The Mark Perlberg CPA Podcast
The Mark Perlberg CPA Podcast
EP 91 - What I Learned from my Mentors
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We reveal the most influential mentors who transformed our business into a 7-figure company with 15 team members and share the key wisdom gained from each relationship that created our success.
• Boxing trainer Wilfredo Ortiz taught us to push beyond where competitors stop and apply physical grit concepts to intellectual challenges
• Dominique Molina showed us how to discover the immense value in tax planning and implement value pricing instead of hourly billing
• Business coach Chuck Bauer introduced the concept of treating every hour as worth $1,000 and eliminating low-value activities
• Joe Polish's Genius Network revealed that any problem can be solved with the right connections and that businesses should be easy, lucrative, and fun
• Tax expert Tom Grzynski provides guidance through complex tax issues and gray areas where clear answers don't exist
• Each mentor connection led naturally to the next, creating a chain of growth opportunities
• Mary Forleo's concept that "everything is figureoutable" gives freedom to explore solutions beyond what seems immediately available
To learn more about how we implement these mentorship lessons and how we might help you with tax planning, visit prosperalcpa.com/apply for a free personalized video assessment.
Okay, all right, let's roll. I want to share with you guys what I've learned over the years and some of the most important things I've learned from my most important mentors over the years and this has led. This is what I want to share is the key nuggets from the most influential people in my life that has allowed us to build a seven-figure company.
Speaker 2:Let's start over. Can you start with that?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:All right, let me see.
Speaker 1:I can't let you go out like that, yeah, absolutely, yeah, absolutely cool, let's do it all right, I'm gonna count you in in five, four, three, two, one I want to share with you the most important mentors I've ever had, which has allowed me to build a seven-figure company with, at this time, around 15 members, and the key nuggets of wisdom I got from each of them, and hopefully you'll gain some insight as well. Before we go into this, I just can't tell you how important it is to have mentors to give you that new perspective and insight. You know there's I always say there's different ways of learning and at the base level, you got your books, your podcasts and your YouTube, where you're reaching a resource and you're learning from them and they're they're communicating to the masses. The next level up is you got your courses, which is a little more focused, and then you have the direct contact and the direct coaching, where you can really have a conversation, and when you have that dialogue straight from the source, that's usually where you're going to get the most impact. So I'm going to share with you some of my mentors. Some of them I've had more one-on-one and some in more group sessions. Here are some of the key nuggets. Hopefully you'll have some takeaways too.
Speaker 1:Now the first one is going to be someone who you would never expect me to talk about. Probably he's coming completely out of left field. But let's talk about my boxing trainer, wilfredo Ortiz. This guy was all about grit, you know. Wherever he lacked in his abilities to really master the sweet science and he knew some good things he made up for it in just pure raw grit and determination. And I really loved to and appreciated that. We had, we should, we learned to share that appreciation for grit. And when we were undergoing very painful and intensive trainings and, uh, scary sparring sessions, really overcoming the the fear and the grit and the pain and working through that pain and, uh, one of the things I'll never forget, he said, is, you know, in his thick Puerto Rican accent, his thick Puerto Rican accent, he would say you want to go to the place where you know it's really, really hard. I'm not going to try the accent, but he goes. You get to the point where it's going to be really hard and you know he's working hard and that's when you really start working and that's when you start making the difference.
Speaker 1:So you know, in the world of boxing it would be you stay in the action, you push the competitor, your opponent, and you punch. You don't give them a break, you don't keep your distance, you push it, you bring the fight to your opponent and you don't stop, you don't let up, and you know that they're working hard to defend themselves, they're gassing, they're you, they're using up their dad gas tank and you're both tired. You want to get to that point, that base level, where you know they're going to start wanting to let up and maybe relax and quit, and then that's where you really pull from the reserve and really use your grit and resilience to have that edge and take them into that inferno and take them deeper than they're willing to go, and that's really where you have that edge. And the reason why I think this is important is you know, obviously I'm not a cage fighter, I'm not a boxer full time, but there are ways you can apply this idea to everything you're doing in life where you're looking to pursue excellence. So what I found in our profession is everybody works incredibly hard, or in boxing, everybody's going to be really tough, but where can you get to a point where the other people are going to stop and you can go past them and really make that difference?
