How to Systemically Accelerate Your Firm’s Growth

Welcome back to the Grow Your Firm podcast! This week’s guest is Lisa Campbell of the Marcam Group. Lisa transitioned her firm from basic bookkeeping to coaching and advisory in under seven years.

In our half-hour conversation, she revealed an underlying pattern we’ve noticed many of our guests have followed to achieve successful and scalable growth in their firms. We’re going to talk about the pattern in this post, or you can listen to the podcast yourself below. Take a look at the checklist and ask yourself if you’re doing things in the right order!

Summary

• How Lisa went from being an esthetician to leading an accounting firm.
• Why you must never hire before your workflows are solid, and why you can hire inexperienced workers if you have good workflows.
• How time blocking is your first step to freeing up your day so you can work on your business.
• And much more.

Resources

• Marcam Group website – http://marcam.ca/
• Lisa’s LinkedIn – https://ca.linkedin.com/in/lisa-campbell-cpb-cpfp-994038156
• Technician To Strategist FB group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/techniciantostrategist/
• Lisa’s Mastermind Program – 7stepstoscale.com

The Order Of The Steps Matter

Lisa’s journey in accounting started when she was an esthetician in the 90s. She didn’t want to hire a bookkeeper so she took classes to learn the process. Other people in her industry learned about this, so she started a side gig to better help her peers.

In 2012, she started to do compliance work full-time and hit many of the obstacles our previous guests have talked about. Too much work, too little time, and not enough income. Seven years later, she now runs a very successful and streamlined advisory business. How did she do it?

Well it wasn’t all magic and luck. Lisa followed a process that she learned through trial and error, through hard work and consistency. Now she teaches this process as part of her profit-first strategy and is a core feature in all her products. In fact, she won’t hire clients who do not agree to take the coaching. She teaches it to others in her course Seven Steps To Scale, linked in the resources section.

The Process

So what is this process that lets her work with companies who make millions of dollars in revenue? Here it is:

• Make a clone of yourself through documentation
• Make your first hires
• Train them on your workflows to the point where you can delegate without worry
• Differentiate yourself by using free time to learn new skills and sell them.
• Repeat as needed until you reach your goals

Step Zero: Is This For You?

A key sign that you’re ready to grow is when you see mistakes your clients are making and wish you could offer advice to them on fixing it. Maybe you already do this on the side but aren’t making money from it. If you like this side of helping your clients, that’s a strong sign you’re ready to dive into strategy.

However, some people are in love with the technical side of accounting and don’t want to move into advisory services. If that’s your love, great! But that passion needs to be recognized so that you don’t grow yourself into a position you don’t want to be in.

Step One: Make A Clone Of Yourself

If you are ready, the first step is to make a clone of yourself. That starts with documenting your workflows. Lisa is a user of Jetpack Workflow and says that her use of the product is what helped her untangle herself from the technical side of accounting.

By documenting your workflows, you make them repeatable. By putting them into a program like Jetpack Workflow, they become traceable and you can make dashboards. The program becomes the boss.

If you’re still doing the work yourself, this step will help you find inefficiencies you can close to improve speed. Once you have your workflows locked down, the program can ensure that your workers are doing the job right.

You must have this step done first before you even think about hiring! A common mistake Lisa sees is firms hiring people too soon. This creates more chaos unless you can train them to work as you do. Workflow documentation is a finish-to-start dependency for hiring.

A good first step she recommends is to use time blocking. Split your day into hour blocks where you focus on just one part of your business operations with at least one block per day on business development. Many of her clients find that when they focus on a single type of task per block that they have far more free time than they think.

Step Two: Make Your First (Right) Hires

By documenting her workflow on a deep level, Lisa made a surprising discovery. She was able to make great accounting hires even when they were new to the field – and they didn’t screw up! Her first staff member was a part-time worker and new to the field, but her workflow was so thorough that the hire quickly became independent.

