What happens when every advisory conversation, every decision and every client question still depends on you?

In this episode of Advisory Conversations, Tim and Deb reflect on why they created APX Training and how practice owners can start breaking the bottleneck that holds their advisory services back.

They explore how building an advisory team, using interactive client education and developing repeatable processes can free up valuable time, create new revenue opportunities and help your team deliver more value to clients.

They also discuss a simple but important distinction: education isn't the same as advisory and understanding the difference could change how your practice operates.

If you're ready to grow your advisory services without everything resting on your shoulders, this conversation is for you.

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.

Welcome along to another episode of Advisory Conversations.

Hello to you, Deb.

Hiya, Tim.

How are you doing?

Pretty good, pretty good.

Well, Deb, six months of APX training.

Yeah.

It feels like we've achieved quite a lot now.

We look back over six months.

Just a bit.

Yeah.

When we count it all up.

Yeah, it's been great fun.

I've loved every minute of it.

But, yeah, we've.

We've created built so much in such a short space of time, and the feedback's been great.

We've really found a solution to a common problem and people are recognizing that problem.

So, yeah, that's the interesting thing, isn't it?

Because when we first decided to do something together back in April, we sort of put our heads together and we realized the common problem, okay.

Of delivering advisory falling on the practice owner practicing and becoming a bottleneck for delivering advisory.

Everything coming to a standstill, maybe half a dozen clients being served, and then nothing else really happening.

So we wrote a book, Advisory Teams, didn't we?

Which, by the way, if you want to download, you can go to apxtrading.co.uk, you can hit resources and you can get free digital copy or you can listen to the audiobook.

And interestingly enough, the first couple of people to read the book gave us some really good feedback along the way.

I think it was.

It was comments like, I read the book.

It was amazing.

It answered a lot of questions.

Yeah, yeah.

And really resonated.

That's happening to me.

That's me.

That book is me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so in the book, we talk about building an advisory team.

And by building the advisory team to deliver the advisory services to the clients, obviously it takes the onus off of everything having to run through the business owner, the practice owner.

From there, after writing the book, we decided that actually it was kind of a framework for some training programs.

So then we built the E learning platform, didn't we?

We did, yeah.

We.

We put it all on interactive learning management software.

So it's not video led, it's case study led.

We had great fun inventing a character who was a practice owner and her team and the stories and the problems that she faced, the solutions she found and then the outcomes.

So, yeah, it's.

We had great fun building that.

I loved that as well.

That was another section and that's had great feedback as well, isn't it?

Yeah, it has.

I think people love the storytelling aspect that we've incorporated in to the training.

Following a character all the way through each, each module, each lesson within the module, I think really helps.

And then getting to know the team members of her practice as well is added another dimension into it and also demonstrates how the training works in that world to how it can actually work in the real world, which we're proving with the people that are going through these, these training modules.

And of course, of course we've, we've been talking, anyone who's been listening to us recently, we've been talking a lot about the LIVE implementation cohorts, but it's.

And that started.

And we're going to talk about that a little bit later, Deb.

But it's important to kind of mention that the live cohorts happen three times a year.

But we're open 365 days a year for people to join us, aren't we?

Yeah, yeah.

And we've had people join us at the beginning of the summer when we launched through reading the book or using the business course library and then realized actually there was far more on offer.

So they joined the mentorship.

We've had people wait until the live cohorts, haven't we?

Because everybody wants to learn in a different way.

Everybody wants to.

Some people want to get a head start and started using the resources and the E learning platform beforehand and couldn't wait to get started.

And other people were knew that they would probably get more from personally the accountability in the LIVE workshops.

So they knew for them personally to wait.

So yeah, but we're certainly open.

We wanted to make sure, didn't we, that nobody had to wait.

You know, if you've made a decision, if you're a business owner, you've made a decision that this is right for you, you should be allowed to, to start when is right for you.

So yeah, so we've managed to hack all aspects of learning styles in because there's audio, there's visual, there's live.

So.

And the live, as you say, run three times a year, don't they?

So for ten weeks each time.

So yeah, we're managing to do it all and it's great.

Yeah, it's good fun as well.

We're getting good feedback from our mentees that have gone through the elearning platforms, are using all the other resources that we've got available to them including Polly AI and they're also attending the live implementation workshop.