Speaker 1:So that might be in our willingness to dive deeper into the minutia of the tax law and to explore complexities that are going to hurt your head, not from getting punched, but to explore the things that hurt your head because of how complex and ambiguous and confusing they are, and not just stopping at what you may see in some basic article or in a podcast, but reading the law and the court cases and inquiring with experts and really developing that deep, thorough understanding past what your competitors are willing to go. It's a very similar concept of being willing to step out of your comfort zone and produce a podcast and maybe put yourself at risk of humiliation or scrutiny and taking the stance that other people aren't taking when you're backing up by the tax law in your insight, willing to step out of your comfort zone and do the things that other people aren't willing to do in pursuit of excellence and success for you and your clients. So the concept is applicable in all disciplines. It may not involve the physical grit, but also taking it past where you know your competition is willing to go. Everybody works hard, everybody does the tax returns and does the basic stuff. Where can we add that difference? By going deep into either our knowledge, our efforts, our ability to take risks, to do things uncomfortable and to do it in a way that is going to make us as impactful as possible in protecting our clients from the IRS as possible in protecting our clients from the IRS.
Speaker 1:Another thing that he told me was one of these days you're going to look in the mirror and say, man, I'm fucking old. He always said that he was old. So you're really just valuing your time and really being aware that our time is very limited and making the most of our time. Anytime he caught me relaxing or slacking off, he would let me know about it. Because our time is so limited, it is very easy to want to just kill time and scroll through social media. Now we're going to move on to another mentor, who was less of a direct mentor, but I do know her well now, um, but this is someone who has had a profound impact on my life and, uh, I would say that joining this organization has been one of those dominoes that has changed everything in my life. It was like this portal into another world. It was like when in you know, the mushroom soup in Alice in Wonderland that takes her to another world, or the tornado that takes snow that takes Alice in Wonderland. I'm mixing up my stories. What's the yellow brick road. What story is that? That's Alice in Wonderland. What's the other one with the mushroom soup, or something. Anyways, it was the thing that led to everything else. This is what happens when you don't have kids and you don't read stories at Disney, whatever. But Dominique Molina, the founder of the American Institute of Certified Tax Players, has been one of the most impactful mentors for me, whether it was in group sessions and also it's been great to know her as a person.
Speaker 1:But when I joined the American Institute of Certified Tax Players, I learned so much about the value of what we could provide as CPAs and I was. I came in at a time where I was really planning to leave accounting because I was just so underwhelmed with the opportunities and I was just so bored of what I was doing and I didn't really feel like I was having impact and I just didn't really find the work very interesting. It felt very. I felt like, you know, I was just a robot, a human robot, eventually to be replaced by AI, and it just. I didn't really get very excited about what we could do for our clients and through the American Institute of Certified Tax Planners, I learned so much about how we can legitimately change clients' lives and with tax planning you can look at the goals of your clients and with a tax plan you can eliminate years from the time needed to attain that goal. Through strategic tax planning and by doing this really, I would say that I was in a position where you know to branch out and go and make, you know, pursue all these ideas.
Speaker 1:I remember telling my mom I wanted to help people reduce their taxes for a living and my mom said at first she said it sounds like a scam. Well, now she's been. Now I've done it for about six years or since 2018. And now she works for me, so it's not that much of a scam anymore. So now she's on board and you know it's been a wonderful experience, but also not only learning how to reduce taxes, but really understanding the law and finding what I've found is that when you join these organizations and the standards are so high, you learn so much more and so much faster than people who are working at these 1040 mills, where they don't have enough time to actually learn the law and they're just plugging in and chugging in data and working around the clock and not really creating a lot of opportunity.
