What are you in business to do? Today's episode focuses on asking yourself the hard question of do you enjoy what you're doing? Or have you just fallen into being a Jack (or Jill) of all trades. Especially what we've been through in the last 15 months, now is the time to be very intentional about what you want to do. It's OK to say no, and in fact you need to become comfortable with saying no. Saying no will give you the capacity to focus on what's important to growing your business.

We discuss a Harvard Business Review article Creating a Purpose Driven Organization.

Make sure you read the book that gave us the inspiration for this podcast: Strategy and the Fat Smoker. Buy it on Amazon.

Connect with us and send us your questions:

Penny Breslin - LinkedIn | @PennyB57

Damien Greathead - LinkedIn | @Damien_GH

And we're back episode number two of strategy

and the virtual controller. I was listening to a webcast the

other day penny. And they were saying that most podcasts rarely

get beyond eight episodes. And I know one hour episode planning

were well and truly beyond eight episodes. So I'm delighted to be

here with you today for Episode Two how I say Penny,

I'm doing fine, got my vaccine and ready to rock

and roll out of town here in about a week or so.

Getting back on the road after the vaccine.

When was the last time you were on a plane?

flying back from India through Hong Kong and

landing in San Diego in January of 2020. And having one of my

sisters who worked at a at a hospital call me ago, I heard

that you were in Asia. Yeah. chuckles Tell me what was going

on. And I explained to get ready, this is going to get

messy. Last time I was

looking forward to getting back on a

plane. My goodness, that's exciting. Yeah, because the

world and particularly that the accounting world, which was

spent on copy at conferences and visiting firms, and obviously

visiting the firm in India, that was the norm. So not not doing

that for 12 months, as has been a bit of a change, hasn't it?

Yeah, and not having conferences for me, you

know, virtual work was, you know, we do we did we live in?

We will I mean, resume and Slack, you know, so either way,

we're aware, that wasn't a big deal. But still, you know, I'd

narrowly I would have been over in India by now. And then, also,

we had, we had tickets booked for different conferences where

my team was coming from India, United States. And because they

come over here and get training, so it just, it was different.

And then also dealing with clients who, you know, all of a

sudden, you've been wanting them, you got to get rich, just

in case, you know, and all of a sudden it had to happen had to

happen. And that was that was an interesting endeavor.

Yeah, we've come we've we've sort of

interesting, we've been you. And I've been talking about a lot of

these key key elements of this transformation for 10 plus

years. But it seems to take a global pandemic for for people

to finally stand up and take notice and actually do a lot of

the things that we've been talking about for a long time

didn't.

Yeah, and again, I think, I think one of the things

that comes back as it cuts for us full circle, you can be

virtual, and you can do a lot of things virtually, but you still

have to have the first thing going for you. And that is

relationship. Yeah. And, and so, you know, people are raring to

get back into it. There's all this Scot discussion about how

often we're going to go back, what's the new normal, you know,

all of that, but it's all about the thing that people have been

missing is the relationship. And, and it doesn't just apply

to a firm and their clients, it's within the firm internally,

the relationships that get built, and the trust that gets

built in a team that works together. And, and being able,

having that trust in the first place. And going virtual, is a

far different cry than not maybe having it and then going

virtual. And that was definitely a discussion I had with the firm

this morning about how they've had that problem.

Yeah, and I'm looking forward to learning more

about that, as we were discussing prepping for this

episode. But before we do that, just a bit of housekeeping

folks, the website for the podcast strategy, and the

virtual controller is s a t v c.co. So sh t vc.co. Go there,

you can obviously, like the episode review the episode, you

can find any articles because we'll be talking about the

different books and different articles. You can find those and

links to all of those at that website as well. So sa t vc.co

is the website for strategy and the virtual controller just

wanted to remind listeners as well Penny about the sort of the

premise of what we built the podcast on and it was the book

by David maister, which is called strategy in the fat

smoker. And I think the most important part of the title is

the is the subtitle that is doing what's obvious, but not

easy. And so a quick a quick overview of the book is

regarding the often or even usually know what we should be

doing in both our personal and professional lives. We also know

why we should be doing it and how often so we know these

things. And the same is true in our firms, the things that we

should be doing and Why we should be doing it. So figuring

all that out, it's not too difficult. What's the very hard

part is actually doing what you know, to be good for you in the

long run in spite of short run temptations. And so what we're

really talking about is, we know the strategies that they're out

there in the ether, in in books and on websites and in podcasts.

