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.