← Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
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- [00:00]
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- [00:28]
John Gafford
Hey, it's John Gafford from the Escaping the Drift podcast and big book. Escaping the Drift is coming out November 11th. You can pre order it right now at thejohngaffer.com There are tons of bonuses, tons of giveaways. Get the book. If you are somebody that feels like you might be drifting along, this is for you. If you know somebody that feels like they might be drifting along, this is for you. Available everywhere, all bookstores, everywhere, Amazon, Barnes and nobles, the whole nine yards. But pick your copy up right now at thejohngaffer.com and get a bunch of the awesome bonuses I've thrown out because I promise you, I put my heart and soul into this thing. I want it to help you change your life. Pick it up everywhere. So you went to. You went to college, you said unlv?
- [01:12]
Matt Bontrager
Yeah, unlv? Yep.
- [01:14]
John Gafford
Okay. And you graduate from unlv, you get a good job at Deloitte, which we talked about.
- [01:19]
Matt Bontrager
Super proud about that.
- [01:21]
John Gafford
That's a good company.
- [01:21]
Matt Bontrager
Yeah, it was good. It was good. Got me really good reputation out of school.
- [01:24]
John Gafford
How did you. So how'd you pull that off? And now, Escaping the Drift, the show designed to get you from where you are to where you want to be. I'm John Gafford, and I have a knack for getting extraordinary achievers to drop their secrets to help you on a path to greatness. So stop drifting along, Escape the Drift. And it's time to start right now. Back again. Back again for another episode of. Like it says in the opening, man, the show that gets you from where you are to where you want to be. And today, live in the studio, people, we've got a guy that is. Man, I love this because this dude is still kind of. I'll call it level six where we're at, right. If zero is an idea and 10 is the exit on a very successful business, this cat's at like level six and doing incredibly well. He started his career early at Deloitte where he cut his professional teeth there. He is a CPA by trade and he has started his own unique kind of niched down business for real estate investors doing their taxes. I know it sounds super boring, but it is a necessity that we all need. But this is not about taxes today. So don't think, man. I do talk about taxes because I don't know, we might, but I don't think so. What we're going to get into is how he built this now burgeoning, incredibly successful business called truebooks. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the program. This is Matt Bontrager.
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Matt Bontrager
Matt, thank you.
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John Gafford
How are you, buddy?
- [02:56]
Matt Bontrager
I'm good, I'm good. Thank you for having me. Good intro? Good intro. Better than I could have done, for sure.
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John Gafford
Well, you know, you do this once or.
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Matt Bontrager
Yeah.
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John Gafford
And you pick up some things along the way.
- [03:04]
Matt Bontrager
Yeah, if you will. For sure.
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John Gafford
So, dude, you know, you're. When I say you've got this, it's not like you're, you're selling crafts at the fair. I mean, this is a business That'll do what, 4 million this year?
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Matt Bontrager
About 4. Yeah.
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John Gafford
Do 4 million, which is great. And you started this. What year? When did you start?
- [03:18]
Matt Bontrager
2020.
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John Gafford
Okay.
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Matt Bontrager
Quit my. Yeah, I was a W2 employee. Quit Q3, 2019. Started 20th of January, Jan, 2020.
- [03:25]
John Gafford
So let's talk about that. Right, so you went to, you went to college, you said unlv.
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Matt Bontrager
Yeah, unlv. Yep.
- [03:30]
John Gafford
Okay. And you graduate from unlv. You get a good job at Deloitte, which we talked about.
- [03:36]
Matt Bontrager
Super proud about that.
- [03:37]
John Gafford
Yeah, that's a good company.
- [03:37]
Matt Bontrager
Yeah, it was good. It was good. Got me really good reputation out of school.
- [03:41]
John Gafford
How did you. So how'd you pull that off?
- [03:43]
Matt Bontrager
And that was more of a pull off because I wasn't a GPA guy going through school. I wasn't flexing a gpa. I was a networker talker. Showing up in a suit to all the events and just trying to show that I was eager to get a good job. I was an okay student. I just wasn't like a straight A student and I think just networked and showed that I was really interested and would have been a good staff. I would have been a good employee and landed it. And I started at an odd time too. I started in the fall. Usually you graduate spring and then you kind of have a sort of like fall to like, you know, sort of cut your teeth. I graduated in fall, so I Went right into busy season in January. So it was fun. But. Yeah.
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John Gafford
Well, let me ask you this question. This is, this is just something I just thought of. When you're fraternity at unlv.
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Matt Bontrager
No.
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John Gafford
You were not lived at home. Yeah, because I. Because the reason I ask is I read an interesting stat yesterday which said if you are in a fraternity in college, it is almost a guarantee you will lower your GPA by a quarter of a point.
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Matt Bontrager
I don't doubt it.
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John Gafford
But it also at five years you have a 36% higher return.
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Matt Bontrager
Oh, I'm sure. For the network.
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John Gafford
For the network. So when I hear you say networking.
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Matt Bontrager
Yeah.
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John Gafford
Is that so where did that skill come from? I mean, have you always been a people person? Somebody can shake a bunch of hands?
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Matt Bontrager
Yeah, I think it's my mom. My mom's a talker. My mom's a talker. And just kind of like that. Yeah, just like you put me in a room and I'll make friends or I'll talk to someone. It just. And that's now. I mean we can get in. This is a huge topic for me too. Of just. Yeah, let's go. But yes, I've always been into, you know, just at least being kind and friendly and not avoiding people. Right. So we go to events like, like a career fair. You see now I've got to go to those events as a firm now looking for staff and kids are so nervous nowadays they can't walk up and shake hands and look somebody in the eye. And so I was lucky to have that trait in school, I think and it was just kind of hopefully shine through a little bit.
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John Gafford
Dude. I tell my kids that are school age now, I tell them all the time, I say, listen, the best skill that you can have in life is going to be the ability to look at another human being, connect with them. All these kids I've got 117 and 115. Oh good. And they're just, they're just head down in their phones all the time.
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Matt Bontrager
Yeah.
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John Gafford
I mean luck. Luckily they're, they're, they're great kids. I have nothing to complain about with my children. But, but yeah, it's going to be a skill that I'm trying to ingrain in them and it's just, it's so rare. It's going to be so rare 20 years from now.
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Matt Bontrager
Agreed. And I look at now running a firm with staff. We make money by maintaining good relationships and I need staff to obviously drive that revenue. And I have some staff that are not good at Talking to people. And I have some staff that are. So I now, as a business owner, see the value of somebody that has the technical skills but can also talk to people.
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John Gafford
I had a. When I was in the tech industry for a while, and we had a saying at our tech firm, which is, you never let the geek pitch.
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Matt Bontrager
Yeah, that's a good term.
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John Gafford
And I always look back at that, and there was a scene in the movie Office Space when. When the Bobs are interviewing the guys for the layoffs and they're like interviewing the one guy who's freaking out. They're, well, what do you do? And he's like, well, I take the information from the software people, but I take it to the customers. And they're like, why couldn't the software people just take the information directly to them? And you're like, bro, if you've ever worked in tech, you understand why that can't happen? Because the guys that are really good at ripping code should never talk to a client.
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Matt Bontrager
Can't sell.
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John Gafford
Ever. Well, no, they just. They just. They don't have the ability to slow down fast enough to explain something in a way that is empathetic at all to somebody else. And, yeah, you never let the geeks pitch, but that's fine. I totally agree with that.
