“I Wish I Had This on Day One.”
Meet Diego Rodriguez
Owner, Rodriguez CPA PLLC | Raleigh, North Carolina
When Diego Rodriguez relaunched Rodriguez CPA PLLC in 2022, he knew exactly who he wanted to serve.
His firm focuses on the construction industry, with a strong commitment to serving Spanish-speaking business owners in his community.
What he didn’t have was a clear roadmap for how to build the kind of firm he envisioned.
Like many firm owners, Diego knew there had to be more than tax work.
He saw the appeal of CAS because it created recurring monthly revenue—but he also saw the problem:
CAS alone could quickly become a low-value commodity.
He wanted to build something more scalable, more valuable, and more advisory-focused.
The question was how?
The Expensive Search for the Answer
Diego didn’t sit still.
He joined groups.
He invested in coaching programs.
He sought advice from consultants.
He explored different models for tax planning, bookkeeping, recurring revenue, pricing, and advisory services. There was no shortage of information.
What was missing was a complete operating model that connected all the pieces together.
He would learn something about pricing in one place.
Staffing somewhere else.
Service offerings somewhere else.
Technology somewhere else.
But he still had to figure out:
- What should I build first?
- Who should I serve?
- What should I charge?
- What should be included?
- How should I staff the work?
- When should I hire?
- Should I use offshore resources?
- How do I prevent scope creep?
- How do I create enough margin to actually grow?
- How do I get myself out of fulfillment and into running the business?
After investing significant time and money trying to solve those questions, Diego found the FanCAS-Kit.
His reaction?
“Man, I wish I had this on day one.”
The Difference: It Wasn’t More Information. It Was the Right Information in the Right Order.
That is what changed things for Diego.
The FanCAS-Kit didn’t give him another collection of disconnected ideas.
It gave him a pathway.
Instead of trying to solve CAS one client at a time, Diego could step back and look at the entire business.
First: Who are the right clients?
Then:
- What are we actually going to offer?
- How should we price it?
- Who should do the work?
- What technology and infrastructure will support it?
- How do we protect the scope?
- How do we scale?
For Diego, the sequence mattered.
“If I was redoing it on day one, I really would have the tools that I need to say, ‘If I was going to build my firm, how would I build it based on the tools that you guys have already given me?’”
A Big Aha: Cheap Labor Doesn’t Automatically Mean a Profitable Client
One of Diego’s biggest realizations came from revisiting his staffing strategy.
He initially built with offshore resources. On paper, it looked great.
- Lower labor cost.
- Strong margin percentage
But there was a problem. The margin dollars weren’t where he wanted them to be.
The FanCAS-Kit helped him look beyond percentage and ask a better question:
Is this client generating enough actual profit to support the business I’m trying to build?
Using the CAS revenue models in the FanCAS-Kit helped Diego evaluate pricing regardless of whether the work was being performed onshore or offshore.
The lesson: Lower cost should create leverage—not justify lower pricing.
That shift changed how he thought about clients, staffing, and profitability.
Another Aha: Scope Creep Starts Before the Work Does
Diego was also providing far more value than what appeared in a proposal. Sound familiar?
A proposal might summarize a service in a few bullets. But the actual work could involve dozens of responsibilities, conversations, processes, and deliverables.
Without clearly defining the work, it becomes very easy for the question, “Can you also…?” to quietly become part of the monthly fee.
Diego began using the FanCAS-Kit’s CAS Engagement Letter and Statement of Work (SOW).
The difference was immediate.
“It’s given that clarity to be able to go to the client and say, ‘Here’s where we’re starting, and exactly what we’re doing.’”
He found the SOW particularly valuable because it captured the depth of the engagement that a simple three-tier pricing sheet couldn’t.
For Diego, clearer scope meant:
- Better client expectations
- Better pricing conversations
- Better protection against scope creep
- Better understanding of the value his firm was actually delivering
From Taking Clients to Building a Business
Diego also confronted advice almost every new firm owner hears:
“Take whatever comes.”
He tried it.
And, in his words:
“It was a mistake.”
