Growing up, I could name the Black professionals in my community without much thought. We had plenty of teachers and preachers, two doctors, a lawyer, a dentist, and lots of morticians. What we didn't have, at least not that I ever saw, was an accountant — someone whose job it was to sit with a family or a business owner and make sense of the numbers.

That absence stayed with me, which is part of why I sat down with Arnold Farmer for this month's Black Business Month series. Just as we track blood pressure, sleep, and nutrition as vital signs of a healthy body, a business has vital signs too — and its numbers are chief among them. Ignore them, and even the most hardworking business can quietly decline while everything on the outside still looks fine.

Farmer didn't grow up knowing what a CPA was either. It wasn't until he arrived at Towson University, needing an internship to graduate, that an advisor noticed his aptitude for accounting classes and pointed him toward a career he had never considered. That nudge became a calling. Thirteen years later, Farmer is Senior Manager of Practice Growth and Engagement at SC&H Group, where he leads business development for the firm's audit practice — work that puts him face-to-face daily with business owners wrestling with some of the least glamorous, most essential parts of entrepreneurship: their numbers.

“Everybody sees the storefront,” Farmer says. “They don't see the nuts and bolts.”

Behind Every Storefront, a Story in Numbers

For Black Business Month, Farmer's message to entrepreneurs is direct: know your numbers, or find someone who can help you understand them. “A Black business, they should know their numbers,” he says. “They should know the appropriate ratios, what their EBITDA is, what their net income is. They should understand their profit and loss statement.”

It sounds basic. It isn't. Farmer says the business owners who struggle most aren't lacking hustle — they're lacking information. Some may have a tax issue. Others can't access capital because they haven't yet learned to tell the story their own numbers are trying to tell.      

The Fear Factor

Why do so many business owners avoid the conversation altogether? Farmer traces it to something deeper than spreadsheets. “It really is the fear of seeming like you're ignorant,” he says — a hesitancy rooted in the worry that if others know what you have, “they might want to take it, or push me down because they don't have it.”

That fear often compounds into imposter syndrome, which Farmer sees regularly — entrepreneurs succeeding by every measure but still unsure of their own worth in the room. “Part of my job is to translate those numbers for them,” he says, “so they can be confident.”

Representation matters, too. Farmer is among the roughly one to two percent of CPAs nationwide who are African American, and he's active in the National Association of Black Accountants, whose motto — “lift as we climb” — shapes how he mentors those coming up behind him.

The Numbers That Should Live in Your Head

Ask Farmer to name the figures every entrepreneur should have memorized, and he doesn't hesitate: monthly and yearly revenue, cash flow (“cash is king”), gross margin, customer acquisition cost, and break-even point.

“Those numbers will help you prioritize what should be important in the next six, twelve to eighteen months of your business,” he says. Know them, and you know where to spend your energy — and where to pull back.

Trust Is the First Line Item

None of this works, Farmer says, without trust. “If your clients don't trust you, you're not going to get the accurate information to help them,” he explains. That's why he shows up — at community events and through nonprofit board service, including as treasurer for Special Olympics Maryland. “Accounting is the language of business,” he says. “Once you can tell the story of the numbers, you open access to capital.”

His invitation to Baltimore's entrepreneurs is simple: don't wait for a crisis to ask for help. “If you do have an issue, and if you are unsure about something from a financial standpoint, please don't hesitate to reach out,” Farmer says. “Even if I can't help you, I can find somebody to put you in the right position to be successful.”

A business, like a body, needs regular checkups. Knowing your numbers isn't punishment for what's gone wrong — it's preventive care for what you're building.