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Matt Bontrager
I mean, we're all geeks in accounting, for sure. But when you. That's what I've started to realize is. And why I've. I'm 33. I feel like I've really sunk my heels into this profession. Love the profession. And I'm trying to. Like you said, level six. I like it. I would probably gauge myself around there.
- [07:15]
John Gafford
Okay, that was a guess.
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Matt Bontrager
No, that's good. That's good. Because I feel like, hey, I'm sort of in the middle now, and I'm approaching my highest earning potential. And I like. Now that I've realized, if you're in the accounting space, I love the field. It's really good opportunity. There's so many different doors you can open. But if you have that door. Door or have that trait where you can talk to people, way more doors open because now you're more of a partner level. You can sell the work and do the work. You're not just stuck to doing the work. So.
- [07:38]
John Gafford
Yeah.
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Matt Bontrager
Yeah.
- [07:39]
John Gafford
Well, let's. Let's go back to your city. You're. You're working at Deloitte.
- [07:43]
Matt Bontrager
Yeah.
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John Gafford
And you're thinking to yourself, walk me through that thought process of jumping out on your own. Because that's something that. That's One of those moments that it's a defining moment that a lot of people just don't have the intestinal fortitude for that. So walk me through that.
- [07:57]
Matt Bontrager
Yeah, yeah. It was a big sort of scary decision, too, because I would say as an accountant, I'm typical in the sense of pretty risk adverse. Right. Us accountants, we go to school, get a good degree. That leads right to a good job, good salary. Like when I signed with Deloitte, I got to buy a house with my offer letter. I didn't even have a paycheck yet, so it just felt very secure. But the way it works in accounting most of the time is I started to land a tax return here or there on the side, and I slowly built a book of business that was around 40, 50 grand. And then I landed a client who about 2,200 bucks a month. I did his bookkeeping, Ryan. And then we started that firm together. And so I basically came to him and was like, hey, I'm on a W2 right now for about 75 grand. I have about 40 to 50 grand of side business, moonlight work. I landed him at 2200amonth. And so made a comment to him like, hey, you are an influencer. You have a. You have an audience. You drive the work, I'll do the work. And let's. Beautiful partnership.
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John Gafford
Yeah. The Ryan we're talking about is Ryan Pineda for this reason.
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Matt Bontrager
So, yeah, 2020.
- [08:56]
John Gafford
But the lesson in here, if you're listening to this, right, and you're in a position where you had that W2 job and you're thinking to yourself, I want something more. I want to take a risk. This is the way to do it. Essentially, what he did was created a side hustle that not only the purpose of the side hustle wasn't just to generate $50,000, not just to increase the income. He was proofing the market. He was saying, okay, can I build on my own without this so being risk adverse, which, you know, most accountants are, that's not really risk. You were just transferring focus at that point. Yeah, there wasn't. Yeah, not. Not a lot of risk. That's a smart way to do it. So many people, you know, they have an idea or they come up with a concept or product, and then they just want to go to build it and then try to sell it. I mean, this is why they have Kickstarter.
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Matt Bontrager
Yeah, right.
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John Gafford
Because Kickstarter, for those of you listening, Kickstarter is not to raise money. That's not the point of Kickstarter. Kickstarter. Is to prove a market concept. Make sure you have a market for whatever you're trying to do. So smart, smart stuff. Okay, so you got that going. You get this going with, with Ryan and so obviously tell me, take me from there.
- [10:03]
Matt Bontrager
Yeah. So this is 2020 Covid year. I had my first son in May of 2019. My wife's in finance. She has a good W2. So it was like the, the, the stars were aligning for me to say like, okay, this is a good opportunity. Quit my job as an accounting manager, start this in 2020 takes off like a rocket. I do all the work myself for the first about year and a half, some contract work here and there. And for the numbers wise, first year we did a buck 20 to the top line. Second year in 2021 we did 860. Third year we did 2.6. Fourth year we did 2, 2, 4. And then we did 34 and 3 6.
- [10:40]
John Gafford
Okay, let's back up. So walk me through the business plan. Walk me through the structure. If I worked the.
- [10:45]
Matt Bontrager
So the business plan up front was partner A, partner B was I was going to crunch the work and hire staff to actually facilitate it. But R was able to drive the business at a really good amount. Right. He was in certain pockets and you know, social media space where we just got a lot of exposure. When he would go do speeches and talks, it was hey, this is true. Books is what we do. And we do. Ryan and I both come from a real estate background in the sense of I was focused on that kind of work. I'm an investor in the sense of I have some long term rentals. He was doing stuff in the real estate space. So we really came at that market and also really realized that these people are good. You know, real estate investors are good at finding deals and they're good at making and creative deals. But the. They're terrible at bookkeeping, they're terrible at tax work when also from a tax perspective, they're sitting on some of the biggest gold mines that, that the tax code affords. And so that was the market we attacked. It worked really well where it split. So. Right. So I bought Ryan. Oh yeah.
- [11:37]
John Gafford
Okay.
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Matt Bontrager
So. Because you jump and I'm jumping.
- [11:39]
John Gafford
No, but all those like. Because see, here's the thing. You know when you go through it, man, right. When you, when you're the guy that does it, there's so much that you just kind of skip by because you're like, oh, that just happened. This happened. But what you just laid out was like, ok, why did you choose Ryan as a partner? Because he had something you did not have. He had the ability to go drive the sales and he had the ability to be that side of the business to get started. So many people get into business with partners that do the exact same thing. They have and have the exact same skill set, basically just because they're too scared to go out and do it by themselves. You didn't make that mistake. You found a very complimentary piece to what you were able to do.
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Matt Bontrager
Yeah.
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John Gafford
Secondly, you very clearly laid out responsibilities for what he was responsible for and what you were responsible for. It was very clear to both sides. There was never, ever any ambiguity of who's got to do this lift. It's like, bro, you're responsible. Like, where's the sales? Or why aren't we getting this stuff out fast enough?
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Matt Bontrager
Yes.
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John Gafford
Very clear, well defined roles. And then the last part I would say is once you got it going, it began to scale and you were able to then hire to that, to that point. Now the first thing I'm going to say is, or my question is, you said that first year you did almost all the work yourself. So at what point did you break?
- [12:49]
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- [13:47]
Matt Bontrager
I'd say probably 10 months into where we started to get some contracting work which at that point was reviewing tax returns. I was preparing it all, doing all the bookkeeping, but yeah, I'd say about 10 months in, it started to get really stressful. So even though the top line, because you have solopreneurs that are running two to $300,000 books of business. Yeah, but with the influx of what they're not doing, they grow those books of businesses very slow. We had such an influx of sales and new prospects, which, as you know, running sales and taking prospect calls, you're going to talk to 10Land2 type, you know, kind of thing. But at the same time, I'm trying to crank tax returns out, service the work. And just like we kind of talked about, I'm a big service guy. I don't want a bad name. I don't want people speaking ill of the firm that I'm trying to. So I wanted a good service. And I think about 10 months in is where I just started to feel real stressed.
- [14:29]
John Gafford
Looking back now in, in retrospect, should you have scaled faster? Should you have brought more people on quicker? Or did you think you did it right? The same, right, the right.
- [14:38]
Matt Bontrager
Not at that time, but in 2022, we made that mistake bad. I was on bigger, which we can get to that, but I was on bigger pockets. And we had. It was like taking burger orders and it killed us.
