With Mike Payne

The first thing we learn on Episode 283 of The Unique CPA is that Randy has real trouble saying the word “multidisciplinary.” Once we’ve worked that out, we learn that his guest Mike Payne built his career on a bet that most professionals avoid: pairing a law degree with a CPA license instead of picking a lane. That combination became the foundation of BOSS Advisors, a firm he grew to $2 million before recognizing the ceiling of his own skillset. Rather than force growth he wasn't suited to drive, Payne sold the firm to Haga Kommer, a Midwest-based multidisciplinary group with plans for an employee stock ownership structure. Now serving as Chief Growth Officer, he's applying the same generalist philosophy that built his practice, and he argues that AI makes broad issue-spotting more valuable and accessible than narrow specialization, since professionals who can flag a problem can always bring in the right expert to solve it. Mike unpacks the mechanics of merging a law-and-accounting practice, the ethics rules that shaped it, and what business owners should weigh before selling to a larger platform.

Show Transcript Hide Transcript

Today’s guest is Mike Payne. Mike’s a lawyer and a CPA, entrepreneur, and advisor who’s helping redefine what modern professional services firms can look like. As a founder of BOSS Advisors, now part of Haga Kommer, and the leading, see, we edit this stuff, so it will be fine. Now part of Haga Kommer and a leader in Arizona’s multidisci—, what’s the word?

Multidisciplinary.

I can’t say that word. A leader in Arizona’s multi… I still can’t say it.

Okay, so let’s adapt, let’s say

Disciplinary! Got it!

Disciplinary. Okay.

And a leader in Arizona’s multi… the multi screws me up! Justin, sorry you got a lot of editing to do on this intro. Arizona’s multidis— it’s so weird! I’ve never had this before where I can’t say a word.

This is awesome, Randy.

…Multidisciplinary firm movement, and a leader in Arizona’s Multidi… This has got to be a blooper reel.

This is a great start and we should just leave this, this is amazing.

We should just leave this!

You want to talk about having fun? This is awesome.

Alright, Justin, we’re going to roll with this. He is a leader in Arizona’s, the word I can’t say, firm movement. Mike has built his career around one big idea: Business owners get better results when legal, tax, accounting and advisory professionals work together instead of operating in silos. Mike, it was a lot for me to get through, but welcome to The Unique CPA.

Thank you, Randy. Appreciate you having me. I love your podcast.

Thank you. We’re already meeting one of the requirements of the podcast, which is “have fun,” and we got through and we’re here. So let’s get into the conversation now, or even before that. Let’s set the stage ’cause of who you are. Wait, who are you? What are you doing here? Oh, wait, no, nevermind. I remember that part of it. But I mentioned there you’re a lawyer and a CPA. I don’t know if that was the idea from day one, but I guess let’s talk about what led you down that path. Was there a point in time where you thought, “Do I have to choose one?” Or was like, “Hey, I’m going to blend these together.”

Yeah. So I never wanted to be a lawyer or an accountant. When I first started, I just wanted to be a business owner. That’s what my family does, my dad does, all my uncles, my brothers. And so I went to school, kind of had this model in mind. Developed it over time that there was a guy that I respected a lot growing up. He was a lawyer and a CPA, and he actually ran a construction business but building custom homes. Never practiced on either side. And I talked to him about it when I was studying, I was in a business administration degree at the time and he said, “Look, go get the skills. An accounting degree will give you skills that a business degree won’t, and then just see where it goes from there.” And so did that.

By the time I graduated, the recession had hit and so I got my year of experience at CPA and decided, I’m just going to stay in school a little bit longer and kind of ride this out, and so ended up going to law school kind of last minute, that’s another story. Went and got enlisted in classes the day classes started. So I missed all the orientation. I didn’t know I was going to law school until the day before law school started, wild. And then in law school, I actually wasn’t planning to go into tax. I had a CPA with a few years of tax and accounting experience, but I didn’t want to pigeonhole myself at first. And then I kind of realized over time, talking to some tax professors that, hey, there’s a real opportunity for someone with my background to just get really good at it. And frankly, they knew I wanted to be a business owner someday, and so they kind of just said, “Look, this is the best combination you can have if you’re going to be a business owner. This will at minimum, govern what you do, educate you as a business owner. At most, maybe you’ll end up practicing both these areas and you’ll be a great asset.”

