How Top Businesses Unlock Cash Flow Secrets | Dan Pascone with Marko Glisic | Podcast #11

Posted on May 9, 2025 by Dan Pascone

Answer Box: TL;DR

Growing businesses don’t fail for lack of ideas—they fail for lack of cash-flow clarity. In this episode, Dan and CPA partner Marko break down how mid-market companies can use better data, tighter controls, and intentional strategy to unlock cash flow. They cover how to think like a Fortune 500 using three categories of metrics (controls, diagnostics, and “offense” metrics), why aligning your business goals with your personal wealth goals matters so much, and how AI and automation are reshaping accounting from a compliance function into a relationship-driven advisory role.

Key Takeaways

Not all CPA firms are created equal. Many are pure compliance shops (filings, basic bookkeeping). Green Growth positions itself as a boutique advisory firm focused on tax planning, outsourced finance, and helping owners grow cash flow and EBITDA—not just check boxes.
Cash flow is the engine that powers every path forward. Whether you want to take distributions, reinvest in acquisitions, or prep for a sale, everything hinges on increasing and stabilizing cash flow.
EBITDA isn’t just a buzzword—it’s your valuation lever. Most businesses are valued on a multiple of EBITDA. Grow EBITDA and you not only grow the base number, you often earn a higher multiple, creating a powerful compounding effect on exit value.
Mid-market companies need “big company” data discipline. Unlike Fortune 500s, smaller businesses usually have data trapped in multiple systems (QuickBooks, POS, billing, etc.). Consolidating data into one source of truth (e.g., with tools like Power BI) is often the first major unlock.
Think in three metric buckets: controls, diagnostics, and offense. Controls prevent leaks (e.g., stacked discounts, incorrect markup, expired inventory), diagnostics explain what happened (margins, sales, and EBITDA movement), and offense metrics test growth moves and measure impact fast.
Strategy has to cascade through the org. Once leadership sets clear goals (exit, lifestyle, or expansion), those should translate into concrete targets for sales, customer service, HR, and operations so everyone rows in the same direction.
Trust is everything in financial relationships. Marko emphasizes that without trust, there is no real client relationship—especially when you’re advising on cash flow, valuation, and personal wealth implications.
Good content can “pre-build” trust before you ever meet. Publishing useful tax, accounting, and strategy content helps prospects get value and feel confident in your expertise before they reach out.
AI and automation won’t kill accounting—they’ll kill low-value busywork. Marko sees AI as a way to strip out manual, repetitive tasks so CPAs can spend more time on high-value advisory work and human relationships.
Owners should be bold and deliberate. Both in business and personal finance, Marko’s advice to his younger self is to make moves sooner and “grab the bull by the horns” instead of waiting for things to happen.

