IAM2824 -Public Accountant Helps Business Owners Gain Clarity and Focus on What Truly Drives Growth

In this episode, Gresham Harkless welcomes Avraham “Avi” Pinsky, CPA, MBT, and Founder of Pinsky Consulting. After over a decade in public accounting, Avi launched his firm to provide more than just financial number crunching, acting as a trusted partner to help small business owners build sustainable success.

Avi shares that his primary product is “focus”. By leveraging financial data, he helps CEOs filter out unimportant tasks and prioritize high-impact, long-term growth activities.

Avi credits his “secret sauce” to his ability to bring a deep understanding of numbers to the table without forcing business owners to become accountants themselves. His key takeaway is that periodic review and analysis of what is and isn't working are essential to avoid stagnation. He defines a CEO as a leader of leaders who focuses on the “big vision” and successfully delegates daily operations to a trusted team.

Webpage: https://www.pinskyconsulting.com/

Prosperity Playbook: https://www.pinskyconsulting.com/prosperity-playbook

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/avrahampinsky/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61558969844549

Avi Pinsky 00:00
You got to analyze what's been working, what hasn't been working. You can't just keep doing the same thing and be like, yeah, eventually it's going to start. Eventually the clients are going to cut. Like, no, you got to, you got to figure out, well, I've been approaching this a certain way, and it hasn't been getting me where I need to go. It's time to switch it up. So you need that periodic review.

Gresham Harkless 00:47
Hello, hello, hello, this is Gretch from the I Am CEO podcast, and I have an awesome guest on the show today. I have Avi Pinsky. Avi, excited to have you on the show.

Avi Pinsky 00:55
Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Gresham Harkless 00:57
Yeah, I'm super excited as well. And Avi's doing so many awesome things, and so I'm super excited to have this conversation. But of course, before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about AVI so you can hear about some of those awesome things. And after over a decade as a public accountant, Avraham Avi Pinsky, cpa, MBT saw firsthand that small business owners need more than just financial number crunching. They need a trusted partner to diagnose challenges and provide actionable solutions. PK Consulting does. Jepinski's Consulting does just that. AVI helps business owners uncover financial roadblocks, gain clarity, and focus on what truly drives growth, profitability, and consistent, positive cash flow. By simplifying complex financial concepts, AVI empowers business owners to take control of their finances and build sustainable success. And I was poking around before we hopped on this, and Avi goes by a couple different names. He goes by the Business Finance doctor and also a recovering accountant as well, too. But one of the things I love about what Avi does is I think so many times we think about our cars and our vehicles and you have to take it to the shop to make sure everything's working well and make sure all the things are doing the right things that they need to do. I want to compare a lot of what it sounds like he does to that, to making sure that while we run our businesses and go through the things and be Experts in our crafts, that we have all those things in the right place so that we can reach the goals that we ultimately want to. So, Avi, super excited to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I Am CEO community?

Avi Pinsky 02:16
Yeah, a hundred percent. Like you said, you know, a business is. Is essentially a machine with a lot of parts. Just like a car, you gotta make sure all those parts are working in. In proper order and that they're working together properly. Otherwise the whole thing falls apart.

Gresham Harkless 02:29
Yeah, absolutely. And just like a car, we don't want our businesses either to fall apart, so we want to make sure they're running as optimally as they can. So I guess to kind of kick everything off, what I wanted to do was just rewind the clock a little bit, hear a little bit more on how you got started, what I call your CEO story.

Avi Pinsky 02:44
Yeah, so my story goes back to when I was in, you know, maybe 18 or so. When I was in, I took a gap year between high school and college to study in Israel in seminary. And I was trying to figure out, like, what's my purpose in life? You know, what am I. What am I doing here, what are my goals? Where am I trying to get to? And I was talking to one of my rabbis, one of my mentors at the time, and he was talking about his accountant as being kind of like his financial doctor, that without his accountant, his. He doesn't know how he would make ends meet, how he would, you know, support his family.

Speaker B 03:19
And.

Avi Pinsky 03:20
And that really spoke to me because, you know, accounting is, you know, as boring of a profession as it. As it. As it might be, it really is a good, secure position. And if you can find a way to impact somebody's lives using, you know, using those tools that you're given. So, you know, that's, I think, the best usage of my time here. And so that was kind of my aha. Moment of that's what I kind of got to get into, be this finance doctor for families. Now life takes you in all different directions where you don't necessarily plan on going. And my career kind of took me away from the personal aspect of accounting that I wanted to go into and into the business area. And then after about a dozen years or so, doing taxes for corporations, partnerships, even going into the taxes of individuals, at one point, I realized that doing taxes is not really the same thing that he was talking about. And it kind of made me question, who is his accountant? Was he telling me about, like, this is not what accountants do. So I kind of fell into a CFO type of network with other accountants who are trying to do more advisory type of work. And even though it wasn't the same thing that I kind of set my path towards that, that personal family budgeting advisory consultant, you know, finance doctor, it still was very much that same idea of helping somebody understand their numbers, how to use that information to better their lives. But instead of being on the personal family side, it was more on the business side. How to grow the business and how to make it prosper more so that first of all, that the owner can have a better life. But then at the same time, I realized that if I can help somebody who owns a business with 20, 30, 40, a hundred, 200 employees, not only am I helping his family because he's going to be better off, but at the same time I'm helping all those other families as well by proxy. Uh, right. Cause if that business goes under, they're all out of jobs as well. Uh, so it, it really kind of, even though it wasn't exactly what I was going for, I, I really saw it as a, a blessing in disguise that I kind of went that path of the business accounting and then I'm now able to focus it back into that finance role. Uh, so now instead of just being a regular finance doctor, I get to be a business finance doctor instead.