We talked about, so you wanted to be a business owner. When did BOSS Advisors start then? I mean, was this right after law school, or?

No, I wasn’t that brave. I cut my teeth at Ernst & Young, actually started their nonprofit group, knowing that eventually I wanted to get back to local business owners for the most part, which is what I had started in. I left EY to go to a regional law firm, was there for a while. Ended up coming back with a promotion at EY, got close to senior manager, and then decided that was a time where I wanted to jump out and try things on my own. One of the reasons I did that is because I was getting recruiters hitting me up three, four times a week. LinkedIn, my email inbox, my cell phone, both texts and calls. I even had some recruiters call me at my office desk while I was at EY, which means they had to go through the phone tree, they had to call the front desk at EY and say, “I need to talk to Mike Payne.” They would transfer the phone to me and it would be a recruiter asking me if I wanted to go to another job. I’m like, guys, I’m at work. I work in a cubicle. People can hear this conversation. Maybe let’s connect after hours? And so I just felt like I had so much job security that the risks shifted from, “Oh, I’m scared, I’ve got three kids, I’m going to go jump out and start a business, that’s scary,” to, well what if I don’t do this? I know if it fails, people will respect that, first of all. And second, I’ve got a lot of job security. So I’ll never, with my background and you’re kind of at that hotspot, the five to seven year professional that everybody wants. So I knew I was desirable and so I just decided I’m going to launch it and see what happens.

And what year was that?

That was end of 2017.

2017, so nine years ago. And I’m curious of the name first, “BOSS,” which I think it’s all capital letters.

Yeah.

And then Advisors, which is the, you know, when I was talking about multidisciplinary, ooh, I did pretty good that time.

Nice, nice.

And advisory. It was probably the mindset. So talk about the birth of the name of the organization.

Yeah. So when I first started out, I met with the State Bar, I met with the Arizona Board of Accountancy, and then I found every JD/CPA I could find on LinkedIn. I had a pretty small network at the time, but I talked to three or four people. The practitioners gave me the advice of, hey, just pick one hat and wear it. You can be a lawyer in an accounting firm, you can have an accounting background in a law firm. Those will both help you, but don’t try to do both, it’s too complicated. I said, thanks, I’m going to do it anyway.

Yeah.

So I went and met with the State Bar with the Board of Accountancy and walk through the ethical rules. They said, you can do it. You just have to have certain things have to be kept separately. You can’t have accounting staff access your legal records and that kind of thing. And so I ran them as Payne Financial and Payne Law PLC, and then eventually Arizona changed the rules, first state that allowed lawyers to share fees with non-lawyers. And so at that point I merged the two firms together. I had my, my business partner at the time was an enrolled agent. He came in as a business partner and then we were able to do everything under one roof and it just got a lot smoother at that point. And that was a good time to do some rebranding because I wanted to, I noticed when we had our names in the firm, it was Payne Huebsch. Everybody was coming to, try to pronounce that name, H-U-E-B-S-C-H. Love Chad, but that’s a tough name to pronounce. So we decided we wanted a more general name that didn’t encourage clients to come to us for every problem, ’cause we were trying to grow and scale. And so, I worked on it for weeks.

Oh yeah.

Spent way too much time coming up with a bunch of different words. This is before AI, so I had to use my brain, which is a challenge. And it just hit me one morning, I popped up at three in the morning, and I was kind of looking for an acronym at the time. And so it popped in my brain like, hey, “BOSS,” Business Owner Systems and Strategies.

Oh, wow.

So, that’s what it ended up being. And I can tell you while we were BOSS Advisors for the next five years, every time I asked my staff what it stood for, everybody said something different. So it wasn’t the most effective acronym ever, but I did like the name. It kind of had a double entendre and that was pretty fun.

