This episode focuses on a shift many accounting professionals and financial coaches are trying to make, moving from compliance work into advisory.

But the real conversation is this.

Advisory isn’t just about adding another service. It’s about how your business is designed.

We talk about why so many firms struggle to make advisory stick, not because they lack knowledge, but because everything still relies on them. And when that happens, growth slows, delivery becomes inconsistent, and the business owner becomes the bottleneck.

A big part of this episode is about how we’ve approached things differently.

Collaboration over competition isn’t just a phrase for us. It’s how APX was built. We’ve both seen what happens when people try to do this alone, and it doesn’t scale. The real shift happens when you build in support, structure, and shared thinking.

We also share more about how APX came together, what we’re building, and why. Not as another layer of work, but as a way to make advisory simpler, more consistent, and something your team can actually deliver.

This isn’t about doing more.

It’s about building something that works without everything depending on you.

Episode Overview

In this episode of Advisory Conversations, with Tim Seymour and Deb Halliday, we talk about the values behind what we’re building with APX Training, and why they matter more than any framework or model.

We start with collaboration.

Because most people entering advisory think they need to compete, stand out, or do more than everyone else. But what we’ve seen is the opposite. The firms that grow are the ones that build relationships, share ideas, and stop trying to do everything on their own.

From there, we get into what it actually means to “do the right thing” in advisory.

Not just in how you show up with clients, but in how you build your business, how you lead your team, and how you make decisions when no one else is watching. Trust isn’t built through knowledge alone. It’s built through consistency.

We also talk about environment.

Because advisory doesn’t grow in pressure. It grows in the right conditions. When people feel supported, when they’re allowed to learn, and when systems are in place so it’s not all sitting with one person.

And throughout the conversation, there’s a thread that runs through everything.

You don’t become an advisor overnight.

It’s built over time, through experience, through reflection, and through being willing to do things differently.

Takeaways

Moving into advisory isn’t about learning more, it’s about changing how your business is structured

Collaboration creates better results than trying to compete in isolation

Trust is built through consistent actions, not just technical knowledge

The right environment allows people and teams to grow into advisory

Sustainable advisory comes from systems, not reliance on one person

Links

apxtraining.co.uk

advisoryteams.co.uk

Mentioned in this episode:

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Business Course Library

Welcome to Advisory Conversations with Tim Seymour and Deb Halliday.

This podcast is for accounting professionals and financial coaches who are ready to step beyond compliance and into advisory.

Because real advisory isn't about doing more yourself, it's about building something that works without you being the bottleneck.

Here we are again, Deb, ready to have another advisory conversation.

How are you today?

I'm good, yeah, really good, thanks.

How are you?

Yeah, pretty good, pretty good.

Always am.

Enjoy our conversations.

And so we, we've kind of, this is our fourth episode and we've kind of talked about my career path, your career path, what led us to here.

And then we talked a little bit about how we came to form APX training.

So today we're just going to develop that a little bit further before we kind of explain some of the outcomes that we're looking to achieve with people and to help the accounting professionals in our industry.

So we kind of touched on this before about how we made sure that we were a good fit to work together and then we took that the next step further, didn't we, by talking about what our values and our core values should be.

And it's really interesting the first one that we wrote down, which is collaboration over competition, because it kind of sums up our relationship up until we went into business together, doesn't it?

Because we collaborated continually over the past four years in, in some shape or form, you know, in previous podcasts and previous kind of working together on online training platform and things like that.

So I think that was, that was kind of really key.

But also it was key for you with how you built your team, wasn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean it's probably one of the most important values for me, collaboration over competition.

I always like working with people.

I shy away from a scarcity mindset.

I always think the best of people unless they prove me otherwise.

But yeah, so when I had the accounts ladies, it was a team of subcontractors, even to the point where I brought in a another business financial coach to do the advisory.

But yeah, always collaboration over competition.

I like the fact that we've got a really nice community in our industry.

Everybody gets on and yeah, we're all on each other's podcasts and pleased to see each other at events, etc.

Yeah, it's a much nicer way of working and it's much more modern way of working as well.

I find looking at people as competition is quite an old fashioned.

