The Revolutionary Firm - The Voice of the Revolution

In this episode Mel Power is cohosting The Revolutionary Firm podcast with Matt Flanagan from BlueHub. They're podcasting live from Expensicon 2018, held in the beautiful Tahitian paradise of Bora Bora.

Mel and Matt interviewed Peter and Simon Magner, the Directors of Iridium Business Solutions in South Africa.

Show Notes

Simon starts out by praising Expensify and the amazing culture they have built.

Matt says the firms that are getting stronger in this area are the firms that really understand what their client needs to be and the staff they need in order to offer that type of service. Matt asked Simon what they have learnt from engaging with other firms that are strong in this area.

Simon said they have learnt that they don't know everything!

At Iridium they have learnt to spend a bit more time picking their clients. They knew they had to be smart about which industries they work in, which clients they work with, and they fire clients they don't want to work with. They understand it's a little bit of a different approach given many other firms will cling on to their clients. But they recognise that just like they let go of staff that don't work for them, they let go of clients that don't work for them either.

Learnings from LiveCA

Simon and Matt talk about Chris Frame's firm in Canada, LiveCA, who have built an entirely remote firm and let around 77 clients go last year.

LiveCA has the perfect 80/20 principle where 80% of their revenue is coming from 20% of their clients. So when they looked at their clients they realised they were working overtime to try and get tax returns done, for the 400 clients that were bringing in such a small portion of their revenue. So they spoke to their staff and understood what they were actually struggling with, understood their pain points and then did something about it.

It's not about the amount of clients you have, it's about the value you add the the clients you do work with.

There is value in thinking about who you can partner with to get more of the clients that are right for them.

The Revolutionary Firm have identified 3 common roadblocks for accountants and bookkeepers:

They aren't working with the right type of clients (they haven't thought about their ideal client)

They don't understand their solutions and what they need to offer

They don't understand the value exchange.

Solving those problems will take your business to a new level.

Finding their Ideal Prospect

Peter details how they have narrowed down their ideal prospect. Peter says they realised they had heaps of clients in a few different verticals, they looked at other firms especially some in Australia who were ultra specific in narrowing down their ideal clients and they realised that's where they wanted to be. Peter saw he had a lot of clients in retail, hospitality and tech. Simon had a lot of clients in digital marketing, professional services and also tech. They've now decided now to only focus on those 5 industries and are very select with the clients they take on. They say it has been incredible for them They have also gone further to now become ultra specialist with their staff.

The Iridium Process:

They worked out which of their clients were of value to them (part of the process was ranking their current clients)

They worked out where they can add value to those clients

Now working with the ecosystem and add ons, especially Vend in South Africa for the hospitality industry.

They share how with Xero and with Vend they don't really need to market at all, they get tonnes of leads every week from these guys who are happy to send them through since they are experts.

Giving staff freedom to specialise

In this episode Chris Frame joined Mel Power on The Revolutionary Firm podcast from Expensicon 2018, held in Bora Bora!

Chris is the Chief Operating Officer at LiveCA and shares some great tips on how to build a great team across the world.

Show Notes

Chris and Mel start by making us all jealous by talking about the clear blue waters and stunning sea creatures surrounding them in Bora Bora, while they drink local beers and Piña Coladas!

Chris' start in accounting

Chris starts by sharing a little about his story and how he got into accounting right in the middle of the GFC.

Chris was passionate about marketing, which he acknowledges is typically an unusual trait for accountants.

He worked for the Canada Revenue Agency for 5 years and before finding the right opportunity at LiveCA.

What makes LiveCA so special?

It's the team. A team-first focus flows through all their decision making, right from the start.

Even with all the technology around, it comes back to building relationships, people to people.

How does LiveCA build a great mindset and culture from within, and how does that flow on to clients?

Starting from early on in the hiring process, Chris talks about how they identify great candidates. They look for technical qualities of course, but they're also looking for great people who can develop relationships with clients. Using technology but building relationships and connecting with clients.

They have fairly normal application process, but they switch it up in the last step called Trial Work Days. This is where they bring candidates in for two days, they get to work with the team, in the position they are applying for. This is so LiveCA can test them out and see what they are like in action, but also so they meet the team, learn about the company and the culture. Those two days are so valuable.

Now candidates get the opportunity to get a full understanding of the firm, get their questions answered and how they will fit in with a virtual team.

They are a 100% virtual firm from the very start, all working from home. They bring together people whose values align, they just don't have to be in the same office, city or even country anymore.

Chris explains how they successfully onboard a younger team member, particularly a graduate who may want more of a team or office environment.

LiveCA have put together an extensive list of procedures and documentation, so employees have somewhere to turn when they need guidance on tasks to complete. They also do a lot of training in systems and workflow.

