The Unique CPA

Continuing the conversation at Bridging the Gap 2025 in Denver, Randy Crabtree sits down with Krystal Joiner from the conference's marketing team on Episode 269 of The Unique CPA for an honest look at what goes into making BTG what it is. Krystal talks through the months of behind-the-scenes planning that attendees never see, and why the relaxed, connected energy on the conference floor doesn't happen by accident. The tone, she explains, gets set long before anyone lands in Denver, through social media, sponsor relationships, and every touchpoint along the way. There's also a candid moment about what it feels like to finally arrive at an event you've spent half a year building. With BTG Charlotte on the horizon, Krystal is confident the best is still to come: "We just get better."

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Recorded live at Bridging the Gap 2025 in Denver, Terrell Turner sits down with wealth advisor and speaker Rory Henry on Episode 268 of The Unique CPA to talk about what he calls "return on relationship." "ROR" is the idea that when you genuinely invest in understanding the people you serve, the ROI takes care of itself. Rory makes a compelling case that the real work of financial professionals isn't in the numbers at all, but in the questions: What are your best hopes? What does your ideal life actually look like? Drawing on behavioral finance and values-based planning, he argues that money is rarely the point, but rather, meaning and wellbeing are. The conversation also takes in the energy of BTG 2025 itself, the growing wave of new talent in the profession, and why Rory is convinced that in-person connection remains one of the most underrated growth strategies available to any practice.

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Repeat guest Roman Villard built Full Send, his Boulder-based accounting firm, on a deliberately contrarian premise: hire leadership first, reject the CAS label, and train your team to think like the business owners they serve. Four years and 18 team members later, split between Colorado and Argentina, the results suggest he was onto something. He covers a lot of ground with Terrell Turner on Episode 267 of The Unique CPA: the weekly Friday training rhythm Roman runs entirely from team-submitted topics, why "build relationships and solve problems" is a more honest job description than any service-line acronym, and how managing across cultures has forced a more intentional approach to feedback than most firm owners ever develop. They also get into the genuine complexity of AI adoption right now: Roman is candid that even firms on the forefront are still figuring out how all the moving pieces fit together. (And then there are the 34 miles and 8,000 feet of vertical he's about to run!)

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Recorded live at Bridging the Gap 2025, Terrell Turner sits down with Chayton Farlee, a Gen Z accountant whose first-ever conference was Bridging the Gap itself, on Episode 266 of The Unique CPA. What started as a LinkedIn ad turned into a career-defining experience, and Chayton has been vocal about BTG ever since. He makes a pointed case to Terrell for why accounting firm owners should stop sleeping on Gen Z talent, not just for their comfort with AI and automation, but for the energy and outside-in perspective they bring to firms that have been doing things the same way for decades. Chayton moderated a "Gen Z Effect" panel at BTG 2025, where he gave firm owners a frank look at what it's actually like to be a young person entering the profession right now, and why the opportunity to tap into that talent pool is bigger than most realize.

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Support for this episode comes from BILL. Simplify your workflows and accelerate your growth with BILL's Accountant Console. Take a demo today at BILL.com/uniquecpa for a $250 gift card – terms apply.

In 2008, John Sensiba became managing partner of what is now Sensiba, and promptly watched revenue fall from $18 million to $13 million. On Episode 265 of The Unique CPA, live from Bridging the Gap 2025, he tells Randy that it turned out to be the best thing that could have happened. His and his team's deliberate, sometimes painful commitment to values eventually transformed a regional firm into a near-$100 million practice. John also talks candidly about the moment in March 2020 when old fears resurfaced, why he eventually gave up his tax practice entirely to focus on leading, and what a six-years-out succession announcement actually does for an organization. He also makes a sharp case against time sheets, not as a billing philosophy argument, but as a values one.

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Accountants aren't supposed to embrace failure. It runs counter to everything the profession is built on. But K.C. Eames, who leads operations at Dark Horse, has spent time thinking carefully about why that instinct holds firms back, and what it actually takes to build a culture where people feel safe to experiment. Recorded live at Bridging the Gap 2025, her conversation with Terrell Turner on Episode 264 of The Unique CPA covers her main stage talk on making it safe for accountants to fail, how Dark Horse uses open communication to surface and celebrate new ideas, and what it felt like to retool her presentation at the last minute to lead with personal stories rather than a framework. She also reflects on the kind of tight-knit, genuinely collaborative community that keeps drawing her back to Bridging the Gap year after year.