Yeah. Just as a quick story, the coming up with the name Tri-Merit, which by the time this episode airs, I will have been retired from Tri-Merit, but like you said, weeks probably at least coming up with the name. And I think I may have told the story on the podcast before, but my wife ended up dreaming part of the name, and I can’t remember what part, and then I came up with the other part and which is good to put it together. And it was pretty much, I think she came up with the, I don’t know, she was thinking like, Tri something, Tri this, Tri that. And then I was like, okay, I was putting credits, ’cause that’s where we were doing R&D tax credits at the time, was just that. And I was like putting that through a thesaurus to fi— oh, I said that fine. I could say thesaurus. I can’t say multi-disciplinary. Multidisciplinary. Alright, we’re getting there, right. I was putting that through the thesaurus and then finally came up with “Merit.” You’ve earned this, you deserve it. It’s yours. You’ve merited this. So, so yeah, it was, I often say that was like the hardest part of business was coming up with the name.

Yeah. No, it is challenging. I like BOSS because we try to work with the decision maker, right, work with the boss. And so, we’re advising the boss and it had a couple meanings, so.

Yeah. And you look like you look like a boss. So there, it’s, it works for you personally too, then.

Yeah, a bald boss, sure.

Well, let’s transition then, because that is not the name anymore. You recently, and I think it was sometime last year, you can correct me, you went through a merger or an acquisition where you’re now part of Haga Kommer. And so talk about that process, ’cause this is pretty interesting, there’s a lot of this going on: M&A and PE, private equity and all these different VC and just investments and firms, financial services firms, buying accounting firms, all this stuff. So I’m assuming you had a lot of opportunities, a lot of people interested. How did this whole process come to be, and how did you end up with the firm you decided on?

Yeah, so it started, I had a couple of suitors who just approached me and said, hey, I really like what you’re doing. Would you be interested in partnership or an acquisition, and then staying on in a strategic role? And I kind of toyed with it. I talked to my business partner, we thought, hey, there might be a reason to do this. We kind of got to the point where we plateaued just over $2 million. Stayed there for a few years. And I kind of came to the realization, this is a very humbling, difficult realization to come to, is that my skillset is not necessarily the right skillset for taking a $2 million firm to $10 million. I’d never run a firm or any sort of business before this. And so to me, getting it to $2 million is a huge accomplishment, and I think that’s more in line with what I like to do. And I do that for clients every day: work with startups, get them to the point where they’re up and running and operating, get to a certain point, and then they bring in a C-suite, a sales team, more mature leadership. And so we eventually decided that, hey, we’re going to try this. We’re going to work with a business broker, a guy named Justin Farmer, who is fantastic.

I know Justin. Yep.

Yeah, Justin’s a great guy. I like working with Justin because he is a former M&A business lawyer like I am. So he had a very unique approach—in Arizona, business brokers tend to start in real estate, it’s just a different ball field. And so that was a great fit for us. He got us in front of a handful of PE firms that were interested, just wasn’t a good fit. And then eventually he brought us a firm called Haga Kommer, and the founder, his name is Toby Kommer, about a $30 million farm based in the Midwest. And so just very down to earth people, Midwest values, hardworking farmer types, and that’s, my dad’s a farmer, so it kind of resonated with me. And so Toby’s grown by acquisition. He’s done 30 something deals. His typical deal size is $1–2 million, and he’s got like a $10 million acquisition budget this year alone in 2026. And so different growth model, but very effective. He’ll buy up retiring firm owners or firm owners who are ready to be part of something bigger, which was the case with us. I kind of recognized I needed an infusion of capital, mentorship, leadership, structure, whatever the case may be.

The reason I like this firm is because our multidisciplinary model, that’s been our sales approach and our kind of unique advantage is that we’re able to do tax accounting and legal under one roof. Well, now with the Haga Kommer family of services, we’re able to tack on wealth management, insurance and banking. And that’s huge, if I can go to a client that’s going through a deal and say, hey, you’ve got four potential buyers, let me introduce them to our bank, and I’ve got the CEO of the bank, the president of the bank, I’ve got a cell phone number, let me introduce you to him and let’s have him pre-qualify the buyer’s deals, so that when we get close to closing, we don’t have this fall through for lack of financing. Toby being the owner of the firm and the bank has final say. No matter what the underwriters say, if he likes the deal, the deal’s going to go through. And so it’s a huge advantage to be able to have that in our family of services.

