Blaze Your Own Trail - People Plus Process Equals Profit with Lee Walker

Episode Date: September 3, 2026

Jordan Mendoza sits down with Lee Walker, founder of Daily Driver Consulting, to unpack how psychology, sports, international experience, and hands-on accounting work shaped his approach to helping small businesses improve profit. Lee shares how he went from Maryland to Maastricht, learned to see business through a people first lens, and built a model centered on finding leaks, improving systems, and turning teams into profit drivers.In this episode, Lee explains why business is really psychology at scale, how his sports background shaped discipline and mindset, and why his time in the Netherlands changed the way he thinks about work, culture, and business relationships. He also breaks down his approach to small business profit acceleration, plus the assessments he uses for both accountants and other business owners.Key topicsLee shares how his background in business psychology and industrial organizational psychology shaped the way he sees management, marketing, accounting, and financial marketsHe explains the lessons he took from football and other sports, especially the idea that discomfort does not mean something is wrongHe talks about growing up in Elkridge near Baltimore, trying multiple sports, loving video games, and eventually taking school seriously in high schoolLee describes how he chose experience over credentials in many parts of life, including Boy Scouts, school, and career decisionsHe explains why he studied psychology and business, then added an English minor through classes like poetry, satire, and literatureHe breaks down why he believes every part of business is rooted in psychology, from team management to client behavior to accounting policyLee discusses moving to the Netherlands for his master’s, becoming president of a snowboard and board sports club, and building friendships through international leadershipHe compares Dutch and U.S. culture around dining, drinking, work hours, education cost, and the slower pace of lifeHe shares how COVID, visa timing, and travel disruptions forced him to return to Maryland and reset his prioritiesLee explains how that reset led to better health habits, more certifications, teaching English, and a sharper focus on helping small businessesHe details how he helped transform an accounting firm from a small startup into a much larger operation while improving internal processesHe introduces his assessments for accountants and small business owners, designed to identify opportunities, bottlenecks, and profit potentialTimestamps(00:00) Lee Walker’s background in psychology and profit acceleration(01:43) Why Jordan starts with childhood context and origin story(02:08) Growing up near Baltimore and early interests in sports and games(03:01) From wanting to be a lawyer to wanting to invent something(04:13) What sports teach about discipline and success in business(05:01) Two major lessons from football and training mindset(06:56) High school focus, Boy Scouts, and choosing experience over badges(07:56) College, fraternity life, and the psychology plus business path(08:54) Why Lee says every part of business is psychology(10:19) Moving to the Netherlands for a master’s and building a network(11:12) Becoming president of a snowboard club and learning leadership(12:34) Running nonprofit clubs like real businesses(13:59) Dutch versus U.S. culture and the pace of life(15:11) Age differences, drinking culture, and social norms in Europe(18:10) Slower meals, longer conversations, and relationship first business(19:07) Work hours in Europe versus U.S. consulting and banking(21:33) Why studying in the Netherlands was such a better value(26:38) Working in Amsterdam, visa pressure, and the start of COVID(28:28) Border closures, Switzerland, and the decision to return home(30:15) Resetting health, habits, and learning after moving back(31:42) Watching small businesses struggle during COVID relief rollout(32:40) Starting Lee’s Cool Friends to support entrepreneurs(33:08) Getting pulled into accounting and people advisory work(34:32) Improving internal processes while handling client work(35:27) Getting 150 clients early and cleaning up tax season chaos(36:53) Choosing small business support over big consulting firms(37:53) Three and a half years of experience before launching his own firm(39:12) Assessments for accountants and small businesses(41:09) Daily Driver Consulting, the new book, and what comes next(42:40) Lee’s closing advice about community and using available resourcesWork with Lee: https://dailydriverconsulting.biz/book-a-callConnect with Lee on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lee-walker-ms-shrm-cp-66a3b8b0/ Are you an entrepreneur?Join my FREE Group Coaching Community where we have live calls, Q&A and more! Our Trailblazer Ecosystem also enables you to network with other entrepreneurs and creator hub eliminates multiple subscriptions and logins creating a one stop shop to take action! Join here:https://trailblazerecosystem.com/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. My name is Jordan Mendoza. I'm your host, and I've got a very special guest today. His name is Lee Walker, and I'm going to have him tell you a little bit about who he is and what he does today. Hi, thanks, Jordan, for introducing me today. I'm excited to be on the show. So to start, my journey comes from a kind of different background than most people. I did business psychology, industrial organizational, for those who know.

