Episode 204: Wize Factor Chat: How to Fix a Firm Without Starting Over with Melanie Sikma (One Stop Tax Strategist)

When Melanie and her dad started One Stop, everything looked good on paper. But somewhere between the vision and the reality, things started to crack. What came next was a decision that changed everything, and a lesson most firm owners only learn the hard way.

✅ Why the external partnership model was costing them clients and what they did about it 

✅ What it looks like to have a coach who has already walked the same path 

✅ How stopping trying to figure it out alone and just working a proven plan changed the game 

✅ Why losing control of the client experience was the wake-up call that changed everything 

✅ Why bringing in an external third party changed the way the whole family business operated 

✅ What freedom actually looks like when you build the firm around your life and not the other way around

If you have been holding everything together and wondering when you get to step back, this episode is your reminder that the right system and the right support can fix what feels broken faster than you think.

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PS: Whenever you’re ready… here are the fastest 4 ways we can help you fix and grow your accounting firm:  

 1. Download our famous Wize Freedom Map for FREE - Find out the 101 projects every firm owner must implement to build a $5M+ firm that can run without them - Download here 

2. Need to hire right now? Book a 1:1 FREE discovery call with our WizeTalent hiring coaches to help find your next team member the Wize Way – Click Here 

3. Work with Jamie and our mentors for 8 weeks - Build a custom business plan for your firm - Apply here

Transcript

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Welcome And Why We Chat

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to The Wise Way, a show for accounting and bookkeeping firm owners who want more time, profit, and freedom, and a business that can run without them. I'm Brent Ward, your host, and each week we deep dive into the real stories, proven strategies, and battle-tested tools from successful firm owners just like you. Our wise mentors want to share their journey of how they've scaled and systemized their way to freedom so you can too. If you're stuck in the grind or you're ready to scale smarter, this is your blueprint. Let's get into the episode.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

Hi everyone, I'm sitting here with Melanie from One Stop Task Strategist, and it's great to have her here because I know that she will make a great conversation, seeing as she's a podcaster herself. So I know that that we'll have a great episode today. How are you, Melanie? Welcome. Oh doing good. Thanks for having me. Nice to hear that. Um, thank you for coming here. So, um, to give you some context on why why we do this wise factor chats is that basically we get invited um the members who we think have that wise factor in them um that are joining our program. And we want to know what made them um come to our tribe and stay and what they found useful. So I want to go all the way to the top from the beginning uh when you started your business.

Starting A Family Tax Firm

SPEAKER_02 1:37

So when did you start? Um, how did you start? Why the idea of running a tax business?

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Well, my dad's been a CPA for over 40 years, and he has had multiple tax firms. I used to be an employee at his previous firm, and he ended up selling that to his employees. And then we started this uh, we started one stop just as a way to serve clients that his other firm was not wanting to serve. And so we were turning away, I don't know, a couple hundred thousand dollars of business a month. And so just because they were wanting more simple clients, and so I came to my dad and said, let's just partner with other CPAs and you know be almost the sales arm. So that was our initial structure. Um, after doing that for a couple of years, that was in 2022, I believe. Um, but after doing that for a couple of years, we realized it's hard to control the client's experience when you're doing external partnerships. And so we decided last year of 20 uh of November, so it's 2026 now, so it's 2024 of November. November 2024 is when we brought everything in-house and decided to just build internally. So our firm is only really like a a little over a year old. And um it's it was just a lot of things to fix from the previous model that wasn't a good business model. And so um WISE, my my dad's worked with them in the past at his old firm, and he had a great experience. And so we decided to hire um WISE Mentoring just to help us learn how to just stabilize like systems processes and be able to build a good foundation for scalability.

SPEAKER_02 3:19

Love that it's a generational thing, um, running a firm. So the entrepreneur runs in the family, the entrepreneurship. Love that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

So well, we we find out once you have uh the ability to choose when you want to work, then you don't really want people telling you to do it.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

Yeah, that's a beautiful thing to be able to choose and carry that out, which we know it's not easy to do. Um learning. I want to go to that part. So you say that uh 2024 things are coming together for you as your firm. And you said that there were a lot of things that you wanted to get in place, and then you found wise. But what were those things that were making you feel like you needed some help or or what was the challenge that you were facing at the moment to make sure that you had some help to fix that?

Fixing Client Experience With Systems

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Yeah, so um we really it was the systems and knowing like I I really care about the client's experience. And and so there was a lot of clients frustrated from the external partners and because we couldn't control the the way that they served them, we didn't have any, like they couldn't follow SOPs because they were external. And so just we wanted like a fast growth to building out a firm that really took care of clients. And so my dad's sh uh strengths are creative tax planning, but he's not super great at the systems, and so we figured that wise would be able to come and help us with that piece. I love and then sometimes too, like in a family business, it's just nice to have an external third party that doesn't have any skin in the game to give us what they think. So sometimes it's like marriage counseling for business partners that are failing.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Um, and it's it's incredible to have a family business, but of course, you have to have an external person to be very object objective and to actually um guide you through what needs to happen rather than what you would expect or prefer to happen to keep the relationship, you know, uh flowing as a family. I get that it must be um challenging, but also beautiful, like the fact that you inherited the entrepreneurship um and the business itself. So it runs forever. That's incredible.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

Yeah.

