The Trust Engine w/ Johnny Terra
I'm Johnny Terra, CPA. I came to Texas from Brazil with two hundred dollars, built my first accounting practice out of a pantry between a bank job and midnight, merged it into a firm, and became the bottleneck of all of it. What fixed it was treating my hours like money and building systems that answer the question once. Home by six. Same income.
The Trust Engine is where I document how I lead a team and how I talk to clients, one story at a time, with the math on getting home by six. For CPAs and firm owners who are good at the work and trapped by it, and for the manager who just got handed a team. One episode a month, the first of the month. Real stories, names changed, lessons intact.
Same revenue, half the hours.
The letter, free, every Tuesday: intentionaloperator.substack.com · everywhere else: @johnnyterracpa
The Trust Engine w/ Johnny Terra
Latest Episodes
Your First Hire Didn't Free You
Everybody told me my first hire would set me free. I hired two part-timers in year five... and worked more than ever. This is the whole story: the fog my good people walked into, the months I blamed them for it, and the one-page document that f...
Raise Your Prices: Your Number Was Set by Someone Who No Longer Exists
I found $14 million sitting idle at the bank where I worked, got a "good job"... and that same season rehearsed for weeks to ask for a $10,000 raise. An employee prices against his paycheck, not the value he creates. Most owners never stop. Thi...
The 23-Minute Tax: Your Team's Quick Questions Are Stealing Your Life
Every "quick question" costs you twice — the ninety seconds to answer, and the 23 minutes your brain needs to find its way back. Five a day and your best hours are gone, and it feels like leadership the whole time it's robbing you. This episode...
The Downward Escalator: When AI Makes Hourly Billing a Trap
AI is not replacing accountants — it's replacing the ones who ignore it. Over lunch after tax season, Johnny and his partner Terry stumbled into the math nobody wants to do: inflation pushes prices UP a few percent a year, but AI pushes the hou...
The Self-Worth Battle: Why You're Really Undercharging
Undercharging was never a math problem — you KNOW the math. The problem is the 9 PM moment: finger over Send on an invoice that's finally priced right, and the voice that says "who do you think you are?" This episode is about winning that argum...
