USA Accounting to Financial Services Sales Career Back to Accounting at age 58?

[salesaccountant]

Little background first:
Obtained my BA Management & account in 1984 I worked for small CPA firms couple of years and was a corporate accountant with cemetery funeral home USA office for couple years. I then became a Assistant Controller for largest mental health hospital chain 3 yrs. I stayed with health care by becoming eventually a CFO for a Non-Profit Community Health Center for 7 yrs. After about 3 changes in CEOs I was fighting to keep my job with a CEO (few yrs later was fired due to alcoholism and self defeating interest) who wanted to just change old middle management. After 2 yrs he succeeded at asking me to leave and it turned me off to wanting to expose myself to such stress again.
Shortly after doing a foreign adoption of 2 kids spending 45k of monies to do so and then within a year after that my wife becomes disabled from a car accident I had left the comfort of an Accounting career to Sales Career, omg!
Well with a fire under my butt I had to figure out to make it in sales or go back to the career that sent me out on my behind.
We struggled my wife became depressed with the pain, meds and kids who came with problems. She helped me in such a state and with my figuring out what to do I became with her help the #3 in the country for top sales for disability insurance (selling to the medical field) for one of the biggest insurance companies in the USA.
That lasted for about 10 years then the bottom dropped out when the market fell. It was a bell curve with sales not much at first and not much at the end totaling 13 years with avg 6 figure income in Florida (low inc. state.) My responses to my marketing pieces fell off.
Now I am selling health insurance to seniors (leads are provided now) who need help believe me they need someone who can honestly help them.
I just barely make ends meet and looking at what to do next.
I am finding I can sell again if I believe in what I do but I can try to enter the market I had before but I am afraid to make it and the bottom drop out again. At age 58 I just have about another good 9 years of work left in me.
I can get back into accounting but good luck, everyone likes me when talking to me but they look at my resume and they see someone who hasn't touched books for 15 years.
Any thoughts?

 

[numbersguy79]

Hello.. I'm many years your junior with only 15 years of professional experience at this point. For what its worth, I would advise you to stay in sales. If you can sell, then sell... many of us wish we could sell. I couldn't sell a bandage to a person bleeding in the street for a penny... I just don't have the personality for it. If you have the personality for it, stick with it. Perhaps try to find a more lucrative product, market, or company than you are currently working with. Do you remember the stress of being an accountant? I'm a senior manager in a small-ish (40+ employees total including partners, secretaries) firm... the company has been around for 50+ years but its still run like a fledgling startup with no plan, somehow we all still make an 'adequate' living but everyone is always stressed out pretty much all the time. The standards/regulations change too fast, and the clients, in this economic environment, are looking for a fee cut or flat fee, if we get a 2% increase on existing clients these days we're lucky... we keep having to find new clients we can overcharge who don't know any better.

Another thing... specialties in the CPA world are becoming more and more pronounced. If you used to work in healthcare, you will be nothing more than entry-level in say car dealerships... regulations are continuing to increase and change, and if you aren't an expert than you aren't making a livable wage. If you were an expert 15 years ago, you aren't now, I know that's harsh but its real. Even then, if you aren't a partner/shot-caller you are still probably not getting rich. After 15 years I'm at close to $110k annually.... and that's in an expensive northeastern state... so if you are 'barely making ends meet' now, I don't see that changing if you switch back to an accounting career after being out of the loop for 15 years.


Also.. accounting software/technology has totally changed the accounting industry, and will likely be a significant obstacle after 15 years away. The difference in how I do my job now vs. when I first started is amazing.

I wish you luck sir.. it ain't easy as you know more than I do. The dream of $400k salary as a big4 partner is an unattainable fantasy to 99.9% of us... not that most of us want to put in the hours it takes to get there... at the end of the day I'm thankful that I'm home for dinner with my family probably 80% of the time... and I hope you find a path that financially supports you and allows you the time with your wife and kids also... I wish you the best caring for them.