Mindset Shift And Hiring For Gaps

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Um so since you joined WISE, um we know that there's a lot of lessons and um cultural things that are very different to how traditional firms run and to how other coaches see the business and how they structure it, um, especially around mindset. So I wanted to ask you if you felt like ever since you started with WISE, has there been a mindset shift in how you see things, how you see business, how you see staff, how you see structure?

SPEAKER_01 6:16

Yeah, I would say the it's I'd say I I knew certain things were possible just because watching my dad, but like me, I'm not a CPA, and so running a CPA firm, there's some difficulties when you don't understand. So it's nice because Tim's my coach, he runs, he's got a family business, he's also not a CPA and he's running the firm. And so it's nice to have like the belief like okay, you can do it, and it's really just about hiring the right people that can make up for your deficiencies. So that's been helpful. Um and yeah, just like knowing the structure, knowing that there is a system that works, it's just working the plan rather than having to come up with our own path is super helpful. Um, and then I'd say like the wise way, the nice thing for us is like my dad's already he's wanting to golf. That's what he's wanting to do. And he's really the only one out of me, my sister, and my dad that do the CPA piece of it. And so the people that hire WISE a lot are the people that want to pull themselves out of the business. Where for us, we have to build it that way. And so it's nice to have just a system that works so that we know this is this works, we just have to work the plan.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

I was going to ask you about that actually. That was my next question. Um, because you do know that we talk about the building a business that runs without you, and probably your dad is so doing that in the next years, or if he's not already there. So, how do you see

Building Freedom Without Stepping Away

SPEAKER_02 7:52

that? What do you think about that? Is because the you build the business that can run without you, but you don't necessarily have to be away from it. But would you like to be away from it one day? What's your take on that?

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Um, I core like one of my top core values personally is freedom. And so I want the ability to not have to work, but I really enjoy working. So to me, I want to build a team that I love being around that you know I trust, that they do a great job, but I don't have to babysit. And I'd say we have that. So it's like to me, it's building. Um, I I want to be able to not have to work, but I also probably will like kind of and for me, I I my husband and I um my husband runs a nonprofit called All in International, and we love to go to Africa, so we go to Sierra Leone to bring our kids and stuff. So I I want to be able to go through long periods of time and know that the business can be taken care of. So that's something that I just want flexibility.

SPEAKER_02 8:53

That makes perfect sense, having a choice in the end. It's just being able to choose whether you you spend the day working or talking to clients, or do you just go to Africa for the week? That's incredible. I love that. Um and I wanted to ask you as as you free up your time and you get to choose when you want to work and when you don't want to work. You just mentioned Africa. Um, what other things do you like to do outside work that motivate you to be more free and to love that freedom that you already have? Um, are there any hobbies or any things that you like to dedicate your time to?

SPEAKER_01 9:34

I'm like ADHD, so I love everything, but I I homeschool my kids. I have an eight and a 10-year-old, so I homeschool them. And then um, so spending more time doing like creative stuff. When you're running a business, it's hard to I find myself just doing like just getting it done where I would rather do more fun stuff. Um, they have a little earring business, so kind of spending more time teaching them how to build a business. Um and then I I sing at my church, so I really enjoy um music, so just doing more of that stuff, working out, travel. I love to travel, so all that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

Okay, so your your calendar is pretty busy with things that you want to do outside work, yeah. Yeah, but that's that's incredible. I understand why you love freedom. Yeah, um I like freedom. So that's that's incredible, Melanie.

Advice For Burnt Out Owners

SPEAKER_02 10:27

What would you say to someone if someone sees this or hears this as a podcast? Um, what would you say to the person that's stuck, pretty, you know, stressed out, burnt out, um, feeling not so good about the business, wanting to sell, wanting to drop everything and just run for the heels?

SPEAKER_01 10:46

Um you want me to say it, yeah. Yeah, it's basically I wouldn't say throw away all of your hard work, because I've been there. And I think it's a cyclical thing. You're never I've learned like I'm not I'm not there yet. So I'm learning, like basically, and Wise has been a great resource for that. But it there's work regardless. If you if you run for the hills and throw it away, you gotta build something else. So you might as well put the work into what you've already built to fix it so that you can pull yourself out. So that's that's that's my advice.

SPEAKER_02 11:20

That makes perfect sense, honestly. Um, if you can build a business that you can sell, um if you don't want to have it, but ideally do something with with the progress that you've already made.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

Yeah, you've already don't don't let the headaches go to go to waste. Put put effort towards fixing them.

SPEAKER_02 11:41

Yeah, yeah, I do agree with that. Um, well, Melanie, those were all my questions for today. Uh, thank you so much for joining me. Uh, I love to have your insight and take on this whole business building a business that runs without you today. So thank you. Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me. Bye.

Reviews Subscribing And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of The Wise Way. If today's episode sparked an idea or helped you see things differently, please don't forget to leave us a review. And if you haven't subscribed to the podcast on your favourite platform yet, please go ahead and do that as well. Let's continue the conversation here through YouTube or any other social platforms that you can find us on. And just remember, if you're not a subscriber of our weekly Friday tip newsletter, you can get that to your inbox every week going forward. Whether you're starting out or scaling up, you don't have to do it alone. Let's build a business that works for you the wise way. We'll see you in the next episode.