Speaker 1:So some key things I learned from Dominique was to implement value pricing, where your pricing is in relation to the value you bring. So if you can save someone $5 million, it doesn't really matter how much time it takes to save them that money. Do they care? Well, they shouldn't, and if they do, then they're going to wind up overpaying in taxes with a cheaper advisor. So value pricing has been a concept that Dominique helped open my mind to. And then all these technical strategies a lot of them have been rooted in what I first learned with Dominique and obviously I've done tremendous research, but I continue to watch almost just about all the monthly trainings that I go to.
Speaker 1:I haven't missed a single reunion with the organization. So much of my life has changed. She was the first one, the first business owner, to teach me about boundaries, the concept of having boundaries, and when you're an employee, especially in some of these big firms, they don't have any concept of boundaries. So your manager is texting you, pinging you and expecting you to stop what you're doing in the middle of the day because they have a question that could have been answered in an email. But the concept of boundaries wasn't a thing for my employer. So learning to implement boundaries and healthy relationships to have a sustainable and enjoyable career where we can now serve our clients more efficiently and effectively, and also giving us the ability for our staff to have healthy, balanced lives where they can go for a walk through the park without getting pinged and called and texts from clients, because we set those boundaries in place and these are healthy boundaries that benefit everyone involved in the relationship. And then, finally, charging what you're worth and so really making sure that you know we think about this of what would we do, how would we treat these relationships If we only got paid for the results we created? And shifting our mindset to really thinking about the impact we're having, as opposed to the time. We do not track our staff's time because we do not pay people to put butts in seats. It's all about the value we bring and that concept of evaluating your value as the most important thing. Really, a lot of the things that we think about that are really essential to our business are rooted in the tax planning methodologies, in the framework, in the mindset that I gained from Dominique, and it's just been incredibly transformational.
Speaker 1:Not only did I meet my first mentors, my additional mentors within the tax space like communicated directly with. I met my current girlfriend at a CTC conference with that dumb American Institute of certified tax player conference. I also I have come across. All the other mentors I'm going to list are because I met. I joined Dominique's organization. So really one of those dominoes that really opened my mind to the possibilities, but she helped me discover how incredibly interesting and exciting the tax profession is and the impact we can have on people and just how fun it is and lucrative it can be to be a tax professional. Joining the American Institute of Certified Tax Planners with Dominique was that domino effect that allowed me to become an entrepreneur and run my own practice and that eventually led me to my next mentor, which was Chuck Bauer. I also want to give credit to Jackie Meyer as well, because she took a lot of his concepts and made them more of a course and group format and I couldn't afford to work with Chuck Bauer when I started. So I did the Chuck Bauer and Jackie Meyer course with the tax concierge and here I learned some really incredible life lessons and to this day I had one organization. It's $35,000 a year for this mastermind and these people are presenting all their epiphanies and everybody's dialed in to hear these speakers and I'm learning things that I learned, like three, four years earlier, from Chuck and Jack, and some of the key nuggets I learned was to keep a closed door policy and not to just answer every call and email and really put your phone on silent because this thing is so dangerous.
Speaker 1:You put your phone on silent because this thing is so dangerous. You put your phone on silent. I keep my phone in my bathroom most of the time because that's where it belongs around, just because most of the stuff is useless and trash, and being okay with not answering the phone call on first ring and implementing those boundaries. Again, a lot of this stuff is rooted originally in what I learned from Dominique. One of the things that Chuck taught me was to treat every hour as though it was worth a thousand dollars. So if your time is worth a minimum of a thousand dollars, are you going to do laundry when you can pay someone else to do it for a lot less than $1,000 and really focus. This allows you even if your time isn't worth $1,000, when you get in this mindset, it allows you to focus on the activities that are most valuable for your progression and eventually your time will be worth $1,000 because, instead of doing menial chores and data entry and things that you could have hired out, now you're honing your craft and becoming more valuable and doing the things that are going to create the most opportunities. Until your time is worth $1,000 per hour, being exposed to that concept, I no longer do the laundry. I haven't really done a load of laundry since 2020. And because I know that my time is not valuable folding laundry, I also have a cleaning woman and this allows me to. Instead of cleaning, I have more time to hone my craft and become more valuable to my team and my clients.
