of new ways to leverage additional growth.
What is most rewarding about running your business?: Helping business owners achieve their goals. We have lots of entrepreneurs come in the door with zero experience in business. One of our clients runs a very popular business creating healthy burritos that are produced with local ingredients. He was losing money every month and was convinced it was because of a cash flow issue (distributor paying 45-60 days and all costs up front in a growing business). After fixing up his books (he was doing them himself), we discovered that his gross margins were only a couple percent when he thought they were 40%. We then helped him drill down into his food, labor and packaging costs and devised a plan to improve margins. If he had not engaged us when he did, he would probably be out of business. As it is, he is now profitable and building out a new facility to accommodate his growth.
What challenges have you faced and how have you overcome them?: Our biggest challenges have been people related. When we first started, we hired “bookkeepers” to help with client bookkeeping. What we realized is that there is a very large difference between a bookkeeper and an accountant. Now, we hire only accountants to do our clients bookkeeping. Quality has gone way up and errors have gone way down. In addition, our accountants have become trusted advisors to our clients. How many bookkeepers can claim that?
If you were starting over today, what would you do differently?: I would spend my time to find the right people from the start.
What advice do you have for other business owners?: Don’t underestimate the power of empowering the right employees to take on tasks that you might normally assign to yourself. It’s very hard as a business owner, but to have any hope of growing a business, you need to let go of certain things and let other people handle them for you.
Please list any favorite books, tools or resources (software, website, etc.) you would recommend for others: When I have free time to read a book, I freely admit that it’s hard to say no to some good fictional entertainment. However, one of my clients handed me The Lean Startup by Eric Ries. I must admit that I like his approach to making a startup happen. He has very good points on product development, client development, and when to take your product to market. In addition to thinking about my business, I use some of his ideas when talking with my startup clients.
What is something that people might be surprised to learn about you?: Most of my clients are surprised to learn that I fly corporate and charter on the side.
