I recently had the unique opportunity to host a business panel at the Accelerate Conference, which took place at the Sleepy Hollow Hotel in Tarrytown, NY. This conference is a special gathering of people in the bookkeeping, CPA and CFO industries. The brainchild of Yanky Weberman of OnTrack and the husband-and-wife team of Shaya and Chaya Retek of Revamp, it was innovative in many ways, but one thing in particular stood out for me: the fact that many of the hundreds of attendees are in competition with each other and have the same target audience. Nonetheless, they knew the they had come not only to learn but to help each other, and they were all amazed by everyone’s genuine willingness to help them. Mi k’amcha Yisrael!
My panel was focused on growing one’s business, and the advice applied to those at any and all stages of it. It featured three entrepreneurs: Zacharia Waxler, managing partner at Roth & Co., who shared how he rose through the ranks in the company; Yanky (Jacob) Oberlander, who runs a boutique accounting and remote CFO firm; and Evan Scharf, the founder of SmallBiz Outsource, LLC, a remote company that offers bookkeeping, accounting and other financial services.
All three offered a glimpse into some of the struggles they encountered while growing a business and balancing their working and personal lives. Their participation was ample evidence of the way we as a community are more than willing to share our expertise for the sake of others. Enjoy!
—Nesanel
Nesanel: Welcome. I’d like to get some background on all of you. Zacharia, let’s start with you. You are now a managing partner at Roth & Co, but I know you didn’t start out that way. Please tell us a little about yourself and your journey.
Zacharia: My background is standard, probably like everyone else in this room. I grew up in Boro Park and went to cheder there. For yeshivah, I learned in Ger. These days, I live in Staten Island.
My first job was in an office doing bookkeeping. There weren’t that many options, and I didn’t have the capital to open my own business, so I decided to go to school. I was okay with numbers, so I figured I’d focus on that.
After working in a small local firm for about a year, I moved to Roth & Co. At the time, they had only about 35 employees. I started as a junior, doing tax work.
Nesanel: How did you begin to advance?
Zacharia: It’s hard to look back and say how I did it. But whenever people ask me for advice, I tell them to take the initiative. There is always a need that has to be filled, and if you step up and do it, you’re going to add value to the company.
Nesanel: You now have 250 employees, baruch Hashem. How many of them are managing partners?
Zacharia: As as long as there is growth, there is opportunity. There’s turnover in every firm; people come and go. I would say that 3% of those who work in an accounting firm will end up at the partner level. It’s a small number because most people don’t want to wait for success. It’s not because they didn’t try hard; it’s because they didn’t sit it out.
Nesanel: Give me some examples of the initiatives you took to get to where you are today.
Zacharia: I spent the first four years at the company learning skills that I didn’t have naturally. After a while, I started to get bored. I identified a need to break out of the tax-versus-audit setup and started a whole department dedicated to auditing and financial statements so that the tax department could focus solely on taxes. It was a very small department; just me and another person who worked part time. But my belief is that as soon as you specialize in something, you’re set up for growth. Today, about 40% of the firm consists of auditing.
Nesanel: That’s great. Yanky, let’s move on to you.
Yanky: I grew up in Williamsburg, where I went to local yeshivos. I also went to yeshivah in Kiryas Yoel. For some reason, I always wanted to be an accountant. I think I’ve had all my expenses listed since I was 15. I didn’t have a computer when I was growing up, so I learned Excel on a PalmPilot. I’ve always had a passion for financials because I love the science of business. The term “accountant” is like calling someone a regular doctor when he could be a neurologist. There are several branches of accounting, and my main interest has always been economics, both micro and macro.
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