I was in business in the 80s, so yeah, so I remember the competition element of it, it wasn't, it was a bit harsh for me really.

Yeah.

Not, not much fun.

Not much fun if you have to run down competition, is it?

It's not, not a great way to, to start a relationship.

I was always taught that in my early career.

Actually that's not the way to build a relationship with someone.

So.

Yeah, and there's plenty of, there's plenty of opportunity for all of us as there are for, for the accounting professionals.

There's plenty of opportunity, plenty of businesses to be working with.

So.

Yeah, so collaboration over competition, definitely our number one core value.

And then the second one we wrote down was about doing the right thing.

And I think that just, you know, that kind of says everything for us about how we conduct ourselves, how we act, how we turn up in front of everybody, but also it's how we turn up when nobody's watching.

And I think for me that's really important.

It's really important aspect of, of life in general, let alone the business world.

So doing the right thing is, is a really important one for us.

And after that we had about being fully inclusive in respect of achieving goals and dreams.

Yeah.

So everybody that we work with, we need to be respectful of what their goals and dreams are, what the outcomes that they want to achieve and not just be dismissive or do everything we can to ensure that everybody is on the track for achieving their ambitions.

Yeah, love that.

And then another one was to continually learn while I don't think anyone can accuse her for especially the last month has been action packed with creating stuff, but also continually learning whilst we're going.

We've learned so much in this last month or so, haven't we Deb?

And I think that that just is a natural value for us because of just the, the way that we both are.

Yeah.

I mean I would term us as work nerds to be honest, because yeah, always learning.

I love learning.

This works.

An adventure should be an adventure.

Should be always learning new things, new skills.

So yeah,.

The, the next one was a really important one for me was about creating or, or positive and encouraging environment.

Very important for me.

I felt that in the previous role, in the previous membership, I was able to create a community that had that, that everybody was comfortable being able to come forward with problems even in a group environment and we were able to help them overcome these problems.

It was non judgmental and also in other networking calls that we've had.

Remember when we used to run croissants and coffee for small business owners, et cetera, then went into the Candidacy world as well.

At the same, within that environment, it's very important that people feel safe to me and that there's no judgment because everybody's on a journey, everybody's at a different stage in their journey and everybody's got different levels of knowledge and they've experienced different things.

So most people can bring something to the table even if they don't realize they can at that moment in time.

But they should also be able to say, do you know what?

I'm stuck on this.

Who can help me before we've created an environment where people will put their hand up and say, I can help with that and I can help you with that.

And then they go and take it away and talk about it.

So it's important for us to have that as one of our values.

And then there was another one about being reliable, basically doing what we say we're going to do.

Yep, yeah, that's.

Yeah, that's critically important.

Particularly.

Well, when you're working with other people, you have to be reliable.

If you could say if you're going to do something, you say you're going to do something, you have to do it.

And if you don't, you have to come up with, you know, the valid reasons why you didn't do it and in good time as well, because otherwise it's just disappointing to people.

We don't move fast enough.

I think you don't do what you say you're gonna do.

Absolutely.

So there we go.

So that was that one.

And then there's just two more to go through.

We don't just talk the talk, we walk the walk.

That is, is massive for us, isn't it?

Because we have literally lived and breathed the accounting industry for many years, 34 collective years, running our own accountancy and bookkeeping practices, building our own teams, stepping into advisory, being able to deliver, you know, to our clients, changing the whole structure of our accounting businesses.

Yeah, and then, and then of course, you know, running the PREBIS membership, working with accounting professionals for over four years, understanding their needs and requirements.

So, yeah, it's been a, been a hell of a journey, but it's really important that you're able to encourage people to follow the steps that you've taken through your path, of your journey, but to short, shortcut a lot of the steps, because obviously we made mistakes along the way and we learned the hard way, but we found a way around them.

And to be able to enable and empower people to follow those steps, I think is really important.

And to, to be able to find their own steps as well sometimes like you did, Deb, you know, you found different ways to do things and took things to the next level in many ways.

So I think, yeah, definitely a big one for us, I would say.

Yeah, without a doubt.

Yeah.

We walk the walk.

And then of course, there's humor and fun.

This was our last one, so we added this one on, didn't we?