Key Moments

00:02 – Opening and sponsor. Tailored Wealth is introduced as helping business leaders live their version of a rich life.
00:31 – Dan sets up episode 11. Dan introduces himself and the show’s mission: cutting through financial noise for high-level professionals.
00:58 – Meet Marko from Green Growth CPAs. Dan introduces Marko as a partner at Green Growth CPAs, a full-scale firm handling audits, outsourced accounting/finance, and tax planning.
01:18 – Marko’s background & Big 4 roots. Marko shares that he studied accounting, graduated around the 2010 financial crisis, considered finance but pivoted into accounting, and joined Deloitte in LA in audit.
01:43 – Why audit is a powerful training ground. He explains how auditing Fortune 500s gives incredible insight into pricing, strategy, customer acquisition, headcount, and reporting lines—perfect for someone curious about business.
03:09 – Founding Green Growth CPAs. Marko describes Green Growth as a boutique firm staffed with Big 4 alumni, aimed at adding value to small and mid-sized businesses through tax planning, outsourced finance, and strategy.
04:02 – How the partnership started. Marko’s partner, also ex-Big 4, reached out about an audit project. They collaborated organically on projects, which eventually evolved into a formal partnership and a firm of 60+ people.
05:31 – Ideal client profile. Green Growth typically serves companies with $2M–$50M+ in revenue whose owners are serious about scaling to the next level.
06:09 – Beyond compliance: true advisory. Marko distinguishes “compliance-only” firms from their model where they also help optimize tax structures, entity setups, and risk profiles, and provide outsourced CFO-level guidance.
06:26 – Cash flow as the central objective. He describes how improving cash flow gives owners options: distribute to themselves, reinvest in strategic acquisitions, or build toward a more valuable exit.
06:44 – Strategic acquisitions as a growth lever. Examples include a manufacturer buying a retail operation, or acquiring a distributor with existing relationships to introduce new product lines.
07:11 – EBITDA and valuation. Marko explains that businesses are typically valued at a multiple of EBITDA, and that both a higher EBITDA and a higher multiple (which often comes with size) can dramatically boost exit value.
07:53 – Three types of metrics. Marko lays out his framework:
- Control metrics: monitoring costs and internal controls (e.g., discount stacking, proper inventory markup, avoiding inventory expiration).
- Descriptive diagnostics: understanding changes in margins, sales, and EBITDA month-over-month.
- Offense metrics: measuring the effect of strategic actions on sales, costs, and margins so you can quickly see what’s working.
09:10 – Test and iterate on strategy. Dan references the “bullet then cannonball” idea (from Jim Collins), and Marko agrees that mapping actions to measurable results is key.
10:17 – Business life cycle stages. Marko walks through different stages: early-stage companies striving for cash-flow break-even, profitable firms aiming to return capital, and growing businesses considering exits, expansion, or lifestyle optimization.
11:05 – The two biggest universal challenges: data & goals. Regardless of stage, Marko sees two main issues: fragmented data and unclear or un-cascaded objectives.
11:25 – Data fragmentation in smaller businesses. Unlike large corporations, smaller companies often have separate systems for GL (QuickBooks), billing, and POS, making it hard to get a unified view.
11:42 – Centralizing data with tools like Power BI. Green Growth uses Power BI and other software to pull data into one place and enable analysis.
11:58 – Aligning business and personal goals. Marko highlights the importance of understanding owners’ personal goals and making sure business objectives and departmental targets line up with them.
12:32 – When things “click.” He notes there’s an emotional, tangible feeling when strategy, data, and execution come into alignment.
13:22 – How people find Green Growth. Dan asks about client acquisition; Marko mentions their website, LinkedIn, and a strong emphasis on producing valuable content (including a YouTube channel they’re relaunching).
13:50 – Content as trust-building. Marko believes in giving away useful insights so that by the time someone becomes a client, trust is already established.
14:58 – Referral partners. Key partners include attorneys (often first on the scene when entities are formed) and financial advisors (helping owners deploy cash outside the business and derisk over time).
16:37 – Aligning business strategy with personal wealth strategy. Dan emphasizes the importance of tying decisions about exits, reinvestment, and personal goals together—something he’s passionate about in his own practice.
16:55 – The future of accounting: AI and automation. Marko predicts significant change in the profession over the next 5–10 years and acknowledges many practitioners feel anxious about it.
17:36 – Why he’s optimistic about AI. He sees AI as a way to automate repetitive, low-value work, freeing CPAs to invest more time in relationships and advisory work.
17:53 – Humanization, not dehumanization. Contrary to the fear of bots replacing humans, Marko believes automation will actually enable more human-to-human interaction where it matters most.
18:13 – Investing internally in tech. Green Growth has an in-house IT team focused on automating workflows; once they solve problems for themselves, they plan to help other firms do the same.
19:02 – Lightning round begins. Dan shifts to getting to know Marko personally.
19:19 – Coffee or tea; cats or dogs. Marko chooses coffee and dogs.
19:36 – Favorite tool. True to his profession, he names QuickBooks as the tool he can’t live without.
20:08 – Core success philosophy. He believes in being deliberate: define your goals and “grab the bull by the horns”—don’t wait for things to happen.
20:43 – Favorite books. Marko mentions The E-Myth (on the roles of technician, manager, and owner) and Gary Keller’s work (emphasizing focus and defining the “one thing” to solve each day).
21:16 – Simple personal finance hack. He recommends using a good expense tracker and specifically mentions Monarch as a strong tool.
21:33 – Bucket list item achieved. Completing an acquisition of another firm was a major checkbox for him and the team.
21:50 – What he learned doing his own deal. Marko explains how having skin in the game changes your risk perspective and teaches you even more about deal structure, integration, and execution.
22:47 – Current financial milestone. He’s working toward building truly passive income—cash flow that’s meaningful enough to replace his active income and keeps coming with minimal monthly involvement.
23:22 – Advice to younger self. Be bolder and make moves sooner.
23:43 – How to connect. Marko says LinkedIn is the best way to reach him; he’s active and responds to messages.
24:00 – Dan’s closing. Dan thanks Marko and wraps the episode with his usual reminder to keep strategy sharp, goals clear, and money working as hard as you do.

