IAM1369 – CPA Creates Affordable Accounting Services to Entrepreneurs

Joe DiChiara is an entrepreneur with a CPA license. He has worked with thousands of business owners over a 35-year career. Eager to help people succeed, it troubled him that most new businesses fail, and was determined to find out why. Success starts with Mindset and Intention, subjects they don’t teach in CPA schools. Joe learned that this was the true culprit in business failure on top of an overly complex tax and compliance system making it nearly impossible to start a business and stay in business. His primary purpose has become teaching entrepreneurs the fundamental principles of success combined with the practical knowledge acquired as a CPA.

New business owners start out with the odds stacked against them and the solution is education and guidance. Joe provides affordable business training and guidance through www.bedrockuniversity.com. and a full range of accounting services at a fraction of what most CPA firms charge through www.bedrockbusinessbuilders.com. You can book a free chat with Joe by visiting www.timewithjoe.com

• CEO Story: Started his entrepreneurial journey when he was ten years old, Joe had a casino in their driveway. Took the CPA even if does not conform to his will. Later he found out and learned the value of it, and turned it around to help other people with accounting, taxes, etc.
• Business Service: Monthly Free workshops with different topics relating to accounting. Books system, compliance guidance, etc.
• Secret Sauce: Business is complicated, Joe’s superpower is making it simple for people. Low-cost high-quality system.
• CEO Hack:  Having a simple routine and you follow it every day. Prepare yourself for the day.
• CEO Nugget: Keep it simple. Trust yourself, trust your instincts.
• CEO Defined: Take on responsibility. A manager of a sports team. Motivate and inspire them. Have relationships with your team members and teach them to have a relationship with your clients.

Website: bedrockbusinessbuilders.com

Mastermind with Joe DiChiara: www.mastermindwithjoe.com

Media Page: www.joedichiaracpa.com

Facebook Group: bedrockbusinessbuilders

Facebook Profile: joeydcpa

YouTube: BEDROCKBUSINESSBUILDERS

LinkedIn: bedrock-business-builders?trk=public_profile_topcard-current-company

Alignable: www.alignable.com/bethpage-ny/bedrock-business-builders-corp

BeeKonnected:joedichiara.beekonnected.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/bedrockbusinessbuilders/

Twitter: twitter.com/bedrockbizbuild

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Transcription

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00:18 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkness values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

00:45 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Joe DiChiara of Bedrock Business Builders. Joe, super excited to have you on the show.

00:56 – Joe DiChiara

Super excited to be here.

00:58 – Gresham Harkless

There we go. Well, we have a match made in heaven. And of course, before we jump into the interview, what I'll do is read a little bit more about Joe so you can hear about some of those awesome things that he's doing. And Joe is an entrepreneur with a CPA license. He has worked with thousands of business owners over a 35-year career. He's here to help people succeed. It troubled him that most new businesses failed was determined to find out why. Success starts with mindset and intention, subjects that they don't teach in CPA schools. Joe learned that this was the true culprit in business failure on top of an overly complex tax and compliance system, making it nearly impossible to start a business and stay in business.

His primary purpose has become teaching entrepreneurs the fundamental principles of success combined with the practical knowledge acquired as a CPA. New business owners start out with the odds stacked against them and the solution is education and guidance. Joe provides affordable business training and guidance through bedrock university.com and a full range of accounting fractional services at a fraction of what CPA charges through bedrock business builders.com. You can of course connect with Joe anytime. Joe, appreciate having you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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02:05 – Joe DiChiara

I appreciate being here.

02:06 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, absolutely.

02:08 – Joe DiChiara

Great intro, I wanna thank you for that. It sounds like something that I wrote.

02:12 – Gresham Harkless

Hey, there you go. Well, I said it's a lot easier to read the intro to do all the awesome work that you've been doing. So I had the easy part, you did all the hard stuff. So you deserve kind of all the accolades and all those things. So to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock and hear a little bit more about how you got started before you started doing all those awesome things, what I call your CEO story.

02:33 – Joe DiChiara

Wow, I didn't expect that. Where do you want me to start? I could start from when I was 10 years old and I had a casino in my driveway and that was the launch of my entrepreneurial career because I remember it like it was yesterday. I was 10 years old and we made about $3 or $4, which was a lot in 1970 for a 10-year-old. But I remember distinctly asking my mother, I said, why do people get jobs when they could just make money having fun? And what she told me was you're not doing the casino anymore. I don't want you doing that stuff. So she quashed me. But I was determined to figure out how to be a champion of business.