And in webinars. Now, it's the actual hard part of choosing

which strategies you want to pursue, identifying which ones

are going to be good for you in the long run, and then doing the

hard work to get them implemented. So if you haven't

read strategy in the fat smoker, really great book. And again,

you can find the link on the podcast website, which is sa

tvc.co. You can find the link there and order that off Amazon.

But a really fascinating read about we know what's obvious to

do for ourselves for our firm, but actually doing it day in

day, day out for the long run. That's the really difficult

part. So have a read of his book. And that will give you a

little bit of inspiration to come on this journey with us. So

Penny, while we're here, sort of talking a little bit about us a

little bit about the podcast, your company's called money,

Penny, tell us who you are, what you do, and who were the types

of clients that you work with?

Well, let's see, I am a facilitator between

accounting firms, bookkeeping firms, and an outsourced back

office full of trained accountants who know how to run

just about every not American based in some other outside

North America based accounting programs and tax programs. We do

that, plus we test apps, integrating two accounting

programs.

And fundamentally, what you're doing

is you're helping firms with the process with their workflow with

the automate level of automation, and then bringing in

the right resources to load balances. That's a fair way.

How do you insource the work? And then how

do you prep it so that the people on your team, whether

they're internal to your office, or external to your office, or

they're an app? How does that all flow together to get an end

result for the client end result is you have a good relationship

with the client? And you're doing value added work for the

client?

What do you mean by insource? The

work, okay, you got a client? And you need to,

if you're going to, you got to decide who's going to run the

company. Okay, let's call it a business because it is a

business. Yep, this is Apple's to do some type of accounting.

So you who's going to run your business? You are the client,

you are the employees, you are the apps? Who's gonna run it?

And who's gonna make the decision on how all of that is

going to happen? And what's the backup strategy when it fails?

because nothing's perfect. So that's, that's what I work at.

Because I've got it, I've got to insource the work to me, and to

my team. So in order for that to happen efficiently, you've got

to insource it to your office efficiently. So I start with

that first, then, once that's moving smoothly, if you need us,

we're there, then we build the team to match the needs of that

firm.

Okay, and what I was thinking in terms of what

is insourcing, it's essentially going to your clients, your

small, medium sized business clients and saying to them,

you're experts at making widgets, whatever those widgets

may be, we're experts at accounting. So we will take off

that accounting function off your hands off your plate, get

that done for you, so that you can use your very limited

resources for to focus on what you do best. And I think that's

really a part of it as well, isn't it is when we're in the

business of accounting, that's what we do best. So let us work

with your business so that you can focus on on making the

widgets and doing what you do best, and we will insource that,

that accounting function for you.

Yeah, but if you do that, you have to decide

that's what you really want to do.

Yeah,

I mean, good point. Yeah. Because that's true. Because

businesses that do accounting there's a couple of different

things that they can they can do. Isn't isn't their job. They

can be a tax practice, they can be a payroll firm, they can be a

what's hard

and a lot of an audit for them?

Yeah, absolutely,

they could do a, you got to make that decision,

they could be off just I just want to do after the fact,

bookkeeping, I want to just sit here and do that, you got to,

this is something that if you want to do it, and you want to

present to your client that you're going to do it, it has to

it, you've made a promise it has to work, it, it actually has to

happen, that you can't just put out there, we are a firm of the

future, an advisory firm, we are a you know, fractional CFO,

there has to be some give back to the client, the if you're

going to do that, if you're going to say, give me all that

stuff, you go make your widgets, you go sell your services, you

go do whatever it is that you do, and I'll take care of all of

this, then there has to be some reason, and that they would give

it to you, that supersedes what they perceive is them being able

to do it internally and control it internally. Because they're

giving up a lot with the expectation of getting something

important back that makes it worthwhile for them to, you

know, follow your rules to get the stuff coming in.