Gresham Harkless 05:40
I know you touched on it a little bit. I wanted to drill down a little bit more, hear a little bit more on how that looks like you working with and serving the clients that you work with.

Avi Pinsky 05:47
Yeah. So basically, if you want to narrow it down to one word, what's my product? What am I giving? It's focus. The business owners, the CEOs, they're torn in so many different directions. Right. Every fire comes across their desk, every issue comes across their desk. And some things are things that need their attention and some things that aren't. The question is, where can they really spend their time with the best, with the biggest ROI for their efforts and their time. If anybody's read Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Right. So he talks about the different sectors you have, the things that are important, things that are urgent, things that are not important, and things that are not urgent. And it's really narrowing down your focus to get rid of those things that are not important or those things that are not going to help the business thrive in the long term. Getting those off your desk, figuring out who else can handle them and which things you yourself should be doing and should be spending your time on, right. Where you would call those Category 2 endeavors, the things that are not necessarily urgent, but they're highly, highly important. So they oftentimes get pushed to the back to make way for the things that are urgent, even if they're not important. Right. So as the business owner, you have to figure out not how to People a lot of times throw around not to work in your business, but on your business. So it's that same idea. How are you going to help move the ball forward instead of getting bogged down with, with. With all the details and the unimportant things that come across your, Your desk throughout the day, what things should you be focusing on? And that's really what I help you narrow the narrow, narrow down to using the finances, using the numbers. We can drill down and figure out which areas actually deserve your focus and which things can be given to other people that are not necessarily worth your time and effort.

Gresham Harkless 07:38
Nice. I. I love that. And I almost wonder if that speaks to kind of like your, Your secret sauce. It could be for yourself, the business, or a combination of both. But I feel like you have this ability, like, I think, you know, once you, you know, hear the things that you do, the first thing I wouldn't think about, like, what you do is focusing. But I feel like you have this ability to be able to kind of understand the greater aspect of business. Like what somebody, as you said so well, what somebody does, you know, from their products and services, but also where they want to go and be able to kind of understand the numbers and how those things can work in alignment together. Like, do you feel like being able to kind of like, understand the forest for the trees, to understand all those aspects and be able to strategize around that is really what is your secret sauce and what set you apart and makes you unique?

Avi Pinsky 08:18
Yeah, exactly. It's a matter, you know, what I'm doing is I'm coming in, I'm understanding the numbers, and I'm bringing the understanding to the table. I'm not coming, and I'm not coming to teach you accounting. I'm not coming to teach you how to look at your numbers. Right? That, that's. No. If you're, if you're a carpenter, you're a plumber, you're a doctor, right? If you're a doctor, a lawyer, you don't want to know. You don't learn accounting. Right? Who does? Who.

Speaker B 08:44
Who.

Avi Pinsky 08:44
Who really in the right mind wants to learn accounting? Right. It's. It's not necessarily exciting. A lot of people, a Lot of people are very intimidated by numbers in general. So what I'm coming in is to say, you know, this is what the, this is what Data has told me you need to focus on. Right. I'm, if, if you're a bookkeeper or if you have a CFO of some sort who's coming and he's be like, okay, I'm not going to teach you accounting 101. We're going to learn about assets, liabilities, revenue. Excuse me, that's not what. I didn't go to school for that. I'm not looking to go back to college. I don't care about it. Tell me what I need to know. And what you need to know as the business owner is how to grow your business. How to focus on growing your business. Right? So you need to bring somebody in who's not going to give you another hat to wear, but who's going to tell you, okay, I'm now taking this thing off your plate so that you can now focus on the other stuff that's there and maybe learn to shed a couple things from there as well. But, but if I'm coming just to be like, yes, this is what the numbers are telling you, and this is how you should understand this. You should look at it, you know, okay, if you want to, you know, good luck. But if you want to actually do something that's going to be worth your time, so bring somebody in to help understand it for you, and then let them draw the conclusions and bring them to the table. Don't, don't put another job on your own head.

Gresham Harkless 10:00
I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple book or a habit that you have. What's something you lean on that makes you more effective and efficient?

Avi Pinsky 10:10
So, so for me, it's, it's similar to what I do with my clients, right? You got to analyze what's been working, what hasn't been working. You can't just keep doing the same thing and be like, yeah, eventually it's going to start. Eventually the clients are going to cut. Like, no, you got to, you got to figure out, well, I've been approaching this a certain way, and it hasn't been getting me where I need to go. It's time to switch it up. So you need that periodic review. You know, it's silly kind of even calling it a hack because it seems so simple. But so, but, but, but people don't do it. People get caught up in the, in. In, like you said, the firefighting. And, and in just the way that they've always done it. So they continue to always do it that way. And it's like, no, like that. That's. That's not. You know, you're given a brain for a reason. Like, let's use it. Let's see what's been working, what hasn't been working, and what can we do about it, what can we change? And if you're just going to keep going business as usual when things aren't going the way you want them to go, then you can't be doing business as usual. You're going to have to change it up.