Yeah. No, that’s nice. So what is your role? Are you one specific thing within this new organization, or are you still multidisciplinary advisory opportunities? Woo, I said it again.

Yeah, so I’ll always keep my licensing as a CPA and a lawyer. My focus has always been kind of the strategy piece, business entity structuring, M&A deals, tax planning, those kind of things. And so I continue to do that, but I’m shifting out of client work. I have a handful of clients that I’m still managing, but that’s waning more and more now that I have a really solid tax manager that’s taken over for me. And so my new role is the Chief Growth Officer, which, essentially overseeing growth and, there’s an innovation part of that with regard to the firm’s technology that I’m helping with. We put in some AI tools and some other kind of modern tools to pair with our current tools and making slow progress there. But primarily my job is to make sure that we are, as a firm, continuing to grow in the right ways. Obviously we’re going to keep growing by acquisition, but we need some organic growth, and hopefully I can do this pretty well before I get fired. We’ll see.

Alright, well, we’ll check back in a year. Make sure you haven’t gotten fired yet. So that’s what I was going to ask. Is it a combination of organic and acquisitions? And it sounds like the way it has gone for Toby over time is acquisitions as well, and I’m sure organic. And so now you’re the guy in charge of making sure that happens. No pressure.

Yeah, it is pressure, but it’s good pressure and I thrive in pressure. I have ADHD and that’s kind of when your brain turns on.

Is it?

Yeah, it’s interesting, if I have a blank day with no calendar appointments, which happens like once every four years, my brain tends to go creative, and I make a bunch of LinkedIn posts, and I start doing this marketing stuff. But when I have a bunch of client meetings, I’m dialed in, I get those done. I’m on, in kind of a more production mode. So it’s interesting. It shifts back and forth.

Alright, so now we set the stage. A couple things I want to make a comment on, one thing you said, that realizing that you’re really good, or your skillset is growing to $2 million, but taking that next step, you realize that that’s not you. And that’s one reason you were looking to do a deal. That’s something that same thing I went through, but it took me a lot later in life to make that realization, so I give you a lot of credit for understanding that earlier. But when you lean into, I don’t like saying when you “identify your weaknesses,” because I don’t think, “look at his weaknesses,” I look at things you just don’t like doing, and that’s not where your passion is. And so, but when you identify, but what the, conversely, the positive is when you identify what you are good at, what you love doing, and if you just spend your time in that arena, man, it is just an unbelievable place to be. And that took me a long time to realize, but I give you a lot of credit for doing it a lot earlier in your career than I did. So kudos to you on that.

Well, no, I think you’re right, Randy. I learned that, probably three, four years into running my business that I always used to think, well, I’ve got certain things I’m good at, so I’m going to leave those be, I’m going to try to bring up, spend my time on the things that I’m not as good at, so I could be more well-rounded. And it’s the opposite. In reality, what you need to do is delegate those things, create a system, processes, staffing, whatever the case may be, to where those get taken care of by somebody who is good at those. And then you just get better and better and better at the things you’re good at until you’re great at them. And that’s what creates marketability. That’s increased demand.

Yep. No, you are spot on with that. So I just want to let you know, very impressive.

I appreciate that.

Let’s dig into the advisor part of the name, BOSS Advisors, before you did this transaction and how important that is. And then the word that I can’t say, multiple advisory opportunities, was one of the things you did or now with Haga Kommer, is this an area where you can advise on multiple different things within this organization? And I guess part of it, the question is, why do companies get siloed in what they think they can advise on compared to having these multiple opportunities to advise on different areas? And is it the size of a firm that makes a difference? Is it people’s skillsets? And, I can ask 10 questions within this one. So I should probably stop there so I don’t overwhelm your ADHD. Is that how it works? I have no idea.

No, I’ll just focus on one and then I’ll go off on a tangent and it won’t be related to anything you said.

