Future-Proof

Everyone talks about the importance of collaboration, but what does it really mean? Working together? Teamwork? Sharing ideas? It’s one of those things that’s hard to define, but we know it when we see it. And because of that, it’s something that everyone defines differently.

But here’s the thing – every list of the most crucial future-ready skills for our profession includes collaboration. Every single one. So we have to figure out a definition that everyone can embrace.

And here to help us figure that out is Rebekah Brown, the director of development with the Maryland Association of CPAs and a thought leader with the Business Learning Institute. She is as passionate and optimistic about the future of accounting and finance as anyone I know, and she has seen first-hand how powerful collaboration can be within our ever-evolving profession, particularly among our younger professionals.

To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.

Resources:

• Start mastering Future-Ready skills now at MACPA.org/future-learning
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebekahbrown
• Read: “Human skills need to sharpen to coexist with machines”

Future-Proof is produced by Podcast Masters

Just how busy are you?

We’re all busy. Some would argue that we, collectively, are busier than ever before – but the reason that’s true isn’t necessarily because we have more work to do than ever.

We all make time for the stuff that’s really important and valuable to us. So if we find ourselves really busy with things that aren’t important or valuable, that just means, to paraphrase Ferris Bueller, that our priorities are way out of whack, and we’ve got to do something to get them back in line.

You need to be spending as much time as possible on the things that you love to do and that you’re great at. That’s your sweet spot, and that’s where your organization needs you to be spending most of your time because they’ll get the most bang for their buck with you there. The other stuff? You need to eventually be able to delegate that away so you can spend your valuable time doing things that truly add value.

Our guest this week is someone who has built a growing global business that’s designed to help accounting and finance pros do exactly that – free up their time so they can provide higher-value services for their clients and customers.

Nick Sinclair is the Chairman of The Outsourced Accountant, which has more than 1,100 team members spread out across the United States, Australia, and the Philippines. They serve clients in 8 countries currently, and what they do is entirely based on the premise of getting the right people doing the right work.

To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.

Resources:

• Learn more at TheOutsourcedAccountant.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicksinclair/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/nickqsinclair

Future-Proof is produced by Podcast Masters

We're talking about strategic planning and critical thinking today, or planning strategically and thinking critically, or critical strategy and planning to think – or whatever you want to call it.

It's all about looking ahead today; mapping a road to the future and then figuring out how to get there.

And here to help us make sense of all this is Jennifer Elder, a thought leader with the Business Learning Institute who works with companies to find creative solutions to their most challenging problems. She also helps financial leaders become more strategic, staying ahead of the competition and becoming more successful.

And she has some fantastic insights into the notion of building a vision and executing on it: where to start, the key components of a strategic plan, possible land mines that you'll want to look out for, and what to do once the plan is complete. (Spoiler: Don't just throw it on a bookshelf or no one's going to look at it ever again!)

To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.

Resources:

• Learn more at jenniferelder.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferhelder

Future-Proof is produced by Podcast Masters

Are we evolving to meet our clients’ evolving expectations?

More and more of our clients don’t want to deal with accounting, finance, or payroll. They want to focus on what they do well and leave all of that other stuff to someone else – and that someone else could be you, if you’re set up to provide it.

That’s where this week’s guest comes in. Hitendra Patil is the Director of Customer Success at AccountantsWorld, the author of Accountaneur: The Entrepreneurial Accountant, and one of the 100 most influential people in accounting, according to Accounting Today. So, he’s kind of a rock star in the accounting and finance world, and he’s got his finger on the pulse of what’s driving public accounting into the future.

To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.

Resources:

• Learn more at AccountantsWorld.com
• Read: Accountaneur: The Entrepreneurial Accountant
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hitendrapatil/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/HitendraRPatil

Future-Proof is produced by Podcast Masters

We sit down with Brian Feldman, a State Senator who represents District 15 in Maryland. Brian is also a CPA, so he brings a lot of those key business and finance insights directly into Maryland’s Senate Chamber. He’s a great partner of the profession and we’ve worked with him many times on a number of key bills.

Even if you don’t live in Maryland, we think it’s important that you take a few minutes and listen in on this conversation, and here’s why: We all know what’s happening in Washington these day, and what’s happening in Washington is... nothing good. The political climate there is so toxic that nothing – or next to nothing – of huge significance is getting done there.

Most legislative things that impact us directly are happening in our state capitals and in our city or county governments because most of the laws that directly impact our lives are passed at the state and local level. That makes the work that lawmakers do on those levels hugely important – but unfortunately, they’re also criminally overlooked and ignored.

That all means our profession’s involvement at those levels is absolutely critical – and it’s wanted! Lawmakers want to speak with their constituents and get their input. Otherwise, they’re just flying blind.

So we do that, and we hope that after listening to this episode, you will consider speaking with your state and local representatives, too.

To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.

Future-Proof is produced by Podcast Masters

This show is called “Future-Proof,” but when it comes to the future, we’ve been focusing on trends, strategies, visions, resources, regulations, skills, competencies, and business models. Do you know what’s missing from that list?

People.

And people are probably the most important factor in all of these future-ready conversations – because they’re the ones who are going to make all of that stuff happen. So as we work to make ourselves and our organizations more future-ready, one of our first steps has to be figuring out how to surround ourselves with great people.