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John Gafford
Yeah.
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Matt Bontrager
20Q4, 2022 into 2020, it's not.
- [14:51]
John Gafford
You just never know what's going to be that thing.
- [14:53]
Matt Bontrager
Never. And it was for context. We'll sell right now 8 to 15 units a month of, hey, you want True Books to do your tax planning? This is the engagement. We sold almost 60 throughout those Q per month in Q4 of 2022 just for being on a podcast.
- [15:08]
John Gafford
So, okay, here's the problem that a lot of business owners have when they have a hockey stick like that in sales is how do you hire? How do you maintain the integrity of hiring the right people and getting them in the right seats when you're trying to do it very quickly?
- [15:23]
Matt Bontrager
And that's where luckily with accounting, you're hiring for a very specialized role. So almost up front, if you know your stuff, you can vet them out and just really ask them certain questions to, hey, show me the workload that you've handled before. How would you do this? Xyz and so luckily, the talent that I've been able to find, I've had some bad hires here and there, but most of our talent has been really solid from the jump. And so our first hire in that March, March of 2021, she started to run our accounting department and then admin and then tax. So it started to build out from there.
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John Gafford
But I guess it is a little easier when you're hiring people that have to have passed a certain, you know.
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Matt Bontrager
Some of them are Licensed or experience.
- [15:58]
John Gafford
Like real estate, man, it's way too easy to get real estate license. That weeds no one out. Yeah, nobody. I was gonna. No one out. Yes. I mean, I know people in this business that I don't know if they can even speak English, and somehow they pass that test, which is in English, I'm not even sure which is fine. But with you passing that CPA exam, that's. That's tough test. So that was very hard. I guess you kind of filter a little easier that way.
- [16:21]
Matt Bontrager
And I'm not even hiring all CPAs. We have CPAs at the firm. But even then, if you have experience as a bookkeeper, you give me 30 minutes with you, I'm going to be able to really tell how good of a bookkeeper you are. So, luckily, hiring the talent has been somewhat easy and we had cool perks. You know, during 2020, everybody started to go. They went from cubicles to, oh, cool, I get to work from home now. And so the stuff that we were offering as far as being a remote firm, competitive pay, people loved. And so I think that's also how we've got to grow, like a good talent pool, too.
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John Gafford
Dude, that's an interesting question because, you know, Simon Sinek says, the magic's in the hall ways. So running a remote workforce like that, how do you keep the culture high?
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Matt Bontrager
That's hard. So this is where results. So everybody goes. How do you know they're working? Well, we. The biggest thing that we've done is we don't track time. And coming up at Deloitte and any other tax firm. In accounting and tax, as an accountant, you track time. You have to be billable hours to certain clients. We trap pure productivity. If I'm paying somebody 80 grand, we. Ideally, there's a metric I need to make three times the salary, so I just really will track dollars and what you're putting out the door. But I think how we keep a good culture is we're still fairly a small firm. There's 25 to 30 of us, so it's not too corporate yet. We have things like flexible time off. So, like my work, my wife works at mgm. They have flexible time off in the sense of you can have as much time off as you want, as long as your manager's okay with it and approves of it, and it makes sense for the business. If you need to take a week here, a week there, and it ends up being more than what you would normally get allotted at another firm, great. But as long as the production is There. And it makes sense. So things like that competitive salary. We just rolled out 401ks. We do not have things that other firms do. But, yeah, I don't know. I don't know. And that's. I, I don't know. But that's where I have trouble, like me saying, I don't know. I have trouble saying, oh, I've done a good job at this because I don't know really if I do. I don't know. Just, it's really worked and I, there's got, there's, there's attention to it throughout. But you're right, I, I can't say I made that call.
- [18:09]
John Gafford
I don't know. Oh, I think, I think your turnover rate speaks for if you're doing a good enough job.
- [18:13]
Matt Bontrager
True.
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John Gafford
Which if it's that low, you're doing a good enough job.
- [18:15]
Matt Bontrager
Yeah. We've only had, you know, I've had. I was just talking to someone last night. I had one guy come in and work for us. And my thing was I wore a black hat. And when I started social, because that's when it started to make sense for me to buy Ryan out was when social. I started to do some of the social myself. And so I had one staff that I hired and immediately could tell he was someone that was not younger. Guy never worked from home, so was not ready for this. Like, he loved the thought of this work life balance and being able to run his own schedule. He didn't have the experience to do it. And then two weeks later found him online posting videos because he went out to do his own thing. So I almost took it as like a, hey, I can't knock it. I just did the same thing. Yeah. But started to realize that, hey, there aren't, there are people that are not cut out for this work from home life and you need to find more experienced people.
- [18:54]
John Gafford
Well, that's, that's an interesting point, dude, because I think so many people you like, you want to train your people. And I think there's two schools of thought. I have people that are like, I'm going to teach these people just enough, get them just to the point. And then there's people that just understand you are potentially training your future competitor, especially if you hire well.
- [19:13]
Matt Bontrager
Yeah. Yeah.
- [19:14]
John Gafford
And I think. Which philosophy do you think is, Is which you would subscribe to?
- [19:19]
Matt Bontrager
I think as to, like, is the question as to should you lean in and still train to the max with the risk of them going out on the road? For me, it's a, I would Lean in and train that person. Like, I have one guy now, Jerry, and he'll watch this maybe. And he. He's our senior tax manager. And, like, I love how I take a lot of pride in how transparent just him and I are with this, where I've told him the biggest risk to both of our careers is leaving each other, because what we have going right. Really well, or is going really well. And so we've talked that there's always a ton of opportunity if we stay together, but as soon as things get contentious and we're not truthful with one another, he goes and I go, and then we lose each other's skill sets. That is working so well right now as a partnership. But. But if you ask me what I think about what I'm doing now in practice is I'm going to lean into that person, because if it does work out or for the time period that it does work out, it should be great. But you. I mean, that's something that I've yet. I haven't experienced it yet at a high level where someone like him leaves.
- [20:14]
John Gafford
You know, I think. Well, you will.
- [20:15]
Matt Bontrager
Yeah, exactly.
- [20:17]
John Gafford
Will.
- [20:17]
Matt Bontrager
Exactly.
- [20:18]
John Gafford
But here's the thing. You know, what people don't realize is the success of others that come through your system, that come through your company, if they go on to great things at other places, that becomes a hallmark of your place. That's why people want to come work for you, because they see this as, okay, cool, I can just stay for the rest of my life and be happy, but if I want to make that one, that. That leap to the next level, they're going to prepare me to do that.
- [20:41]
Matt Bontrager
Yeah.
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John Gafford
And I think you have to invest in all businesses, what we do here. I mean, there's been so many people. I've been doing this, you know, 20 years, what I've been. And there's been so many people that have come through here that have gone on to have very large real estate teams, open companies, I mean, all kinds of stuff.
- [20:56]
Matt Bontrager
So it's an ode to you.
- [20:57]
John Gafford
Yeah, I think it's like the coaching tree. You know, they always talk about the coaching tree in college football. Well, that guy's from this guy's coaching tree. He came up under him. It's the same thing. And I think people talk about legacy in business, and I think there's no better legacy than leaving a trail of people that have, you know, not just succeeded under you, but succeeded. Needed around you because of what you're. The information you're teaching.
