Jason Kruger is the Founder and President of Signature Analytics, a firm providing accounting and business advisory solutions to small- and middle-market businesses. As a business advisor and CPA, Jason focuses on helping business owners, leaders, and executives improve performance by providing visibility into their finances. With a background in public accounting, he was the Audit Senior Manager at Deloitte and Moss Adams LLP.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- [1:45] Why Jason Kruger started his business during the 2008 recession
- [6:37] How Jason remained committed to growth during the recession
- [9:46] Strategies for acquiring and retaining top talent
- [13:13] Jason’s approach to building a thriving company culture
- [17:35] How to identify an ideal accountant or financial professional
- [22:00] Jason explains his fractional CFO services
- [25:06] Fraud prevention measures for small businesses
In this episode…
Starting a business when the economy is crumbling may seem like a recipe for disaster. Yet some entrepreneurs thrive during these times, growing a venture from the ground up. How do they navigate these seemingly insurmountable challenges and set their businesses on a trajectory of success?
Having launched his business during the 2008 economic recession, CPA Jason Kruger improvised everything before building a hiring model and internal processes, allowing him to scale from zero to 100 employees. He emphasizes developing an attractive company culture and a long-term vision, as well as maintaining patience throughout the process. Additionally, entrepreneurs often lack financial acumen, so hiring financial professionals prevents oversights and supports strategic long-term growth.
Welcome back to The Guts and Glory Show as Luis Scott interviews Jason Kruger, the Founder and President of Signature Analytics, about building a thriving business and mastering financial strategies. Jason shares his methods for hiring the right team, fostering a strong company culture, and securing your finances against fraud.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Luis Scott: Website | LinkedIn
- 8 Figure Firm
- Jason Kruger on LinkedIn
- Jason Kruger’s email: jkruger@signatureanalytics.com
- Signature Analytics
Quotable Moments:
- “You can’t get from zero to 10 million overnight. It takes stepping stones and celebrating successes along the way.”
- “A lot of business success comes down to pure willpower and the guts to jump in with two feet.”
- “Culture isn’t just about the fun things. It’s about giving team members a platform to succeed and grow in their careers.”
- “Educate yourself on all aspects of your business so you can effectively manage and guide the experts you hire.”
- “Automation and modern tools are key to preventing fraud and streamlining the financial processes in your business.”
Action Steps:
- Educate yourself on basic accounting principles: Understanding how to read financial statements gives you oversight and helps prevent fraud within your business.
- Invest in automation tools for financial transactions: Using platforms like Bill.com can reduce the risk of fraud by setting up internal controls and approvals for payments.
- Implement a company culture focused on professional growth: A strong culture attracts and retains talent by providing clear career paths and opportunities for development.
- Hire a third-party accounting service for oversight: Bring in experts like Signature Analytics to establish financial processes, provide checks and balances, and support growth strategically.
- Engage with experts when hiring for key positions: Use the experience of your network or professional advisors to help identify and hire the right people for financial roles within your organization.
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by 8 Figure Firm.
Founded by Luis Scott, 8 Figure Firm helps transform your law firm into a seven-figure or even eight-figure firm.
After spending years searching for the ideal law firm consulting program, Luis started 8 Figure Firm to use his hands-on experience to help other law firms achieve exponential growth.
Visit www.8figurefirm.com to receive a consultation call and start scaling your business today.