They have also sent up a mentorship program as well, where they partner a newer employee with a more experienced one. They meet up regularly to talk about setting expectations, communicating with managers, sharing knowledge with junior employees.

Team get togethers

They bring the entire team together once a year, fly them all off site to various locations, make it a special experience. There is some structure to the meet ups but a lot of free time to connect and continue to foster a cohesive team atmosphere.

Bringing people together, face to face time is where relationships and connections really happen.

Chris says he thinks their employees are changed and empowered by their remote working experience. It allows for more work-life balance because they don't have to sacrifice things they might have had to do if they worked in a different way.

How to build a million dollar firm with good people - that's revolutionary!

Chris' advice for people looking at accounting as a career

Don't be intimidated by the horror stories of long hours during tax season, there are a lot of people out there who are committed to making...

In this episode, Mel Power is joined by Shaye Thyer on The Revolutionary Firm podcast from Expensicon Bora Bora 2018!

Shaye is the National Cloud and Advisory Specialist at BDO, she is part of the Xero Practice Advisory Council and is also a Panel Member for Chartered Accountants in Business.

Show Notes

Shaye and Mel start this podcast with a Piña Colada so you know it's going to be a good one!

Starting with BDO:

Mel begins by asking how Shaye got involved in her current role, including the influence Steve Leaney had on her career.

Shaye grew up in practice, starting as an undergraduate. She just wasn't that excited by accounting practice, and tax was not her favourite thing. She felt she could add a lot more value elsewhere.

Shaye's first 18 months went really well, she went in with a consulting mindset and had nothing to lose. She completely transformed the team, the way they worked, what systems they used (moved to a cloud ecosystem), and even redeployed people from the finance team into bookkeeping roles so they didn't have to deal with letting staff go. This is probably a problem many of you can relate to, it's always quite scary when you can use great systems to create awesome efficiencies in your practice, but of course you worry about your staff.

They realised Shaye understood where the industry was going, and that she was able to influence the local board to adopt new practices, so a national role was created for her.

Shaye's current role:

She now looks after implementation of transformative strategies in the accounting business, making sure they are diversifying their fees, while still protecting compliance fees.

They talk about the difference between compliance people and strategic people. She mentions that we are always going to need brilliant, technical people to do the compliance side but it comes down to different people and completely different skillsets. We need the doers and the strategic thinkers as well, without the doers, we don't get to think strategically.

Future of compliance and advisory:

Shaye believes that compliance is probably going to become a bit more like risk management, there will be more of a proactive approach to it. Thinking about "how do you prevent problems with the ATO, or how do you set up a robust business that is protected about legislation?" We do need the expertise, we need people to recognise the business need that sits around compliance and tax. Advisory smell of compliance.

Implementing this type of change in such a big firm is so massive. The process becomes overwhelming, even if firm owner or principal is onboard, the actual how-to still becomes overwhelming.

Shaye's tips for firms that want to move into this journey of transforming

1. Get Partners Certified

Shaye talks a lot about the need to get partners certified, making sure the partners actually know the tools they are using and making them go through the Xero certification process for example. It's important they understand the basic value proposition and it needs to start with top down demonstration of expertise. Partners are experts but also a branding resources.For them to expertly address the client needs, they need to talk with credibility, need that badge of credibility. They acknowledge it can be quite hard for partners to go back onto the tools after years in such a position, but the benefits here are huge.

2. Be ok with admitting what you don't know

The general practitioner thing isn't holding as much value as it used to. Now you can say, "actually I'm really into the real estate industry and I know a lot about it, I'm an expert in that are". Be ok with saying "I don't know a lot about trucking, but my colleague does and I'll bring them to the table and collectively solve the problem.

Greg LaFollette joined Mel Power on The Revolutionary Firm podcast from Expensicon Bora Bora 2018!

Greg LaFollette is Strategic Advisor at CPA.com

Show Notes

Greg has extensive experience in the profession so we really enjoyed what he had to share.

Greg started consulting with vendors in the software world who were serving and helping accountants.

Greg's goal lately has been trying to represent the profession to the vendor community, and the vendor community to the profession, trying to put them together.

Greg is passionate about calling it a profession, not an industry, it's all about the thought process!

He explains the thinking behind the hugely popular Executive Roundtable. They had an idea to bring clients together into the one room and get them talking to each other. It has taken off and now they spend two days talking about what they can do as an industry to better serve the profession. In terms of which companies they choose to invite, Greg describes it as making soup, the first couple of ingredients define what other ingredients you can add and what fits well together. It's vendor facing and represents the vendors.

There are integrations, acquisitions and mergers formed as a result of these meetings, but it's more about the understanding that they gain. Gets them thinking "what could I do to help the profession better use my product when they are also using yours?"