And I think that's the trap that a lot of

firms make isn't fall into rather, is that they become the

generalists across everything. As they're trying to grow their

business and and and shore up their revenue, they take on

anything, they take on everything, they take on a bit

of bookkeeping, they take on a bit of tax, they take on a bit

of payroll, depending on what they are, they may not take on

audit, but I have seen firms that will though the the name

sort of grows from accountants to accountants and advisors, and

all of a sudden, you go to their website and there's this long

laundry list of every single service that they've ever

provided. Never really become an expert in one and and so I think

that really is the the topic of today's conversation becoming

laser focused on what it is that you want to do. And also being

comfortable with this idea of this is not this is not what I

want to do. Yes. And and making that delineation. So Penny,

what's your sort of experiences in the firm's that you've worked

with, in terms of firms that have quickly and easily or not,

maybe not quickly, but have identified who they are and what

they want to be when they grow up versus others?

Well, it, it's, I think it's obviously easier for

a newer startup, you know, mainly because they come into

the game in the middle of this can highly connected world with

lots and lots of good quality apps and training from those

apps to assist them. And moving along. The decision making of

whether they're going to be an accounting firm, a bookkeeping

firm, are a virtual controller, our partial CFO, fractional CFO,

those are much easier. And it goes along smoothly with those

folks. They start with us small. And then before you know it,

they're just throwing work at us like crazy, because they

actually have the relationship with the client, they went into

with that idea. It's much more difficult, I think for firms

that are already well established with especially if

they do all of those things that you brought in the priority

silo, the firm. And by siloing it the adoption of something

that is transparent, such as a workflow tasking application is

difficult for them to accept. And so it's just it's kind of

like, well, these are my clients, and I like them this

way. And I do it this way. Yeah, but the firm wants to do it. We

want to do this fractional CFO, and you know, we can't do it

without everybody being involved. So you kind of have

to, if you're the firm partner, or partners, owners, you first

have to decide, do you want to do this? And what is this? What

is it that you define as your fractional CFO controller client

advisory? What's your definition of it? What do you what do you

picture you doing that makes that so special? What's what is

the deliver of Well, that you plan on giving to that client.

I'm working right now with the firm that has an idea in mind.

And that they wanted, they go, Well, we got to get branded, we

got, we got to get a logo, we got to get a website got and I

said yes, you do you do. And here's, here's somebody will do

that is because they came to me and I said, Okay, we've got

something to do that. I said, Now, all of that's being done,

let's talk about what you're going to deliver. What is it

that you're going to deliver, you got a nice idea. But you've

got to give the client something. And I don't mean like

a piece of paper or anything. But you've got to give them a

reason to want to come back every month, and do this again

with you.

And I think that's a really good point is

that we will will touch the touch on this in another episode

as well. But what is a fractional CFO? What is what is

an advisor? What is an advisory? And I think a lot of small,

medium sized businesses, they all need these types of

services, but they don't know why. And they don't know what

they actually are like, I understand the benefit of a cash

flow forecast. But do your small business owners? And do they

really understand it? Do they

do they why you why you need to have those

documents, do it. And if they don't value it, if they don't

understand it, they're not going to give it to you. And if

they're not going to give it to you, then your whole idea of

being a fractional CFO means you're not closing the books

every month. Now you could say, well, you know, we're using

QuickBooks and 00. And they don't close the books and like

they do they do they create a monthly report. And and what's

the value of that monthly report? Well, then you're

looking at that report, right. And on a certain day, every

month, you know, this client, their books are going to be

done, they're going to be close. And you can guarantee those

numbers and you can look at those numbers. And you can

compare them to not only prior months, but you can compare them

to what you now know about that client. Because you've had the

time as the CFO to learn about the client, you've developed a

relationship. So now you can talk to them about their

business, not about a p&l or balance sheet. Which doesn't

mean anything to them. It doesn't mean anything, unless

the goal for a bank loan is something really,

yeah. And what are you

providing? What's your deliverable? What is it

that you do? That's so good, that somebody is going to pay

you a reoccurring flat fee every month, and follow every rule and

use every app that you give them the way you want them to use it?

To make your life easier to be a CFO? What are you giving back?

And that's where I have seen over and over again, the fail,

and you go in and you get it you get you get it? somebody goes,

Okay, we want you to do a bookkeeping, and you know, the

books are okay, and we got all the feeds coming in. And we'll

go in and we'll go, Yeah, but you haven't accepted anything

from the feeds for the last four months. And nothing's been

reconciled in this account for six months. And you're on your

website saying that you're you're doing fractional CFO

services, or you're doing client advisory services? What do you

advise them on? And when? What was the deliverable that you

gave them? And if they gave you that flat rate? How much time

are you spending? Asking? Where is it? Where is it? Where is it

and not getting it? used up? Even the modicum of profit,

you're going to make off that flat rate, and you just didn't,

everybody's just frustrated, and nobody's happy, and you're not

doing what you want to do.