Episode Summary

In this episode of Making Sense of Your Money, host Dan sits down with Marko, a partner at Green Growth CPAs, to dig into how top businesses unlock cash flow and build enterprise value using better data, metrics, and strategy.

Marko starts by sharing his journey: graduating into the aftermath of the financial crisis, choosing accounting over finance, and building his skill set in audit at a Big 4 firm. That experience gave him front-row access to how Fortune 500 companies price, structure, and run their operations. Eventually, he teamed up with another Big 4 alum to launch Green Growth CPAs, a boutique firm of 60+ professionals focused on small and mid-sized businesses.

Unlike many firms that focus purely on compliance, Green Growth emphasizes tax planning, outsourced accounting and finance, and CFO-level advisory. Their ideal clients are typically $2M–$50M+ in revenue and hungry to get to the next level. For Marko, everything comes back to cash flow. Improve cash flow and owners can choose to take distributions, reinvest in strategic acquisitions, or build toward a more lucrative exit based on EBITDA multiples.

A big portion of the conversation centers on metrics. Marko outlines three buckets: control metrics (to stop leaks like stacked discounts or mispriced inventory), descriptive diagnostics (to explain changes in margins, sales, and EBITDA), and offense metrics (to measure the impact of strategic moves quickly). He and Dan talk about the importance of testing strategies in small “bullet” experiments before committing full “cannonball” resources, and how good data enables faster, more confident decisions.

Marko highlights two universal challenges he sees across businesses: fragmented data systems and a lack of clearly cascaded goals. Large enterprises solve this with integrated systems and robust reporting, but small and mid-sized companies often juggle QuickBooks, POS, billing platforms, and spreadsheets. Green Growth uses tools like Power BI to centralize data so leaders can see what’s happening in one place. From there, they help owners align high-level goals (exit, lifestyle, expansion) with concrete targets for sales, operations, HR, and other functions.

Dan and Marko also explore the relationship between business strategy and personal wealth strategy. As cash flow improves, owners need to think about derisking by moving money outside the business and aligning financial decisions with long-term personal goals—a space where CPAs and financial advisors can add huge value together.

Looking ahead, Marko believes AI and automation will materially change the accounting profession over the next decade. He’s optimistic: instead of threatening CPAs, AI can eliminate manual, low-value work and free up time for higher-value advisory and relationship-building. Green Growth is investing in internal automation and workflow tools so that they—and eventually other firms—can offer more strategic, human-centric support to clients.

The episode closes with a lightning round where Marko shares his love of coffee and dogs, his reliance on QuickBooks and expense trackers like Monarch, and some favorite reads, including The E-Myth and Gary Keller’s “one thing” philosophy. His advice to his younger self—and to listeners—is to be bold, act deliberately, and “grab the bull by the horns” rather than waiting for the perfect moment.

Full Transcript

Announcer: Brought to you by Tailored Wealth, helping business leaders live their version of a rich life.

Announcer: Welcome to another edition of the Making Sense of Your Money podcast, where we cut through the financial noise and help business leaders to make smart, confident money decisions.

Dan: Welcome to episode number 11 of the Making Sense of Your Money podcast. I’m your host, Dan. I am the founder and CEO of Tailored Wealth. And each episode features a trusted voice in the financial world—someone who works directly with high-level professionals to simplify the complex and turn strategy into action.

Dan: Today, I’m really excited to welcome a special guest. We’ve got with us Marko. Marko is a partner with Green Growth CPAs. He and his firm really specialize in full-scale accounting and tax services.

Dan: Marko, it’s great to have you on. I’m pumped to have you today.

Marko: Thank you so much, Dan. Thank you for having me. Really excited.

Dan: Very cool. I know our audience has a lot they want to hear from you, and we want your expert take on some key topics. Let’s get started with a quick overview. If you don’t mind, give us a 90-second snapshot of what you do and how you got into your field.

Marko: Yeah, absolutely. I’m a partner at Green Growth CPAs. We’re a full-scale CPA firm. We handle audits of publicly traded companies and private companies. We do a lot of outsourced accounting and finance, and we also do tax compliance and tax planning.