It's becoming harder and harder for the advisor to figure out who does what, which vendors work together, and which is the best option, as there is just so much out there.

Revolutions begin with Conversations

Building relationships - we still do business in this way.

Greg and Mel talk about the huge opportunities in the cloud now and the power of specialisation.

Specialising - this is what we do, we stand by it, we know we are good at it.

Understand the power of specialisation, identify your niche, narrow your focus and then put together your solutions from this.

Automation leads to commoditisation. In order to survive, you need to specialise, have to differentiate yourself in some way.

Mostly the differentiation becomes specialisation.

He suggests specialising in a niche that is large enough to matter but is small enough to control. That's where the real value comes in.

Once you specialise, you become really good at it, start to automate it, then that automation causes commoditisation and it starts all over again. Ends up causing you to get laser focused.

No barrier to entry now, allows the privilege or narrowing the scope of the practice.

This is the tip point of the spear, the vast majority of the profession are still sitting in their offices, cranking out tax returns. They have more business than they can handle, making money, don't see the point of changing yet. But it's such a fantastic opportunity and there is more to come.

We love that Greg speaks the Revolutionary Language! Enjoy the episode and hearing about Greg's experience.

Greg's Details

LinkedIn - Gregory LaFollette

Twitter - @glafollette

CPA.com

Website - https://www.cpa.com/

Twitter - @CPAcom

LinkedIn - CPA.com

Facebook - CPAdotcom

Amanda Stobaugh and Marsha Gibb of GrowthForce USA joined Mel Power on The Revolutionary Firm podcast from Expensicon Bora Bora 2018!

Amanda is the Account Manager and Marsha is Director of Onboarding.

Show Notes

Amanda and Marsha are part of the super Bookkeeping Business GrowthForce by Steve King. They both share their stories on HOW they actually got involved in the business of bookkeeping and also as long term staff of GrowthForce, how the team has grown and also how much they love their team and the culture that keeps them super sticky to the business they love, and their clients.

Marsha takes us on a deep dive into the onboarding process and how the departmentalisation of this enables razor sharp client focused service and attention, which really keep the initial part of the client experience moving quickly so the service delivery can get past that rescue cleanup mode and into the maintenance so that the all important data can be utilised.

One of the big things both Marsha and Amanda are very focused on is involving the clients in the process, having them take ownership of the task and use the technology to facilitate the process.

Amanda share her experience and love for managing teams and most importantly finding the right people and what are some of the key things that she looks for when bringing people in! They concept of ensuring new team members have a mentor from the GrowthForce team is very much focus and this concept really supports the team and provide huge stickiness, low turnover of staff. Flexible working environments that cater to supporting family and lifestyle is a huge focus…

These fabulous young women really epitomise the culture and focus of a current practice, and their attitude towards their team is infectious….

Enjoy - I loved this episode ...

Tina Gregory joined Mel Power on The Revolutionary Firm podcast from Expensicon Bora Bora 2018!

Tina is Systems Manager and Consulting CFO at Early Growth Financial Services.

Show Notes

Tina is a passionate cloud advocate and even more passionate about ensuring that the client experience and outcomes are achieved when they come onboard as part of the Early Growth Family.

Tina has come from a diverse background, working in industries including Manufacturing, Public Relations and as a CFO, which ultimately led her to a love of systems and seeing clients succeed, which she now heads up at Early Growth.

Early Growth services clients from all over the globe, even Down Under in Australia!

The startup space and early growth is the area that Tina specialises in, she gets to work across many industries, but with clients at the same stage of their business journey. Tina shares around the all important client onboarding process or Client “concierging” and the apps they use and recommend to fit the client as well as the value billing systems they implement which again are priced to the client, NOT the service.

Most of all, Mel & Tina discuss how to keep your client engaged, involved and also take ownership for their part in the process… once the data is clean then the CFO work can begin, and this is the all important part of achieving effective outcomes for the client.

Enjoy the episode and the great tips that Tina shares….

Tina's Details

Twitter - Tina Gregory @bpmtina

Early Growth

Twitter - @EarlyGrowthFS

Facebook - Early Growth

Website - https://earlygrowthfinancialservices.com/

Tom Hood joined Mel Power on The Revolutionary Firm podcast from Expensicon Bora Bora 2018!

Tom is CEO of Maryland Association of CPAs and also created the Business Learning Insitute.

Tom shares his journey of how he is championing CPAs globally including his recent trip to Sri Lanka and then importance of the collaboration within the industry. How can we all thrive globally by supporting and helping each other.

Show Notes

Business Learning Institute is an organisation that Tom is leading and is designed to educate CPA’s on being successful in the future. Tom had a vision for the future, the CPA vision project , as a new Executive director he volunteered for this project, this project was crowdsourced and grass roots. This project was not technical, this is about business development.