And so basically, what's happening

there is that the clients not bought into this process of

using the applications, the team's not bought into using the

do it following the process, accepting the transactions, etc.

Because they don't understand why they don't understand what

the deliverable is. And I think I think a lot of firms over

complicate it. I think, a lot of firms, a lot of firms, either

overcomplicate it, and then combine that with old processes.

To your point. Yeah, to your point about we need to accept

the transactions on a regular basis on a daily basis on a

weekly basis. You see a lot of firms that are that are trying

to run this service, but only coming into a client's books

once a month. And there's no way that you're going to be able to

process all of the data at once a month, because that's what

they used to do in there right updates when when it was just

half a day dedicated to a particular client. But to be

successful it is you need to be in the clients books every

couple of days, don't you?

Well, yeah, depending on the size of the

client, you do, but you also need to be in them, if nothing

else, just to get an understanding of the client. I

mean, you if you're looking at a lot of data, once a month on a

client, hey, you know, it was It's not unusual to get somebody

who has 300 transactions a day coming in, because all the feeds

can because of the kind of business or I will see that all

the time. How are you going to know if there's an issue that

you need to deal with? Or bring up to the client? Or if there's

potential here, you know, maybe it's time for you to get a 401k.

Maybe it's time for you to open up a money market account, if

they're a smaller new startup business, maybe it's time that

you know, you, you know, what, why, why is this? Why these

transactions so out of whack, compared to what we saw last

month, or in like the last six months,

the last time of your example, last time of

Ramon Ramon, what are these every every couple of months,

there's a $10,000 transaction that's that that is being

reported as income? What is that just being able to ask those

questions,

be able to ask that question. And, and if

you're not in them on a regular basis, and it doesn't need to be

you, if you're the if you're the partner owner, you are the

person driving this inside you that has to be in there all the

time. But certainly, if you've got a team, you your team is

somebody is touching that clients books, enough to know

the client, so that when you do talk to them, because you should

as a deliverable, if you're going to be somebody's

fractional CFO, client, advisor, controller, whatever you want, I

sure as heck Hope you're talking to them every month, at minimum,

at minimum, that you're speaking to them, one on one, you know

that this is a in the days of COVID, either a virtual meeting,

but certainly outside of that, and we get into the end of it

Fingers crossed, that you actually meet with this person

and this business, to you know, develop that relationship, and

to get a feel for it. because let me tell you something, it's

not always just in the numbers. It's It's, it's, it's, you know,

you got to look at a person and see if they're sweating or not,

and why. But if you're not doing that, you're really not doing

what your website says you're doing. So admitted, sit down, we

you know, in that, in that book, you know, I just I put here's a

list of what the world considers client advisory in a general

because it's different with every firm, but sit down and

look at it. Here's all the things that you do in your firm.

just list them. What is it that you really want to do? And I

think that's what I do.

Yeah, because it's easy to put on on your

website, advisory or part time controller, or just add another

line item to the to the exhaustive growing list on

marketing people told you to do it.

Yeah. But but the realization is to actually

do this successfully, you need time you need resources, you,

you need to you need the clients. It's not just as easy

as putting it on our website. And we'll do it for one or two

clients that request it, it really has to form a part of

your core value proposition, doesn't it? And it actually

means letting go the few things because

because if you have if you got if you got your

old stuff, your old processes, they're all means doing things.

It's too damn easy to fall back into that. It's way too easy for

somebody to come in and say, Yeah, but I'm not going to do it

that way. It's way too easy to submitted, say, you have a

client doesn't want to do that. It's, you know, it's, it's, it's

just, you're either in for a penny in for a pump, if you got

to put it on your website. And if you're going to go to a

client, you're going to sell them CFO, fractional CFO

services or advisory services, then what are you going to

deliver, that makes it valuable enough for them to follow

through on what you need for them to do all these apps that

are out there? That and and I could go through a litany of

them because we I did this morning with a client. It's like

if the client doesn't use these apps that you give them, then

everything fails. Everything fails, sorry, sorry, you just

bought an expensive app and you and you just spent a lot of time

learning it and you gave it to a client and the client never used

it. So you're back to picking up the phone and begging for

something. What makes them want to use it is the fact that the

first time they use it, they get a yay from you and a piece of

information that they did not know and you gave them some kind

of value.