Today’s guest, Karl Ahlrichs, has years of experience in human resources, operations, diversity and inclusion – pretty much any people issues in business management today. He has some very specific ideas about how we can work to build productive, resilient workforces that are made up of great people; people who are high performers and great fits culturally.

To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.

Resources:

• Learn with Karl: https://blionline.org/instructor/karl-ahlrichs/
• Learn more at http://www.expertspeaks.com/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/kahlrichs
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karlahlrichs/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kahlrichs

Future-Proof is produced by Podcast Masters

Artificial intelligence is one of those technologies that we’ve been talking about for years as a possible disrupter for our profession, as a possible job destroyer, and as a possible opportunity generator.

Well, you can officially take the word “possible” out of all of those phrases – A.I. is here, and it’s delivering as advertised.

And our guest Samantha Bowling, CPA, CGMA, can attest to that. Samantha is a partner with Garbelman Winslow, where she has put an A.I.-based audit solution to work that’s given the firm a huge competitive advantage, and her story is a perfect illustration of just how fast technology is advancing these days.

To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.

Resources:

• Learn more at gwcpas.com/about-us
• Check out MindBridge.ai
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/sbowlingcpa
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samantha-bowling-cpa-cgma-25531420

Future-Proof is produced by Podcast Masters

Culture is one of the most important factors contributing to the success of your organization. There are some people who will argue this point, who don’t see any connection between culture and productivity, execution, or profits. There are also people who think if they put a foosball table in the break room and let their employees wear jeans, they’ll create a kick-ass culture – and all of those people are wrong.

Culture will determine how engaged your employees are, and judging by recent research, they’re probably not very engaged at all. The folks at Gallup regularly find that as many as 70 percent of American employees are not engaged in their work. Gallup also found that companies with highly engaged workforces outperform their peers by 147 percent in earnings per share. That’s a pretty significant incentive to figure this employee engagement stuff out, isn’t it?

So where do we start?

That’s where our guest this week comes in. Jamie Notter is a consultant who helps leaders drive growth and engagement by activating and aligning workplace culture and the co-author of The Non-Obvious Guide To Employee Engagement (For Millennials, Boomers And Everyone Else).

To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.

Resources:

• Learn more: jamienotter.com | humanworkplaces.net
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/jamienotter
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamienotter/
• Read: The Non-Obvious Guide To Employee Engagement (For Millennials, Boomers And Everyone Else) by Jamie Notter and Maddie Grant

Future-Proof is produced by Podcast Masters

January 2019 is a big month for CPAs, in Maryland and throughout the country.

The Maryland General Assembly begins its annual session on Jan. 9. Not a single bill has been introduced yet, but it’s already shaping up to be an extraordinarily busy session for those of us who are trying to protect our profession.

For CPAs nationwide, of course, tax season is ramping up, and there are a number of issues that are already complicating things for tax practitioners: The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, The Supreme Court’s Wayfair decision, and the federal government shutdown.

So things on the legislative and regulatory front are a little chaotic for the accounting and finance profession.

But that’s why we’re here, right? State CPA societies like the MACPA – this is our bread and butter. Protecting our profession, protecting your livelihood, and protecting your clients. This is a huge part of why we’re here.

So today, we’re talking about how all of this impacts you and your clients, what the MACPA is doing about it, and what YOU can do to help us.

We’re joined by returning guest Tom Hood, the CEO of the Maryland Association of CPAs. Tom has his fingers firmly on the legislative and regulatory pulse of this profession – and it turns out there are some really big issues that we need to be paying attention to over the next few months.

To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.

Resources:

• Join us for CPA Day (Jan. 24, 2019): MACPA.org/CPADay
• Contribute to MACPA’s PAC: MACPA.org/Advocacy

The Business Learning Institute

Future-Proof is proudly sponsored by the Business Learning Institute, which delivers competency-based curriculum, courses, content, and community to maximize career trajectories and grow intellectual capital for organizational and executive leadership. Hundreds of course by dozens of instructors, and unlimited customization.

Find out how the Business Learning Institute can help YOU by visiting BLIonline.org.

Future-Proof is produced by Podcast Masters

If the past few years have been all about disruption – and it seems like they have been – then 2019 is already shaping up to be the year of opportunity.

We already know what the disruptors are, we know about the potential impacts they’ll have on our profession, and we’ve talked about them to death lately – but not nearly as many people are talking about the opportunities that these disruptions offer us.

That changes today.

Our guest Mark Koziel is Executive Vice President of firm services for the American Institute of CPAs, and as such he leads the AICPA’s Private Companies Practice Section, Firm Relationship Management, Small Firms, Diversity & Inclusion, Young Member Initiatives, Technical Hotline, and the Center for Plain English Accounting.

Koziel says these disruptions present huge opportunities to CPAs everywhere, especially in three key areas: tax, client accounting services, and audit. Let’s find out how.

To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.

Resources:

• Learn more at https://www.aicpa.org/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mjkoziel/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/markkoziel

The Business Learning Institute

Future-Proof is proudly sponsored by the Business Learning Institute, which delivers competency-based curriculum, courses, content, and community to maximize career trajectories and grow intellectual capital for organizational and executive leadership. Hundreds of course by dozens of instructors, and unlimited customization.

Find out how the Business Learning Institute can help YOU by visiting BLIonline.org.

Future-Proof is produced by Podcast Masters