My father, when I was 17, saw me, he thought I was, and he was right, I was on the wrong track with the wrong people. And I was 17 and he told me CPAs run businesses. I thought I was gonna be a CPA. I had no idea what a CPA did. I didn't know that meant I was gonna be an accountant. So I was pretty upset with my father for about 25 years saying, why did you do this to me? Only to find out that I got I was blessed to go through a lot of trials and tribulations, which every entrepreneur can relate to.

I see you shaking your head. But I woke up one day and I said, wow, not only did I learn about business, but I learned about taxes, about what not to do, and how people get in trouble. How can I use this to help people? And That's where I am today. So typical entrepreneurial journey, big dreams, big failures, disappointments, and everything in between. I raised a family, I got 3 great kids, and now I have grandchildren. I found out that grandchildren are a lot better than kids. You can have all the fun with them and then go home.

04:41 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. No, I love hearing that journey. And I definitely wouldn't call that a typical entrepreneurial journey. I don't know a lot of kids that started out at the age of 10, you know, with the casino in there, in their front, their front yard. So I love that you kind of had that entrepreneurial bug and, and, you know, that advice, that Sage advice, you know, from your dad seemed like it really created that foundational elements of not just, you know, you being able to help out clients, but I imagine so much knowledge and information from a perspective that a lot of people that start businesses probably don't have.

05:13 – Joe DiChiara

So what we did with bedrock is we created a very low-cost, high-quality system where people can get their books done, get the right kind of compliance guidance and we've put them on the right track. And that's where we are right now. It's working. Our business is growing by leaps and bounds. We do things like have the mastermind group every Friday, to invite people if you don't mind, that's just mastermindwithjoe.com.

We have a lot of fun. That's another thing. We're the only accounting firm in the world and our main purpose is to have fun. Because that's another thing. If you're in business and you're not enjoying it, there's something wrong. You need to go into another business. So, that's the tip of the iceberg. I think that tells you a lot about, you know, who I am and what I'm doing.

06:12 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, and that definitely even sounds like why you're doing it, which I think is sometimes the most impactful thing. And I love kind of hearing the different ways that you kind of help serve the clients. You mentioned the mastermind, of course, I imagine that you work with clients directly. Are there any other aspects or programs or things that you have in place to help serve those clients?

06:31 – Joe DiChiara

Absolutely. Every month we have a free workshop on the topic of the month because it's seasonal. We just got through a tax season. Next month we're going to be doing a whole couple of months' worth of, did you get slammed by the IRS? Did your accountant give you a surprise that you didn't want? On Tuesday, we had a free workshop, they're all free, on how to get paid faster. It turns out, my assistant, I surround myself with a lot of really smart people. That's another thing I learned about business. You can't do it on your own.

So she brought up, she's like, you know, it seems like we get a lot of reaction when we tell people about how to get money. So we've had, you know, workshops on how to get grants. That was popular. So those are just some, some of the things that we're doing. And we hope that as we grow, we'll find new ways. Bedrock University, that's another way. Of, we do a lot of videos, educational videos, these workshops, we put them all up on bedrockuniversity.com and they're free. A lot of stuff I learned was free. You know, reading. A lot of the entrepreneurial lessons I learned weren't free, they cost a lot of money. And we try to help people not have they were like, listen, learn from my mistakes.

08:07 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, what's the saying you can see so much further by standing on the shoulders of giants.

08:12 – Joe DiChiara

And one of the biggest lessons I learned was don't do your own account. That goes for me that goes for you. When I had some very able accountants on my team, my mother used to do my books, I was out of the picture, or just looked at them. And you know, look at my P&L, my balance sheet. And then she had the audacity to retire on me. So I was like, well, I'll just do my own books. And I did them for about a year and I hated doing them just like any other. I was like, and then I hired some really good accountants And I was like, you know what, can you do this for me? And I started looking at my numbers and I was like, oh my God, why are my finance charges so high?

Why are my merchant fees so high? Because I'm just running a business. That's why I say I'm an entrepreneur. I happen to have a CPA license. Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. You're gonna go through the pain. It's like being born, you know? I know the mother goes through a lot more pain. The baby doesn't even remember it, But it's painful. There's no way around that. When you start a business, it's going to be painful. I guarantee you that.

The suffering is putting yourself in a position where you don't know. You don't know what that IRS letter is saying. You have no way and that causes anxiety and stress. So, you know, it's really business is complicated. And I think my superpower is making it simple for people. Simple to understand, still gonna be painful, but it's like working out. You gotta put the work in, there's no way around that. But once you know that, it's a lot easier.

