A Coaching Success Story — How One CPA Finally Stopped Being the Bottleneck
A CPA and tax planning firm owner was overwhelmed by doing everything himself, creating a bottleneck that limited growth. This success story shows how business coaching helped him delegate responsibilities, build a stronger team, and create a business that could succeed without depending on him every day.
Key Takeaways:
- One-on-one business coaching helped a CPA shift from doing everything himself to focusing on the highest-value work only he could do.
- Accountability, clear priorities, and a trusted advisor gave him the confidence to delegate responsibilities, grow his team from three employees to nine, and make better leadership decisions.
- For the first time in 15 years, he was able to take a full week away from the office, knowing his business could continue running successfully without him.
When he reached out to Joe Novara at Growth Academy Coaching, Tom Alfieri felt his company had stalled. “We hadn’t grown the way I’d hoped we would,” he says. “I was doing literally everything myself, and I had a very small staff: one bookkeeper, one other tax preparer and a receptionist. And I was generally just overwhelmed at that point.”
That was a lot of stress on Tom. Everything relied on him. “I was, in my opinion, the biggest impediment to getting more work at the door. I was the bottleneck for everything.”
From a business standpoint, that bottleneck created a cash flow problem. If everything had to go through Tom, he was keeping things stuck. “You’ve heard the saying ‘The business was running me. I wasn’t running the business,” he says. “That was me.”
Tom Alfieri is the owner of Horizon Tax Advisors, a CPA firm that provides proactive tax planning and compliance services, primarily for small business owners. As the firm’s primary client contact for tax planning, much of the business depended on him.
Finding a Trusted Advisor
When Tom started working with Growth Academy Coaching, things started changing. “Joe was a confidant,” he says. “He was somebody I was comfortable sharing problems in the company with. My wife was tired of hearing it. And Joe was somebody to hear me out, to understand what I was going through, to empathize with me, and then also to provide some focus.”
One of the biggest problems he had — and an old habit he can easily fall back into — is wearing all the hats. “I always had so many balls in the air that nothing really got completed the way it should have. So, Joe helped me to focus on a finite number of priorities and then to hold me accountable. When I meet with him every two weeks, the first thing he says is, ‘Where are we with this, this and this?’”
Why One-on-One Coaching Made the Difference
Tom had experienced some quasi-coaching activities in the past, but those were large group experiences. For example, he was a member of a group of tax planning professionals, and they coach you in running a tax advisory practice. “But it wasn’t personalized,” he says. “It was just this massive group of people, and they had various resources and videos and things like that I could take advantage of. But it wasn’t really like a one-on-one coaching.”
Growth Academy takes a personalized approach with each client. “We meet for an hour twice a month, but Joe’s available, and I’ve taken advantage of that,” Tom says. “If there’s something I need to talk about, or some good news or bad news event that takes place, Joe’s always available for a conversation.”
That personalized approach means every coaching relationship is built around a client’s goals, challenges, and next steps.
“Joe focuses me on a finite number of tasks, as opposed to a list of 100 things we’re trying to do at any given time,” Tom says. “We’ve probably got three, four or five balls in the air, let me put it like that. And I have a tendency to add more. I’ll say, ‘Hey, I want to do this or change direction.’ Joe puts us back on course. So, it’s a lot of conversation. It’s a lot of idea sharing back and forth. It’s not like Joe says, ‘Do this, do this, and do that.’ But he helps me get to the right conclusion.”
Staying Focused When It Matters Most
A great example of helping Tom stay focused was when a major issue came up just before the April 15th tax deadline. “I was ready to just drop out of our BNI group that I’ve been in for 13 years,” Tom says. “Joe calmed me down and asked me, ‘How much of what you’re feeling right now is because you’re so close to the tax deadline?’ And I thought that was the right question at the right time, because I was under a lot of stress — as I always am — with April 15th approaching. But he encouraged me and suggested that I not make that decision until after April 15th. So, he brings a bit of clarity and calming. He’s a calming influence. You know, he can see things that I can’t see [when I’m] too far in the trees.”