And my classic example there Penny is when we

worked at when I worked at receipt bank and you talked we

talked to her a number of firms The you're absolutely right that

they would stumble at the first hurdle, which was getting the

app in their clients hands and getting their clients to use it

snapping pictures of the receipts of the of the bills as

that and most importantly doing it as they're coming in. So

while they're waiting for their coffee, snapping a picture of

it, as soon as the at&t bill comes in, snapping a picture of

it, scanning it, forwarding it, whatever it is, and and when we

dug into it, the reason being it was the conversation that was

happening between the the accountant and the client. And

it typically went something like this and it was Penny, I need

you to use this this app called receipt bank. Because it's going

to make my life easier, it's going to get me all the

information that I need to do my job. And almost immediately, you

saw the the eyes roll back in the clients head because they're

like, Wait, you're charging me a fortune. And now you're giving

me this stuff that I'm probably paying for to make your life

easier. I don't get it. I'm not bought into this, I you know,

I'm not bought into this. Whereas the most successful

firms that we saw were, didn't really talk about our role. But

they talked about the accountants role, but they

talked about that deliverable. Penny, I need you to use this

app, because what it means is on the first day or the second day

of every month, we're going to be able to provide you with your

p&l with your this month versus last month, we're able to

provide you with your your month to date year to date reports

that we're going to sit down and have a conversation about that

was the deliverable. And that's what the client valued. And that

is what got the client engaged in this whole process and

adoption of technology. So that's really important is

understanding, Mr. Mrs. client, I need you to do a certain

activity back to your what's in it for me. And then here's why

you need to do it. And it has nothing to do with me. But it

has everything to do with you and your business.

I have to sometimes we take on direct

businesses. And I've got two CFOs that have hired us to do

and there were startups to get them started using and in one

case, the guy didn't have any software in place, not

whatsoever. And to get them to use the apps. It was it was

always like, why should I do this? Okay, I would put them on

a zoom meeting. And I would show them the workflow. And then I

would show them, this is what you will get. And this is when

you would get it. So in both cases, they they they each took

different apps, the ones that I showed them, the good because

they got what was comfortable for them in their company based

on their employees. And the way they work. They both had were

project based. They both had to track by project expenses and

income. They both had a lot of similarities. But it was all in

how they wanted to look at things. And it took a good one

to two months of me playing around with stuff and showing

him in every m it was always constantly, what's it going to

look like for me? What am I going to get from this? How is

this going to make my life easier? Her over and over and

over again? And it was kind of like you? Oh, oh, and it? That's

great. Oh my God, oh, you know, you get though you get that zoom

want and they would go that worked Perfect. Okay, put that

together. And, you know, and this is I'm not, I'm not gonna

do any of the accounting. When we're not responsible for

anything other than making sure the data is in the right place.

Here. We're just playing traffic cop. That's all we're doing. The

CFO goes to companies, each of them has to provide a

deliverable to their board every month. And we give it to them.

And they manage the whole thing. But they are using the apps that

we gave them 100% because they got what they needed.

And I think that's a really good point.