Gresham Harkless 11:07
Absolutely. So I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. This could be a little bit more word of wisdom or piece of advice. You might have already shared or touched on this, but it's something you would tell your favorite client or if you hopped into a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

Avi Pinsky 11:21
Well, I got a nugget somebody told me a couple weeks ago, which I thought was like, genius. It's not really related to what I do exactly. It's tangential, but it's just so good. I have to share it.

Gresham Harkless 11:34
Yes, please.

Avi Pinsky 11:37
This is somebody who does more generic business coaching, not from a numbers perspective like I do. So he was saying that when you're running your business and you come to an obstacle and you're looking for your path forward, and all of a sudden there's an obstacle in the path, the obstacle is not an obstacle. The obstacle is the path. If there's something that you're pushing off because it's uncomfortable, it's something that you don't want to do, that's oftentimes the path that you should be taking forward. Right. Even though you know you don't like doing it. But sometimes, and you know, we can all look. We can all look at ourselves a little introspectively. And, and I know I do occasionally. And, and, and this thought really made me think about some things that I was pushing off. A lot of times in the business. If you're pushing it off, it's because, you know, that's really the way to go. And even if it's uncomfortable like you, you're gonna have to do it if you're pushing it off because it makes you uncomfortable. Really ask yourself, well, if I was. If I was looking at myself as my own employee and I told this employee, this is what the business needs you to do, and he Kept pushing it off and pushing. Would you keep yourself employed? Right. Or would you say like, dude, you know, pull on your pants, be a big boy and go do it. So, so that's kind of the nugget is the obstacle and the path is the path.

Gresham Harkless 13:01
Absolutely. So now I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And our goal is to have different, quote, unquote, CEOs on the show. So, Avi, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Avi Pinsky 13:12
So CEO to me is someone who's working on moving the business forward, looking at the big picture, seeing what has to change, and seeing where the business has to develop from where it is now. He's setting the goals and finding the path towards accomplishing those goals. Right. He's not caught in the past. He's not, you know, you're not looking at the numbers to see how it did.

Gresham Harkless 13:36
Right.

Avi Pinsky 13:36
That's what your accountant's doing. That's what your bookkeeper's doing, and that's their job. Right. That's an important job that needs to be done. I, I, I like to, to, to rag on accountants because I am one, but it is an important job. Right. You do need to pay your taxes, and if you're not, then you're going to get in trouble. Uh, you do need to report your sales tax. You do need to do those things. Your accountant is an important cog in the wheel, but your job as a CEO is to take that data and to look forward to. A CEO is somebody who's looking forward into the future and figuring out where do we want to take the business in a year, in five years, in 10 years, and then coming up with what do I have to do now in order to make that possible. That's, that's the way I look at a CEO.

Gresham Harkless 14:14
What I wanted to do now was 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 on with you. Find about all the awesome things that you're working on.

Avi Pinsky 14:23
Yeah, so the best way to get in touch with me is going on my website or connecting with me on LinkedIn or Facebook. I don't really know to post on so much on social media, but I'm much more active in the DMs. You could search for Avi Pinsky or Avraham Pinsky. Either one will probably get you to me. And you can go to my website@pinskyconsulting.com and there's a way there to book a time to meet with me and get a free health assessment on your business. You can go there and click at the top link. There's a link for a Prosperity Playbook. It's my free giveaway where you can download an Excel. And you know, I said before, you're not trying to become an accountant and learn that, but if your business is small enough and you want to handle it yourself, you want to have a more hands on approach to the numbers. Still, it's an easy way to set targets for your business and to track how are you doing, how are you, how are you, how's business going towards achieving those goals and then kind of figuring out which areas you should be focusing on. And for those people who want to DIY it, there's a, it's a free download downloadable Excel right there.

Gresham Harkless 15:28
Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, thank you so much, Avi. Of course, to make it even easier, we're going to have the links and information in the show notes as well too, so that everybody can click through and get a copy of that Prosperity Playbook and you know, take advantage of those things just to learn more. Even if you're not doing it, you know, you get that opportunity to kind of have a little bit more awareness around what's happening or could be happening in the business. And of course, reach out to Avi if you definitely need to do that. So Avi, truly appreciate your time, appreciate all the awesome things you're doing. I love it just because I think so many times in business we get caught in the weeds. We get caught in doing all the things and we don't realize that there's an alternative and better way. But so many times the way the obstacle is actually leaning on somebody else. And I know it's hard to do because we're supposed to be superheroes as entrepreneurs and business owners, but in reality we realize the people that are the most quote unquote successful don't do it alone. They don't get to that path alone. They often lean on each other. So I love that you do that. I appreciate you mentioning that to us today and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of it.