March 25, 2016

Pioneer of creative accounting, Jason Blumer

56 minutes

Creative accounting.

Have you heard that phrase used before? I certainly didn’t until I met today’s guest, Jason Blumer. Jason runs a virtual accounting practice specifically designed for creative agencies and development firms. I love this business idea because it focuses on a specific vertical, with a specific customer type, translating to a better level of service — something we can all learn from.

He wraps it all together nicely by producing a podcast called, The Businessology Show. A podcast I got hooked on quite some time ago. He speaks to his potential customer and provides value at the same time, it’s genius. He offers a wide-range of guests that have boutique agencies (like me), all the way to larger 40+ person shops, each producing their own unique product or service. I have no issues if you add his show right next to mine on your playlist!

We cover a TON in this (almost) hour-long podcast. From team building to the client sales process and everything in between. This has become one of my favorite conversations on the show, and I hope you enjoy it too!

Jason Blumer on building a digital agency

Nobody knows what they are doing.

What an important takeaway for me. As we (my company) move upstream in the client services market, it’s becoming increasingly obvious a lot of folks don’t know what they are doing. The client isn’t always sure what they want or what they need, and other agencies producing work for clients don’t have a clue either. We’re even finding companies that have charged our client 10x what we would have charged for lesser quality work.

I think a lot of your listeners are already doing the things that represent a higher value, they’re not just putting a higher price on it.” – Jason Blumer

I’ve been talking about the negative impact envying other’s successes has on your mental and emotional health for a while now. Jason and I both agree this is one of the most dangerous traits an entrepreneur can carry during their journey of building a business. We’re our own worst enemy when it comes to the success of our business. Often we can drown ourselves in the emotional factor of success and wanting it before we’ve really put in the hard work. The real hard work, not to be confused with just getting the tasks done.

What makes this easier? Finding the right people to work with on both sides of the project — client and team.

If you’ve been following me for a while you know I use a belief document to get a potential client and I on the same page. This introduces our internal belief and culture to the client before we even talk about the project itself. This allows me to gauge whether or not the client and my team will work well together. My strategy is to get on a sales call and ask questions relating to some of the information in the document to see if the customer actually read it. At that point, we’ll know if the customer actually values our time and values the way we work together.