Most accounting firm owners don’t have a strategy problem.
They know what they should do. They know they need to increase prices. They know they need better clients. They know they need stronger boundaries. They know they need to spend more time working on the firm instead of being consumed by client work.
Yet many continue doing the opposite.
Why?
Because before a firm changes its strategy, pricing, ideal client, or operating model, the owners usually need to change what they believe.
That’s where mindset comes in. Not as a substitute for action. As a prerequisite for it.
Recently, a firm owner in New Mexico completed a mindset exercise as part of our Transformation Program. This wasn’t a standalone exercise. It came after working through training, coaching, and a series of structured discussions about where she wanted her firm to be in the future. As she worked through the process, she documented several beliefs that were influencing her decisions:
Most accountants have thought some version of these things. The problem is that beliefs drive behavior. If you believe clients will leave when prices increase, you’ll avoid difficult pricing conversations. If you avoid difficult pricing conversations, you’ll continue underpricing. If you continue underpricing, you’ll need more clients to hit your revenue goals.
Before long, you’ve built a firm based on volume rather than value; a firm that looks successful from the outside but is far more dependent on client volume, hours, and owner effort than it should be. It's the opposite of Pareto for Profit™. Instead of letting your most valuable clients drive the majority of your profit, you keep adding more work to make the math work.
The same thing happens with client selection. If you believe there aren’t enough good clients available, you’ll keep saying yes to the wrong ones. You’ll tolerate clients who consume hours, create complexity, and generate little profit.
Every firm has an Insanity Zone (low-value clients who take way longer than they should, relative to what they're paying you). Most owners know exactly who those clients are. The challenge is that their beliefs stop them from acting. And the way out isn't addition. It's subtraction. Removing the wrong clients is what creates the room to serve the right ones well.
Many firm owners blame tax season. We don’t. Tax season isn’t usually the problem. It simply exposes the problem. Poor pricing. Weak boundaries. Low-value clients. Partner dependency. Capacity issues.
These exist all year. Tax season just makes them impossible to ignore. A 40-Hour Firm isn't built in April. It's built by addressing these conditions in the months when they're easy to overlook.
The accountant in this example wasn’t trying to improve her mindset so she could “feel better.” She was trying to build a different firm. One with better clients, better pricing, stronger systems, and a model that aligned with what she wanted out of the firm. That requires different beliefs.
As part of the exercise, she documented a new set of beliefs:
Notice what changed. She stopped viewing pricing as a risk and started viewing it as a strategic decision. She stopped seeing herself as someone who processes tax returns and started seeing herself as someone who helps business owners make better decisions.
Of course, these beliefs don’t solve anything by themselves. Pricing still needs to be implemented. The Insanity Zone still needs to be reduced. Processes still need to be improved. Difficult conversations still need to happen. That’s where structure, accountability, and execution become critical. Knowing what to do is rarely the issue. Following through consistently is. That's exactly why we built the Renew Operating Model.
One of Renew’s core principles is Make the firm the #1 client. Most accountants understand the concept intellectually. Far fewer do it in practice. If you're advising a client, you would never allow them to operate with outdated pricing, poor client selection, weak systems, and no clear operating model. Yet many accountants tolerate those exact conditions inside their own firms for years.
Why? Often because of the beliefs sitting underneath the decisions. The belief that every client matters, that pricing appropriately is selfish, that being busy means being successful.
The most powerful part of this exercise wasn’t writing down the beliefs. It was sharing them. The firm owner posted her reflections inside the Renew community and invited feedback from her peers. In doing so, she wasn’t simply asking for input. She was creating accountability.
Once you’ve publicly stated that you’re going to stop pricing from fear and start pricing based on value, people remember. Once you’ve declared that you’re moving away from being a service provider and toward being a trusted advisor, your future decisions need to reflect that.
That’s one of the reasons transformation is difficult in isolation. Left to ourselves, it’s easy to fall back into familiar thinking. When you’re surrounded by other firm owners making similar changes, those new beliefs are reinforced and challenged in productive ways. Until you believe you deserve better clients, better pricing, and a better business model, you will continue defending the very things that are holding you back.
If any of this sounds like the firm you want, let's take an honest look at the one you have. Book a 30-minute Discovery Call — no obligation, no pitch. We'll dig into your firm and point you to where to start.