And through three and a half years at an accounting firm, helped to transform over 300 small businesses, including the one I was in, making it possible for them to go from 10 employees, 300 clients, and about a million in revenue, up to 10 million in revenue, 900 clients, and 50 employees in a really short amount of time,

all organically. Now what I do is, what I call profit acceleration. I use this proprietary software called the profit acceleration system and use that to help businesses find where they're leaking, money in their business, then help them recover not only that, but significantly more through

step-by-step processes to make sure that they're doing everything in the best way possible. I unlike a lot of other people in a similar space, I do put people forward coming from my past in that psychology field. And so I actually have a lot to say on the people side as things change every constant time, especially since COVID, when everything changed to be a lot more remote. And so there's a lot of things changing in the way people interact generationally as well as more intimately. So appreciate the opportunity to talk about it today. Yep, yep. Thank you so much for sharing.

And my favorite part of the show, Lee, is really taking a rewind and getting deep context into my guest story in their journey. So in order to do that, we're going to go back in time. So if you could share with everyone, where were you born and raised? And, you know, what kind of kid were you, would you get into in the early? years, we're talking elementary, middle, and high school years. Yeah, so I was born and raised close to Baltimore City in the town called Elkridge, went to school in Columbia, Maryland, and most on the most part spent a lot of my childhood with relatively similar people in that. But I was engaged and interested in sports from an

early age, not that I stuck with any, but I did try most of them. And I was also big into video games, especially the role-playing games, Final Fantasy's, etc. for a lot of my childhood. But in high school, I started taking school more seriously and started really going into what does this actually all mean? I stopped playing video games, started really focusing on football until middle of the high school career shifted into just focusing on snowboarding and education and reading more and starting to think about more about like what my future will actually look like. If you talk to my teachers when I was young, they would all tell you that they thought I was going to be a lawyer growing up because I was a very argumentative and always had to be

right, which I think more than a few people can relate to. But researching into it a little bit more, I decided that wasn't really the goal for me. And I actually honed in a little bit more to my very childhood aspirations of being an inventor. My goal was to create something that people wanted and needed and build that to become rich and not have to work a whole lot in my life. Now it looks a little bit differently today. I don't actually produce products. I help people do what they want to do, which you can absolutely relate to.

And it looks a little bit different, but, you know, 30 years later, it probably should. So that's more or less my background pre-college. And I think a lot of that has a lot of influence in where we come from and look at the world today. Yep, 100%. Well, I'd love to find out, and I ask my guests this a lot, especially ones that have some background in sports, you know, whether you played as a kid, whether you played in high school, collegiate level, the NFL, professional sports in other country. People that play sports have an understanding of what it takes to win, what it takes to have discipline. So I would love your take on if you look back at all of the different things that you did, you played football. I'm sure other sports when you were younger, you mentioned snowboarding.

What lessons can you take away from one of those sports that really attribute to your success in the business world? Probably the number one is that it doesn't matter if it feels good or not. if you know what's moving in the right direction, you still need to do it. That was, you know, most indicative in football. And I did play a little bit of soccer, baseball. I was actually going to play lacrosse my senior year high school. And then I tore my ACL, so that didn't really become possible. But for football, it was always funny to think about how we had to run every day, constantly.

And it was almost given as a punishment. But then you learn that that's really just a mentality. Because it was the punishment for a lot of things, we, a lot of the people in our team, adopted that mentality. But there's a whole entire sport, track and field where that is the sport. And they loved running. It was a little bit different. So the two main lessons there, you know, the first one I already mentioned is

just because it doesn't feel great, it doesn't mean it's not good for you. And that goes into our physical health, our work life, a lot of different things that we don't necessarily want to do. are still absolutely necessary. And then two, the things we don't want to do is often just a mindset, because you can look at it in a more positive way and learn to enjoy it instead of thinking about it

as a punishment. So I think I'd say that would be my two major lessons there. Yeah, no great lessons. And so what happened after high school? So you tear your ACL, so I'm gonna assume football was like, yeah, probably not gonna play football anymore. I don't know if you continued to snowboard after that, if you decided to, if college was already like on the roadmap of like, hey, yeah, I already know where I want to go. I know it'll want to study. So give us kind of like, what was the next destination for Lee? Yeah. So I really took, like I said, probably in high school, was when I really started taking school seriously before then I'd always done well, but without trying a lot, to be honest. And so in high school, it's when I decided I was like, okay, I'm going to have.

actually focus, start really doing my homework, really learning everything. I didn't, I had no interest in continuing football into college. It's actually a little bit funny. I was very much like leadership for myself. And so I was also in Boy Scouts growing up. And so I never really got it to Eagle. That's always what people ask me is, where did you get to? Were you Eagle?