Perfect. That’s what I love.

So I don’t think there’s a wrong answer, and what we’re talking about is specializing versus generalizing, right? Kind of the theme. By the nature of what I do and having two separate, completely unrelated degrees, I kind of fell into the generalist bucket. I did develop specialty within nonprofits when I was at EY, so that was great to have that tool in my toolbelt. We saw a lot of promotion of niching in the last five, seven years. Every business coach I’ve ever worked with, every LinkedIn influencer, everybody says, you’ve got to niche, the riches are in the niches. Pick one industry, get great at it. I think there’s nothing wrong with that argument. I’ve tried to do that organically. I’ve kind of leaned towards professional services and real estate and those are the ones I like working with, just because that’s what’s common in Arizona where I live. But I think we’re seeing a push, I’ve seen people talking about this recently, on going back to being a generalist and there’s a certain personality and skillset that is required to be pretty good at everything, and I think that’s supplemented by AI, because if you’re good enough at all of the general areas of running a business, if you’re can at least identify or issue spot when there might be an opportunity or a challenge or an issue or whatever, then you can bring in the big guns, then you can start doing the AI research on that specific thing, answer the specific question, or you can bring in a separate advisor who can walk through that particular complicated issue. But if you’re so specialized in one thing that you don’t even know there might be a tax problem when you’re working on a CFO strategy, for example, you don’t even recognize that there might be a problem here, that’s when it starts to potentially come bite you in the butt. Can I say that word? I know you said no profanity.

You’re good. “Butt” is okay, I’m going to say it’s okay. Alright. So I agree with that completely. I am a niche proponent, but I’m also proponent to what you just said: being able to, I don’t think the word is cross-sell, but cross-identify opportunities within that client base, and so you do have to have this additional knowledge. No, I’m not going to ever, in my mind, tell somebody they have to be an expert in tax and accounting and SALT and auditing car dealerships and Burger Kings at the same time, and all this because it just for me gets too overwhelming. But I think especially a firm your size, you can have multiple niches, you can have multiple expertise, and then that cross-training within that, like, hey, Mike’s talking to this client about tax, but he should understand when there’s a “blank” opportunity as well, but then get it to the right person in the firm. That’s the way I look at, I assume with Haga Kommer that you do have these experts in different areas, and part of it is just the identification and then getting it to the person who can do the advisory internally, or am I way off base?

No, that’s exactly right. In law school they talk about issue spotting, and that’s a particular skill where you kind of back off of any kind of determination or conclusion mentality and just kind of let yourself float and ask the question, like, what are the potential implications of what’s happening here, right? What are the potential issues? And it’s a skillset that I’ve worked on a lot, and I am pretty good about being able to see a situation and just say, okay, here’s all the potential things that might come up. Here’s the opportunities and then let’s work on from there. What am I good at? What am I uniquely qualified to do? I’m going to attack those things, but I know I need to bring in a partner on x, y, z, whether that’s within the firm or externally, it helps to have a firm of 250 people, people that have different specialties. But, there’s things like, we were talking about this the other day. If it’s an expat situation, if it’s foreign tax stuff, if it’s pension, any advanced pension type questions, we’ll bring in a qualified third party intermediary for a 1031 exchange. We’re not going to try to do everything. We’re just going to stay in our lanes on what we’re good at and it’s possible we’ll add a 1031 specialist down the road, but I know enough about 1031s to be able to identify like exactly, at least generally what the issues are, and then let them know this is what I think, I’ll work with your 1031 advisor, I’ll bring one in if you don’t have one, have a great one, and we’ll work with them to make sure that we’re not off base here and identify any of their issues.

Yeah, I completely agree with that strategy. It’s in fact, part of the conference this year at the Bridging Gap conference was strategic partnerships, the importance of teaming up with somebody on areas that you just don’t have the expertise, but you know, you need to service your clients that way. I think that’s huge, there’s pretty much no firm that can do everything.

Yeah.