10:04 – Gresham Harkless

I appreciate that. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have. But what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

10:16 – Joe DiChiara

Oh my God, I'll tell you the truth. The simplest thing is having a simple routine that you follow every day. It could be, listen when I wake up in the morning, I'm going to stretch. You have to prepare yourself for the day. Okay. I'm going to get up and stretch. I'm going to read some inspirational quotes. I got these stringer YouTube videos. I've been watching for like 10 years, Same video every day. And I'm like, I could recite it as it's going.

It's like, you know, Sylvester Stallone, Marianne Williamson. But that stuff stays in my mind and it puts me in a good place to start out my day. So if you start your day off well, it's easier to have a good day. That's as simple as, you know, investing some time in yourself half an hour, an hour, every day, just to prepare yourself, mentally, physically, and emotionally.

11:22 – Gresham Harkless

Well, perfect. Well, I wanted to ask you this now, and this is more of a CEO nugget. So this is a little bit more of a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. I usually say it might be something you would tell your favorite client, or if you have to do a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

11:36 – Joe DiChiara

Keep it simple. What I just said, keep it simple. Like I said, we overcomplicate the simplest stuff. A lot of times the answer is right in front of us. A lot of times we have it and then we go outside and we start looking for it. Sometimes the answer is right in you. Have to go outside. So just, and trust yourself, trust your instincts. We don't do that enough. That's why a lot of people fail when they're so close to success because they don't give themselves enough credit.

They don't. It's a simple mindset. It's like they don't believe they're like, Oh, they must be right. I'm crazy. I'm doing. Yeah. Well, if you're an entrepreneur, you're freaking crazy. You have to be. Look at Thomas Edison. How many times have you tried that light bulb thing? How many times? When are you going to give it up? If obviously, it ain't working, you know, so give yourself some credit and keep it simple.

12:32 – Gresham Harkless

So let me ask you this, my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on this show. So Joe, what does being a CEO mean to you?

12:42 – Joe DiChiara

Wow, it's, it's a responsibility to take on a responsibility. It's like becoming a parent. Everybody wants a child until you get to start changing diapers, right? Like I said, I think my favorite saying is to be careful what you ask for. I always wanted a mammoth business where I had a lot of people working, not for me, but with me. I don't have employees, I have team members. And so being a CEO is a lot like being a manager of a sports team. Okay, I got all these different people, all different talents, and I gotta make sure that they're in the right positions.

And you gotta try people out, and you gotta motivate them, and you gotta inspire them. And that's different. As an accountant, if you're an accountant, not an entrepreneur, it's hard because you might be a numbers cruncher. You know, I've had a lot of life experiences. I taught myself a lot of stuff. You got to be open. I've learned from a lot of successful people. But it's the relationships. That's the most important thing. As a CEO, You have to have relationships with your team members and teach them how to have relationships with your clients. And that's how we're scaling our business.

14:11 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely appreciate that perspective. Of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I want to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and of course how best people get a hold of you, find out about all the awesome things you and your team are working on.

14:26 – Joe DiChiara

I like to send people to our mastermind. We have so much fun, we meet people, we network, but more importantly, we learn from each other. It's unbelievable what I pick up from people who just ask questions. It was like, you know what, somebody asked a question about merchant fees and Venmo. And we got into this whole discussion. You know, sometimes we go down rabbit holes, but at the end of the day, I'm like, well, I really got something out of this. And it's free. We don't charge people for it. All you have to do is go to mastermindwithjoe.com and register and you can check it out for yourself. If you don't enjoy it, we'll give you your money back.

15:11 – Gresham Harkless

There you go, there you go. We're gonna hold you to that, Joe. So I truly appreciate that. And of course, we're gonna have the links and information in the show notes as well too. But I love that last piece you kind of left us with of making sure to kind of go for it. I think some of the times we think the pain, the pain of failure is the worst pain, but often it's the pain of regret of never even trying.

You never kind of get rid of that and that never goes away. So I appreciate you reminding us of how important it is to go for it because there are a lot of people who don't. And I think it's so important to do that, not just for ourselves, but for the impact that we can have in so many other people's lives.

15:47 – Joe DiChiara

So I'm going to borrow that to pain or regret if you don't mind.

15:51 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Well, no worries. I borrowed it from somebody else. So definitely if you don't like it, you can charge them. So there we go.

15:59 – Joe DiChiara

Oh, that's good. That hit a nerve.

16:03 – Gresham Harkless

Yes. Well, I truly appreciate you, Joe. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:08 – Joe DiChiara

Your turn.

16:08 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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