Tom shares his WHY on being so passionate about the CPA profession. His commitment to the Maryland Association and how he champions positioning the profession for the future. NOW is the biggest opportunity for CPA’s.

The tech is doing the work that accountants used to do, it’s automagical ( a Rod Drury quote ) the concept of looking in the rearview mirror has now changed, accountants have to be forward looking and that means having two things… Clean Data and having the client conversation.

As we hold the conversations, the skills we need to learn and are success skills, says Tom….having the right tools to free up the time to have the conversations is the key.

Tom shares one his formula based secrets around being in an era of rapid change and disruption, winners are going to be those who can learn faster than the rate of change.

L > C Squared = Learning is faster than the rate of change

Listen in to hear from Tom as he shares his passion and vision for the profession and his book of the moment from Tom Peters @tom_peters - The Excellence Dividend, which he refers to “You are going to have to do radical personal development”

 

Tom's details:

Twitter - Maryland Association of CPas @macpa

Twitter - Business Learning Institute @BLIonline

Twitter - Tom Hood @tomhood

Damien Singh of Canva joins Mel Power and Matt Wilkinson on the official Accounting Business Expo podcast.

He explains how the positioning of Canva, how it helps business owners, he shares inspiring stories from Canva uses and what accountants and bookkeepers need to know in order to service a client like Canva.

Canva

http://canva.com/

https://www.facebook.com/canva/

https://twitter.com/canva

#canvalife

Jason Andrew, Trent Mclaren and Mel Power are interviewed today by Leanne Berry and Matt Wilkinson on the official Accounting Business Expo podcast. 

The guys give us some insight into what they are going to talk about in their panel session at the #ABExpo titled "How social can fuel content creation and attract your ideal client".

Mel talks about her passion for communities and how she's built online communities.

Leanne sums it up perfectly: Empathy, Engagement and Community.

Social media is getting increasingly noisy, what should we do to cut through?

Is social media still relevant today for accountants and bookkeepers trying to reaching clients? The answer is yes, but it depends where your target market hang out. Your style and the way you speak need to change slightly depending on your target market and the platform you use.

Jason Andrew mentions how email is still the number one platform for reaching business owners. Trent mentions the value of having a multi-pronged approach. Social media goes hand in hand with email marketing

They chat about the future for social media including video content, chatbots, messaging.

You cannot beat human, face-to-face conversations

How do you find content and how can you find your voice?

Take a look at Facebook groups and see what everyone is talking about. Then talk about those topics

Consider scheduling tools like Meet Edgar

Jason's strategy:

What's it for (social media to spread the message)

Who's it for (target market)

What change do you want to make (help them give them the information to grow their businesses).

Jason Andrew - SmartBooks Online

https://smartbooksonline.com.au/

https://www.facebook.com/smartbooksonline  

https://twitter.com/smartbooks_aus 

https://au.linkedin.com/in/jason-andrew

https://twitter.com/jasonfandrew

Trent Mclaren - Practice Ignition

https://www.practiceignition.com/

https://www.facebook.com/PracticeIgnition/ 

https://twitter.com/ignitionapp 

https://twitter.com/trent_mclaren

Leanne Berry - Love Your Numbers

http://www.loveyournumbers.com.au/ 

https://twitter.com/Leanne_Berry 

https://www.facebook.com/loveyournumbers/

We'd like to give a huge thanks to Matt Wilkinson of Bizink for co-hosting the podcast with us at the Accounting Business Expo. We partner closely with Bizink because we love the work they do helping accountants and bookkeepers with their websites and online marketing. bizinkonline.com

Jason Andrew of SmartBooks Online joined Mel Power and Matt Wilkinson on The Revolutionary Firm podcast at the Accounting Business Expo. 

Show notes 

He talks about the differences freelancers / solopreneur and the entrepreneur. 

An entrepreneur takes a lot of risk and wants to build something bigger than themselves.

When we start, we are the business. We are the marketer, sales person, advisor, customer service etc...

First, understand what type of business you want to be.

Focus on procedures and systems so that you can employ other people and they can slot in seamlessly.

SmartBooks Online uses a value pricing model in their firm.

Jason has been interested more and more lately in empathy. Traditionally accountants are more rational. Use empathy to see the world in their shoes. See and understand what they value and then price accordingly.

Jason shares his insights into what questions to ask clients in order to find out their trigger points and what they want to achieve.

Jason's tips: it's hard to delegate work that needs to be done perfectly. Hire people you trust and trust the people you hire. 

SmartBooks Online

https://smartbooksonline.com.au/

https://www.facebook.com/smartbooksonline  

https://twitter.com/smartbooks_aus 

https://au.linkedin.com/in/jason-andrew

https://twitter.com/jasonfandrew

Read the E-myth Revisted by Michael Gerber