- [21:18]
Matt Bontrager
Yeah, no, I would Agree that, yeah, that's a good point. And that's where, again, like, lean into your people. Because now that I think about it, I look at business so different in the sense of when, like, the way my kids go to school, the way I buy my groceries are because of the hard work that my team does. I don't think that people really view it that way when there may be a solo producer or they just simply don't run a team. When you see the economies of how the dollars, as. As an accountant, I always think dollars. So as it's the way that the dollars trickle from the customer ultimately to the owner, but through the employees and through the different expenses that it takes to run the business is you have to be very grateful for the team that you have, but then also the team has to be very grateful for the client that's paying you so well.
- [21:55]
John Gafford
I would say let's talk about this because I'm a big believer in personality tests. And I love them. We give them our people. And I'm sure you've probably taken one or two at your time. I'm guessing from your elite level experience with numbers, you're probably high D, high C, which means you have a high dominance, and you have high D, high C. How do you overcome so. But it's obviously too. You love your people and you love your customers. So how do you overcompensate for your personality weaknesses and make up for that in an empathetic treatment of your people?
- [22:25]
Matt Bontrager
That's a really good question, because I don't think I've necessarily thought, because I would say if somebody asked me about myself, I would say that, yes, very high D. And I was just going to ask, like, what's the predictive index? What I found very fascinating was when I joined with Ryan, my predictive index was one thing. And then when I, when we split, it was opposite. I'm like, whoa. So watching myself shift through that, being this visionary, I was kind of like at that word, but I'm like, oh, wow, that's a real role. But back to that question of being high D. But also being empathetic for the clients is. I think I just try to lean into the truth of it. Like now I used to look at calling an angry client or calling somebody that's, you know, there's potential conflict with. With very much anxiousness. And, you know, how am I going to navigate my way through this? Now you ask anybody on my team immediately. If someone's mad, I'll call them without any notes, anything, because I just know that if honesty leads and I talk to, hey, Jim, Jim's always the name I use. Hey, Jim, what's going on? I talked to so and so and it sounded like you were upset. Talk to me about this. What's going on? You know, and those always end, always unsuccessful, even if they're still mad when they get off the phone. We're on the same page as to what went wrong and where you could place blame. So I think my answer, my. My trying answer to that question would be, if you're leading with honesty and trying to find a common ground, how can it go bad? That.
- [23:41]
John Gafford
Yeah.
- [23:41]
Matt Bontrager
If you're being truthful.
- [23:42]
John Gafford
Yeah.
- [23:43]
Matt Bontrager
And so that I think, has gotten me really far because now, like, I make a joke, if I have a good client call, I walk out of the office and I'm like, no one's as good on the phones as me. Like, I'm just. I can take somebody and de. Escalate them because I just feel like I'm being truthful and I'm trying to be. And I always lead to another thing. I thought, I'm rambling now, but I used to think core values were like, mush. And I'm like, these are. And now I'm like, oh, my gosh. These are definitions of, like, what you. You're going to war with these people and you want them to share these same values. And so our first core value is being helpful. And I think if you're leading with helpful to someone, how can they be mad? How can it go wrong? And so I think I just lean really heavily into that. And it's worked really well. It hasn't slapped me in the face yet.
- [24:20]
John Gafford
No. Well, it just. When you become a successful entrepreneur, it's really hard sometimes because you're looking at balance sheets, you're looking at P. Ls, you're looking at KPIs. It's hard to forget the. The people in there sometimes.
- [24:33]
Matt Bontrager
Yeah.
- [24:34]
John Gafford
And I think that can be a challenge at any level of scale when you start to. The bigger you get, the harder it is to remember that. So I think having that in your core values is probably going to serve you very well, especially if it's the first.
- [24:44]
Matt Bontrager
On just being helpful.
- [24:45]
John Gafford
Just.
- [24:46]
Matt Bontrager
Yeah. And that's it. Right. To your team. If your team needs something to get back to a client or if the client needs something, it's. They're paying you for access, they're paying you for knowledge. And so if they. Like just this morning, someone's upset because their tax Return took longer than it, you know, should have than they think it should have. So my first question to the team was, cool, when did he first send the documents in? Because that tells me, hey, if you got me your stuff now, you're not going to get done by Monday. You just sent me your stuff. I've been asking if, you know, I've been asking you since February for it.
- [25:10]
John Gafford
Yeah.
- [25:11]
Matt Bontrager
So when I call this person and you know, eventually when I do, hey, when did you send me docs? Oh, well, oh, I can see where you sent me most of them. But then we took a month to get back on this email and we find a common ground to where it's really most of the time both parties that have something at fault and, and again, I just think leading with truthfulness, walking through the facts and circumstances of what happened, apologizing and saying, hey, I'm going to make it right and actually show like I knock.
- [25:33]
Host - Tech Show Announcer
Let's analyze this week's tech innovations and startup moves.
- [25:38]
Elena
Honestly, Elena, I didn't track the updates, but I did switch to T Mobile with their new Family Freedom offer.
- [25:46]
Host - Tech Show Announcer
That's not the disruption we're covering.
- [25:50]
Elena
Well, I'm pivoting from AT&T and scaling up with T Mobile. They paid off my family's four phones up to $3200 and gave us four.
- [26:01]
Host - Tech Show Announcer
New phones on the house Unicorn status. Introducing Family Freedom, our lowest cost to switch our biggest family savings all on America's largest 5G network. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com familyfreedom up to $800.
- [26:20]
T-Mobile Representative
Per line via virtual prepaid card typically takes 15 days. Free phones via 24 monthly bill credits with finance agreement eg Apple iPhone 16128 gigabyte $829.99 eligible trade in eg iPhone 11 Pro for well qualified credits end and balance due if you pay off early or cancel contact T Mobile.
- [26:32]
Matt Bontrager
People's fees down if they have a bad experience. That's if we have a bad experience and you deserve a refund. I give you a refund.
- [26:37]
John Gafford
Yeah.
- [26:37]
Matt Bontrager
My engagement letter says you do not get a refund because the type of work we do, I give you your money back. That's good business. That's what I would want if I was a consumer.
- [26:43]
John Gafford
It comes back.
- [26:44]
Matt Bontrager
Yeah, it comes back. And so because my thing is you can't ever say that I did you dirty.
- [26:48]
John Gafford
So many people, man, just they, they forget about the dollar tomorrow to try to protect the quarter today.
- [26:55]
Matt Bontrager
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
- [26:57]
John Gafford
I see in Real estate, unfortunately, I see it all the time.
- [26:59]
Matt Bontrager
Right.
- [27:00]
John Gafford
Like, it's like, because now since they switched over, you know this. But since they switched over the NAR settlement, we have to have buyer broker agreements on all of our clients.
- [27:06]
Matt Bontrager
Y.
- [27:07]
John Gafford
You know, you have situations where maybe that gets negotiated less than what's in the. In the. In the contract. And it's like, I've seen these people like, well, I want this buyer to pay this extra amount. And I'm like, well, how much you make? And they're like 50 grand. And I'm like, and you're going to go crazy over four.
- [27:21]
Matt Bontrager
Like, let it go crazy crazy.
- [27:24]
John Gafford
Let. Let it go and let them.
- [27:25]
Matt Bontrager
It's not worth your grand. It's like. And that's.
- [27:27]
John Gafford
Well, and that's a great thing you just brought up because I did want to ask this question. This is a little outside of what we're talking about, but obviously yesterday in America there was a tragedy that happened and, and it seems like social media got flooded with some vile stuff yesterday. So what is your policy? Do you have one? Where are you with what your people post?
