The Wize Way

Episode 77: Wize Factor Chat: Lacey Harnar - Pathway CPA Group, LLC

• Wize Mentoring for Accountants and Bookkeepers • Season 1 • Episode 77

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In this week's episode of The Wize Guys Podcast, we have Lacey Harnar of Pathway CPA Group, LLC as we chat with her about her Wize journey and experience.

Lacey, founder of her own accounting firm, shares her compelling journey with us. She paints a vivid picture of the challenges she encountered, the transformation she underwent through Wise Mentoring, and how she successfully built a team that fueled her dream. Lacey’s tale of overcoming struggles and her newfound appreciation for the extraordinary system that supports ordinary people will surely spark some business ideas in you.

The conversation takes a delightful turn as Lacey opens up about the significant changes in her personal life after implementing Wize's strategies. She talks about her newfound freedom, the joy of ample free time, and the luxury of traveling with her family, goals she once considered far-fetched. Not stopping there, Lacey opens up about the future of her business, her vision, and how her experiences at Wize lays the foundation for the company she always aspired to have. So buckle up, as Lacey’s story of transformation, liberation, and growth promises to ignite the entrepreneur in you!

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Lacey Harnar:

You've got to master leading yourself. So that's about self-discipline, that's about experience, that's about controlling your feelings. So you've got to lead yourself.

Wize Mentoring:

From Wize Mentoring is The Wize Guys Podcast, a show about accounting and bookkeeping practice owners and the many stories, lessons, and tips from their experience of transitioning from a time-pull practice to a business that runs without them. I hope you enjoy and subscribe.

Wize Claudia:

Hi Lacey, thank you so much for being here with me and sharing this space, the Wize Factor Chat, where we talk about you and your journey through Wize. You recently completed a big chunk of your journey and we heard that you have been doing great, but I wanted to hear this from you, so I'll be asking a couple of questions today to know how you did so. I wanted to go with the basics first. I wanted to know about your business when did you start and what was the reason behind starting an accounting firm?

Lacey Harnar:

So I started my business at the beginning of 2019 and I'd been an accountant for many years, but not with my own firm and then my family and I relocated and it just seemed like we were already in the process of making lots of changes. Let's just go into this business venture as well. And then, of course, we wanted some extra freedom and flexibility to be able to pursue things as we wanted. So one of the things that I did when starting this firm is that it started as remote so that was even before COVID but I wanted a firm where I could have a lot of flexibility to travel and pursue the things that I was interested in.

Wize Claudia:

Amazing, so it is a family business.

Lacey Harnar:

My husband and I worked together, so I started it on my own in January and then he ended up joining me in June of 2019, and so we've been doing it together ever since.

Wize Claudia:

Amazing. Teamwork makes the dream work. So I wanted to ask you a little bit forward in time so you found out why you were managing the business. So this time, between finding wise and starting the business, I'm sure that there was something that made you want to look for something better or a better way to manage your business. So what was that inflection point, what was that challenge that said to you I need to change my life and business working a ton of hours every day.

Lacey Harnar:

Not just there wasn't not a tax season, it was every day all year. I was just tired and I needed to better understand how to create a business for myself. Then I discovered Wise and started listening to the podcast, and they knew exactly what my pain points were. So I went all in. I knew I didn't want to just go with the DIY version. I wanted to be able to work with somebody, one-on-one that could really walk me through it, because at that point I think I discovered Wize in 2021 maybe or the beginning of 2021. But I had already been in business a couple of years and I just didn't want to waste any more time trying to guess my way through it. I just wanted somebody to be able to show me the roadmap and lead me in the right direction.

Wize Claudia:

I'd love to hear that. Who was your mentor?

Lacey Harnar:

Thomas.

Wize Claudia:

Oh, amazing, I love Thomas. So since you started Wize, you had a team before that, or you got, your team grew as you started, or how was it like in that staff side of the business?

Lacey Harnar:

I had had a struggling team, so it was just my husband and I for probably the first six months to a year, and then we hired our first admin person and didn't really know. Well, okay, so the phrase that I love from Wize is to have extraordinary systems so that you can hire ordinary people. And I just thought everybody would be able to think through the next steps of things, and so I didn't really have great systems to give her and that was kind of my MO for all other employees as well. I kind of wanted to bring them in and have them create their own systems, but that wasn't a working idea. So we did have a team.

Lacey Harnar:

I had hired multiple people. I hired people with lots of experience you know 10 years of being a CPA. I hired other people with very little experience and it just seemed like each time it was a struggle because I didn't have the structure in place, I didn't have my team in place, so I never quite knew who the next person was that I should be hiring. I was like just drawing out of a hat I think I'm going to hire a senior client manager now. I think I'm going to hire, you know, this person over here now, and so really being able to get that structure in place and know exactly which seats I needed to fill it just helped me get busy building something specific instead of guessing my way through it.

Wize Claudia:

Yeah, love to hear that, because it sounds like you were working on the wide and shallow structure rather than the deep and narrow structure. So I actually was curious about that. Like you know that we talk about Wize, there are many technicalities that are different from others or things that you learn, but there's also culture that is very important with Wize. So I wanted to ask you if there was any mindset shift, anything that changed within how you saw your business once you entered into WISE.

Lacey Harnar:

I think just being able to see what's possible as far as knowing. You know, if I as one person can oversee five teams and knowing what each team is able to produce, it was just encouraging to be able to know what is possible once I have the right framework in place. So I'm already kind of a go getter and a dreamer. You know, anything's possible, but I need to be. I need to be able to see what that was, instead of just I need to be able to see the dream, to know what it was that I was working towards.