I was like, no, I got to like first class. But my whole thing was I wanted to go on the end. adventures. I wanted to go do the experiences and I didn't care about the testing after I didn't really care about certifications and awards and things of that nature. I just wanted the experience. Now, coming to college, I did end up joining a fraternity and never thought that was going to be where my life led me, but I met some really cool people joined there and I didn't really know what I wanted to do in college. I started as undecided and just took classes that interested me. So while the majority ended up being psychology classes and business classes, which led me down to the I.O. Psychology route, I also took things like glass blind at school, which is really cool. And that's a really unique experience. I took poetry and satire. And so I have an English minor because I did a lot about learning about reading and English educational culture and literature. And so a lot of that did then help teach me how to be who I am now. And so I have a bigger variety.

of words, understanding of a lot of our cultural past. It allowed me to understand the business context, as well as the psychological background to a lot of things. You know, it's interesting. A lot of times when I told people, you know, I got my bachelor's in psychology and then my master's in business psychology. And they'd say, oh, business and psychology,

that's an odd mix. I always thought that was an interesting thought process because aside from like the actual, finance is, or the actual accounting itself, everything in business is psychology. Management is just the psychology of your team. Marketing is the psychology of your clients. Accounting laws are based in psychology. All the laws in accounting and tax are based on what the government wants people to do. So they tax things, behaviors that they don't want to see, and they provide tax credits for things they do want people to do. Financial markets,

It's all psychology. In the broadest scheme of things, nothing actually in the stock market has any value except for what the perceived value is. So when a business people perceive it as valuable, it goes up. And that's why things like a single tweet can crash the stock market

or the stock of a simple business. And it has nothing to do with the health of that business. It's just what do people think about it. So a lot of those understandings brought me to where I really started to care more about the small businesses. I ended up moving to, I don't think I told you this, but I actually did my master's in the Netherlands, because aside from continuing snowboarding,

it actually has been my number one passion, aside from helping small businesses, so for the past 21 years now. And it helped me actually create my biggest group of friends was my snowboarded and surf club in college, when I went to Salisbury University, but I also went moving to the Netherlands to start my master's there

was the best way I actually made really good friends because I don't know if you know much about Dutch culture, but most of them, similar to people in the U.S. that stay in the same school, the same people, their whole lives, that's a lot how they were. Unless you're in a class with them or you're in another bigger organization,

it's very difficult to break into the social groups. now because of my experience being as a leader in the clubs in college and in scouts and things, when I arrived there, they were looking for a new executive board for their surf an snowboard, the board sports club in the Netherlands. And I became president because I was the most qualified. I had work experience, I had leadership experience, and I've been doing boarding for 20 years. And because of that, it opened massive doors into the cultural aspect of the country. And I definitely would say that that was one of the biggest impacts of moving there,

aside from actually doing the degree. And because of that, got a lot of experience in helping small businesses. They actually, something you might not know, maybe you do. I know you've got some businesses going on in Belgium. And so in Maastricht, it's right at the Belgian border. It's like, I could, my joke was from the house I lived in. I was just there about three months ago. Nice.

That's awesome. So because of that, we had a very international. group was a lot of Belgians, a lot of Germans, a lot of Dutch. We also had, you know, French and Swiss and a lot of other mix of people. And it just created this opportunity to really help a lot of people. But the business, those clubs themselves were non-profit businesses. So we had to make decisions about, okay, how are we raising money? How are we operating? We had to get like an official bank account. Everything is fully registered to the city. And we had to operate as such. So we started doing like fundraisers and, you know, how much can we charge our members while still providing value to them?