She estimates that within three years she freed up enough time to move onto the next step. The worker handled the day-to-day operations and compliance work while she focused on higher-level tasks or compliance tasks that didn’t come around so often. It soon got to a point where Lisa found she had too much time on her hands and knew she had to do something with it.

Step Three: Differentiate Your Firm

Lisa knew that she wanted to move into advisory, so she made a conscious decision to not hire more people than necessary. There was a certain class of clients she wanted to help. Her firm’s ideal client is someone who:

• Wanted more than just compliance services.
• Was interested in Lisa’s profit-first coaching.
• Makes between $1-5 million in revenue.

But how did she decide on coaching as her differentiating service? Due to her experience in the field, she started to see what business owners were truly looking for in a financial advisor. They wanted help with cashflow, projections, and anything else that could tell them how to improve their financial footing.

Lisa would not have had the time to do this had she not completed the previous steps. There was not enough free time in the day to do the deep thinking, research, and skill development necessary to figure out what to offer and confidently do so.

In the podcast, Lisa goes into more detail on the time blocking strategy, why avoiding distraction is so important, and how she gets her clients to accept her onboarding process. Listen to the full podcast for all the details.

RELATED ARTICLES:
1. How to Build and Automate Your Client Onboarding Process

2. The Ultimate Blueprint To Drive $100M In Non-Traditional Revenue & Services

3. The Accounting Firm’s Blueprint to Creating A World-Class Team (Without Recruiting)

If your goal is to grow your firm, founders have to learn how to transition from being CPAs into CEOs. This can be a rough transition. It requires a different set of skills than accounting and a lot of trust in your hires, workflows, and business structure. The successful firms we’ve interviewed on this program have managed to make the jump, and a new book might just help you take your firm to this next level.

Our guest this week on Grow Your Firm is Frank Stitely of Stitely & Karstetter. He’s written a new book called The Relentless CPA. In the book, he shares his story about how he made the leap from CPA to CEO and the lessons he learned along the way to grow his firm to where it is today. We talked about some of these lessons in our interview.

Summary

• About Stitely & Karstetter, CPAs
• Why he wrote the book
• Leveling up to a CEO mindset and why
• How to properly delegate
• Measuring internal metrics and external satisfaction
• Lifetime Value as a CEO strategy
• Why your Millennial may have the next big idea
• And more

Resources:

• https://www.skcpas.com/
• Purchase Link for The Relentless CPA: https://cpatrendlines.com/shop/fs18rel/
• Frank’s Email: stltely@skcpas.com

When Growth Stops

According to Frank, there is a point that new firms reach when they’ve maxed out their growth potential and need to make a significant change in how they approach business to break beyond it. Most founders start their firms doing the work themselves and hire staff as the amount of work grows. However, they may still be in the thick of the day-to-day work. Eventually, the balancing act between working in the business of accounting and working on growing your firm becomes too much to handle. It creates a painful bottleneck to further growth.

This is the mark where founders need to transition from CPAs to CEOs, but Frank says this bottleneck can be completely avoided if you start thinking about the CEO role as soon as possible. Being a CEO is about putting the right people in the right places, and doing the right things at the right time depending on where your business is.

How To Delegate Effectively

The first part is proper delegation. One mistake in delegation is pushing down only the tasks you think you can delegate. You might hoard more complex tasks to yourself because you feel no one can handle them. This creates bottlenecks and adds more stress to your day.

The better way to delegate is to think about how your staff could handle it and what would need to be done to make it happen. Frank gives an example of business validation work. The data entry for financial statements isn’t very complex. You could assign that to a staff member with good attention to detail to start, then later you can train them on how to review returns.

In the process of doing this, you can document your workflows and developed standardized procedures for tasks. This will make it easier to upskill future staff members if that service gets really popular.

