Tim McKey
McKey Business Group
Baton Rouge, Louisiana USA
Tim McKey was born and grew up in rural south Mississippi. The majority of his time was spent in various sports venues or working in his Dad’s grocery store. After high school Tim attended Mississippi State University where he graduated cum laude in 1982 with a Bachelors of Professional Accountancy.Upon graduation Tim accepted a position with Deloitte Haskins and Sells (now Deloitte and Touche) in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Tim still resides in Baton Rouge but now is an owner, along with his partner, Sandy O’Brien, of a “boutique” CPA/consultancy firm (Burris, McKey & O’Brien CPAs/Vista Consulting, Inc.).
The first 20+ years of his professional life was spent in traditional, compliance CPA matters such as tax return and financial statement preparation/presentation. He feels the remainder of his professional career will be dedicated to “actually helping businesses and business owners become successful” by their definition of success. In other words, “our firm attempts to bring real value, not just “necessary evil” professional services.”
Tim and his partner Sandy are graduates of the Accountants Boot Camp and are fans of Michael Gerber’s “Working ON not IN” business philosophy. Since 1999 Tim and Sandy have converted their traditional practice to a consultative, value priced operation that has outlawed time sheets and time based billing. They have embraced the “knowledge worker” role.“
We take the time now to listen to our customers and understand their needs and desires before designing a work plan to help them achieve their goals. We then price the services commensurate with the value perceived by the customer. This is an art! Of course we still perform the traditional services of tax prep and financial statement presentation, but only for our consultation customers. We have been able to drastically reduce the number of customers served while increasing gross firm revenues. It is not that we want to be elitist but, this type service is not right for everyone. For those it is right for, however, we have been successful in assisting them in increasing overall business value, profitability, and operating effectiveness.”
Tim is the father of two, Sarah, and Caroline, and husband of one, Jodi.
His hobbies are spending time with his wife and children, tennis, reading, public speaking, learning about “anything I don’t understand…which is a lot,” and working with a “faith based” not-for-profit organization, United Methodist HOPE Ministries. He hopes to become even more involved with the VeraSage mission and assist in “spreading the VeraSage word.”