We did, yeah.

Just because our working relationship, Tim, isn't it?

I don't think there's like.

Well, there's certainly not a day that goes past where we haven't had a good laugh.

And then probably hour by hour we could monitor it, to be honest.

So, yeah, I mean, it makes the work enjoyable.

We need to enjoy our work.

So.

Yeah, and it's great when you're in an environment where it's not so stuffy because I think when you can relax, you can get into the flow and you can steam ahead and you do your best work when you're happy.

So, yeah, yeah, yeah, without doubt, without doubt.

It's a very important part of anything we do in life is if it's not fun, why would we continue doing it?

So let's make it fun.

Let's enjoy ourselves.

Doesn't mean we don't take what we're doing seriously, but what it does, it creates, hopefully, an environment that's enjoyable, which is for us, most important thing as well.

So we went through the values, and those are the values that we've decided fit us best.

And we both signed up to them.

We both were both, you know, completely on board with them.

And from there we kind of looked at what our brand and brand colors could be, didn't we?

So do you want to talk a little bit about that?

Because the.

The teal.

You were using before as well, weren't you?

So we've kind of stuck with that.

Yeah, that nice color.

Yeah.

The teal is historic for me.

I've been using it for a number of years now.

It was like an accent color within the accounts ladies.

It was more to the forefront in the accounts office, all of my social media, etc.

But it comes down to brand psychology as well.

We did ask chat, didn't we, about brand psychology and it gave us a palette that we were quite pleased with because it actually had the teal in it, didn't it?

Yes, and then a darker teal, but the fonts and everything.

Trustworthy, reliable.

And we fed it our.

Our values, didn't we?

We fed the.

The chatgpt our values and Asked it to come up with brand psychology for our values.

So the red is from the parrot, which is you see on my shoulder in my social media post.

So, yeah, so it's all by design, but a lot of thought gone into it, but it's been a necessary process, I think, rather than just plucking your preferences out of thin air.

Yeah.

So there's meaning behind it all and.

I like the clean style.

We've got the websites, landing pages, etc.

And that when you go through it, it's a nice white background, which sounds a lot of people might think, well, there's not much thought going to that, but actually it's deliberate because it keeps things clean for us.

Then with the teal and the red coming in, it just allows us to highlight different aspects, doesn't it?

And yeah, I know we were very, very excited that our main website has gone live now, which is apxtraining.co.uk so if you're interested in checking out our brand and checking out our messaging, then feel free to just jump onto there.

I'll just say that again, it's apxtraining.co.uk so feel free to have a look, have a look around, Let us know what you think, Let us know what you think of our colors, etc.

Be really interested to hear your feedback on that.

At the end of the day, we're all business owners and we're all trying different things.

So if you're able to share your thoughts on that, we'd be, we'd welcome feedback.

And then.

So apx, what does APX stand for?

Debt Advisory Practice Experts.

There we go.

Yeah, that's what it stands for.

So we've made a bit of a play on the word expert and we write it as a small E and a big X, don't we?

Because, you know, we felt that the X was really important because it stands out.

But also we wanted to kind of highlight the fact that we are advisory practice experts and we are delivering training and development to, to our, to our customers, to our end users.

Because we've been there, like we said, one of our core values.

We're not just talking at talk, we have actually walked the walk and we understand the world of the accounting industry.

We're seeing massive changes, especially with AI.

We have to mention it because it's there, it's coming.

Automation AI is allowing us to make massive changes within our accounting businesses, which is going to allow people to be able to add advisory in a much easier way.

And we've there and we've lived it and breathed it and moved from that technician status into advisory and then from advisory into running advisory teams.

You in particular with that one, Deb.

Of course.

So it kind of leads us into.

Well, we'll just briefly mention why the parrots on the logo as well.

Because the logo's up on the screen.

If you're watching this on YouTube, you'll be able to see the logo.

The parrot's there because Deb and I let you talk about this.

I don't want to steal your thunder on this one.

That's okay.

So, yeah, So I used to joke that there was a parrot.

I needed a parrot on my shoulder to repeat the answers to all the common questions that I used to get asked.

So used to.

I still get asked them because people still know me as a bookkeeper and accountant.

