Two years ago I had reached the point of feeling my practice was out of control and running my life. I had become accustomed to working six and seven days a week almost all year long. When I did manage to get a little time away I was worried about all the things that were behind and needed to be done. 

Work was backlogged everywhere and there were plenty of great excuses given to the clients trying to assure them their work was "in process".

I spent six years working for three partners who'd sit in their little rooms calmly doing their accounting jobs with little thought of expansion or much else. I was frustrated. I wanted to DO something, but there was nowhere for me to go. Then I bought a tax practice. Since I knew I could do a great job on tax returns, I didn't see any problem. I failed to notice the obvious. I was an accountant, a technical guy—running an office, managing personnel, and dealing with clients demanded different skills. I was a person in business, but not a businessperson.

Tom Yaxley has been in practice on his own in Champaign, Illinois, since May of 1987. He has two other full-time staff (one administrative assistant and a CPA), and another person with a Master's degree in accounting who works for him just during the busy season. They do tax work almost exclusively.

Our practice has always been very profitable, but a couple of years ago, we had reached the end of the line. Bob (my partner) and I were each working 3,000 hours a year, a high number of these hours being billable. We weren't getting the kind of support we needed from our accounting staff.

We were going through another rough tax season. There was so much stress from clients and not having the right staff that Bob came into my office one day and said, "Dave, I don't want to do this anymore. You can have the practice. I don't want any part of it anymore. I can't deal with it."