The Woodard Report Podcast: Featuring Heather Day and Joe Woodard

Over 10 years ago, Paul Dunn and Ron Baker co-authored a book called The Firm of the Future. The book focused on the nature of work accountants should provide, the distinction between service workers and knowledge workers, and effectiveness as the key measurement for the professions. We are now in the “future” – measured chronologically, based on the publication date of the book. So, Joe Woodard interviews Paul Dunn in a “look back” approach and asks Paul the key question: “How has the accounting profession embraced, or failed to embrace, the key challenges presented by this iconic text.”

As a world renowned photographer, Joe Buissink has documented weddings for celebrities like Jennifer Lopez, Christina Aguilera, and Kelsey Grammar. Joe has been profiled by Good Morning America, People magazine and a wide range of other media organizations, and he holds several high profile professional distinctions including the International Leadership Award in Photography issued by the United Nations and Canon’s highly coveted “Explorer of Light” designation.

During Scaling New Heights 2016, Joe Buissink presented a keynote presentation detailing the power of brand, the connection between brand and professional passion, and how accounting professionals can invigorate their relationships with their clients. This podcast episode is an extension of Joe’s powerful keynote presentation.

During this episode, Joe Woodard addresses 5 pillars (characteristics) of an epic practice. Part 3 of the series is a continuation of Episodes 8, in which Joe lays the foundational qualities of an Epic Practice from the main stage of Scaling New Heights 2016. Joe will wrap up the series in this episode with the 5 final qualities every practice should strive to achieve to become differentiated, effective, innovative and…EPIC!

During this episode, Joe Woodard addresses 5 pillars (characteristics) of an epic practice. Part 2 of the series is a continuation of Episode 8, in which Joe lays the foundational qualities of an Epic Practice from the main stage of Scaling New Heights 2016. Joe will wrap up the series in Part 3 with 5 additional qualities every practice should strive to achieve to become differentiated, effective, innovative and…EPIC!

In this week’s episode Joe interviews Dawn Brolin, Certified Public Accountant and Managing Member of Powerful Accounting, llc.  Dawn has been featured on MSNBC’s Your Business and has spoken at Intuit Quickbooks Connect, as well as CPA Society Shows and Scaling New Heights.  Dawn is an expert on fraud and forensic accounting and will be talking with Joe about best practices to protect and build your business.

During this episode Joe Woodard interviews Mike Michalowicz, author of the exciting new book Surge and instructor for Woodard Institute on marketing strategies for accounting practices. During the podcast Joe and Mike will discuss market trends and ways accountants can leverage those trends, combined with service innovations and niche specialization, to grow their practices.

This episode kicks off a multi-part series related to the theme of Scaling New Heights 2016 – “The Epic Practice.” The series begins with Joe Woodard’s keynote that launched the 2016 conference. During the keynote, Joe drew from the powerful stories of ancient Greek mythology to highlight the characteristics of The Epic Practice like endurance, resilience, and focus. “The Epic Practice” series will continue with Joe Woodard in future episodes in which Joe will cover 3 adjectives per episode, challenging all accountants to be not just competent, not just efficient, not just profitable…but also heroic.

Nonprofits can be intimating for and unappealing to accounting professionals because of three misunderstandings: Nonprofits cannot afford to pay my fees, nonprofits have highly complex reporting needs that my firm cannot handle well, and annual audits are problematic due to underpaid and understaffed accounting departments within the organization. As an extension of the latter, many accounting practices incorrectly conclude they must have an audit practice to support nonprofits in any meaningful or profitable way.

During this episode Joe Woodard and Gregg Bossen, one the nation’s leading advisors to nonprofit organizations, discuss the opportunity and address the challenges around working with nonprofits to give you renewed confidence in the niche and to provide some practical tips and best practices reaching nonprofit organizations as clients.

Joe Woodard and Ron Baker discuss the ground breaking book The Future of the Professions by Richard and Daniel Susskind. In this groundbreaking book, the authors cover the way AI is impacting all professions and the authors also make projections about changes AI will force upon the professions. The changes center around the way AI will disseminate and interpret knowledge through "cognitive assistants," replacing the knowledge curation role that is currently the foundation of all professionals. After discussing the coming changes, Ron and Joe discuss ways accountants can monitor the changes and respond proactively to protect  the vital role they play with their clients.

Mark Wickersham is a world-renowned expert on pricing for accounting firms and the author of numerous books including Effective Pricing for Accountants and How to Build a Better Business and Make More Money: Simple Ideas that Really Work for Entrepreneurs. In this interview Mark guides you through the process of creating high value services and determining an appropriate price for those services. As Mark teaches us in this episode, value pricing (unlike fixed pricing) begins with the projection of the client's value proposition - the measureable benefit to the client - to determine price.

(Mark presented a keynote presentation and a breakout session at Scaling New Heights 2016. Both of Mark's presentations focused on value pricing for accountants.)