Speaker 1:Some other really valuable lessons from Chuck is to implement time blocking and really setting aside time dedicated to certain activities instead of doing what he calls ping-ponging the different activities. So really setting aside four hours where no one can contact me, no meetings. I'm in the work, driving into what's possible, what's necessary, and really focusing in on that deep work with no distractions. I'll work on that specific client. It's scheduled, it's blocked off, no one's going to touch it and also blocking time off for vacation where no one's going to touch your calendar either, so you have time to really enjoy your life when you're not working.
Speaker 1:Another concept here that I took from Chuck was to be in a room that intimidates you, and the idea of this really seeking out groups of people who operate at a high level and are where I am or want to be, has challenged me to step outside of my comfort zone and to join other networks and given me the ability and motivation to find these types of people that are operating at a higher level than me, to people that are operating at a higher level than me. And this leads me to my. This is we have one, two, three, we have the boxing mentor. We have Dominique Chuck. This is our fourth mentor now. Now, this is an indirect mentor, but I do know him.
Speaker 1:But, unlike Chuck Bauer, who was my business coach and we worked together in one-on-ones, I joined a group called Genius Network and Joe Polish, the owner, shared some incredible words of wisdom and I'm going to share with you some of the nuggets I got from being in Genius Network. And Genius Network was an opportunity for me to join a group of elite entrepreneurs. To qualify, you got to do at least a million a year in revenue and you have to apply, so I wasn't originally even qualified to join the group, but eventually I surpassed a million in revenue and was able to be around people who don't only do a million a year in revenue, but you have folks doing in the tens and hundreds of millions. There are a few billionaires in the group and it's just been an incredible experience to tap into some of the brightest minds in the world. And here are some of the nuggets of wisdom I got from this group, and one of the most important ones I'll talk about is having a business that is easy and lucrative and fun.
Speaker 1:Talk about this a lot and it is easy to find, to catch yourself to fall into the trap of you're just doing what everybody wants you to do or you just you're choosing the opportunities that are most convenient to you but you don't actually want to do them Really holding true to your passion. And why did you get into this? Because we love tax planning, we love helping clients, we love having great staff members. What can we do to make this easy for our clients so they understand the requests, that they're not confused. We're taking off as much responsibility as we can. How can we make it this easy for our staff? How can we make this lucrative in the form of tax savings and opportunities for our staff, tax savings for the clients, and also, how can we make this a fun experience and have a culture that encourages people to be themselves and have fun and be excited in what we do?
Speaker 1:Another nugget here is just leading with value. So we were taught as part of Genius Network and meeting all these people, taught how to interface with them and how to lead with value and always be a giver and always think about what's in it for them. And really, when you provide the most value, that's usually what creates the most opportunity, and it's easy to fall into the trappings of thinking, oh, I put this much time in, they owe me this much money. What's the value you're producing? So really thinking about this in a deep level on how you engage your relationships. And another idea we got from him was to go deep into one idea, because we're going to be overwhelmed with all these different concepts, especially as owners. You've got to learn leadership practice, operations, advertising, marketing, hr. You've got to pick the area that's going to drive you most forward and instead of joining a million organizations and doing a webinar here and a podcast and just being scattered all over the place. Zero in your focus on one area you're really looking to improve and master. And you're going to find that, instead of being scattered all over the place, when you can zero your energies into a certain discipline you're trying to master at this time, you're going to see the greatest return on your investment. It will eventually translate into excellence in other areas.