Marko: I kind of have my hands in multiple areas, but for your audience I think the most interesting part is around outsourced accounting, outsourced finance, and the tax planning piece.

Marko: I studied accounting in college. Interestingly enough, I graduated around 2010, right after the big financial crisis when the job market was tough. Originally I was considering getting into finance, but as you’ll recall, banks were struggling. My brother studied accounting in college—he’s also a professor for managerial accounting and finance—so I figured this could be a great profession and career.

Marko: I talked to professors, who were passionate about accounting and encouraged me to pursue it. I went through the whole recruiting process with the firms, interviewing, and ended up working at Deloitte in the Los Angeles office in audit.

Marko: I was with Deloitte all the way through senior manager. That gave me great experience and perspective. You learn a lot, you work with Fortune 500 companies, you see what the big players are doing—how they organize their business, how they go about pricing, setting strategy, acquiring customers, staffing, and setting reporting lines.

Marko: If you’re really curious about business and want to learn it deeply, audit is a fantastic way to do that. For me, it gave me the basis to move on and start Green Growth with my partner.

Marko: The idea with Green Growth is that we’re a boutique firm. All of our professionals are generally from Big 4—Deloitte, KPMG, EY, PwC. We really want to work with small and mid-sized businesses and see how we can add value in many different ways: through tax planning and compliance, or through outsourced accounting, finance, and strategy—helping them get to the next level and increase their cash flow and EBITDA. We’re very passionate about that space.

Dan: Love it. Very cool. Great breakdown. I deal with a lot of CPAs and folks in the accounting business, and we’ve had a few on this show.

Dan: Tell me a little about how you got connected with your partner and how the foundation of Green Growth was built.

Marko: Sure. My partner was also at Deloitte and then later at PwC. He started off more on the tax side, whereas I was more on the audit side. Through that network, we knew of each other but had never really met.

Marko: One day, right as I was leaving Deloitte, he randomly reached out. He said, “Hey, I saw you online. I see you’re looking for different projects and marketing yourself. I have this project—audit work—I need help with. I’m looking to partner up with someone on it.”

Marko: I said, “Let me take a look.” It was a very organic and natural way for our partnership to start. I think when partnerships start like that, they often work out best. For him, it was, “I have these great leads, but this service line isn’t my expertise. I don’t know how to execute—can you help?”

Marko: We started working project by project, and from there it expanded into a formal partnership and a larger firm. Now we have 60-plus people.

Dan: Very cool. Good for you. I love it when you get the partnership where 1 plus 1 equals more than 2, and it sounds like that’s what you guys have. You make 1 + 1 equal 3—or more. I love hearing those success stories.

Dan: All right, let’s talk about Green Growth. I know you’re pretty comprehensive in nature. Tell us a little about your ideal client and what working with your group looks like.

Marko: A lot of clients we work with, in terms of revenue, are typically in the $2 million to $50 million-plus range. We really look to work with owners who want to get to the next level. They’re passionate about their business.

Marko: We view ourselves as true advisors. A lot of CPA firms you work with will be more compliance shops—and that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that. But we also want to see how we can add value.

Marko: That might be through tax planning—figuring out ways to optimize your tax structure and entity structure, change your risk profile, and save money on taxes. Or it might be through outsourced CFO work.

Marko: In that role, we work with clients to really break down their business. On the outsourced finance side, one of the main things we strive for is increasing cash flow. Once you have improved cash flow, you can take the business in many directions.

Marko: Maybe you want to start distributing that money back to yourself as an owner, so you can work with someone like you, Dan, to build personal wealth. Or you might want to keep reinvesting in the business—looking for strategic acquisitions. If you’re a manufacturer, maybe you want to buy a retail business so you can sell your product directly to customers. Or maybe you acquire a distributor with great contacts, and now you can introduce another product line.

Marko: Or, if you want to sell your business, the larger your cash flow—your EBITDA, which is a proxy for cash flow—the better your exit is going to be. Businesses are usually valued as a multiple of EBITDA. The bigger EBITDA is, the larger the base number you’re multiplying, and generally the bigger your EBITDA, the higher the multiple too. It has a compounding effect.

Marko: We love coming in and breaking down the metrics for the business. I think of metrics in three types.

Marko: The first type is cost monitoring, cost cutting, and internal control metrics. For example, if you have a retail business, are we stacking discounts and losing money on them? When we bring in inventory, mark it up, and sell it at retail, are we applying the markup properly? Do we have inventory expiring because we didn’t sell it in time?