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Support for this episode comes from BILL. Simplify your workflows and accelerate your growth with BILL's Accountant Console. Take a demo today at BILL.com/uniquecpa for a $250 gift card – terms apply.

Recorded live at Bridging the Gap 2025 in Denver, Randy Crabtree sits down with Nancy McClelland—CPA, community builder, and self-described member of the BTG "hive mind"—to talk about what keeps drawing her back to the conference year after year on Episode 263 of The Unique CPA. Nancy is candid about the real challenges of running a sustainable firm and how BTG gave her not just ideas, but permission to act on them. She also talks through the two sessions she ran at BTG 2025: one on effective collaboration between bookkeepers and tax pros, drawing directly on what she hears inside Ask A CPA, and another on reasonable S corp compensation that managed to make a technical audit topic feel like an advisory opportunity. It's no surprise, but Nancy brings the same openness and practicality to this conversation that she brings to everything else she contributes to the profession.

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Support for this episode comes from BILL. Simplify your workflows and accelerate your growth with BILL's Accountant Console. Take a demo today at BILL.com/uniquecpa for a $250 gift card – terms apply.

Recorded on April 15th, a day Randy describes as one he's never been fond of, and now has even more reason to dread, is this conversation with Rozeta Atlas on Episode 262 of The Unique CPA. The Director of Product Enablement and Adoption at HubSync, Rozeta cuts right to the heart of why busy season feels so broken, explaining that the problem isn't just the volume of work, but also that progress is invisible to clients. They assume nothing is happening, and since accountants are buried under their own huge pile of returns, the communication gap between the two is like an ouroboros of failings. Rozeta draws on her background moving from tax technical work into firm operations to make the case that technology alone isn't the fix, because process has to come first. She's also clear that the window to fix things for next year is already open: Extended returns due in September and October mean there's still time to standardize, identify the gaps, and layer in the right tools before the next wave hits.

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Support for this episode comes from BILL. Get clear insight into payment status and cashflow with BILL's Accountant Console. BILL uses AI to simplify your tech stack so you can increase productivity and spend more time delivering truly personalized client service. Take a demo at BILL.com/uniquecpa and you'll get a $250 gift card. Terms apply.

Six and a half years in, Randy Crabtree and new co-host Terrell Turner take a rare look backward, revisiting the very first episodes of The Unique CPA to see how well the show's early conversations about technology, advisory work, and burnout have aged. Turns out, surprisingly well! David Bergstein's cruise-ship-vs-jet-boat analogy for firm agility still rings true, and Tim Jipping's casual mention of AI from 2019 lands differently in 2026. The conversation moves naturally from the compliance-to-advisory tension that still defines the industry to something more personal: the importance of knowing the whole person behind the accountant. It's part retrospective, part honest reckoning with how much, and yet how little, accounting has changed, and a preview of where Randy and Terrell plan to take the show from here.

Get the full show notes and more resources at TheUniqueCPA.com

Support for this episode comes from BILL. Simplify your workflows and accelerate your growth with BILL's accountant console. Take a demo today at BILL.com/uniquecpa for a $250 gift card. Terms apply.

Randy Crabtree sits down with CPA turned leadership coach Erin Daiber on Episode 260 of The Unique CPA. The founder of Well Balanced Accountants, Erin digs into what it actually takes to build a firm that can survive and thrive in a rapidly shifting profession. Bringing a refreshingly grounded perspective on AI adoption, Erin says your focus should be less about chasing every new tool, and more about having a strategy before you start stacking up subscriptions. The conversation moves into the leadership crisis that's quietly brewing in many firms, mindful of the gap between great technicians and effective leaders, and what happens when nobody's been developed to take over when senior partners retire. Erin is a fierce advocate for firm independence, and makes a compelling case that most firms turning to PE or M&A could have avoided it with earlier, more intentional investment in their people and processes.

Get the full show notes and more resources at TheUniqueCPA.com