- [27:52]
Matt Bontrager
Oh, like if somebody on my ins. Or if somebody on the TrueBooks team were to post something related to that.
- [27:58]
John Gafford
Yeah, that's.
- [28:00]
Matt Bontrager
Nope. I don't think that we have a policy. We have a handbook. But I don't think that there's a policy specific to that and thinking an honest answer to that question now because I posted something yesterday. Yesterday. And I posted something simple in the sense of like, man, I hope kindness finds a way to creep back in.
- [28:13]
John Gafford
Sure.
- [28:13]
Matt Bontrager
But then my slide after that was like, hey, if you, if you laughed at this or congratulated it or, you know, whatever the word was, celebrated it was the word. Yes. Hey, like, forget you knew me because that's where I have a big thing. I just cannot stand rude people because again, if you're leading with truth and trying to find a common ground, don't let being rude to one another because then it just gets nasty.
- [28:32]
John Gafford
Yeah.
- [28:33]
Matt Bontrager
And so if I think about, if somebody were to, let's just say on the, the crazy end of the spectrum, post a celebratory post about that. I, I think I would directly. They would have got a call from me this morning. We, you know, because I just at that point, like, that's. That, that to me, that's bad human dude. Like, that's bad stuff.
- [28:48]
John Gafford
In, in the, in the, in the age of social media, man, we, we had to put a policy in ours because we have 585 people.
- [28:53]
Matt Bontrager
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, right. And they're using that to grow their own. Yeah. You have such different model.
- [28:58]
John Gafford
We do, but we. We have had to part ways with people, some of. Some of which probably on election day would vote the same way I do.
- [29:05]
Matt Bontrager
Yeah.
- [29:06]
John Gafford
Over some crazy things that they've said. So we've. We've had to do that. And yesterday, man, we had a. Had an episode happen that's still kind of playing out, I guess, but a dude that just became like a director in our local board. Just kind of like literally the election came in yesterday and this guy had won and he wrote some incredibly violent. What do you mean local board? The real realtor board.
- [29:28]
Matt Bontrager
Oh, wow.
- [29:28]
John Gafford
The local director for the local realtor board. He wrote some incredibly vile stuff. And I saw it and it was multiple posts.
- [29:35]
Matt Bontrager
Knowing that you're a bigger player in the space. Do. Does something like that typically come from someone like a. You. Right? Like a broker, owner and like, buy like that? No, no, no. I'm saying do. Does one of you go to him and now approach him with no.
- [29:49]
John Gafford
No. Okay. This is what happened. He does not work for me. Doesn't work. Right. And it's been kind of a circus on our local board the last couple of years. So I called. I called the guy up and I said, hey, man, this was before the. The results had been announced that he won, but he works at a very large company, so I figured he would get the vote of all of those people, and I figured he'd probably win, so call him up. And I said, hey, man, you know, look, I'm. I'm not here to debate. I'm not. I'm coming under the white flag. I'm just saying, look, our board has been kind of a circus the last couple years, and maybe would you reconsider posting some of that stuff? That is really going to trigger a lot of people.
- [30:22]
Matt Bontrager
People.
- [30:22]
John Gafford
I mean, this is just. It's going to be triggering. And just maybe in. In the. In the thought of the board. Would it be a good idea for you not to post that after he.
- [30:32]
Matt Bontrager
Had already posted it after.
- [30:33]
John Gafford
Oh, yeah, it's already up. I saw it and I just knew what was going to happen. It was going to be a shitstorm. So I was like, in. This dude, you know, starts railing at me about his personal views about what Charlie Kirk said. And I wasn't calling a debate. I said, I'm not calling debate yet.
- [30:46]
Matt Bontrager
Yeah.
- [30:47]
John Gafford
I'm just saying this is going to trigger a lot of people, and it's not going to be good. Would you consider take it down? And he said that his personal opinion opinion was he had the right to his political beliefs and his personal opinion was more important than anything else and it was fine. So I said okay, cool. Have a great day. See you later.
- [31:02]
Matt Bontrager
Yeah.
- [31:02]
John Gafford
And within dude hours hours the got picked up by like national press. 500000 views on certain things that he posted and it was bad. And the dude like completely ruined his. Ruined his life over social media posts.
- [31:20]
Matt Bontrager
That's wild, right?
- [31:21]
John Gafford
The dude, his brokerage did the right thing this morning. Did what I would have done.
- [31:24]
Matt Bontrager
Done.
- [31:24]
John Gafford
You can't be damaged because they're tagged in all of this stuff that's going everywhere and had to let him go. But oh, they did that. Oh yeah. This morning. And I. I don't know what's going to happen with, you know, him being elected as a director at the board yet, but I can't believe it's going to turn out good for him. And it's like, dude, I told. I tell our people all the time. It's like the reason we have this policy is to protect the 580. Like if there's 585 people here, if you're making a post I got. I'm not worried about you. You. I'm worried about the 585 other people that work here.
- [31:53]
Matt Bontrager
Yep.
- [31:54]
John Gafford
So I've got to protect them. With everything that you write and if you don't understand where the line in the sand of good taste is, don't take the first step towards it. Just stop.
- [32:05]
Matt Bontrager
Exactly.
- [32:05]
John Gafford
Just stop.
- [32:06]
Matt Bontrager
Find another outlet or something because that's. That would be my thoughts as to like is what's the purpose of posting it? Is it to. Is it to. That's the thing. Yeah. I don't know. It's such a. And I never thought about that because I've never had that. As somebody at our firm, I'm the one that posts on social. And so like you know, sometimes this, you know, they'll see stuff and they'll send it to me because I'm an accountant that's dancing online trying to. That's how we get clients. It's working for us. And so I don't really have anybody on my team that is that. Is that active on social. But yeah, I don't know. They definitely get a call from me. This is where I'm like, I don't know the legal ramifications of if they post something that I simply don't like, can I fire them? I don't know.
- [32:42]
John Gafford
Well, I think it's, it's a matter of, of it's for us. They're all independent contractors so it's a little bit different.
- [32:47]
Matt Bontrager
I have the right to just.
- [32:48]
John Gafford
I can do whatever I want, cancel the contract. But at the same time it's like I think there's a. I think it's okay to have a morality clause that says that you can't do anything. Pictures surface of you with at a ditty party with, you know, four hookers and cocaine on a table. I should have the right to let you go. You're wearing a T shirt says True Books. I think I should have a right to fire you.
- [33:09]
Matt Bontrager
Yeah, I know.
- [33:09]
John Gafford
So. Yeah, I don't know man. Maybe talk to maybe look into that. I don't know. Because that's one of those things where the first time it happened to us, us we were like we don't have a policy for this and what are we going to do? And it was equally as vile rhetoric but on the other side of the aisle, right from somebody here. And we were like no. And ever. And ever since then we put it into our contracts that like you understand that you're representing our brand in all places. You don't get the luxury of having a personal Persona and a professional Persona. You don't get that luxury.
- [33:41]
Matt Bontrager
Well, yeah, because they are right. And that's kind of what you. It's a double edged sword. You want them to be active on social and have a good presence but then it is a risk that you take take where hey, they're, they're not necessarily going to do everything that you agree with. But you're right, they carry your brand and that's where that, that I wish people viewed their, their person as a brand sometimes a little bit more and what other people think about you and how you carry yourself and because that then they would understand a little bit more to someone like you who's like, you're right, I don't have to worry about you. I have to worry about 500 plus more other people for what you're doing.