Marko: Those things are about having good internal controls so you’re not losing money unnecessarily. Why leave that money on the table?

Marko: The second set of metrics is descriptive—just understanding what’s happening in the business. Why did margin change month over month? Why did it decrease or increase? Why did sales or EBITDA margins move?

Marko: The third set of metrics is for offense. The main goal is increasing cash flow, so we want metrics and a system that allow us to quickly and easily measure the impact of actions we take. Did sales go up? Did costs go down? Did margin improve?

Marko: You need good systems, processes, and metrics so you can measure that impact and see whether what you’re doing actually makes a difference. In business, a lot of it is testing different things—you set your strategy, you execute, and you want early discovery of whether it’s working or not.

Dan: Very cool, great stuff. I always use the term “fire a bullet, then fire a cannonball.” That’s our testing mechanism—that’s a Jim Collins reference for those following. Fire the bullet first, test it, get data, see how it works. If it works, then you fire the cannonball.

Dan: I love that strategy. It really sounds like you and your team are true partners to your clients. It’s not just “we’ll file your taxes and keep your books straight.” You’re helping them make key business decisions, which I love to see. It makes for a higher-level partnership and a better discussion today, which I’m enjoying.

Dan: If you don’t mind, let’s talk a bit about the challenges your clients face. You’ve got clients in a wide array of industries and product lines, but what are some of the biggest challenges you’re helping them overcome?

Marko: Absolutely. Every business is in a different stage when you start working with them. There’s a life cycle.

Marko: You’ll have clients just starting off who’ve raised some money and now their first goal is to get to cash-flow neutral and then cash-flow positive.

Marko: Clients that are already cash-flow positive then face the question: can you actually start returning capital and making a return for yourself and your partners?

Marko: Then you have companies growing at a good pace. For them, it’s: strategically, where do you want to position yourself? Are we working toward an exit and a sale? Are we working toward greater expansion through M&A? Or are we turning this into a lifestyle business and focusing on extracting cash and building personal wealth?

Marko: Regardless of the stage, I see two main challenges. One is data.

Marko: Large companies—Fortune 500s—have good systems where they can quickly access data and make decisions with fast feedback. Smaller businesses usually don’t. They have an ecosystem of different systems: maybe QuickBooks for the general ledger, something else for billing, another system for POS. Just getting all the data in one place and analyzing it is a huge challenge.

Marko: We use Power BI and other software to pull all of that data into one central space and then analyze it.

Marko: The second challenge is setting structure around goals. What are the owner’s personal goals and the business goals, and how does that trickle down to the rest of the organization?

Marko: If this is the main goal for the business, what’s the goal for the salesperson? What’s the goal for customer support? For HR? Should HR focus on aggressive hiring, or is the priority maintaining culture?

Marko: Those are the two main things: data and objectives. Every business is different, but if you can solve those two, things start falling into place quickly. People feel it, too—you can sense when things click. There’s an emotional component that feels amazing.

Dan: I love that. What I heard is you’re taking the vision, goals, and objectives of the leadership team and aligning them from top to bottom. That’s critical in any organization. I’ve seen it go well and not so well in my own career and with clients we advise. Really good points.

Dan: Tell us a bit about how people find you. How do you get connected with clients, and what does that journey look like for a business owner?

Marko: People can reach out via our website or on LinkedIn. We used to have a very good YouTube channel, and we’re restarting that as well.

Marko: We truly believe in providing a lot of valuable content and being thought leaders in the space. I love when people first consume our content, get value from it, and then when we start working together, the trust is already there.

Marko: As you know, when you work with a client, trust is everything. Without trust, there really is no relationship.

Dan: We could spend hours talking about that. Trust is key in any client relationship—especially when you’re dealing with finances. It steps up a level when you’re dealing with money.

Dan: The other thing I heard is that you’re creating content to start building that trust, which I’ve found super impactful. In today’s world there are so many distractions, and geography is no longer a barrier. The ability to build trust before you ever talk to someone is powerful, and I love that you’re doing that through content. We’ve invested heavily in that as well.

Dan: What about partners you work with—other professionals in financial services that you collaborate or share referrals with?

Marko: For us, other trusted service advisors are a great source of referrals and relationships. Attorneys are big. In our world, they’re usually the first person a business owner talks to when setting up an entity and key agreements.