And the first one we did recently was on the business course library how to implement it into their practice and how to monetize the business course library.

Yeah, yeah.

We felt it was important for people to well, for the mentees to understand how to use that resource to start gaining a return on investment because ultimately offering advisory is about.

Part of it is about earning good money from it.

It was important for us that we started the mentees earning some money and that was it's a done for you resource, isn't it?

So it's a done for you client facing resource that they can resell either in packages or standalone or as we were discussing to hook people.

So as it's a differentiator within a discovery call we really valuable resource that nobody else is offering because it's unique to the APX mentorship.

So yeah, so it is really important for us to ensure that our mentees straight away hit the ground running with starting to bring in some additional revenue and they can use that revenue for a few different ways they can use it to.

We would like them to use it so that they could invest in other team members and bring along other team members to the mentorship so they can start practically building their advisory team which some people are actually doing already, aren't they?

Some one of our mentees have actually brought along, well, not recruited, signed up one of their team members because they want to learn and go through this with their team members so they can take it back to their business and discuss it and be on the same learning journey.

Yeah, we were delighted with that, weren't we?

You know, to see the practice owner and a team member working through this together is fantastic.

And with the, with the task that they were set at the end of the workshop to then bring to next week is going to be really interesting because we're actually seeing it live in action.

What happens when they take action on the, you know, on the SOP that they were given.

The other, the other attendees are going to obviously go back to their team and discuss everything that we talked about, go through the SOP that they walked away with from the end of the session, implement it through their team meeting that they should be having, you know and then yeah, they should be ready to go so that you know that that business course library should be ready as a monetization opportunity for that practice before the next week's session.

So I think that's is, is it's about making an impact, isn't it at the start of a, of a training program as well?

And if we can make an impact where they can actually, you know, get a return on their investment, make a profit on their investment, is the more likely outcome of this.

Why wouldn't you want to do that?

You know, and you know, and what does a business course library do effectively then?

It saves you time because it separates education from advisory.

So education for me is when you repeat the same answer and it doesn't matter to how many clients or which different clients, the answer is always the same.

So that to me is education.

An advisory is when the answer is different depending on the client's business and we use the data from the client's business to answer the question.

So it separates it.

It's generic business courses and they're in between two and six lessons, quite short, but they're interactive, they're not video led.

And it was important for me when I built the business course library for accountants and bookkeepers to give to their clients that it wasn't my face and I say plastered all over it because it was important that the accountant, the bookkeeper remain the trusted advisor and they don't want to be promoting somebody else as the expert.

So it's interactive.

It means also that people can't, the users can't set it, listen to it and walk away and make a cup of tea.

They actually have to click and open windows and answer questions and for it to move along.

It doesn't just move along with its own motion, you actually have to physically move it along.

So there's currently over 30 in there, we drip feed one a month, but they are different categories.

So we have a selection in the starting a business category and then we have best practice, we have financial strategies and end of year processes and hmrc.

And the whole broad range of the library covers anything from starting a business in the first 90 days or choosing sole trader for limited company, right through to why it's not advisable to spend all your money at the end of the tax year just so that you save tax and to there's more profitable and better ways to spend your money and, or reduce your tax bill.

But don't just do it for the, for the sake of it.

It's all those kind of questions that we would feel as if, well either get asked or feel as if our clients should know.

The other way it can be used is a stepping stone into advisory because a lot of our advisory conversations can be swallowed up by giving their basic education.

So We've got these as like a prerequisite that you can send to the client before an advisory meeting and ask them to go through the course so that they come with a basic understanding and you can spend your hour or however long your meeting is doing the much more valuable higher level conversation.

So, yeah, so it's been very well received.

Mentees are very excited to be using it and have access to it all within the mentorship.

Yeah, the feedback's been really good from the first session, hasn't it?

Yeah, yeah, really good.

I mean they already discussing how they can monetize it, where they can use it and whether they can.

You can do it in webinars, you can put it into, you know, can you use them in a business club?

You can send it out and have like a bundle.

So you have like, if you're starting a business, you might send them sole trader, limited company first 90 days of starting a business, you might send them how to set up a government gateway.

If they're sole trader, you send them the MTD course.