How can we make it so that everyone understands and relates to each other? And I provide a ton of that structure in order to say, hey, this is how we can add more value to people at a low cost. This is how we can create better relationships. This is how we can keep people engaged. Through that, I just started loving, helping small businesses more and more and more. and that's why after finishing my degree, I ended up moving back to the U.S. Now there's a little bit more of a longer story to that, but then I'm moving back to the U.S. and really focusing on small businesses rather than the normal trajectory when you go into

IOS psychology, which is working in a lot bigger companies. As an IOS psychologist, you're normally going to be working at massive corporations like Pepsi and Coca-Cola and like KPMG and stuff like that, where you're really all focused on the meter conglomerates. But I took that and went towards those smaller ones instead. That's great. So I'd love for you to share your experience working in Europe. So I've had the pleasure of working there now for the last coming up on four years. And I see the difference in like daily culture of living, you know, how they how they eat, how they shop, you know, the joy that you see on people's face, you know. And I think a lot of it stems from education

paid for, very, very good health benefits, competitive salaries as well. So can you speak a little bit to that, you know, in that two years that you were there? What the difference was like coming back because I imagine it was kind of reverse culture shock a little bit when you come back and you go out to eat and the experience is not the same as it is when you're in the Netherlands or when you're in Belgium, when you're in France or Germany, completely different. So can you speak a little bit about your experience during the two years and then be the difference in actually having to return from how vastly difference it is. Yeah, so to the experience, one of the main things is that, and as somebody, you know, I was 25 when I did this. So almost everyone else that I spent time

around was somewhere between 18 and 22. One major difference is that university in the Netherlands at least is three years. And then a master's is often one, sometimes two years, depending on the program. So it would be very common to go into something. I'm like, hey, I'm in the master's program. And then my classmates were 20, 21, 22 maybe. So I had a four-year difference with a lot of the people. Part of the reason I bring that up is because in the U.S.,

and I'm just going to only lightly touch on the drinking culture, But one of the main things in the U.S. is, you know, people tend to like have parties and socialize at people's houses. More often up until you're, you know, 21, 22, there's house parties. There's people in the house. There's or in parks, things of that nature where it's kind of more like familiar gathering. And Europe, you can start drinking in 16, 17, 18. So it was very weird going to a bar and talking to somebody that would be theoretically a peer. and then I'm like, oh, you're six years, seven years younger than me.

That's kind of just a crazy thing to think about in that context when you're only in your early 20s. So coming from the U.S. Now, I also mentioned that because it means you're spending a lot more money constantly, but everyone did everything in a different time manner. So with how we did, at least in where I grew up, we would go parties ended at one, two o'clock. and you would just go to bed or whatever you, wherever you went afterwards, maybe they're after parties.

And in the Netherlands, that just meant we went from one bar to the club. And so most people would be out till 6 a.m. And like, I'd be waking up to go to the gym and I'd see people going home from the club. And I was like, oh, this is a weird kind of contrast.

But with, and I bring that up because the way that changes things, and this is a concept I actually, in a debate class we talked about is how the drinking age changes the culture entirely. And so because in Europe you're taught how to drink responsibly at a younger age, people are more relaxed about it. You know, we in the U.S. have this crazy like, oh, yeah, if you drink under 21, it's not with your parents, you can get a $10,000 fine.

There, it's like, hey, we teach you how to drink responsibly from 1314. And, you know, if police find you, they're like, yeah, be safe. don't cause problems. It's essentially a major difference. And that all seems irrelevant, but the relevance to it is that, in a lot of ways that you already mentioned in the restaurant culture and everything,

it's just more relaxed. Everything moves slower. You're there to enjoy your time. You're not expecting things to happen immediately. And, you know, you call to somebody's attention. It's not in the U.S. where the restaurants are, hey, get in, have a good time, quickly, get out, move on to your next thing. Everything's about business and efficiency.

And there, which, you know, the Netherlands being one of the more capitalist countries in Europe still is like, yeah, if you're getting lunch, we expect two hours, not 45 minutes we expect in the U.S. And people just seem to be happy. They take a coffee and enjoy it. They don't take six coffees and chug them. And in the work context, it bleeds into that as well. One of the things going into consulting, especially because I was doing HR consulting,

I would talk to the people that when I'm doing interviews at KPMG, PWC, EY, etc. And I asked like, hey, what's the most hours you've worked in a week? They're like, oh, yeah, we work a lot. I think my worst week was 45 hours. And I'd be like, I'm sorry, what? I was like I had worked at Morgan Stanley the year before going to the Netherlands to do my master's. My normal week was 50 hours. And I worked less than a lot of the other people around me because I also knew that I wasn't looking to move up there.