Marko: We’re usually the second in line, helping set their infrastructure, finances, and accounting to move them to the next level.

Marko: We also collaborate with financial advisors. Once a business is cash flowing and growing, owners can start placing money into other vehicles. Everyone loves their business—I love my business—but at some point you also want to derisk a bit and put money into other instruments and vehicles.

Dan: One hundred percent. We obviously collaborate with a lot of CPAs. It’s critical to have your business strategy and personal financial strategy aligned. To your point, they go hand in hand.

Dan: I think a lot of people miss this concept—and frankly, I did when I first started the business, even though I’m in financial services. It’s about asking: what do I want to accomplish personally? Then, how do my business decisions drive that?

Dan: If you’re looking for a big exit in five years and want to retire and sit on the beach, your decisions will differ from someone who wants to reinvest and play a longer-term game. That’s why we love interacting with folks like you.

Dan: Tell us a little about the industry. Where do you see it going in the next 5 to 10 years? You mentioned you’re doing some work in IT with AI and automation. Talk about that and where you see the profession heading.

Marko: I think our industry will change quite a bit over the next 5 to 10 years. Talk to professionals and most realize it. Some are vocal about it; others feel a kind of low-level anxiety in the background—wondering what it means for their job.

Marko: I view it differently. I genuinely think AI and automation can transform the profession in a positive way. Our profession has a lot of compliance tasks and manual work, and you only have so many hours in a day.

Marko: The question is: are you spending those hours building relationships with clients and advising them, or on lower-value tasks?

Marko: Automation and AI can transform that. People worry AI will take away from the personal touch—that they’ll be talking to a bot. But the reality is it should free us up so we can build more human-to-human relationships.

Marko: On our end, we’re heavily investing in this—looking at all our workflows. We have an in-house IT team working through how to automate them. If we can solve problems for ourselves, we can also solve them for other firms.

Dan: I love your mindset on AI and automation. A lot of people see it as “humans versus robots,” but if it’s used efficiently and effectively, it should actually give us more opportunities for human connection.

Dan: It lets humans do what we do best—this kind of thing: interacting, advising, collaborating, building relationships. If you do it right, that’s a huge upside.

Dan: All right, great stuff. I’ve enjoyed learning about your business. Now we’re going to shift gears and learn more about you.

Dan: You are officially entering the lightning round. Anyone who’s listened to the podcast knows I never tell guests about this ahead of time, because we want it to be authentic.

Dan: I’ll ask a series of questions. Just give us the first thing that comes to mind. Some are one-word answers; some you can elaborate on. Ready?

Marko: Okay. All right, let’s do it.

Dan: Coffee or tea?

Marko: Coffee.

Dan: Cats or dogs?

Marko: Dogs.

Dan: What’s one tool or piece of technology—hardware or software—other than your computer or phone that you can’t live without?

Marko: I’m an accountant, so I’d have to say QuickBooks. We just can’t live without it.

Dan: That makes sense. Good answer for an accountant; I agree.

Dan: Do you have a favorite quote or phrase about money or success?

Marko: More than a quote, I’d say a thought that comes to mind is: you have to be deliberate. Things don’t just happen. I don’t believe much in pure happenstance. You need to define your goal, grab the bull by the horns, and go for it.

Dan: Grab the bull by the horns—that’s your phrase. I love it. I’m with you on that.

Dan: Do you have a favorite book on finance or business?

Marko: I have a lot. I love The E-Myth. It’s phenomenal for anybody starting off. The breakdown between the technician, the manager, and the owner is huge.

Marko: Another one is by Gary Keller—he built Keller Williams. He really dives into how much focus you need and how to define the one thing you need to solve each day.

Dan: You deal with a lot of corporate and business finances. Do you have a personal finance hack—or any hack—you can share with the audience?

Marko: Get a good expense tracker. I like Monarch—highly recommend it.

Dan: That one’s getting popular. I’m hearing it a lot lately. Very cool.

Dan: Give us one bucket list item you’ve already accomplished—something you’ve checked off.

Marko: Doing an acquisition. For us, we always wanted to acquire another firm, and we’ve done that. That was a big item for us.

Dan: Tell us a little about that acquisition.

Marko: It was an interesting process. It gave us perspective because we often work on the advisory side with clients, but now we had skin in the game ourselves.

