All posts by Jason Blumer

AI Is Everywhere. Here's What It Actually Changes (And What It Doesn't). Every software vendor says they're "AI-powered" now. Every firm owner says they're "using AI." Most of them have no idea what that actually means for the people they serve. So let me be specific. At Blumer & Associates, we describe our approach as Human First, AI Forward. That's not a tagline — it's a real operating philosophy that shapes how we work and what clients actually experience. A lot of what AI does for us, you'll never see. Meeting notes get organized. Technical research gets summarized. Internal documentation [...]

Every business goes through seasons. Some seasons are about aggressive growth. Some are about launching new services or expanding into new markets. And some — often the most strategic — are about strengthening the foundation. Many leaders assume forward momentum always means acceleration. But sustainable growth isn’t built on constant expansion. It’s built on clarity, alignment, and operational strength. Sometimes, the smartest move a company can make is to reset and simplify. Here’s what that can look like. Reevaluate the Clients You Serve Not all revenue is equal. As businesses grow, client rosters naturally evolve. Over time, misalignment can creep [...]

Many business owners have a compliance-based relationship with their accountant. You send documents. They file returns. You pay the invoice. The work is accurate and necessary — but largely historical. It reflects what already happened, not what you’re about to decide. Compliance is essential. But if that’s the only interaction you have with your accountant, you may be underutilizing one of the most valuable strategic resources available to your business. The Difference Between Compliance and Advisory Compliance looks backward. It tells you what your revenue was. What your expenses were. What you owe. Advisory looks forward. It helps you think [...]

Revenue is a vanity metric. After decades of financial advisory working with entrepreneurial service businesses, I've learned that impressive top-line numbers don’t paint a full picture without the right operational foundation. At the complexity level where most businesses operate—$500K to $5M in revenue—you cannot afford to run on accident or default. All things have to switch into being intentional. These six metrics reveal whether you're building genuine sustainability or just presenting well. 1) Top-Line Revenue Growth Rate The Strategic Benchmark: 15-20% year-over-year growth Growth beyond 25% annually creates a tricky operational reality: revenue produced by humans requires those humans to [...]

You're running a $1.5 million service business. Or a $3 million consulting practice. Maybe you're at $800K in your third year and everything feels like it's about to break. When growth is happening fast, and you are drowning in chaos, you need an entrepreneurial accounting firm more than ever (not one you have to chase). Let’s say you email your accountant on Monday about Q4 estimated taxes. It's Thursday and you still haven't heard back. You're making hiring decisions, pricing decisions, client decisions—all without any financial guidance. Then April rolls around and surprise: you owe $47,000 you didn't plan for. [...]

We serve entrepreneurs at Blumer CPAs, especially those in service-based businesses. Because we serve many industries,  we have noted some commonality between these entrepreneurs. They push through a market to create new opportunities and to capture the value that others are not capturing. This means they can leave financial messes in their wake. It’s okay, because our firm is known for being able to clean those up, add structure to their businesses, and bring accountability around their financial processes. We lead entrepreneurs at Blumer CPAs.  Right now, many entrepreneurs are experiencing a familiar surge of trying to make the most [...]

Cash flow is the heartbeat of your business, yet most entrepreneurs are flying blind when it comes to understanding what's happening with their money. Actually, clients don’t even know to ask us this - but we typically try to sell our clients some form of cash flow reporting (and there are great tools to do this for our clients!). We do want our clients reviewing their financials monthly (in a summarized format) but monthly statements only tell you what already happened. That’s not bad, it just gives you the patterns of how you’ve been operating. Cash flow reporting is always [...]

Like many of our clients, our firm is at a size where we have to nail down the revenue production of our firm. That is, at our size, we have to have a machine that is now producing our revenue to support our team of 15, as well as the growth we anticipate over the next few years.  Like many things in scaling a service organization, we’re finding that what got us here won’t get us there. We have always been an ORG (“Owner Revenue Generated”) company. As the owner and founder, I’ve always sat in the seat of sales [...]

How you have conversations in your organization, and the intention with which you speak, matters. “Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can’t, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.” – Robert Frost Overspeaking, looping with no point, and speech riddled with generalities or exaggerations do no good to move your organization and your team forward. But transforming speech turns out to be a difficult challenge.  Your speech patterns are habitual, and likely have been allowed by those around you for years and years. So if you [...]

We coach and consult with many service-based organizations and we are finding some patterns after the pandemic. Many entrepreneurs are struggling with what it is like to now lead a company considering the remembrance of where they were before the pandemic, what the pandemic has done to their companies, and how they have been affected personally as leaders.  We’ve all been struggling personally after the impact of the pandemic on our lives and those around us. And now an unstable economy is bringing a lot of discouragement to service entrepreneurs. You are not alone if you feel this too. Many [...]