I knew I was going to do my degree. And so I was doing it for the experience and I was doing it for the money. But I wasn't trying to really race ahead. And so them saying 45 hours at a major consulting firm was crazy. On the flip side of that, their pay was also half of what it would have been in the U.S. I think it was around like $40,000 U.S. dollars for an entry-level role. That same role in the U.S. would have been $80,000 to start. It's competitive there.

8,080 hours minimum, you know? Yeah, exactly. So it's like the pay per hour. was probably the same, you just worked twice as many hours. Pretty much. Yeah, those people that you're speaking about have never worked at a startup because you have some hundred plus hour weeks easily. But yeah, for sure.

And so, and that was the majority of the people there. So even like the high crazy hour businesses didn't really work the crazy hours because their family, their time off, their enjoyment of life was a, higher priority. And of course, to your point, you know, with the education being taken care of, it was a lot more functional. Like most people I know didn't only just take one master's, they took two because they're like, oh, well, I finished the one. I still don't really know what I'm going to do yet. It's only another $2,000 to do another year. So I'll just, I'll do that. Yeah. A thousand or two euros, it's like, of course you're going to add on the PhD or the doctorate or something. Why wouldn't

you, you know? Yeah. And for me, Like people would always ask, why did you go to the Netherlands to do your master's? And I said, I could get at least as good of a degree for a third of the price and get the cultural experience. For me, my one year was $13,000. So six and a half times the amount that the average any other student paid. And it was still a third of what I would have paid to do it in Maryland. Yeah, it was super cheap. Yeah.

So it just made a whole difference. And like I worked a lot harder in my classes than a lot of my class space because I also knew that I needed good grades. I needed to make the most of it where some of the other students like they were wanted to get good grades. But they also knew like, well, if I don't do well in this class this year, it's okay. I can just do it again next year or I just take another master's. It's okay. It doesn't. It's not as important or as demanding, I would say.

And so I think that generally describes the experience. Can you remind me what the second part of your question was? So I think the first one was about the experience. And I think you hit it because we talked about the dining and all that. So, yeah, I think it was all encapsulated. But yeah, that's really it. You know, you can go into a restaurant. You can order your food.

You can have conversation. You can get your food. You're not harassed at all. You're not going to see a person. No one's going to come slide the check over at you with a little fortune cookie or anything. Like, they're going to let you. you chill. And if that chilling lasts for three hours, they're still going to let you chill. Okay.

It's like you kind of have, you kind of get retrained on how to slow down and how to like experience life. You know, you have people walking, you got people biking, you got people jogging and you have people in these little miniature cars that are considered bikes. And it's like, man, life is just, it's different when you get to kind of experience life. like that, right? Where every, it's like, it looks like hustle and bustle, but it's also so relaxed that it's, it's very calm and peaceful, you know, and people don't look stressed out. They actually look like they're enjoying themselves. And that's like, it's so different to see that because when in the states, and I've been to pretty much every state, people are almost the same. Like,

people are stressed out. They're, they're going so quick and they're not really even taking the time to enjoy their food or time with somebody or anything like that. Yeah, which it's interesting because recently I was recommended and read the book. I'm sure you've heard of it. It's How to Be a Rainmaker. Yeah. And one of the things I was reading in it, it basically talks about how, hey, if you're having meeting with a client and it's at a restaurant, get whatever is the easiest to eat,

the fastest eat, and the cleanest. And order that, finish it as quickly as possible. Your meetings should never last longer than 17 minutes. If you're getting a meal, it should last 31 and a half minutes or something to that effect. And, you know, some of the advice in that book was, I thought, good advice. And then other parts of it, I thought it was like, this is also a blueprint to absolutely hate your life. Because you have no time to enjoy anything. They're like, oh, yeah, don't connect with your client.