Actually, it's gonna take time, whether it's your clients,

whether it's your team, it's going to take time and

reinforcement and repetition, repetition, repetition. And I

think a lot of again, I think someone will probably strike me

down for this. But I think the Intuit firm the future and a few

of the sort of you've got to jump into advisory. I think

they've done accountants and bookkeepers a bit of a

disservice because they've given this idea that if you build it,

they will come that oh, I put it on the website and my clients

will be falling over themselves. The older the surveys have said

small business clients want their accountant to give so that

they'll be falling over themselves to take up these

services. But again, most small businesses don't really know

what a CFO does. Most small business don't know what advisor

is, most accounting firms don't know what advisor is, your team

certainly doesn't know what's going on and how you're going to

deliver it. So it is really important to get clear about who

you are and what you're delivering, why you're

delivering it. And then you've got to drill it into into your

team, your partners, your clients, to get their buy into

this process. I mean, I always remember the example of it took

me a long time to get addicted to smoking, you had to be really

dedicated to get addicted to smoking. Because that first

experience, there's no way that there's no way that if that

anyone would continue to smoke. And so I don't think it's not

the right, not the right analogy here. But repetition is really

critical. And that's why I think having clear clarity on who you

are, and what you want to be is really, really important. And

you

don't have to do all of that. If it's not what

floats your boat, if it's not what gets you up out of bed in

the morning, if you don't want to be that kind of firm. Okay,

no problem, there's a lot out there that still needs to be

faced, like audit work and compliance work that needs to be

done. You don't have to be that. But if you want to be that, then

you have to focus on it. And then if you have other people

working with you, be they partners or employees, you all

have to talk the same language. Or everybody has to say the same

thing with the CLI. Nobody can say, Don't worry, I'll take care

of that for you. And then backpedal on something and allow

it to fall. If you're not, it's, it's everybody's got to be in on

this. Everybody has to be a team player, everybody. And I mean,

everybody. I don't mean just the accountants and bookkeepers in

your firm. I mean, your administrative staff too. And

the apps that you work, they all have to be fit into what you

want. And there are a lot of apps out there. But if

something's working for you, and it's working via clients, then

you don't you know, it doesn't hurt to have somebody that can

look at new and upcoming apps, there's certainly changes that

are occurring. But But still, if it's working, everybody should

be in everybody, if you're going to have a workflow. Everybody

should be in the workflow. Oh, yeah. Whether whether they've

got an active client or not, whether they are actually

working on a client, they could just be an admin staff, they

could be just a high level CPA, who never really does any of

that tasking. They got to be able to see what's going on.

And how many times have you gone into a firm

where there's maybe three partners and three different

ways to prepare a tax return?

Oh, God, yeah. It doesn't, that's not going to

work. In this kind of, of a world. Yes, that's what that

that is not gonna work, you can do that if all you want to do is

detect. And let me tell you, there are so many clients that

we have the just strictly bookkeeping firms, and they love

having the relationship with the client, they send us all the

traffic cop work to do they have the relationship with the

client. And invariably, I get calls, do you know a CPA just

wants to do tax returns? Yes, it is, there is, if that's all you

want to do. There's nothing wrong with it. And there's

plenty of work out there to do it. So, like, you'll run into

somebody got you know, I asked somebody who needs an audit, and

I don't do that. And I don't want to do that. And so I need

to connect with another firm that does that. So but because

these are these are firms that have said this is what we're

going to do. This is what we like to do. And everybody in the

companies in on the plant, nobody goes off script. I did

that comparison between the two firms, which place would you

rather work and and and the place that you know, everybody

said raise the angle? Yeah, I want to work in that firm. I

could tell you she she plans this out. Every year she goes

through a major planning and review with her team. Where are

we at? How did we do not from a standpoint of of, you know,

client stuff, but how did it work for you? How did how did

using these tools work? Did you see anything that was different

that could be better? Are we all on the same page. She brings

them in constantly but once a year. She has a Big Huge week

with her team, and it's away from the office. And it's always

in a beautiful setting, whether it's in a resort somewhere, and

they just sit down, and they have a good time being a team,

as well as working out, how did this work, what didn't work? And

then the last thing is, now, how did that work for the clients

and what didn't work for the clients. So start with what you

want, get a team that wants what you want, and agrees with it,

and then go find clients that are willing to come along

because they like what you gave them. I have another client who,

who he, he's great, he's he's at a Texas Ed, you know, he's

strict about what dates he wants each client's books closed,

because he has a meeting, and he has a set deliverable that he

gives to them. And he's, he's on it, man. He's like, it'll be

slacking me, Hey, we got a day, they're gonna get this done yet,

don't worry, we will cool Don't worry about and it just, he, he

holds to it, he doesn't let it slide, we let him know, if we're

running into a time issue because we're not getting

something that we need to complete it. He is on it with

the client, hey, we're gonna have a meeting in three days,

you need to give me that information. Otherwise, I'm not

going to be able to give you everything that we usually do.

You know, and all it took was a couple of times with clients to

tell them that. But the thing is, he gave them that

deliverable?

Exactly a bit because that the client

experience that they had the conversation about this month

versus last month, or whatever happens in that meeting. And I'm

assuming the clients perceived a little bit of value in that

meeting, which was enough of that, that dopamine, if you

will, to be like, Oh, yes, we're gonna get addicted to this,

because this helps us make better decisions in our

business.

Oh, yeah, they're on a board of all of his

clients, there are quite a few that we noticed that the amount

of work that he's doing for them, and that he's sending over

to us has increased greatly.