I don’t even think the Big Four can do everything. And so just having those relationships I think are super important. Alright. So, I love hearing the journey, the story, the multidisciplinary. Look at this, I am an expert now, going to graduate, multidisciplinary—I could be a podcast host now—approach to advisory. I think the big idea is that integrated advisory, that we’re able to do this internally, but again, being able to outsource when we know we need to. But identifying, I think, me personally, and I’ve talked to a bunch of companies out there that are doing really innovative things in the profession, I see AI getting involved in this from an identification standpoint. What did you call it? The issue spotting or something?

Issue spotting, yeah, that’s what I’ve always called it.

Yep. I think this is going to help, but not just to do it, but to train people on it as well, because if we just rely on AI, our brains are going to go mush. So I see that this is going to be a way that we’re going to be able to teach people as we integrate advisory more into the roles which we’re going to have to, when AI starts doing the compliance work for us, which I shouldn’t say start, it already is.

Yeah. Well, I think until we get to the point where we implant chips into our brain, you still have to know enough to think on the fly. And if you’re on a phone call or in a meeting with a client, unless you’re just going to sit there and be a data monkey and type up in AI as you go and read the answers, you’ve got to be able to think on the fly, and you have to have a general understanding of how these things work before you even can write the correct prompt. Clients aren’t going to love when you say, hey, good question, this is fine, this is actually the right answer, is “good question, let me get back to you.” But yes, if you can’t add any value on the call and everything is, hey, let me get back to you after I talk to Claude, you might lose them, maybe.

Yeah. Yeah. I definitely see that happening. Well, I know there’s something coming that is going to help us on the fly with that conversation.

A little teaser. A little teaser.

Yeah. I probably shouldn’t say too much. I don’t know if I’m supposed to, but that there’s tools out there that are going to help with that, for sure.

Yeah.

So I guess let’s just wrap up with, you made this decision to merge your firm in, or I guess you were purchased because, I met Toby and I know Toby’s the, what, a hundred percent owner of the organization, and I think he told me, or you told me that it, they’re the largest single owner firm in the country?

That’s right. And it won’t be for long because Toby’s actually announced that we are going to be owned by an ESOP in the next two years.

Okay, I wasn’t sure if that was…

Yeah, no, he’s very open and public about that. That’s actually, I’ve brought in I think four candidates since I started the firm in November, and that’s the easy selling point is, hey, if you stay on, you’re going to get equity in this firm, and you stay on for another 15, 20 years, your equity in the firm will outpace most likely any retirement contributions you can put in, and now you’ll have a second retirement fund just for your tenure staying at the firm.

Yep. When you introduced me to Toby, when we were at the Phoenix Open, or what’s it also called?

The Waste Management Open. Such a classy name.

Exactly. That was one of the first questions I asked him is, what is the plan? And he told me that ESOP was the plan. We’re going to try to get Toby on the podcast to discuss that down the road. I’m pretty sure you’re making it happen, so I assume that’s going to happen, but it’ll be an interesting conversation.

Yeah.

And so you made that decision to sell to Haga Kommer, but there was obviously the huge benefits you saw behind it, and part of it is, I assume, being able to build a better firm with all these services and this integrated advisory and all these opportunities. So I guess the question I have for you is to pivot a little bit to back to where we started at the beginning is if somebody was considering a transaction down the road, they feel they got to their firm to a spot, like you said, where they couldn’t take it any further, what advice would you give them when they’re going through this process?

I think you need to understand if your intention is to stay on, or if your intention is to go do something else. If it’s going to be doing something else, you’re going to be under non-compete. I know that the first thing I hear from that is people always say, well, non-compete is not enforceable. That’s the case. I’m not providing legal advice here. I’m not your lawyer.

Yes, you’re not.