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:01
Get ready to be amazed. Get ready to be transformed. Get ready to believe it is possible. You’re entering the growth zone on The Guts and Glory Show with your host, Luis Scott, Hey
Luis Scott 0:22
guys, welcome to The Guts and Glory Show, a show dedicated to helping you learn just a little more so that you can be bigger and better than you were before. And I’m your host. Luis, I’m excited that you’re here joining us. As you know, on this show, we talk about the guts it takes to succeed and the glory of success. So I always have guests who are already successful, who can tell you the pitfalls of building a business, and also who can guide us in making right decisions. So today, our guest is Jason Kruger, and I love talking to people who are in San Diego, because it is my favorite city in the United States. I can’t say the world. I haven’t been everywhere in the world, but it is one of my favorite cities. It is the weather is absolutely gorgeous. If I if I wasn’t tied to where I am today, I would probably move there, because I absolutely love the city. Jason, welcome
Jason Kruger 1:08
to the show. Yep. Thanks, Luis, appreciate it
Luis Scott 1:11
absolutely. So I want to start off because pre show, we were talking about you starting your business, and I was very intrigued by the fact that you have a relative almost 100 employees in your business, and that’s very uncommon for a an accounting, CFO, analytics type of of business. And so I asked you when you started your business. You said 2008 and I was like, whoa. Like, that’s the almost the sounds like the worst time to start a business. So I’m curious, like, What made you start your business in 2008 What did you learn in that process? I mean, that was, that was a tough time. Yeah,
Jason Kruger 1:45
yeah, exactly. I always start off by saying, well, it’s probably a little bit of ignorance, you know, when I jumped right in, but before I started the company in 2008 well, I’ll give a brief background. My background is in public accounting. I have my CPA, my my background in public accounting was within financial statement audit. So I spent a number of years with some of the bigger firms in the country, a couple years with Moss Adams, and then about seven or eight years with Deloitte, which is one of the big public, Big Four public accounting firms. And so what I saw working with those within those firms is we worked with all different types of companies, small, big, fortune, 500 and what I saw in the small, mid market is really companies that deserve better than what they had within accounting and finance, meaning they had, maybe a bookkeeper. They started to outgrow the sophistication of that bookkeeper. They started to not get have confidence in the numbers that they were getting and and all they were really getting out of accounting was they were, you know, invoicing and paying their bills, and, you know, made sure they have enough cash for payroll. And what we wanted to do was shift that mindset to as companies grow, to be able to scale and grow effectively and to achieve the goals that these business owners have, there has to be some level of financial understanding and visibility that allows them to make decisions to achieve the goals that they have. And so we started, I ri started Signature Analytics in 2008 I had, I had a very understanding wife at the time who was able to cover some of our, our main bills, of course, and we didn’t have any kids. And so I was able to jump in with two feet and and really go after it and and see if I could make it happen. And so it was really just myself. I did that in October of, oh, eight, which, as you know, is, or, if you can recall, is, you know, the economy was falling apart and but at the same time, I didn’t have employees, so I didn’t have the stress of trying to make payroll and those types of things. But, you know, I figured, hey, you know, now’s the time for me, personally, I have the background and the experience that I acquired over the 10 years prior to that, and there’s a lot of value I can still give to companies out there. And so I started, you know, myself, bought a computer, and started going out there and building relationships and within the community of San Diego at the time and and starting to drive new opportunities. But, you know, it was everything from flying by the seat of my pants at the beginning to doing everything and trying to find, you know, people to support the work and to to establishing over a period of time and years, you know, building out full time employee model, building our internal processes, which is critical to our success, building our back office, even you know, our HR functionality, sales, marketing, improving the the how we service our clients, to ensure the quality of the work is there. So all of that over a period of time. You. Has grown, and, you know, ultimately, after 16 years, you end up with almost 100 employees. But I would the last thing I’ll say is, I love the the name of your of your show, because, you know, Guts and Glory. I mean, the reality is, some, some, sometimes you get asked, Well, how did you get from where you were to where you are? Or, you know, how did you know, how did you, how were you able to grow a company? And I said, well, a lot of it is pure willpower, right? It’s like, hey, it’s, I’m going to jump in and I’m going to make it happen. And sometimes it’s going to and it’s most likely going to take longer than you expect it to happen. But if you have that belief and that willpower to make it happen, and you jump in with two feet, that’ll get you a long way and a lot further than a lot of individuals that maybe jump in with one foot or after six months to say, you know, it’s not working, I’m going to stop doing it. And so that willpower and that gut you know is what really, you know, helps, I think, or at least helped me to succeed in what I was doing.
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