Increasing Lifetime Value

Another thing CEOs have to consider is increasing the lifetime value of clients. When you can estimate this well you can then make decisions on how much you can invest in getting particular kinds of clients without losing money. For instance, if you believe you can make $30,000 in revenue over the life of a client and a third of that is profit then spending a couple thousand to nab that client makes sense.

Frank says that if you’re not keeping clients for 5-7 years then there is something going wrong with the business. Clients come and go, but if you’re doing a good job they should stay around that long. What are some approaches to do this?

Here are some of the strategies we discussed:

Investing in the client relationship – Instead of just offering a raw service, like tax preparation, offer something that can help them improve the health of their business like tax planning. Frank started offering tax planning services after one too many conversations with businesses who didn’t prepare and faced huge tax bills.

Package Deals – Frank offers bundles of services at a variety of price points ($200 and up) and charges a monthly fee. The advantage to the client is that they can ask about services they may not have considered before, like insurance planning and examining investment portfolios. For the firm, they get a clearer view of a client’s financial picture and can offer better advisory services. It also gives them the information they need to know if a client is a good target for further upselling.

Experimentation – He also looks to other industries and to his employees for ways to experiment with growing the business, both in terms of client interactions (e.g. referral programs) to how much to reinvest profit into growing the business.

Learning From Younger Generations

In the same way as the delegation piece, Frank also reaches out to younger Millennial workers for their ideas and thinks about how they could explore them without damaging the firm. As part of this experimentation, he also gives them some level of ownership over the process to help them feel invested in their idea. That’s how Stitely & Karstetter got into investment management for government contractors, and why a person under 30 is running that division.

There is a lot more in the interview, including where to find good Millennial hires,  how a recruiting mistake led to one of his best hires, and how he handles weekly meetings from a CEO perspective to keep everyone on task. If you’ve been intrigued by what you’ve read so far, take a listen to the full podcast and let us know what you think!

RELATED LINKS:

1. What Everyone Should Know About Building Multiple Accounting Companies At The Same Time
2. 5 Simple Steps to Transform Your Business Into a Radical CPA Firm
3. How to move into Value Based Billing, Going Paperless, and “Flat” CPA Firms? The Jason Blumer Interview

Justin Pulgrano, from Finagraph, came on this week to talk about how he successfully expanded advisory services for his clients using a new tool called CashFlowTool. It helps you help clients with cashflow issues to improve and grow your advisory services.

But we didn’t just talk about software in our interview. We also talked about strategies for adding new services to an existing client base. This is a challenge that many firms face. Existing clients may not be interested in new services even when you know that a new tool or approach could massively transform their business for the better.

Before we get into the meat of the interview, be sure the check out the first link in the “resources” section of the show notes. It is for a special offer on CashFlowTool. Just add the coupon code “jetpack” to your checkout to get 10% off your purchase!

Summary of Points:

• What CashFlowTool is.
• Why cashflow is such a major issue for firms.
• Who to approach first with a new service offering.
• Why cashflow assistance is such a powerful service.

Resources:

• SPECIAL OFFER: https://www.cashflowtool.com/jetpack
• Study #1: https://investors.intuit.com/Press-Releases/Press-Release-Details/2019/QuickBooks-Study-Cash-Flow-Woes-Mean-a-Third-of-Small-Businesses-Cant-Make-Payroll-Pay-Bills/default.aspx
• Study #2: https://www.jpmorganchase.com/corporate/institute/insight-cash-is-king.htm
• Learn more about CashFlowTool: https://www.cashflowtool.com/accountants
• Finagraph homepage: https://www.finagraph.com/
• Find Justin online: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinpulgrano
• Email Justin: justin@finagraph.com
• Email David: david@jetpackworkflow.com

Adding a New Service as a Firm

Let’s say you want to offer a new service, such as giving cashflow advice using CashFlowTool, to your existing clients. How do you go about doing that? We’ll give you a few main takeaways from the show as action points. But first, why is cashflow such a major issue for small business owners today?