- [34:14]
John Gafford
And I think our little lesson, our people especially during election cycle because we have the same talk as soon as like cycle.
- [34:19]
Matt Bontrager
Do you have a meeting about it?
- [34:20]
John Gafford
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Because we're like here it comes right here.
- [34:22]
Matt Bontrager
Yeah. Here. Yeah.
- [34:23]
John Gafford
And smart. If you're in business or if you want to be safe on social media, here's a safe way to do it. Right. If you want to have a political. I'm not saying don't have an opinion, because that makes you. That makes you vanilla. Right. Have an opinion. That's fine. But be supportive of the things you support instead of negative about the things you're trying to tear down.
- [34:42]
Matt Bontrager
Yep.
- [34:43]
John Gafford
So, for example, example, if Bob is a Republican and he's running for president and Kim is a Democrat and she's running for president, if you're a Republican, rather than say a bunch of nasty stuff about Kim, just say what you like about Bob.
- [34:58]
Matt Bontrager
Yep.
- [34:58]
John Gafford
Right. Love it. You don't need. Yeah, you don't need to, like, in so many people, it's shocking to me how much time they spend online just sucked into this. Just. It can consumes them. And it's both sides. Sides. Right. It's not. It's both sides that, like, I can remember when, you know, Barack Obama was in office and like, like, these people were just obsessed with everything that guy did and just couldn't wait to get to the keyboards and do it. And it's just. It's crazy. It's the same thing. It's nuts.
- [35:26]
Matt Bontrager
It is. And that's where it's hard. Like, that's what's crazy too, is the news cycle of new news is so fast that you, like, yes, this was a huge tragedy. And I'm like, how long? Like, but it's in two weeks. Something else is going to happen. Yeah, something's going to happen.
- [35:39]
John Gafford
So, yeah, speaking of that, cutting through the noise, you run an incredibly boring business.
- [35:45]
Matt Bontrager
Super boring. Super boring.
- [35:47]
John Gafford
I mean, it is, but I like.
- [35:49]
Matt Bontrager
What you said earlier. You said needed. And that's where I'm like, thank God. What scares me is units selling units of something. And it's like, you know, growing a book of business. Luckily, it's a business where it's needed and then they come back year over year. But, yes, it is boring.
- [36:02]
John Gafford
It's incredibly boring. So here's the thing, though. How do you. How do you make something that's so boring, interesting thing when you sell it?
- [36:11]
Matt Bontrager
What's worked for me is back to that. Just. I mean, for the 20 minutes we've been talking, I'm not a normal accountant. And so I would say that that's. I've leaned heavily into that. But luckily, when I say lean in, I'm trying to be myself in the sense of I'm candid, I'm not the most professional speaker, but again, leading with that. Truth is, I'm a little bit more eccentric and outlandish, but I'm an accountant. And so, like, I make the joke when I meet Somebody within five minutes I want to know how much money you're making, what you do.
- [36:39]
John Gafford
Yeah.
- [36:40]
Matt Bontrager
Cuz coming up, as somebody that didn't have a lot of money, I've always been enamored with money. I worked at the bank and that was my first taste of seeing people with money and without money and now doing taxes, I see that on an even bigger scale. So I just think that it by not making it boring is just me being luckily my personal self which is a boring topic. But the way I talk about it and you know, can kind of break things down to where they're a little bit more simpler. Because I would like to you and to people is like sometimes tax is like black magic to people. They just don't understand it. It's just like a hidden box. And I'm like trying to break down some of these concep sometimes helps to people. And when you're leading with hey, I'm going to save you some cashier, then people are more tuned to listen for sure.
- [37:16]
John Gafford
Well, I think too. Are you still heavily real estate niched? Oh yeah. Okay, cool. So I, I think that's smart. And if you're looking for a market and this is just a business lesson for my listening. If you're listening, looking for a market. The reason that this is such a smart niche is because most people that I know this might offend some people, but it's true. Most people, people that flip homes wholesale, do these things work in real estate making make those investments? Probably not the best students in school, probably not educated about the tax code whatsoever. Probably not that educated. But they just got, either got mentored or bought a course or something else. And hey man, this worked the first time. Let's do it again. Let's keep going. Let's keep going. Let's keep going. So you're picking a niche that is not educated so much about what you do.
- [38:05]
Matt Bontrager
Never thought about that. But that is, I would 100% agree. That's what we see.
- [38:09]
John Gafford
Yeah.
- [38:10]
Matt Bontrager
Great deal makers. They're not good at finance because they've never learned it.
- [38:14]
John Gafford
They've never had a reason to. And most of these people take quantum leaps in income. Oh.
- [38:19]
Matt Bontrager
Huh.
- [38:20]
John Gafford
They go from, well, you know, I was a plumber. I was, you know, I was a truck driver. I was this. And now I've got, you know, I watch Pace Morbi and Now I've got 22 sub 2 rental units.
- [38:31]
Matt Bontrager
Yeah.
- [38:32]
John Gafford
Shout out.
- [38:32]
Matt Bontrager
Exactly.
- [38:33]
John Gafford
That's a credit to pay.
- [38:35]
Host - Tech Show Announcer
Let's analyze this week's tech innovations and startup moves.
- [38:40]
Elena
Honestly Elena, I didn't track the updates but I did switch to T Mobile with their new Family Freedom offer.
- [38:48]
Host - Tech Show Announcer
That's not the disruption we're covering.
- [38:51]
Elena
Well, I'm pivoting from AT&T and scaling up with T Mobile. They paid off my family's four phones up to $3200 and gave us four.
- [39:03]
Host - Tech Show Announcer
New phones on the house unicorn status. Introducing Family Freedom. Our lowest cost will switch our biggest family savings all on America's largest 5G network. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com FamilyFreedom up to $800.
- [39:21]
T-Mobile Representative
Per line via virtual prepaid card typically takes 15 days. Free phones via 24 monthly bill credits with finance agreement eg Apple iPhone16128 gigabyte $8,029.99 Eligible trade in eg iPhone 11 Pro for well qualified credits end and balance due if you pay off early or cancel contact T Mobile.
- [39:34]
Matt Bontrager
Huge credit.
- [39:34]
John Gafford
To me that was not a shot.
- [39:35]
Matt Bontrager
Yeah, no, that's. Oh, oh no, no, no. Yeah, like shout out to pace what I said, but yeah, but yeah, that's what's funny. Like the joke I make is like yeah, we're talking every other day on a sales call, you're meeting with a 24 year old that has 30 rentals in their portfolio and I'm like geez, like yeah, the. They're very creative and they're grinders and so yeah, it, it luckily that's an industry that we can see treats that, treats that grit really well. If you're going to grind it out, call people, try to make the deals show up, then you can do really well.
- [40:01]
John Gafford
You know that how many people are calling you before they get the one massive tax bill and how many are calling you after the first?
- [40:07]
Matt Bontrager
It's always after it' rare. It's 2 out of 10. 2 out of 10 actually take the time to really hey, I think I'm going to be coming into this windfall or hey, this is trending, you know, really well. But it's always after.
- [40:18]
John Gafford
Are you recasting financials and trying to go back or no?