I was only asked the other day about CIS and tax returns.

So, yeah, I nearly sent them my parrot.

But the parrot is the symbol of the business course library, which is the resource that I built to answer the common questions that we get asked by our questions, by our clients, so that we can separate education, which is free, from advisory, which is a fee.

So that's why the parrot's there.

Yeah, we love the parrot.

And that's, of course, where the element of red came into the branding as well, as you mentioned earlier, because of the parrot and the color of the parrot and it sits so nicely up against the teal and the white, I feel.

So, yeah.

So accountancy, sorry, advisory practice experts, that's who we are and that's what we want to create for other people to become as well.

So what we want to help people with is, in the first place, for those that aren't offering advisory, is to help them step into advisory, because there are, there are, and I think we've mentioned this in a previous episode, but having worked with accountants and bookkeepers for quite a few years now, there are many that are nervous about offering advisory because they perhaps don't feel they've got the confidence and they don't quite feel they know where to start with how to create an advisory offer.

What.

What is advisory?

How do I start to charge for this when I've been answering questions for free?

And then.

Then it's kind of.

The other one is they feel that it's all going to be on them, so they're a bit nervous.

They.

They've perhaps always done the compliance, then they've now got automation, they've got a team on board and they've moved away from having to do all the compliance themselves.

So to move into advisory can feel daunting because they're going to feel like they're the ones learning to do it, so they're the one that's going to be stuck with it.

So I've come across this quite a lot.

Well, I think we've both come across this, Deb, and it's an understandable feeling.

But of course there is a solution to that, isn't there?

Yeah, there is, yeah.

And that's what we.

That's what we wanted to map out, didn't we?

So we mapped out, we knew the outcome and we knew the process to take people through.

So that's what we've done with our program, haven't we?

We've kind of like, we've put it into sections.

We looked at who we wanted to serve, were going to come up against this problem or who were experiencing this.

This problem of everything landing back in their lap.

And I've been there.

So I, I know that it's daunting because you're trying to run an accountancy or bookkeeping practice and you've taken on advisory services or you've got your first client, but actually it takes up quite a lot of head space.

And I realized that I'd swapped doing the bookkeeping for doing the advisory.

Actually, what I needed to be doing was running my own business.

So I was back into delivering, which goes against everything that Michael E. Gerber taught us in E Myth, E Myth or E Myth Revisited, whichever edition you've.

You've read.

So, yeah, I managed to remove myself completely and put my.

All my clients in safe hands of my team.

So that's what we've mapped out.

So it doesn't matter really which part of the journey you're on, whether it's the beginner wanting to go into advisory, like Tim, you said, but worried, concerned that it's all going to land in their lap to moving to leadership, which is where you've got to learn how to build, how to choose, how to recruit your, your first advisory team members and then how to build high performing teams.

And then once you've completed that section, it's the time to train your team, your new team members.

And actually it's a self perpetuating loop because if you really want to release yourself from the bottleneck, you have a new team leader.

So you would choose one of your team members to be the new team leader, which you can remove yourself completely then and concentrate on being a business owner or going to the Seychelles or.

We were discussing this before, weren't we Tim?

It was, what would we do?

You know, what could people do?

What would be the outcomes?

You said going to the Seychelles, what else do we mention?

Well, you went off to Canada, didn't you, when you did this.

But I think as well, I think for some people it's having the freedom to choose.

And I think that's what, what we're creating here, it's giving the business owner the opportunity to be able to choose what they want to do with their time.

And it might be that they invest that time in the business still, but they can choose, they can dip in and out of the advisory if they enjoy it.

Because some people, some people really enjoy delivering the advisory and they don't.

Yes, they need their team to take ownership of it so they're not the bottleneck and they're not having to do this.

But they might choose to dip in and out.

They might choose to work with a select one or two clients, they might choose to run some live sessions, some mastermind groups that they can schedule their time out nicely throughout the year without feeling that they are having to turn up every day and work all these long hours that they're probably working right now.

And at the end of the day, isn't that why, isn't that why we set up in business?

To create a business that allows us to have freedom and allows us to choose what we do.

So for some people it will probably be continuing work.

It might be that they work on the marketing strategies to bring more business in and grow their team.