Just tell them what they need to buy from you. And it was just a crazy shock after having lived in Europe, where it's all very much relationship first. Like you spend no less than 20 minutes just having a good conversation and then to like you before you can even bring up anything that's more official business related. Otherwise, they're going to look at you

and just like, what's wrong with you? Yeah, American. Yeah, absolutely. Well, the good thing about the Netherlands is for anyone listening that hasn't been, been there. Maybe you're like, hey, I would left to visit Amsterdam. It's the most U.S. like place in Europe. So that's the one benefit is you're going to run into a lot of English-speaking people. You're not going to have to speak Dutch, you know, or even or anything like that. So if you're

looking to go to a really cool place with a lot of cultural diversity, amazing food, amazing scenery, if you want to go into the farmland, I mean, there's just so much to do there. I'm sure, Lee, there's plenty of recommendations you could give to listeners as well. But what a cool part of the world for sure. So let's talk about the journey after you get your master. So you're in Amsterdam, you get your master's, you come back to the States. Do you immediately say, I want to start helping business owners. I want to start a business. Or do you go into the workforce and work for a little bit? Love to get the context there. Yeah. So it is a very interesting journey. You know, I did my degree at Maastricht University, which is the opposite end of the country from Amsterdam.

But as COVID starts hitting, I'm working and living in Amsterdam at the Walter Fistoria Hotel, which is the flagship of the Hilton Branden is the flagship of the flagship, all the Fistoria is in Amsterdam. So we worked in a two-star Michelin restaurant as well as two other very, very high-level non-Michelan-rated restaurants. And so just the standards there were very high, but they're also in a lot of ways Americanized. A lot of the clientele was American, but also then like the high society in the Netherlands and France and other places. And one of the reasons I ended up being theirs because I also had some experience in the restaurant industry, but also wine. So in that time, I was learning a lot about wine. I'd already taken classes in it. And it was on my way to be a Somalié.

So my title there was, you know, the Somalié trainee and really working with the three different Somalier. that worked there. I unfortunately was doing that while like looking for roles in like I said, PWC, KPMG, etc. But because I was a foreign person, I had to get them to sponsor me for a visa, which created that extra barrier for getting somebody into those roles. And it just moved a lot slower. You know, in the U.S., you can get hired for a role pretty quickly, generally, usually around three to four weeks, which is crazy to say that that's quick. But anyway, There, it's more like three months because there's a lot more worker protection. So they want to really make sure that they're bringing in the right person

because if you get brought in, it's a lot harder to get rid of you. So I was going through those interview processes and working at the restaurant and the hotel. And eventually COVID hit. And it hit about the same time that my visa was expiring. And so I was actually traveling in Switzerland on a trip with my snowboarding club that I was, had been head of and everything shuts down. And I'm in Switzerland. So I'm appropriately volunteering on this vineyard,

which I had been in previous years and so I'm there again. And I have, and I'm on the phone with my parents when they're saying, hey, everything's closing down. You should take this seriously and start figuring out what your next decision is. So I get back from this hike that I was having a phone call for my parents and I'm like, oh yeah, I'm supposed to go to Germany and then Poland.

If you know, I get stuck in Poland for a couple weeks due to this, sure, that's fine, not a big deal. I have enough money in Poland is no cheap enough that I can afford this on my savings right now. Then I find out those borders are closed. And so I'm like, okay, well, I can either stay in this vineyard for the next however long it is, or I go back moving with my parents back in Maryland.

And so I chose the latter because, you know, I don't know how long I'm going to be here. And, you know, like a couple of weeks working on the vineyard is fun, but it's backbreaking work. Like I was literally driving in stakes with a 50 pound jackhammer type thing every day and just lifting it up and crashing it down. So I was like,

I'm going to go back to the U.S. Great thing I did. Reason to do that because COVID ended up being forever. And also had I moved back to Amsterdam, they had three months of just being completely shut down. You could only leave the house like once a week for groceries type thing. otherwise, if you had a dog, you could go walk them once a day.

That was how strict it was there. Moving back to the U.S. and being kind of in the, just in another lake neighborhood, not in the city of dwelling, it was able to really get back into healthier habits. So in Europe, I was traveling constantly. I was drinking constantly. I was, you know, stressed out because I never expected with a significant amount of work experience in a good degree that was going to take me six plus months to get like a real job that would support me.