Cashflow Woes

Why is cashflow such a major issue for many small and medium businesses? Justin referred to a few recent studies in the show, which you can find links for above, that help us see what small business owners are going through these days about to this issue.

First of all, many businesses don’t have enough cash on hand to handle out-of-the-ordinary expenses. One study showed that many businesses only have enough money in the bank to pay for 30 days of operation. That’s cutting things very tight. As a result, many business owners stay up at night, worried about cashflow issues. Others aren’t always able to make payroll, putting pressure on them and their employees.

It’s easy to see how many business owners are one unexpected expense or one lost client away from closing their doors. How sad!

This is where CashFlowTool comes in. It takes the information you already have from your clients, such as their money in and out, tax information, payroll, and cash on hand, and creates projections and reports that will help you better help your clients with their cashflow worries.

Prepare Your New Service

So what is the first step to offering a new service, such as cashflow consulting to your list of offerings for clients? You must first understand your service backward and forward.

After all, you can’t offer something that you’re not good at. So you have to take time to understand the tool and what you can do with it. The folks over at Finagraph can certainly help you see if CashFlowTool is right for you, and they’ll offer the support you need to get the tool up and running and understand how to use the tool to help your clients.

Categorize Your Clients

Once you have a better understanding of your new service, you’re no doubt excited to start offering it to your existing clients. But what if you have dozens of clients? Who do you offer it to first?

Justin suggests putting your clients into categories. His three buckets are “Low Hanging Fruit,” “High Impact,” and “Low Impact.”

“Low Hanging Fruit” clients would be those that have specifically expressed concern over their cashflow issues. They may be exactly like the business owners mentioned in the studies linked above. They may have even asked in the past if you offer cashflow consulting.

“High Impact” clients are those that may not have specifically asked about cashflow, but from the information you have on them, you’re sure they need help in this area. They may or may not know they have problems with cashflow, but you know you can show them powerful benefits.

“Low Impact” clients are those that don’t seem to have major cashflow problems at present. They may still benefit from the tool and service, but the benefits would save their business from sure doom. Still, some clients are always looking to optimize their business, or they may be into using the latest technology to improve their business.

Of course, you’ll start with the low hanging fruit, since those clients need the service more than anyone.

Start with Selected Offerings

When first rolling out a new service like this one, you may choose to approach only one or two clients at first. You could even offer the service at a discount if their willing to be your guinea pig and prepare a case study or review of the service later.

Once you’ve cut your teeth with a few clients, it would be much easier to add new clients to the service over time. As you grow in experience with the tool and service, you’ll become an expert cashflow consultant. You may even be able to keep some of your clients from folding when times get tough for them!

RELATED LINKS:

1. Workflow Tools Which Will Save Hours of your Time with Kellie Parks
2. A Curated Directory of 100+ Accounting Resources & Tools
3. 5 Tools To Improve Your Firm (For Accountants & Bookkeepers)

We’ve all heard the advice to work smarter and not just harder to achieve success efficiently. The key to maximizing profits isn’t always putting in longer hours or growing a larger team. Those things may work, but they can only go so far before you have to turn to another way.

Susan Wilson, Dave’s guest for this week, talks about how she and her partner managed to shift from hard to smart. Her firm has managed to do more work and get more money, all while downsizing their team and working fewer hours, not more.

How is that possible, you may ask? You can listen to the conversation yourself below, or read at the bottom for a few key lessons Susan shared about working smarter instead of harder to grow your firm.

Key points from Dave and Susan’s chat:

• How Susan and her partner, Rochelle, started working together
• What new clients their firm has started taking on lately
• How Susan’s team accomplishes more with a smaller team and better workflows

Resources:

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/moneywisesusanwilson
• https://www.practiceignition.com/
• https://www.speaar.com/
• https://quickbooksconnect.com/
• https://jetpackworkflow.com/value-based-billing-paperless-flat-cpa-firm-jason-blumer/
• https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g150809-Activities-c61-t194-Cozumel_Yucatan_Peninsula.html
• Susan’s email: susan@westsacbookkeepingandtax.com
• Business Coach’s email: kshah@speaar.com
• Poe Group Advisors: info@poegroupadvisors.com

Work Smarter, Not Harder. Work Leaner, Not Longer.