Like many growing firms, he occasionally found himself looking back at an engagement and thinking:
“What was I thinking when I priced this client?”
The FanCAS-Kit gave him something he hadn’t had before:
Permission—and a framework—to be intentional.
Intentional about:
- The clients he accepts
- The pricing he establishes
- The services he delivers
- The people he hires
- The margins he expects
- The milestones that trigger his next hire
- The infrastructure required to scale
Instead of simply trying to get more clients, he could begin designing the firm he actually wanted.
The Ultimate Goal: Get the Owner Out of Everything
Perhaps the biggest shift was realizing that scalability isn’t just about finding more clients.
It’s about building a firm that doesn’t require the owner to personally fulfill everything.
Diego wanted the ability to step back from day-to-day production and spend more time on:
- Business development
- Client relationships
- Strategy
- Growth
But that requires infrastructure.
It requires knowing:
- When do I hire?
- At what level?
- What should they own?
- What technology do I need?
- What revenue milestone supports the next investment?
The FanCAS-Kit helped him begin answering those questions systematically rather than reactively.
“As you’re able to hit the milestones that you set for yourself, you know when to bring in a new person, when to use the right tools, and how you’re going to get from A to B to C.”
What Diego Says He Would Do Differently
If Diego could go back to Day One?
He wouldn’t build client by client.
He would build the business model first.
He would:
- Be more selective about clients.
- Establish pricing intentionally from the beginning.
- Define scope before beginning the work.
- Build staffing around the work—not the other way around.
- Use offshore talent as leverage rather than a reason to discount.
- Establish infrastructure designed for growth.
- Create milestones for hiring and expansion.
- Build recurring services with advisory in mind from the start.
And he would use the FanCAS-Kit as the playbook.
“There’s so much in the toolkit that, like I said, if I had it from day one, I would have built a different firm—and I think I would have been able to get further faster.”
Why the FanCAS-Kit Worked When Other Programs Didn’t
Diego had already invested in learning. What he needed wasn’t another coach telling him he should build CAS. He needed the actual tools to build it.
The FanCAS-Kit brought together the pieces he had been trying to assemble on his own:
Strategy → Clients → Services → Pricing → Scope → People → Technology → Operations → Growth
All in a sequence he could digest, apply, and implement.
That’s the difference between learning about CAS and actually building CAS.
Diego Found More Than a Toolkit
He also found a community of people experiencing the same challenges.
Through Infinite Ties, Diego has been able to ask questions, learn from other practitioners, and work directly with Christine, Michelle, and the broader community.
One of his biggest realizations?
“I’m not the only one.”
Other firm owners are wrestling with the same questions:
- How do we scale?
- How do we price?
- How do we protect our scope?
- How do we find the right clients?
- How do we build a firm that reflects what we actually value?
That validation matters.
And for Diego, it helped turn uncertainty into action.
His final assessment says it best:
“I definitely found my home here.”
How Much Would You Save If You Could Start With the Playbook?
The real cost of building CAS without a plan isn’t just the price of another consulting program.
It’s:
- Years of trial and error
- Underpriced clients
- Scope creep
- Wrong hires
- Poor-fit clients
- Lost margin
- Technology that doesn’t solve the real problem
- An owner trapped in fulfillment
- Opportunities you weren’t ready to pursue
The FanCAS-Kit was created so firms don’t have to build all of this from scratch.
You can learn it the long way.
Or you can start with the playbook practitioners like Diego wish they had from Day One.
Build intentionally. Price profitably. Scale with confidence.
About Infinite-Ties
Infinite Ties is a training community built specifically for Client Advisory Services (CAS) teams. We help accounting firms equip their people with the skills, frameworks, and tools needed to grow and scale a profitable client advisory services practice. Through weekly education, practical resources, and peer collaboration, Infinite Ties supports firms at every stage of their CAS journey, from getting started to optimizing and scaling mature practices.
Ready to build a CAS practice that scales? To learn more about membership, training opportunities, and how Infinite Ties can support your CAS journey, contact Deneen Dias at: ddias@infinite-ties.