The Value of a Coaching Community
Growth Academy Coaching offers an abundance of opportunities for interacting with the coaches and community. “It’s not just the one-to-one conversations twice a month,” Tom says. “He also does the twice a year Growth Academy workshop with all his coaching clients. And I always find that to be useful. Then he does a once-a-month mastermind with my peers within his coaching roster — other accountants and attorneys. And I always find those things to be helpful, so that’s when I can hear what other professionals are dealing with. Oftentimes, they’re the same things I’m dealing with, and I don’t feel so alone when I have some of these issues.”
Building a Business That Didn’t Depend on Him
The most surprising thing Tom’s learned since starting with Growth Academy Coaching in 2021 is that his company doesn’t really need him every single day. “That was really the goal,” he says. “But I’ve told this story a hundred times about the year 2024, with weddings and parents passing away. I had not taken a full week’s vacation probably in 15 years. If I took off, it was a long weekend or three days, but I had not taken a full week off. And if I ever took those short days, I’d be going into the office, or I’d be getting calls from the office.”
Because of all the personal things that happened in 2024, Tom wound up being off an entire week for his daughter’s wedding. “Then, it was an entire week in which I didn’t even call into the office when my mother-in-law passed away, and an entire week just on vacation. My wife and I went to Boston for a week. And then I can’t even count how much time I took off at the end of the year when my father was sick. So just being able to do that, to me is evidence of the progress that Joe and I made together. That I could do that and the company could run without me. It’s okay for me to take a day off or a week off, and I come back and everything’s still here — maybe even a little better — when I get back.”
What Changed: From Bottleneck to Business Leader
What changed for Tom is feeling more in control. “I feel like I have more of a defined role, where I’m not trying to be everything,” he says. “And I’ve realized I can’t be everything. I’ve learned — and this is pretty big for me — I’ve learned to delegate a lot of stuff that I’ve done for the last 20 years, even my own bookkeeping. Just this week, I told my receptionist, ‘Congratulations, you’re now our bookkeeper.’ So, it’s all those things. As a result, I’ve learned to look at what I’m doing at any given time. What am I frustrated with? The first thing I look to is, ‘Is there somebody else that could be doing this better, more consistently, or might be better suited to do it than me?’ I’m trying to get that stuff off my plate.”
When Tom first started with Growth Academy Coaching, he had another CPA who worked with him, and at one time, coming out of COVID, there were just three of them, including him. “The other two had very defined roles, and mine was everything else,” Tom says. “Everything besides preparing certain returns or answering the phone fell to me. Now, in tax season, we have nine people. We have a couple of CPAs, two bookkeepers, and a front desk person who’s wonderful. Then I have a virtual assistant in Florida. So, I have a very good team here. A lot of that I credit Joe with. He’s somebody I can talk to when I have those hiring decisions or firing decisions. So, that to me is the biggest thing. I’ve got a really good team of people, and Joe has helped me put that together.”
Success Story Takeaways for Other Business Owners
Horizon Tax Advisors owner Tom Alfieri has been with Growth Academy Coaching for more than five years, and his business continues to thrive. His success story shows how personalized coaching can create lasting change for business owners willing to rethink how they lead.
To other businesses considering Growth Academy Coaching, Tom suggests considering it seriously. “I’ve always been the kind to tough it out. I’m just going to put in more hours. I’m just going to do the same thing I’ve been doing for the last 20 years, just more of it. And that was always my perception of being the boss, being the leader. I’ve got to be the first one to do it, or I’ve got to be the one to do it and show everybody how in charge I am. And anybody will tell you, you can only do that so long.”
For other professional service providers who are wearing too many hats and still finding their businesses not where they want them to be, he says, “If you’re a business owner that is in that mode where, again, the business is running you and probably running you into the ground, then you need help,” he says. “You need somebody like Joe to counsel with. I was only half joking when I said, ‘My wife doesn’t want to hear about the business anymore.’ She’s retired. She has new interests. She doesn’t want to hear about work. So, it’s a lonely position to be in when you know you’re the one who’s responsible for all these other people’s livelihoods, and I take that responsibility very seriously. And it’s hard work. It’s lonely work. Knowing I have Joe in my corner makes it a lot less lonely.”
If your business depends on you for everything—or if leading it has become a lonely place—Growth Academy Coaching can help you build a stronger business and a clearer path forward. Reach out today and let’s talk about what’s next for your business and what your success story could look like.