- [40:21]
Matt Bontrager
Oh, always. Right. So part of our process is if you come in for tax planning, we're always going to look at the prior years and if there's something we can snatch and grab, we will for sure. Because if you mess something up and we are still within a limitation to go back and do it, we will. But most of the time it's hey, sorry, kiss a goodbye and you got to move forward and Learn from that.
- [40:36]
John Gafford
Yeah, that was an expensive education I love. Yeah, they think college is stupid, yet they'll pay $300,000 in taxes because they didn't bother to ask the right people.
- [40:45]
Matt Bontrager
Yep, exactly.
- [40:46]
John Gafford
What's. What do you speak of that? What do you think the biggest mistake that investors make when it comes to taxes? What's the biggest mistake?
- [40:52]
Matt Bontrager
Bookkeeping. Yeah, bookkeeping. And I would say it's. But so when you say biggest are dollar wise.
- [41:02]
John Gafford
No, I'm talking, I'm not talking about leaking money. I'm talking about when you got to write a check to the US US government. Is it entity structure, is it cost segging, Is it. What do you see where you're at? That's a major problem there.
- [41:14]
Matt Bontrager
For a non investor, it's entity structure and just some simple tax planning. And for somebody with a portfolio of properties, the cost sag. And really, hey, how do I sit down and maximize the real estate against what I'm making? Because the best way that I like to explain it is every right and this is what our firm specializes is in every dollar someone makes is on the left side or right side. It's non passive or passive rental real estate. So people that are growing these portfolios, that's all on the right side. Passive. And then the money that they're making, wholesaling, flipping, doing deals, commissions, is all on the left side. For the people that are investors that have portfolios, they don't sit down with somebody and say, hey, how do I maximize the real estate portfolio that I've just grown to offset the income that I'm making. And that's exactly what our firm really specializes in because they're, they're sitting on a gold mine of tax strategy. And that's the biggest mistake for sure. You have people that have paid hundreds of thousands and this sounds, and I hate saying it because it sounds so whatever. Yeah, but you have people that have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars that I'm like, I look at their tax, I'm like, dang. With a couple of click boxes and two hours worth of talking, you would have not paid anything. And it kills me. So. But that's where hey, as a sales guy in my space, I'm like, let me show you what we can do next. So yeah, it's just good, it's good tax planning. You need to sit with somebody.
- [42:27]
John Gafford
Oh man. And for those of you listening, fomo, a very powerful tool when selling, selling any product. Holy, what am I doing? What have I done to myself? This is just stupid.
- [42:37]
Matt Bontrager
And I would say tax is one of those spaces where I like the saying, like, you don't know what you don't know. And in tax, it hurts you because what you don't know, if you're not going to go seek that information from someone else and pay a professional and you're flying blind. Doing it on TurboTax. I love TurboTax as a CPA. I used to do my own tax return on TurboTax. But once you are intricate and you have a portfolio and you run a business, you need to. You can't be doing turbo tax.
- [42:58]
John Gafford
Let me ask you this next question. Let's switch. The president right now is talking about, you know, he loves to float on, on his social media that he would like to get rid of income tax.
- [43:06]
Matt Bontrager
Income tax and do the tariffs. Yeah, yeah.
- [43:08]
John Gafford
So good. Went to tariffs. What would you do?
- [43:10]
Matt Bontrager
Dude, it would. That would be a panic for our business for sure. What I'd have to lean into immediately, my brain tells me, is accounting. But then you make me think, well, why do you need accounting if there's no income tax? And I would probably do more transactional work. So I'd find businesses that are looking to exit or bring on partners that still need good accounts accounting. And that's where you'll see, like when you'd asked her like, oh, what's the biggest problem? And I said, bookkeeping and accounting. I started my career before I did taxes in accounting and audit. So I would walk around and I'd be, hey, show up with a clipboard and say, what's going on here? Let's div. You know, let's dive into this. People hated that. No one likes the auditor. Then I started to realize, oh, I like to talk to people and I like to sell. People love the tax guy because now I'm here to save you money, not necessarily to breathe down your back. And so I would lean more into the accounting space because that's, that's also why I think I'm a good tax accountant, is I have a good sense of financial statements. You can show me a balance sheet and in 30 seconds I'll tell you the health of a company because we know how to read these statements now. So if he abolished tax, it would be a major concern because just to show you of our business, let's say we do 4 million, 2 and a half, let's call it almost 3 million comes from tax and a million, let's say, comes from accounting.
- [44:17]
John Gafford
But I would say if you listen to this, get it, hopefully you are listening to this. But if you listen to this, the main lesson there is when I asked him about a doomsday scenario to his business, that is hypothetical. Hypothetical. The response wasn't, I don't know. He's. If you're going to run a successful business, you have to be thinking about all angles. You have to be watching the news, understanding, okay, if this happened, I pivot to this, or if this happened, we would go this route. You know, you're going to be surprised in business, but you should never be shocked.
- [44:46]
Matt Bontrager
That's a good saying. That's a really good saying. Yeah. And that's what we. That's a good. That translates to what we talk to people about their tax bill. That's why I'm like, right now we do tax planning. So I'm telling people what their bill is next April, so that when next April comes, they're not like, oh, my gosh, you're just telling me now for the first time. So, yeah, that's a good. That's a good saying.
- [45:03]
John Gafford
So what's the plan for True Books? We're at six. We're level six now.
- [45:06]
Matt Bontrager
Yeah.
- [45:06]
John Gafford
Let's move it up the ladder. What's the plan?
- [45:08]
Matt Bontrager
So that's where. Back to when we had split. So Ryan and I. Ryan's. Ryan's idea was a little bit different. Right. He was in a different spot as a partner, driving the business. He had a. He already had a portfolio of business businesses. He wanted to exit sooner than I wanted to. For me, I'm like, dude, I'm an accountant. What else am I going to do here? I'm not some big. I don't consider myself a big entrepreneur yet. I'm leaning into my one industry. So. Bought him out in 2023. I solely own the firm. My. My next goal.
- [45:31]
John Gafford
We talk about that.
- [45:32]
Matt Bontrager
Yeah, for sure.
- [45:33]
John Gafford
Yeah. So. So you're buying a partner out. You guys have buy, sell agreement or what'd you do?
- [45:37]
Matt Bontrager
Yeah, it took a long time. Took about eight months.
- [45:39]
John Gafford
Eight months on that. So for those of you don't. So when two partners split, normally when you. And I'm going to give advice this. Did you do this? When you guys got involved, did you plan your exit?
- [45:48]
Matt Bontrager
No.
- [45:48]
John Gafford
Okay. Yeah. That's a mistake. And you've learned that. Would you ever do that again?
- [45:52]
Matt Bontrager
No.
- [45:52]
John Gafford
No. Okay. Yeah. So if you're going to become partners with somebody, as important is that operating agreement where you lay out the responsibility of everybody and what they're supposed to do. You need to have. It's like A prenup you need to have. Okay. If this. We break this up, what does it look like? Who gets what? How do we divvy up the money? What's the buyout look like? How do we value the company? What is the standard? We're going to do that going into it.
- [46:16]
Matt Bontrager
Yep.
- [46:16]
John Gafford
And then you will never have a problem.
- [46:18]
Matt Bontrager
That's what took us eight months.
- [46:19]
John Gafford
It did. So you guys negotiated that for eight months. You have to luckily just buy the multiple.
- [46:23]
Matt Bontrager
Yeah. Oh, yeah. For sure. Yeah. Because right at that point, the firm was a. It was a firm. It wasn't just like, we started it in a garage and like, we had three.