Marko: When it’s your own deal, your risk profile changes. You learn a lot about business, deal structure, integrating systems—all of it. The deal stage—negotiating and closing—is exciting. Implementation and integration are a bit rougher, but if you execute well, it can be a big win.

Dan: Very cool. Congratulations.

Dan: What’s one financial milestone—personal or professional—that you’re still working toward?

Marko: Getting to a place where I have truly passive income. A lot of people talk about passive income, but for me it’s income where you can close your eyes for most of the month, check once a month, and it’s still cash flowing. The returns are still coming and in a meaningful amount that could fully replace my income.

Dan: Good for you. Great goal.

Dan: Last one. If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self, what would it be?

Marko: There’s so much, especially as you go through business. If it’s one thing: be bolder and make moves sooner.

Dan: I love that. Take the bull by the horns, right?

Marko: Yes, sir.

Dan: Lastly, you mentioned content and platforms earlier, but if our listeners want to connect with you—collaborate, work with you, learn more—what’s the best way to find you?

Marko: Probably best on LinkedIn. I’m active, and if you send me a message, I’ll respond.

Dan: Very good. I’m looking forward to checking out your content myself on LinkedIn. As you know, we’re very active on that platform, so I’m excited to see your stuff and maybe share it with my audience as well.

Dan: Marko, amazing to have you on. Really enjoyed the discussion. Thanks so much for coming on today.

Marko: Thank you so much, Dan.

Dan: You bet.

Dan: That’s it for this episode. As always, keep your strategy sharp, your goals clear, and your money working as hard as you do. Cheers, everybody.

Resources & Citations

Cash flow, EBITDA, and valuation. Educational resources on how EBITDA influences business valuation and why growing EBITDA and its multiple are central to exit planning.
Metric frameworks for growing businesses. Guides on control metrics, diagnostic KPIs, and growth (“offense”) metrics for mid-market companies.
Centralizing financial data. Overviews of using BI tools like Power BI to unify accounting, POS, and billing data into actionable dashboards.
AI & automation in accounting. Articles explaining how automation is changing the role of accountants from compliance-only to strategic advisors.
Business & personal wealth alignment. Content on how owners can align business decisions, cash flow, and personal financial planning for long-term security.

FAQs

What size businesses benefit most from outsourced accounting and CFO services?

Typically, companies in the $2M–$50M+ revenue range get the most leverage. They’re big enough to need robust financial planning and reporting, but not so big that they can easily justify a full in-house finance department with controllers and CFOs.

Why are cash flow and EBITDA such a big focus?

Cash flow is what funds everything—owner distributions, reinvestment, acquisitions, and debt service. EBITDA is a common proxy for cash flow and a primary driver of business valuation. Improving EBITDA often improves both your current income and your eventual exit value.

What are “offense metrics” in a business context?

Offense metrics are KPIs you track to measure the impact of proactive strategic moves—like launching a new product, testing a pricing change, or entering a new channel. They tell you quickly whether a move is increasing sales, margins, or cash flow so you can double down or pivot.

How does AI really affect accounting and CPA firms?

AI is increasingly capable of handling repetitive, rules-based tasks such as categorizing expenses, reconciling accounts, and even drafting basic financial reports. This reduces manual work and frees accountants to focus on interpreting results, advising clients, and building relationships.

How should business owners think about aligning business decisions with personal wealth?

Start with your personal goals (e.g., lifestyle, retirement timeline, risk tolerance) and work backward. Decisions around reinvestment versus distribution, acquisitions, leverage, and exits should all support those personal objectives. Coordination between your CPA and financial advisor can help ensure both sides are pulling in the same direction.

Disclaimer

This episode and page are for educational and informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Every business and individual situation is unique. Before making decisions about your company’s finances, tax strategy, or personal wealth, consult with qualified professionals such as a CPA, tax advisor, and financial planner who understand your specific circumstances.

Next Steps

If you’re running a growing business and still flying blind on cash flow—or if your data is scattered across multiple systems—it might be time to rethink your finance function. Consider:

Whether you have a clear, up-to-date view of cash flow and EBITDA,
Which control, diagnostic, and offense metrics you’re tracking consistently, and
How well your business strategy and personal wealth goals are aligned.

To keep sharpening your strategy and money decisions, explore more episodes and resources at Making Sense of Your Money, or learn how Tailored Wealth partners with owners and executives at yourtailoredwealth.com.