Wize Claudia:

So that was definitely helpful for me. You were already ambitious, but you needed to take it down and work on it, basically.

Lacey Harnar:

Yeah, I needed a step by step plan of how I was going to get there.

Wize Claudia:

Amazing. So I'm curious, like what would you say to that Lacey that was working long hours, not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel? Like what would you say to yourself then that you know now in terms of running the business or making some shifts here? Like what would you say to that Lacey Get help now.

Lacey Harnar:

Don't wait. You know you need to go. Prolong the pain any longer than you need to, because it's not going to get better until you have helped to know how to make the changes and so like. Why prolong the pain of trying to try to reinvent the wheel yourself or just trying to figure it out on your own?

Wize Claudia:

Yeah, that makes perfect sense, and there's a lot of people that think that there's a time or that put a lot of work on their backs because they feel like they can take it as far until they really need to cry for help. So, yeah, definitely, getting help, at least hard, and building foundations are essentially what could take you there or where you are now. And you know that we talk about the journey and beginning with the end in mind and stepping back from the business. Is this something that you see yourself doing? Does this excite you? Like stepping back from the business or withdrawing totally from the business? Does this carry you, excite you? Do you dream about this or not?

Lacey Harnar:

Oh, every day. Yes, I love it when I'm able to step away. I always love new challenges, and so I've enjoyed the challenge of this and I'm still in the middle of the challenge of this. So it's not, you know, I haven't built it yet, but I enjoy building things. And then then I go set my sights on something new that I can build. So, yeah, every day I'm writing out, you know, like here's my goals, here's how I'm working myself out of the business and here's where the timeframe of when I will be the business owner and not the senior client manager, not the one doing the day to day grind. So, definitely, that's amazing.

Wize Claudia:

I appreciate being able to look forward to that. That's amazing and really what we you know, not everyone has to withdraw from the business, but at least doing what you like inside the business is definitely a blessing. It's not every practice owner we know a lot that are just starting the program, for example, that are doing things that they don't want to do. For example, they don't want to be the senior client manager, as you said, but they would like to just be, I don't know, on the administrative side or anything else that not forced. They're not forced to do things Because they have the bandwidth.

Wize Claudia:

So I am very happy for you that you now have this vision, because a lot of people, and mostly accountants, think that this is it. I just have to cope with it and just run through this wave that is long hours, no sleep, lots of clients and taking this till the end. So I'm very happy that you discovered another way to see this. I wanted to ask you a more personal question, because we know that many of our members at WISE had hobbies or things that they like to do in their free time that maybe job took, like the tasks and everything that they had to do at work took over these activities. So I was wondering what's something that you love to do in your free time, that you enjoy doing and any hobby and is for anything that you'd like to do.

Lacey Harnar:

Well, I'm still working on figuring that out. I have hobbies before I started the business and then you know, as you indicated, like I kind of lost the freedom to be able to have time for that for a few years. Really just having the time and capacity to be with my kids, help them with what they need, traveling with my family is something that we really appreciate doing. I have three kids all in school, but they're all at different schools breaks at all different times, so that makes it kind of challenging. But we've already scheduled in October which is right up against a tax deadline for us that I'm taking a week off and we're going on a vacation with our kids. So that's something I would not have been able to do before. So I'm just appreciating the flexibility to be able to travel with them more.

Wize Claudia:

Oh, that's amazing. That's really great, because, even if it seems small, even if it's a week off and not like two months off, that's unthinkable for some practice owners. So I'm very happy that you get to do that. And now it's cool that you say that you're relearning how to spend your free time, because now you have it. So it's like what do I do with this now?

Lacey Harnar:

Yeah, it's kind of challenging. I mean I sometimes I just am like wandering around, like okay, well, this is what I wanted. But I am relearning what to do with free time.

Wize Claudia:

Yeah, kids take off the most part of that time. I'm guessing, because right now it's summer, right yeah?

Lacey Harnar:

They just all went back to school, so we're getting back into rhythms now, but yes, when they were home, it was really great to be able to have extra time to be able to spend with them.

Wize Claudia:

Oh, that's so nice to hear, and that was my last question, lacey. My extra question was do you have anything to share that we could do to serve you better, anything that you would like to see or anything that you want to suggest to us to be better at helping you in the future?

Lacey Harnar:

I think the one thing that I needed help with in my practice that I don't feel like wise brought in, was the type of work that my firm provides.

Wize Mentoring:

So I've done a lot of parturing.

Lacey Harnar:

We actually just let go about 100 clients and really focusing in on who we serve and the specific systems for that client avatar now. But I was able to do that because now I have this team, I'm like, oh, now I can see what my team can accomplish. So now I'm just trying to get the client side of things to match up with what I want my team to be able to do.

Wize Claudia:

That's amazing. Well, we will definitely take this into consideration. It's important for us your opinion. Of course, I know that right now you're no longer a member, but we really appreciate it you as a member and this is the reason that we're doing this to support you and other Lacey's out there in the world to find some comfort in a group like this. So yeah, thank you so much for all your answers. This is great input. Thank you, lacey.

Wize Mentoring:

Thanks for tuning in. If you liked this episode, please remember to subscribe and leave us a five- star review For more practical, Wize tips on how to build a business that runs without you, head over to wizementoring. com/ podcast to download a free copy of 20-hour Accountants Workweek Playbook. We've included a link in the show notes below. See you on the next episode!