- [46:30]
John Gafford
Yeah.
- [46:30]
Matt Bontrager
We had this financial service. Yeah. We had almost 20 employees. You have a client. You have, like, a book of business at that point. The brand. I've tried to really, hey, this isn't a Matt Bontrager CPA firm. This is true books. This is a brand. I don't want to be the one stop shop. Everybody wants to work with me. I'm building a team here.
- [46:45]
John Gafford
Yeah.
- [46:46]
Matt Bontrager
So, yeah. So that happened in 2023. Took us about eight months. Still on good terms, which is nice. But that's where I'd say I love my story because I learned so much from it. In a sense of. It was a beautiful. It was exactly what a partnership should have been. It was a yin and a yang. He brought what I didn't have, and I brought what he didn't have. But then over time, I started to post some videos on social, and I'm like, hey, I can. Got some good traction here. And then I just started to realize, okay, maybe this is a segment where we don't need a partner to do this, because coupled with he wanted to exit and I didn't want to exit yet. So that made sense for us to split. And so my goal now is I want to get it to 10 million and look up and see what's going on here. We've already gotten a ton. These firms are being bought up left and right.
- [47:24]
John Gafford
What's your. What's the current multiple? Furnace.
- [47:25]
Matt Bontrager
Dude. You can get. For our size now you can get six.
- [47:27]
John Gafford
Which is why five to seven is what I was.
- [47:29]
Matt Bontrager
That's what a few years ago, I would have said one. And if you would ask me that question a few years ago, I would have said. A year ago, I would have said one to two.
- [47:35]
John Gafford
Because we have financial services companies, too, through escrow and title, and that numbers always come in at 5 to 7.
- [47:40]
Matt Bontrager
Yep. So that's where. And once you hit 8. Say I think once you can make 10 million and gross, or let's just say 10 million to the top and you net and you show a good margin of 25 points. I think you're getting 8 to 10.
- [47:51]
John Gafford
Yeah.
- [47:51]
Matt Bontrager
So that's where my goal is. I'm leaning in. I want to get to 10 million and look up and see what it's like.
- [47:56]
John Gafford
And now is anybody rolling up CPA firms?
- [47:59]
Matt Bontrager
Oh my God. Oh, that's what I want to do. Yeah, that's what I'm dying to do. I just talked to a woman the other day. She runs a book of business about 400 000. Would love to buy her. Great little small acquisition to start. Because right now, now client acquisition for us is I post a video on Instagram, they DM me, someone on my team gets it. We, we facilitate the sell. That way it's all organic or even now we're kicking off a paid campaign, but I'd rather start growing through acquisition way faster.
- [48:22]
John Gafford
Well, because it's, it seems like, you know that model of rolling up home services and then, and then take them public to a spac, you know, this is tax preparation, man. This is. Something ain't going away either. So.
- [48:33]
Matt Bontrager
And they say that 70% of CPAs are set to retire and 10 years the industry, oh, dying in the sense of there's not enough students going. They're making the CPA exam so easy to get now. Which also pisses me off because I'm like, I struggled so hard to get that. And I'm like, but hey, it's a new generation, but bring a calculator, it doesn't matter. So for me, I'm, I'm, I want to get to 10 million. That team will probably be 80 to 100 people overseas and onshore and look up and by then I'll probably have, you know, a partner or two, who knows? But it'll be service partners now. Partners that can pick up a tax turn, call a client. They wouldn't just be branding partners. And that was what I learned or early on was that was the price for what it took for me to start the firm. I needed somebody to drive business. So yeah, that's my goal. I'm leaning heavily into this. This is every day for me. That's where I have a. Because like you said, like, I, I have so much respect for serial entrepreneurs who have multiple businesses. And I have a banker friend, really successful, works with really high net worth people and he's just always like, matt, shut up and do Tax returns because he sees these other people that have amassed this wealth and even see them kind of take big tumbles because they divert their attention. And just like we were talking about.
- [49:37]
John Gafford
You'Re my toxic trick.
- [49:38]
Matt Bontrager
And I'm like, I can't. I don't want to fall for that. So I'll talk to him. And he's like, shut up and do tax returns. And so that's what I'm doing. I'm shutting up and doing tax returns.
- [49:45]
John Gafford
How do you think AI is going to affect your business the next three to five?
- [49:47]
Matt Bontrager
That's been a big question. And it man, if anything, it's fueled our business and helped us so much. I have chat GPT up running when someone asked me a tax question because it's better than our tax research software. It gives me enough to start talking to the client immediately about it without saying, hey, I'll talk to you in two days. I have to go do some research. Research. So it's great. It's just helping the accountants that are gonna. We spent a lot of money on trying to leverage bigger tools and integrate them together. So I think we're investing in AI a little bit more than other firms. But it's helped our, you know, industry tremendously. I don't think it's going to take us out, period. You need someone to talk about it?
- [50:16]
John Gafford
Yeah.
- [50:16]
Matt Bontrager
The bot's not going to talk to you.
- [50:18]
John Gafford
I think it's going to be. It's definitely one of those industries where you're going to see it working side by side.
- [50:24]
Matt Bontrager
Exactly. People co pilot is with this. Yes.
- [50:27]
John Gafford
Yeah. There you go, copilot.
- [50:27]
Matt Bontrager
Yeah. And so. Right. It's not taking over, but they're definitely there to help, so.
- [50:30]
John Gafford
Well, dude, I'm rooting for you, man. I hope you get your 10 million. Get a map. Massive exit.
- [50:33]
Matt Bontrager
Thanks. Yeah.
- [50:34]
John Gafford
Then come back here, we'll sell you a bigger house.
- [50:36]
Matt Bontrager
I love it.
- [50:37]
John Gafford
That's what we'll do. All right, well, if they want to find you, Matt, how do they find you?
- [50:41]
Matt Bontrager
Our website or Instagram? Just my Instagram is Matt Bontrager and our website, truebookcpa.com cool.
- [50:46]
John Gafford
Well, dude, listen, man, if you are out there and you're thinking about taking the leap, you're thinking about doing something. I think you got a lot out of today's podcast from how to find out if there's a market, how to find a right partner, how to structure that partnership so it's not an eight month siege when you get a. Out of it, you know, and sometimes the Boring stuff is where the money is, dude. You got to take a chance. We'll see you next week. Hey, it's John Gafford from the Escaping the Drift podcast. And big news. My new book, Escaping the Drift is coming out November 11th. You can pre order it right now at thejohngafford.com There are tons of bonuses, tons of giveaways. Get the book. If you are somebody that feels like you might be drifting along, this is for you. If you know somebody that feels like they might be drifting along, this is for you. Eventually. Available everywhere, all bookstores, every everywhere, Amazon, Barnes and nobles, the whole nine yards. But pick your copy up right now at thejohngaffer.com and get a bunch of the awesome bonuses I've thrown out because I promise you, I put my heart and soul into this thing. I want it to help you change your life. Pick it up everywhere. What's up, everybody? Thanks for joining us for another episode of Escaping the Drift. Hope you got a bunch out of it, or at least as much as I did out of it. Anyway, if you want to learn more about the show, you can always go over to escaping the drift.com you can join our mailing list. But do me a favor, if you wouldn't mind, throw up that five star review. Give us a share. Do something, man. We're here for you. Hopefully you'll be here for us. But anyway, in the meantime, we will see you at the next episode.