How many can say they are living their dream? Alan Friedman is a real-life example of how a working professional can successfully integrate a hobby with his or her work … without ever skipping a beat.

Alan is the self-titled "Music Industry Partner" of Friedman, Kannenberg & Company, P.C., a Hartford, CT-firm delivering accounting, tax and consulting services. At first glance, this firm with four professionals and two administrative staff seems very similar to every other firm working in basic accounting with one, very large exception. The majority of Alan's clients are in the music industry, and include music store retailers, musicians, independent record labels and recording studios.

That's music to his ears … and a tune that keeps on playing for this CPA who holds a guitar in one hand and an income statement in the other. After all, where else could you find a CPA and an all-CPA rock 'n' roll band called "The Accounting Crows?"

Playing to His Audience
Alan's roots are deep in the accounting profession with a father who recently retired from a practice in New York. Even though Alan always knew he wanted to pursue public accounting, he took a detour after college and worked for United Technologies because he wanted to continue developing the computer and programming skills he learned in college.

Serving as a liaison between the accounting and information systems departments, Alan found a way to leverage accounting with technology when he was soon recruited into the consulting department at Ernst & Whinney, working with the firm's large banking and health care client base. Alan worked on special projects, and changed jobs once more to work for a year in industry for Continental Investor Services Corporation as its treasurer/controller.

A burgeoning accounting and tax client base on the side from his friends convinced him he should go into business for himself, and hung out a shingle in 1985 with his associate, Don Kannenberg, with only an estimated $5,000 in annual billings.

Major growth in staff (five partners) and revenues ($300,000 in 1986 to over $1.2 million in 1989) ensued for the firm, but tough lessons were learned along the way. For the five years leading up to the recession , Friedman and his four partners cashed in on the growing Hartford real estate, banking and retail landscape-with no safety net in place. In the early 90s, the Hartford economy took a tremendous nosedive.

"The business literally came walking through the door through referrals by lawyers, bankers and other clients," he says. "We took care of our clients, and did nothing more than that, because we didn't have to. We beefed up with three more partners and even more staff, but there wasn't a firm in Connecticut who had the foresight to plan for what happened. Everyone got hurt, as evidenced by 41 bank closings in 1990 and 1991-the largest number of per capita closings of banks in the nation."

Times changed, and so did the makeup of the firm. Friedman was back to square one with his original partner, Don Kannenberg, and the two have made music ever since. They realized that making a "go" of a successful firm meant more than just counting on referrals. Hard work, determination and a specialty niche brought the firm back to life, which now generates about $800,000 in annual billings with more that 1,000 active clients.

Strumming Along to Success
Alan and Don concentrated on what they could accomplish in light of a potentially swinging economy and decided to choose a market in which the two had a niche (music), as well as eliminate the geographic boundaries of Hartford to which they had become accustomed.

"My clients appreciate the fact that we are intimately familiar with the product they sell, the suppliers they deal with and the ever-changing condition of the music retailing marketplace," says Alan. "Overall, we have a definitive expertise in the issues specific to the music industry."

Alan advises others who want to develop vertical markets to seek work in areas where a client base isn't likely to find similar services elsewhere. He explains that there are about 9,000 music retailers across the nation, and although most of them already have an accountant, that one "store" probably is the only client that accountant may have in the music business.

"Unless you're willing to spend the time to get the education and the experience to understand all the accounting quirks and unique tax issues, it's very difficult to have an expertise in the music retailing industry if you only have one client," says Alan. "In the accounting profession, it's become nearly impossible to be an expert on everything, so when clients come to you expecting best practices in a certain industry, you can bring value to them by delivering services designed just for their market."

To capitalize on his marketing efforts, Alan now spends much of his time speaking at National Association of Music Merchants trade shows, a good source of knowledge and networking for his firm, and has created a firm Web site,www.fkco.com , to reflect his personality. In addition to pages on accounting, tax and computer consulting services, he has an area exclusively devoted to services for music retailers, as well as an extensive list of questions/answers musicians and others may ask for their specific industries.

There even is a page devoted to guitar trivia, to which Alan remarks, "where else can I marry my personal interest in music with my livelihood?"

Anyone with questions on Alan's firm may contact him at alan@fkco.com.