And so I moved back into the U.S. and decided I'm just going to really work on myself and get my health right. So I started cooking clean. I started just taking more educational aspects of. And so I learned and got my green belt in Six Sigma. I took PMI certifications. I learned how to teach English as a foreign language

to international students and practice that. With students in China, you've probably heard of VIP kid. I learned I'm not so great with kids. through that, but it's okay. I do a lot better with, like, people by age. And so I've got a lot of, like, Spanish-speaking friends that I help learn teach English instead. And so I just started learning and learning and learning, being active all the time. So I like bike every day.

And while all that was happening, I was just watching what happened to all the small businesses. And so there was a lot of COVID relief plans. But we also saw that it was a lot of major corporations with a lot of franchises that we're taking advantage of a large part of that. While the small businesses either didn't know how to qualify, didn't know that they did qualify, didn't know how to actually go through the process. And while there were things like the ERTC credit

that was very helpful for businesses that had employees, if you were a startup and you didn't have employees, you were given no help. Because if you were a solopreneur, there was no support for that, except for you could get the SMB loans very easily. Because at that time, it was almost nothing to get approved for those from what I recall. Because of that, I started this project that I called Lee's Cool Friends.

So being a big traveler and stuff, I started to, I looked around and said, I've got no less than 80 people in my life that are trying to start a small business. They have some kind of an issue. They're an artist, musician. They're starting something. started interviewing them and creating a framework in a community to help them connect to be able to support each other. That lasted about six months of me working on that before a friend of mine connected me with a job that I ended up working at a club capital and accounting firm, which I had originally resisted because I was like, no, I'm going into consulting.

I want to do my one year or two years at a bigger firm and do that. But then I started changing my mindset. And he had said, because, you know, they're accounting for him. I was like, I'm not really interested in accounting. I'm not really interested in helping insurance agents. I was like, all I know is that I think insurance is largely a big scam. I don't want to support that. So I'm sure that's something that's crossed your mind at some point, right?

Insurance. Yeah. I think there's some interesting things about it. I would say that. Yeah. So, but I was in that mindset at the time. And then he came back to me one day and said, hey, you know, we're looking at creating a people advisory service. So helping not just on the accounting part, but also on the people side of it.

And so that's what really piqued my interest. And so I joined that company. And there was a startup. Like I said, it was 10 employees when I started, had about 300 clients. And through that, I decided, I was like, yeah, like I'd love to build this people advisory service, teaching those insurance agents how to have better. people practices. The journey was a little bit different than expected due to some personnel changes in the time of me like going through the interview process and then me actually coming starting. And what I ended up doing is throughout all the processes I went through,

I was like, hey, you know, like this is okay, but this is how we can make it better. And so every process I went through, I went and said, hey, this is, we can change this to make this better. We can change this to make this better. We can change this to make this better. and even though I was operating in the role of an account manager, which effectively meant I was just very client-facing and making sure that their accounting was done correctly, I ended up changing a lot of our internal processes to make things efficient because when I interviewed,

I was supposed to be the third person to take on, you know, client 301 through 450. But in that time, the person that the second person in my role had left. So instead, I got handed 150, people on day 23 and they're all mad because they're like, you're the fourth person I've had here and I've only been working with you guys for a year was a common thing. So I was like, okay, I'm now dealing with the whole backload. It's the end of the initial part of tax season. So I'm cleaning up books that I'm just learning how to do the accounting for and creating

all this other aspect of it. And then the ERTC for the small businesses that I just started came out. And so we started pushing like, okay, well, something like 60 to 70 percent of my clients qualified for that, but they didn't know that they qualified for it. So I had to spend time not only doing their accounting, but then also telling them like, hey, you have employees, you could make, get somewhere between $3,000 and like $60,000 by applying for these credits that you qualify for. And so ended up doing that. The main point of this is I'd already decided at probably May of 2020 that I really wanted to focus on the small businesses instead of the big consulting firms. Not just because that's where I thought there was not enough support, but just because I was like, you know, there's enough people supporting the bigger companies. There's not enough real support in the smaller ones. So I changed where I was applying to.

Actually, I stopped applying for nine months. because as you probably remember, it was one of the worst job markets ever. Because I would look at an entry-level role at, you know, KPMG. And through LinkedIn, it would be like, you were compared against 400 other people. 50% of them have doctorates and previous roles were CEOs. And then others were middle management and others of this.