Would you believe that Susan’s firm is making 50% more in profits this year, all while having a smaller team and working fewer hours than last year? Here are four tips Susan shared with us in our interview that can help your firm achieve a similar shift from hard work to smart work.

Form the Right Team

Large teams are not always the best teams. A team can get pretty small and still accomplish HUGE amounts of work if each member is a good fit with everyone else.
Susan is blessed in this area by having an excellent business partner. How did Susan know they’d be a good fit? First of all, because mutual friends all said they should be working together! Sometimes those close to us can see more about our personality than we can.

Susan also notes that she and Rochelle have similar philosophies toward running a business. This helped them to mesh their different skill sets into something stronger than they could achieve alone.

The lesson? Find the right partners, and you’ll have an easier time working closely, and efficiently, together to maximize profits. Look for people who have the same business goals and have skills that fill the gaps in your weak areas.

Have a Strong Plan

A key to working smarter is to know exactly what you’re working towards. You can do a lot of hard work that doesn’t get anywhere. A vision makes you efficient.
In the case of Susan and Rochelle, they have a plan to exit their company. So many of the decisions they make are designed to move them toward the plan.
When you have an end goal and a plan to get there, your firm won’t waste time making decisions that cause you to wander from that path.

Use the Right Tools

There are a host of tools out there for businesses and accounting firms. A quick google search will land you thousands of hits. Go to a networking event, and you’ll find hundreds of software companies and consulting businesses offering to help you reach that next level.

Of course, to be lean and smart with your time and resources, a big key is to choose the tools that are the best fit for your company. Not all tools are created equal, and some will be better for your size and goals than others.

Susan says her firm uses tools like Jetpack Workflow and Practice Ignition to work better and smarter. But technology will only take you so far. In addition to software tools, they also used another unique resource: a business coach.

Their coach helped them to work better together and become the lean, mean, accounting machine they are today. Finding the right coach, which they did through a service called Sphere, was key for them to overcome limitations that can’t be solved through technology.

Organize Your Workflow

Finally, a subject dear to our hearts. Susan told us that standardizing and improving their workflow has been essential to their working smarter and leaner.
In previous years, she and Rochelle would do things off the tops of their heads instead of following a tested, written process. They’d keep records in email (the worst place imaginable), and their disorganization meant they had to constantly stop work because something was missing.

As part of their shift to smart work, they wrote things down and created a standardized workflow. For instance, when helping clients with taxes Susan has a checklist she uses to preview and organize the paperwork clients send in. This way, if something is out of place or missing, she can get that information ahead of time.

Then, when Rochelle is ready to do those taxes, she can work much faster, knowing everything is there. Rochelle doesn’t have to stop work and ask for missing files or reports.

By going through this process, Susan helps Rochelle stay efficient. Together, by following a proven workflow, they do much more than they could have imagined before.

The lesson for us? Get organized! Start writing down your processes and how long they take. Give proper time to preparing for a task so that, when you do jump in and start the work, you’ll have everything you need to work smarter and leaner. As your lists grow in complexity, consider using a tool like Jetpack Workflow to make it easy to create, share, and complete workflows with your team.

All in all, Susan and Rochelle are doing something many firm owners of partners only dream of. They are working fewer hours but bringing in more profit. Their team is smaller this year than last, and yet they are accomplishing more. How? But being organized, working well together, and using the right tools.
RELATED LINKS:

1. Automate Your Accounting Firm to 1500% Growth with Heather Pranitis
2. How to Build a Team that Fuels Firm Growth: The Sandra Wiley Interview
3. [Double Your Firm Book] Ch. 3 Driving Growth in Your Firm