There's, there's, there's lots of record keeping, the importance of record keeping, all those things, all those lessons that we want the client, that our ideal client to understand and recognise the importance of.

So we're not feeling as if we're having to teach them the importance or impress upon them the importance because it's all there and the reasoning is why.

Yeah, and it was interesting.

The conversation around the room did, did develop into the.

We were hearing about using it as a hook, you know, with their clients or with their prospects when they had conversations, because they felt it that the business course library completely differentiated them from all the other practices out there.

And I thought that was an interesting development in our conversation, which is part of why we deliver in the way we deliver, to allow them to think out loud and share their thoughts with us and everyone else in the, in the zoom room so that we can understand where, how, how they receive it and how they are thinking of the best way to use things that we provide them with.

So yeah, I thought that was interesting and also very sensible, I would say, because standing out from the others is important and again, how many hours and hours have wasted answering the same question to a different client, the same question to another client, the same question to.

And we get a little bit frustrated because we think that people should know this because we feel like we're repeating ourselves.

But the client we're talking to has never asked us before.

It's just that it's a common Question.

Hence why now?

Access to the business course library.

Your clients can get all this learning from there and they're educated and if they don't remember, they can go back there and re.

Educate themselves again, remind themselves of the answers to the questions that they're looking for without having to suck up the time of the practice, in particular the team.

Because I think that the team will.

Without having a set procedure in place, the team will perhaps go off on a tangent and answer questions and get into long, detailed conversations and it's not chargeable.

All of a sudden this time's disappearing from the practice and it's being given up for free.

Yeah, yeah.

So I found it very interesting that one of the mentees was keen for their admin person to be able to send it out as answers.

So when they, when they get asked the question, rather than forwarding it to one of their bookkeepers or accountants, they could actually have a link and they could respond in good, you know, in quick time, efficient, efficiently.

And we know that the client is getting the right information, the up to date information and all the information.

Once they have the link, there's no, you know, they can refer back to it as well.

So there's none of this or.

I'm sure they told me the answer to that, but I can't remember what it was.

It's there in the resource that you've sent them.

Another interesting conversation we had in the cohort was the team members can be trained on this, so it can be used as team training.

So if you've got a new recruit or an apprentice, for instance, they have access to this business course library.

And it's all the things that you don't get taught within our bookkeeping or accountancy exams.

It's the things that we've actually had to learn as an accountant and bookkeeper ourselves.

I remember going to the HMRC workshops and training courses at the local tax office to learn this stuff.

And yes, it's available on the HMRC website, but nobody wants to be sending clients a link to the HMRC website.

I mean, it's just a maze.

So to have it there as a resource and it not just be video led.

I mean, it's built with adult learning, psychology and processes in mind.

As I say, it's on a learning, professional learning management software.

So.

Yeah,.

Yeah.

And it's, yeah, it's just so interesting to think about how it can be utilized in practice.

Yeah.

Understanding the difference between education and advisory is such a key element of this and it's a lot of the processes that we go through with our mentees.

But then next, you know, next we move into a different area.

So we're going to be moving from technician to advisor.

But it's not as, as everyone will just assume it's going to be an interesting topic because we've got a slightly different take on things these days through our experience of how many years, you know, in industry and in business and then of course, running our own accounting and bookkeeping practice and then working with accounting and bookkeeping practice owners over the many years as well.

So, yeah, I think it's exciting times.

If anyone wants to find out more, please go to apxtraining.co.uk you can have a look at our mentorship.

You can see all the things that are offered to our mentees and you can also see that you can join at any time.

And we welcome members join us at any point that's right for them.

And of course, the live cohorts add to the learning, but they are not the be all and end all of everything.

So we would encourage you to go to apxtraining.co.uk.

I'd also like you to click on the resources and either read or listen to the advisory team's book because I think that's where people will find many answers and then they can make an informed decision on whether that's something they want to push into their own practice.

I would suggest it should be otherwise that bottleneck is just going to keep growing and growing and growing and becoming tighter that you.

You just can't escape it.

So we want to break that bottle open, Deb, don't we?

We certainly do.

Yeah.

Yeah, we certainly do.

Okay, brilliant.

Well, thanks for joining me again and yeah, we'll see you soon on the next episode.

See you soon.

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

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We'll see you next time.