And I was like, I don't want to spin my wheels competing against people that have 10 times more experience than I do. Like, that's just insanity for entry-level roles. But yeah, so through the accounting firm, I really got a lot of that experience and was able to help a lot of those businesses. I ended up working with about 300 in that time where because we were so heavily niched, it wasn't just doing their accounting. It was understanding their business, their vendors, their abilities and their shortcomings as a general grouping, and learning how to connect them with the people that could be the best resources for them, were being that best resource for them.

And I was there for about three and a half years before launching into my own firm a lot more seriously back in October of 2024. Awesome, awesome. So basically you got the experience, you know, put in the reps, learned how to do it in multiple verticals and capacities and said, all right, enough's enough.

It's time that I go blaze my own trail and go launch your own venture. So, you know, one of the things we were talking about offline is you've got two different assessments because, yes, you love your bread and butter, which is the small business folks, but you also love helping accountants as well. So I'd love for you to share a little bit about each assessment

and then share with the audience where they could go take those assessments if they're serious about acceleration from the profit side. Yeah. So in that time in the accounting firm, I created a lot of relationships with accountants. So I wanted to make sure that I could help others really take the most best parts of what I learned there and be able to replicate that for themselves. Now, I've learned a lot of things that are different from what I actually did there, things that I wanted to have happened but weren't possible. And so for accountants specifically, I have a proprietary assessment that looks at you're a full diagnostic of your business to make sure that, We know what are you doing exactly?

Where are there opportunities to really make a difference? And beyond that, what are some things that you can do more or less immediately that's going to make a huge difference for your business? And there is a fee attached to that, but it's relatively nominal. It's a huge value add for any business. Everyone that's taken it has said they would have paid four times as much, but I want to keep it accessible. Now, for any other small business, I look at my profit acceleration software. assessment. And what we do is over 45 minutes and it's at no cost to you. We're really just going to dig into the heart of who you are, where your obstacles that you're facing are. What are those top

three that are prevent you from reaching your goals and your dreams and see if I have some ways to see how that can be changed, how we can actually take some steps. What are those steps that you can do to make some material difference in your business and see what the actual potential impact of that is? that if you do want to see those changes and you do want help implementing them, that you know what the potential value of that is for your business instead of minimizing it to whatever you're able to think of when you're in your mind of frustration.

And either of those can be found by emailing me on my website, DailyDriver Consulting.Biz or Lee at DailyDriver Consulting.Biz for email. And just let me know if you're interested. I also have, as you mentioned, a book that came out, recently called people plus process equals profit. So the really making the focus on if you have a team, how to make sure that your team's successful and turning them in from a cost center to a profit center.

For my accounting community, I'm also releasing a new book in the next two months that is really focused on building up your business from the foundation up so that as you scale, you're not building on a shallow, rickety foundation. You're starting it on something that really holds value well and allows you to really take it to new heights. Love it.

Appreciate you sharing those resources. I know the audience is definitely going to get value folks. Make sure to go to Lee's website. Reach out to him. He's very accessible and wants to help you grow. It's been really cool learning about your story and journey from Maryland to Maastricht. Very different places.

Not very close to each other at all, but it's cool to see that you have blazed the trail, not just here in the States, but internationally. And I know the value of that international experience, having been doing that for the last four years. So keep up the great work, and any parting words for the audience. Yeah, just to, you know, I know in the modern day,

it feels like there's a lot going on, but there's also a lot of resources. There's a lot of really good community out there. there's people like Jordan that's trying to create, you know, more positive environment, more access to resources that can help you. So don't let him be a wasted resource on your end. Make sure you see all of his episodes and, you know, check me out if you think I could be some help to you. Awesome. Appreciate your time today. Keep blazing your own trail, my friend. And to the audience, if you have not yet joined our new platform, BYOT groupcoaching.com, make sure to check out all

of our new tools. We have a creator hub that, like Lee said, I want to help entrepreneurs. I want to help you grow your business. We have a plethora of AI and business tools that we've added to the platform just for you. So whether you're stuck with content creation, whether you need a QR code or a V card because you're like, man, I'm tired of printing business cards and you want to get up with the times. We've got so many tools for you. Do not make sure. sure you guys don't walk but run to the show notes we're going to put all of lee's information in there lee thanks so much again for coming on the show yeah thanks for having me it's a pleasure jordan my pleasure