Damien Greathead: 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,
Rita Breslin: I'm doing fine, got my vaccine and ready to rock
and roll out of town here in about a week or so.
Damien Greathead: Getting back on the road after the vaccine.
When was the last time you were on a plane?
Rita Breslin: 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
Damien Greathead: 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?
Rita Breslin: 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.
Damien Greathead: 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.
Rita Breslin: 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.
Damien Greathead: 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?
Rita Breslin: 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.
Damien Greathead: 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.
Rita Breslin: 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?
Damien Greathead: What do you mean by insource? The
Rita Breslin: 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.
Damien Greathead: 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.
Rita Breslin: Yeah, but if you do that, you have to decide
that's what you really want to do.
Damien Greathead: 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
Rita Breslin: and a lot of an audit for them?
Damien Greathead: Yeah, absolutely,
Rita Breslin: 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.
Damien Greathead: 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?
Rita Breslin: 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.
Damien Greathead: 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
Rita Breslin: 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,
Damien Greathead: yeah. And what are you
Rita Breslin: 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.
Damien Greathead: 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?
Rita Breslin: 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,
Damien Greathead: 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,
Rita Breslin: 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.
Damien Greathead: 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
Rita Breslin: marketing people told you to do it.
Damien Greathead: 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
Rita Breslin: 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.
Damien Greathead: 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.
Rita Breslin: 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.
Damien Greathead: 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
Rita Breslin: 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.
Damien Greathead: 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?
Rita Breslin: 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?
Damien Greathead: 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.
Rita Breslin: 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.
Damien Greathead: 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,
Rita Breslin: 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.
Damien Greathead: 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?
Rita Breslin: Yeah. And you have to be happy, and you've got to
be happy. And,
Damien Greathead: 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.
Rita Breslin: 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.
Damien Greathead: 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.
Rita Breslin: I guess I could for some of them. I could I
could, I could put anything out there. And they would be okay.
Damien Greathead: 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.
Rita Breslin: 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?
Damien Greathead: 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,
Rita Breslin: deliverables that you're willing that you can
commit to.
Damien Greathead: 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?
Rita Breslin: Yeah, and not and and don't be surprised if
somebody else comes in and takes them away from you?
Damien Greathead: 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
Rita Breslin: 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.
Damien Greathead: 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.
Rita Breslin: Yeah, that's what
Damien Greathead: 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.
Rita Breslin: Get your brand going.
Damien Greathead: Yep,
Rita Breslin: yeah, gotta get your
Damien Greathead: 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.
Rita Breslin: All right, you got it.