I mean, it's one of those funny things that

accountants always come back with more work whenever they sit

in front of their clients. So how do we take up time, but

again, we'll we'll build on that Penny, one of the articles that

we've been discussing from Harvard is around creating a

purpose driven organization and on the website will have a link

to the article. So you can go in and have a read of it. But I

thought it was interesting, because as with all things in

Harvard, it's always talking about fortune 500 companies and

the importance of this is how the world's biggest companies

made made millions of dollars for their shareholders. What

about first small medium size accounting and bookkeeping

firms? And being a purpose driven organization? How How

does that translate to these smaller firms, these smaller

businesses that you and I are working with,

or you you heard that story about the CPA that

meets with her team once? They actually have brought me out to

some of them. So I've actually sat in for the week. Last time

was in the Dominican, so but I said, I'm not doing that, again,

that's too long of a flight. But it's as long as going to India.

But the, they have been like just last week. Sorry, on on.

This was a zoom meeting with a very small firm. She is just now

opening our second office, she has one in California, she's

going to open one in Montana. And she has a meeting every week

with our team in both places, but also she has every year she

has it her mission statement of the year internally. And like

two years ago, it was finding the the technology apps, her

little black dress that she wanted to work with. And that

would work well and that everybody could get in on then

it was the next one was the next year was how do we make this

process flow and and get the work done faster? And make sure

that we're getting it timely done? And what are we delivering

to the client? And now it's this year, it's client expectation.

So everybody has that in front of them. What's the expectation

of the client? And are we meeting it? What we've we've got

the contracts in front us, we got the engagements in front of

us, this is what we've promised them and are we meeting it and

also asking the client, what's your experience of us? Are we

hitting our mark, and so every year she's done something. And

in although she's doing a lot of things in her firm She has

something in front of her that she's focusing on, because it's

huge to make these changes. And she's just she's the one we met

her three years ago, she was just one account, working by

yourself. Not go to office.

Wow. And I think that's actually a really

important point Penny is we don't need to save the world.

You know, you sort of even the title of that article creating a

purpose driven organization. It's up to you to define

purpose, purpose in terms of your clients purpose in terms of

your team. And I like the fact that just each year, we're going

to chip away at a very particular part to drive us

forward. And I think that's something that that hopefully

listeners can take, can take away from today's episode is,

you don't need to fix the world today. But if there's one small

aspect, and hopefully today's is becoming really clear on why

we're in business, what are we in business to do? And what are

we not in business to do? So I think that's, that's something

to really come away from today's episode is, what is it that you

are? Why are you in business?

Yeah. And you have to be happy, and you've got to

be happy. And,

yeah, I've seen a Venn diagram where

there's happiness, revenue, and I can't remember what the third

one is. I'll try and dig that out for the next episode. But

it's very much this Venn diagram, where right in the

middle is your sweet spot. And so that's where you should focus

in terms of what are the types of services and clients that

make you happy? What are the types of clients and services

that are profitable. And then as I said, I can't remember that

one down the bottom there, but there is definitely a Venn

diagram of this sweet spot, that is where you should operate.

And, you know, I think, I think it's, it's, it's

much easier for a even small, medium sized firm, to be able to

do that. I mean, if you're working in a huge, you know,

mega, Super Regional, you know, big, huge firm, you're doing

that by division. But it the, at the end of the day, you've got

to love what you do. And your clients have to love the

deliverable you're giving them. And if you can get those two

things in sync, then you know, the clients are going to do what

you want, you know, there's no more begging, they're going to

be anxious to give you the information. They're going to be

anxious to communicate with you. I know because I'm not just

dealing with firms. I'm dealing with small businesses that come

to me, and I tell them right up front, we'll get you better have

a CPA, because I'm not going to be the last word when it comes

to that kind of stuff. I'll do all the traffic cop you want, I

will help facilitate it. But you know, they still keep on coming

back. Because they're getting what what we told them they

would get. I didn't over promise. And I didn't tell them

I could do something that one I wasn't. I don't want to do.

Could I be capable of doing something like that? Yes. Are

you kidding me? I'm not stupid. And I've spent 25 years doing

this working with accountants. And, and I've done a few tax

returns in my life. I've met I've closed a few sets of books

in my life. But it doesn't make me happy to do it. But I'm

really honest. Like, Oh, God, now I know, I have not that kind

of person. Right now. I'm sitting here talking to you and

both knees to jumping up and down. And like I've sat one,

squirrel.

