If you try to help everyone, you don’t help anyone.

The Disruptors

With Liz Farr

Salim Omar, CPA, opened his firm in 1996 after working as a CFO in a small investment boutique firm because he wanted to be his own boss. But the experience was terrible: “I found myself working long hours. I was not enjoying the work I was doing. Having the team was a revolving door.”

“There’s got to be a better way,” Omar said then. “If this is what entrepreneurship is, I'm not sure if I want it anymore.”

MORE PODCASTS and VIDEOS: Jackie Meyer: Earn More with Fewer Clients | Jack Fleherty: Don't Be a 'Yes' Person | Greg Adams: From Finance to Storytelling | The Disruptors | Jody Padar: Make Radical Changes Now If You Want to Be Relevant in 2030 | Rebecca Driscoll: Amplify Reach By Helping Other Firm Owners | Rory Henry: Create the Return on Relationships | Mike Maksymiw: Be the Leader You Wish You Had | Terrell Turner: Build a Solid Business Showing Up as Yourself | Kelly Mann: Be the Bull in the China Shop | Alicia Katz Pollock: Create A Human-Centric Business | Nancy McClelland: Be the One Your Clients Ask First |Alan Whitman: Stop Accepting the Status Quo | Sean Duncan: Discover Your Own Genius | Ingrid Edstrom: True Wealth Is Not Financial | Caleb Jenkins: Firm Growth Requires Owners to Shift Roles |

Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

Omar started reading and studying books by other entrepreneurs, many outside the accounting industry. “And I just took what they were saying and what they were doing in their business, and they were getting success, and I brought it back to my own practice.” After adding a few minor tweaks here and there, Omar, the CEO of StraightTalkCPAs, says, “My practice was very different to what it had been when I started it a few years back.”