Generally, a non-compete is not going to be enforceable under an employment relationship, but when you’ve received something of value and you’ve received consideration for the sale of your business, it’s absolutely appropriate for that contract to lock you down and say, “Hey, you can’t go start at a competing firm and steal our clients back. You’ve been paid specifically not to do that for a period of time.” So understand what you’re going to do next. If you are going to stay on, the best advice I can give you is really take your time, vet out the potential buyers, and make sure that their vision aligns with yours, because if it doesn’t, you’re not going to be happy. And that, that’s one thing that I really loved about Toby, is we were just locked in step in terms of how to do this and how to build it. And we continue to be, and it’s a great partnership because I’ve got autonomy to do this the way I want to, but I’ve also got his direction, and he’s done this at a very high level that I have not. And so it’s just great to have someone to go down the hall, the virtual hall, he’s in the Scottsdale office, I’m in Mesa. But just to be able to pitch ideas and, you know, I get shut down a lot, which is fine, I’m good with that. And this is part of the nature of the beast is, yeah, I may have 10 ideas and if one sticks, then I’m still making progress.

Yep. Nice. Alright, well, well I think that was great advice. I appreciate you sharing that. I’m going to pivot now and, I think I’ve said “pivot” multiple times on the podcast today. I don’t normally say that, so this is a new word for me. It’s a word I can say, so that’s why. So, let’s go to the final two things. Obviously, we talked about the profession, accounting and law and what’s going on. But when you’re not thinking about accounting or law or building this organization, what do you do for fun? What’s your outside of work passions?

So I saw a thing the other day that said “men’s idea of hobbies are just different modes of transportation.” And so that’s the case with me. I ride dirt bikes, I’ve got a boat, try to just get outside and spend time with the kids. I just bought a boat with my brother and it’s, my kids are all teenagers, it’s an ideal time to just be on the lake. It’s something they all love to do. So yeah, snowboard. Kind of that kind of stuff. I’m into live music and comedy and local sports teams, so that kind of stuff.

Okay. So you just said snowboard and lakes. Where are those near you in Arizona?

Surprisingly, we’re only two hours from either one. I’m in the Phoenix area, but two hours north you get the Flagstaff, and there’s a ski resort. And then I’m actually only 20 minutes from a lake. And if you haven’t been on a lake in Arizona and been on a boat, hit me up when you’re in town, I’ll take you out. It’s beautiful. And we can go out year round too.

Alright. Well, I know for sure my next stop in Arizona is mid-January, so I’ll let you know. I don’t know if it’ll be warm enough or not, but you just said you’re round, so we’ll go for it.

Yeah, don’t get in the water, but we can definitely go on the lake.

Alright. And then last question, if anybody wants to hear more about what you’re doing or the organization or anything that’s going on in your world, where would they look?

Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn. It’s Mike Payne , JD - CPA. Or I have a personal website, TheMikePayne .com. Just put some stuff on. I put my podcasts on there and just kind of a way to easily find me and contact me.

Wait, we didn’t talk about your podcast. What’s your podcast?

No, I don’t have a podcast. I’d like to start one someday. I’m actually talking to Blake Oliver about putting that together, but no, podcasts, I’ve been on 30 something podcasts, so I just like to put them up so I can go back and just listen to myself because you just learn so much, listen to myself. It’s really fantastic.

Alright, that sounds like a great time. I don’t know if I’ve ever listened to myself. Maybe I should try that. I might look at it, I might do it and go and cringe and say, I’ve got to stop this, I’m not meant for podcasting.

I’m like, does my voice really sound like that?

Exactly. Alright. Well Mike, thank you so much. Thanks for the laughs as much as the education. I appreciate it and I appreciate you being on this episode of The Unique CPA.

Yeah, thanks for having me on, Randy. Always good to catch up.

Important Links

Mike Payne on LinkedIn

Mike Payne’s Personal Website

Haga Kommer

About the Guest

Mike Payne is a lawyer and CPA serving as Chief Growth Officer at Haga Kommer, where he oversees firm expansion and technology innovation. He began his career at Ernst & Young, working in the firm's nonprofit practice, before moving to a regional law firm and later returning to EY. In 2017, he founded BOSS Advisors, a multidisciplinary firm built around the idea that business owners benefit when legal, tax, accounting, and advisory services work together rather than operating in silos. Under his leadership, BOSS Advisors grew into a respected firm before merging with Haga Kommer, a multidisciplinary services firm based in the Midwest. Payne's work centers on business entity structuring, mergers and acquisitions, and tax planning, with a broader focus on helping business owners access integrated advisory support as they scale.