Speaker 1:And then another thing I learned, which is a challenge for many entrepreneurs, is to feel connection. And because entrepreneurship can be a very lonely journey at times and it is easy to feel like you're on an island, especially when all your friends or family members they don't own businesses, they don't understand the experience and you can't relate with them or you're just pulling really long hours doing very stressful things. So really thinking about the value of what I've heard one of the speakers call vitamin C or connection, and facilitating connection with people and scheduling time to connect with people and to enjoy the fruits of your labor or share ideas, not only for knowledge and wisdom, but just for your own mental well-being, and to feel connected and to feel more rounded as an individual, and seeking that connection. So from that I've taken more initiative to plan events and have gatherings and see the family and really make sure that I'm living a fulfilling life as I undergo this entrepreneurial journey. Living a fulfilling life as I undergo this entrepreneurial journey.
Speaker 1:Another concept I got from Joe, which he got from Dan Kennedy, the founder of Strategic Coach, which is to really hone in on your unique abilities and really thinking about what is your unique ability? Where do you actually belong in your company or organization? Where are you great at in hiring out all the other things here? So really making sure that you're delivering the most value possible by performing your unique abilities, but also getting your other people around you to be tapping into their unique abilities. So we're all as we're maximizing the value that we can bring to these situations.
Speaker 1:And then another quote that I love from Joe, which is any problem can be solved with the right genius network. So you'd be amazed by it. You have all these issues and all these problems and challenges and it's so easy to think, oh, this is an unsolvable problem or how am I going to do this? I'm stuck. Most likely there's someone out there around you who has already found a solution, and it may be a much more simpler solution than you can imagine, whether it be a health issue, a work issue, a tax concept or it could be a marketing there's someone out there with the answer when you have the right network of the most elite people, you can get those answers. And now there's another one here that I from another I don't remember her name, I'll put in the show notes, but she said everything is figureoutable. So, getting the mindset that everything I'm going to Google this because I'm pretty sure there's only one person figureoutable, her name is Right here, mary Forleo said it and that phrase really resonated with me Very simple concept.
Speaker 1:But having the mindset that, like you know, I've seen, you know, I know one woman. She stopped building out her practice because she couldn't find the right staff. And I'm thinking to myself and I see all these other people hitting these walls and these boundaries and they give up. And they see other people hitting these walls so they say, oh well, we can't find talent in our profession or we can't solve this riddle. This can't be fixed. No one's finding talent. But I'm of the mindset of everything is figureoutable and really, while the answers closest to you may show that this is incredibly challenging and there's no opportunities, for this may be to find a deal with real estate or to increase your profitability or to solve some sort of issue. You may feel stuck and trapped in, like this problem is an unsolvable problem, but you have to develop the mindset of everything is figureoutable, and that'll give you the freedom to explore and think about what is out there and maybe there's a solution that you're just not considering and maybe it's time to think outside of the box and explore some other opportunities. Maybe dive into that genius network of yours and see where the answers lay. So back to the idea of finding the right genius network to solve your problems.
Speaker 1:This is going to lead us to our next mentor, and that is my buddy, tom Grzynski, who I did podcasts with recently and we talked about demystifying some of the things you're seeing in social media on taxes, and Tom is an incredible resource for tax prep and tax planning and he now meets. I meet with him in a group session and one-on-one and he has helped to advise me on really complex tax issues and he has also helped us to understand when do we actually navigate gray area where there is no answer, understand when do we actually navigate gray area where there is no answer, and Tom has really helped us make sure that we're aligned with our professional standards here to make sure that. And really he has not only saved me many hours of research, but also I am able to sleep better at night, getting the wisdom from someone who is a hardcore practitioner, really loves to dive into the minutia of the tax law, and able to tap into his brain to help solve some incredibly challenging and complex issues. I don't know if I'd be willing to do that if I didn't really appreciate the concept that when you have the right network, you can really get these answers a lot faster concept that all these. When you have the right network, you can really get these answers a lot faster.