I mean, it's a good point, because I'm probably

one that we'll finish on is he as he said, he'd done a few tax

returns, you've closed a few sets of books in your time, your

client wouldn't know a good set of books, you can actually turn

it for him.

I guess I could for some of them. I could I

could, I could put anything out there. And they would be okay.

But I do know if they get out. They do know if

they've got enough cash in the bank to meet payroll. They do

want to know if they've got enough cash to pay their bills.

They want to know that they've got a little bit of cash that

they can put into savings. They want to know that they grew last

last month or last quarter.

I had one the other day she's she called me.

She goes okay, we plan on having a baby. Can you teach me how I

can manage my money and my business a little bit better.

And we looked through a p&l. I showed her a comparison what she

did even during COVID how she did a little bit okay. And then

I introduced her to the profit first method. I said, here's

this book you need to read. And I'm going to tell you, you know

what, let's open up a good interest money market account.

You're not getting it from your bank. Let's open it up over

here. gave her a flat FinTech ad. And I said, I don't care

what you do just put this amount every month, you can manage

that. Right? You can manage that, right? And she goes, Yeah,

I can go go ahead do that every month. And, you know, her friend

who told you I also do a bit book spa, she told her to have

this conversation with me, because I with her, I told her

two years ago to do this. And she's like, going, I can't

believe how easy that was. And, you know, sometimes that's all

it took. But that's about as far as I go. That's that. But I

mean, that just was a little bit of a conversation that you can

have with any client. And I know, I know, all of my firm

clients would have found another way to make money off of that

conversation. And I would have added value to that's not my

business. And that's not what these clients are to me, because

they're my guinea pigs. So but I mean, you know, how often do you

get a call that says, hey, we're trying to have a baby, and I

need to? What do you think I should do about putting some

money away? We want to buy a house. And you know, my

husband's doing really well, I'm doing, but we, what do you think

we should do?

And you want to be able to take that call,

you don't want to you want to have the time to have that

conversation, because that's where the value is. And so

Penny, I think if we sort of round out today's episode, and

we sort of start thinking about what we're going to touch on on

on our next podcast episode. It's becoming taking some time

out to become very clear on the types of services and the types

of people that you want to work with. That's what I'm sort of

picking up out of today's episode,

deliverables that you're willing that you can

commit to.

Cuz you can't just love a tax return over the

fence. You can't just love a p&l over the fence. Can you and

expect to expect the client to be delighted?

Yeah, and not and and don't be surprised if

somebody else comes in and takes them away from you?

Yeah. And I think once we've I think that's

important. What are the deliverables? What are the end

deliverable services, types of clients we want to be working

with, I think it's really important to become crystal

clear on that. Because once we've done that, we can then

move into the actual, well, what do we need to do to get us

there? What are the what are the activities that we need to let

go of? What are the activities that we need to look at our

process and automate? And and that's I think the part about

our next episode is where we once we've got clarity here, on

what we are, what we want to be who we want to look after, and

what we want to deliver to our next episode

is how do you get clarity with your employees?

Yep, yeah. Yeah. Because you might get clear, you might you

you might be rate dialed right in on what you want. But you

better make sure that the people around you want the same thing.

And I think maybe that's where we start our

next episode, because we've seen a whole host of firms absolutely

derailed because the the vision of the the owners and the vision

and the understanding of the teams are completely different,

or even multiple owners who don't have the same.

Yeah, that's what

maybe that's where we are we we we lead off

on our next episode, where we dive deeper into being crystal

clear on what we want to do. What are the types of services

we want to provide? What are the deliverables that we want to

deliver? And then we can focus on how we're actually going to

get there and delivering them. So Penny, this has been a really

good way to kick things off. I think we we often launch

straight into the app or firms launch straight into the app

straight into the workflow straight into reporting and all

these whiz bang reporting apps but they don't spend any time on

the front end really defining who they are, and what they want

to deliver to their clients.

Get your brand going.

Yep,

yeah, gotta get your

jump on the website, si t vc.co. You can see

the Harvard Business article you can see strategy in the fat

smoker and where to download or order those from penny. We will

see you next week when we get into to team on strategy in the

virtual controller.

All right, you got it.