I mean, then you're creating a really long term sustainable business that allows you even more freedom but also builds a team bigger so it scales.

Therefore there's more profits and of course there's, there's more opportunity to reward yourself in the business later on down the line of course as well.

So there's so many things I think you can do once you've got to that point.

But our aim is to help people get to that point so that we can then, you know, help them make those choices as well, hopefully.

But it, an interesting question comes up along, along this pathway is that the business owners can be a little bit nervous to empower their teams, but that is one of the one part of the program that we go through because we've talked about this in our career paths, haven't we, about how the only way you can learn to do something is if you're given the opportunity to learn and to deliver advisory and to probably make a couple of mistakes along the way.

I mean, at the end of the day, we're all human.

Who hasn't made a mistake, a technical mistake in the past, you know, doing accountancy work, especially when we did it, you know, manually before the computer systems took over, you know, going back because we're really old, as we've mentioned every episode.

But it's, it's a valid point.

You know, everyone has made mistakes throughout their career.

And when you run a business, I think a very important aspect is the supportive and encouraging positive environment you can create for your team to allow them to learn and to allow them to grow.

And I think it's something that a lot of business owners find hard, but it's something we can help them overcome.

Because once your team's delivering the high value advisory to your clients, your life is going to be so much easier and so much better.

So Deb, Deb, you, you mentioned you went off to Canada, you had a couple of months off and it even went further than that because you ended up selling your business to the subcontractors who were taking care of the work for you within that, within that team.

Yeah, yeah, I did.

When I came back from the couple of months off from the, that I had offered the family bereavement, I kind of realized that I didn't need to be involved and I didn't really want to be involved in accountancy anymore.

Particularly.

It was, it had covered tax return season even though I wasn't needed, I wasn't involved.

It still had, you know, tax return after 17 years, tax return season still has this pressure on you, doesn't.

It's like you can't get shot of it even if you don't have any to do if you're still responsible for them because they're within your business.

So I came away and thought, you know what, I want to reward the team for doing such a brilliant job, but I also want to step away.

So, yeah, I had a conversation with them all and they're continuing with the clients today and continuing advisory.

And as I mentioned before, they were all ages.

You know, you don't have to be of a certain age or experience to deliver advisory.

You need to have been given the training, you need to have been exposed to experience and you need to have done which and, you know, given the opportunity to do.

And then with those three comes the confidence.

And then, yeah, it just snowballs after that because the confidence.

With confidence comes enjoyment.

You generally, you're confident in doing something, you enjoy doing it, so you want to take on more.

So, yeah, so, yeah, it's a great experience.

Yeah, fantastic.

And then that's the thing, isn't it?

Once you've got that freedom, you can choose.

And that's all we're trying to deliver, is the opportunity to choose.

But it's a valid point to make, is that everything we've built has come from our individual and then our collective experience.

And then there's the experiences that we've witnessed in others along the way as well.

So, so it's.

Yeah.

How many years experience?

We won't go there again today, Deb.

We've already talked about how old we are.

We forget that one.

Okay, so, yeah, what, what can we do next?

Okay, so, you know, if you want to learn more about our program, about what we're offering, or just learn more about us, the best place to go is to advisoryteams.co.uk or where you can download the book Advisory Teams.

I suggest it's the first place to start because it's a free PDF and you can download it for free at the moment.

So if I was you, I would take that opportunity, download it, have a read of the book, see what you think.

If you find it interesting, then go back on the landing page and take the assessment and then just see, see where the journey can take us.

But the first thing is read the book, enjoy it, let us know what you think.

We'd be interested in your feedback, of course, with everything that we're doing.

So feel free to make any comments or observations you'd like to get in touch.

But other than that, thank you very much for joining us again today in the APX studio and this has been Advisory Conversations.

Thanks for joining me again, Deb, as always.

Of course, we are a team, so why wouldn't you be here?

Yeah, great.

Anything you want to end up with, Deb?

No.

Looking forward to next episode.

Excellent.

See you all soon.

Thanks for listening to advisory conversations with Tim Seymour and Deb Halliday.

If you found this useful, make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss the next episode.

We'll see you next time, Sam.