It’s Monday!

I’m in Lisbon, Portugal for the holidays! Here’s the view when finalizing this newsletter.

Getting away these past few days has given me a little more clarity than my typical busy day-to-day.

I’ve been slowing down enough to see where some of my assumptions broke as the firm grew. These weren’t big mistakes. Just things I thought I had figured out that simply stopped working.

Here are a few of the learning experiences my firm had in 2025:

Most accounting firms have issues bringing in leads with consistency. We solved that problem, but it created a new problem. We weren’t ready.

We rushed onboarding new clients, we bit off more than we could chew a couple of times, and I became "the solution” in those scenarios. It completely burned me out.

There’s beauty in getting the timing right on engagements & with your team. For example, had I just started a few of those engagements 15-30 days later, that would’ve given us the space to slowly onboard.

I’m learning there’s real leverage in timing.

For clients. And for your team.

Every business owner who starts as an operator runs into this wall.

I’m very good at the client work and that’s what makes this so hard for me.

We talk a lot about “getting out of the client work.” I failed at that this year.

Sure, we grew revenues 30-40% this year, but if I’m increasing my client load, it doesn’t feel like a win.

My best value to my firm is bringing in partners, leads, and having creative ideas. Me being stuck doing the client work, is a big negative.

This is my #1 goal for 2026 to fix.

P.S. Here is really good book on this problem.

Profitability is great, but having time to think is better.

If you hire too slowly, you eliminate future opportunities.

Here’s a recent example.

Last week we had an inbound lead. A big one.

Over $100k in billables per year. On NetSuite. Exactly in our wheelhouse.

But our team was fully utilized. It’s year-end. And I had waited a little too long to hire our next associate.

Taking them on would’ve meant stretching the team and pulling myself deeper into the work again. So I ended up passing on them.

That decision made something super clear.

In the early days, hiring late felt safer. Cash mattered more to me.

That’s no longer true.

Going forward, I want the firm staffed slightly ahead of demand. Not bloated, just prepared. So when opportunities like this arrive, we’ll be ready to crush it!

All of these problems come from a similar thread.

They came from operating like a smaller firm while trying to grow a bigger one.

Basically, the growth exposed where my mindset hadn’t caught up yet.

Going into 2026, I’m less interested in how much we can handle.

I’m more interested in how intentionally we grow.

How much space we give the team and how prepared we are when the right opportunities show up.

That shift feels a little less exciting than grow, grow, grow

But it feels a lot more sustainable.

This newsletter felt better uninterrupted.

Happy Holidays! 🎅

Tailor