EP451: Doreen Binkiewicz - Succession Strategies For Long-Term Growth

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Doreen Binkiewicz started DGL Business Solutions on her own terms — specific days, specific hours, clients who fit that schedule — and built it into a firm of five while raising her kids. Now a certified exit planning advisor, she joins host Michael Palmer to talk about how Pure Bookkeeping's hiring system changed the quality of her team, why succession planning belongs in every client conversation, and how bookkeepers are uniquely positioned to lead that work.

Chapters

• [00:00] Intro and Guest Welcome
• [01:52] Building a Business Around Family
• [04:40] Discovering Profit First
• [06:30] Hiring with Pure Bookkeeping
• [09:00] Growing to Five Staff
• [10:30] Referral-Based Client Growth
• [12:00] Discovering Succession Planning
• [15:00] The Four C's Explained
• [20:00] Bookkeeping as the Advisory Foundation
• [23:00] Pricing and the Discovery Offer

Building a Business Around Real Life

Doreen came out of a 12-to-15-year Wall Street career that ran from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. When she had kids, she decided that wasn't working. She chose her days, chose her hours, and only took clients who fit. "I only took clients that would fit into those days of the week and those times," she says. "It's like Lisa's time blocking on steroids." As the kids grew older and needed her less, she took on more clients — and eventually realized she needed help.

Hiring with a System That Actually Works

Before Pure Bookkeeping, Doreen hired on instinct: she liked someone, she hired them, and she made a lot of mistakes. The skills assessment changed everything. "I would put people through the test before even giving them an offer," she explains. "And then finally, when I would give them the offer, I would make them certify in Pure Bookkeeping so that I knew that by the day that they started, they would be already integrated into my business. And it worked beautifully." The firm now has five staff members she trusts completely — which is what gave her the bandwidth to pursue succession planning.

The Four C's of Succession Planning

After becoming a Certified Exit Planning Advisor through the Exit Planning Institute, Doreen works with small business owners on a framework built around four areas. Structural capital — can the business run without one key person? Human capital — does the team have real ownership or are they just loyal to the boss? Customer capital — do clients ask for the owner by name, and what happens when the owner leaves? Social capital — is the culture, including vendor relationships, something a new owner can step into? "If somebody else can't operate your business and you can't transfer the value that you currently have in your business to that other person and allow them to operate it, your business is not ready," Doreen says plainly.

Why Bookkeepers Should Be Having This Conversation

For most small business owners, 80% of their personal wealth sits inside the business. Yet only 20% successfully transition when the time comes — and half of those transitions are involuntary, triggered by divorce, illness, or death. Doreen argues this is an underserved space that bookkeepers are already equipped to address. "The attention to detail that bookkeepers naturally have just so totally translates into this kind of a business," she says. Her own succession planning clients often need their books cleaned up before anything else can happen — a referral from a bank to Doreen came precisely because a business owner's books were a mess and she needed to sell in two years.

Succession Planning as an Advisory Arm

Doreen's path — systems, trusted staff, then advisory — is a practical model for bookkeepers thinking about adding higher-margin services. She completed the Accelerate to Advisor program and began offering succession planning engagements to her existing client base. Engagements take years and begin with discovery and risk mitigation: finding missing operating agreements, uninsured exposures, gaps in the team structure. "Succession planning should be something that every business owner does every day," she says. "It's not something you do in the last five years of your business. It's something you do in the last five minutes of every day."

Links Mentioned

• Discovery assessment offer: Email Doreen at doreen@dglbusinesssolutions.com with the subject line Successful Bookkeeper Podcast assessment request to receive a business succession questionnaire and summary report.
• Pure Bookkeeping: purebookkeeping.com
• The Successful Bookkeeper: thesuccessfulbookkeeper.com
• Exit Planning Institute — Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA) designation
• Profit First by Mike Michalowicz
• The E-Myth by Michael Gerber
• Built to Sell by John Warrillow

About the Guest

Doreen Binkiewicz is the owner of DGL Business Solutions, Inc., a Pure Bookkeeping licensee, and a Certified Exit Planning Advisor through the Exit Planning Institute. She built her bookkeeping firm from the ground up while raising her children, grew her team to five, and now combines bookkeeping services with succession planning advisory work for small business owners. You can reach her at doreen@dglbusinesssolutions.com.