Speaker 1:I want to backtrack a little bit here on one. So you know it's really interesting because Dominique led me to one of my colleagues who recommend Chuck Bauer and Jackie's program, and Chuck Bauer connected me with one of his students who read the book who, not how, which was written by Dan Kennedy, and they referenced Genius Network, which actually led me to Joe Polish and the Genius Network. From reading that book. I thought it would be really cool and then, you know, I think that encouraged me to actually undergo some more coaching with Tom. So it's interesting how all these mentorships and resources led from one to the next. And it all kind of started with this one domino which was joining the American Institute of Certified Taxpayers. And the funny thing is now I'm going to be an instructor, one of their instructors, and help teach at the CTC. So very cool stuff that we're doing there.
Speaker 1:And to summarize just some key things here, you know, and hopefully you guys get something out of this, we got from Wilfredo the boxing coach you want to get to where you know it's going to be hard and you know they're going to be thinking about stopping, and you go past that level, whether it's grit, determination, complexities or risk or stepping outside your comfort zone, being aware that one day you'll be old and savoring your time.
Speaker 1:And then from Dominique, we got you know pricing for what you're worth in your services, the power of tax planning in implementing boundaries.
Speaker 1:From Chuck, it was all about the you know closed-door policy and keeping your phones on silent, training your time as though every time, every hour, is worth a thousand bucks, implementing time blocking and being in a room with people who intimidate you.
Speaker 1:And from Joe, some of the key takeaways from him and the folks at Genius Network were to have an easy, lucrative and fun business and lifestyle, lead with value and ask what's in it for them. Go deep into one idea at a time, especially with it when it comes to marketing the connection and vitamin C and how important it is and necessary to connect with people. And you tapping into your unique ability, which I eventually learned from Dan Kennedy, and any problem can be solved with the right genius network and any problem is figureoutable. And then I continue to learn these days in my group sessions with Tom. And then I continue to learn these days in my group sessions with Tom, really just tapping into the brightest minds I can find in the world of tax, being a tax practitioner, and the learning never stops. So hopefully you found this somewhat useful and enjoyable If you want to learn more about what we do and the results of all these mentors.
Speaker 2:obviously you can go to prosperalcpacom slash apply to see how we may be able to help you out and get a free personalized video for me articulating what may be available for you in the world of tax planning.
Speaker 1:Oh, that beat the last longest one. Yeah, that was good. Awesome dude, we got 25, 24, maybe like 31 minutes. Nice man, nice brother, I think we got. I always said the thing about podcasts is they're good for nurturing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:People don't really find you on very much.
Speaker 2:That's why we break it down to smaller content.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, now we're starting to, we are starting to get's why we break it down to smaller content. Yeah, well, now we're starting to. We are starting to get noticed because we have a good chunk of content and.
Speaker 1:I said to myself that I was going to. You know, even though I was putting all this time into these podcasts and stuff and not really seeing a tremendous amount of leads coming from it, I said I got to do at least 100 episodes before I arrive at any conclusion here, and now we're at like 80, I think we've released like 86 or 87 podcasts or something and we're closing in on 100. I finally said, like fuck it, it's either shit or get off the pot. Let's do this. At least crank out 100 of these suckersers, and every week we got one coming out and it's.
Speaker 2:It's fun to see you know what's going to happen when we hit that hundred mark I mean that's, that's even amazing, right in there because most people like you said they, they um, they quit you know, so like they don't even know the feeling of actually having that 100 pieces of content out and the dope thing about that content and most of it is going to be evergreen. Like some things might change and you might see somebody.
Speaker 2:You might find somebody that watches one of your podcasts you did six months ago and be like oh yeah, this is the guy I've been looking for this entire time yeah, and now you know, every time I produce one episode, you know that's one more clone of myself out there on the internet talking exactly, and I was.
Speaker 2:I was even thinking. I was like, like you, damn, there should have like an ai tool or something like that that can like digest all this information and then just see what it can create like what, what type of.