play the infinite game and 11 more takaways
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the disruptors 
with liz farr for 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间
“we’re ultimately in the people business. we’re in the relationship-building business. we just happen to do accounting.”
that’s how clayton oates, the founder of qa business, views the accounting profession.
more: randy crabtree: follow these three rules to keep employees happy | erik solbakken: yes, you can work less and make more | donny shimamoto: future firm growth requires a mindshift | jennifer wilson: empower young workers to build the firm everyone loves | mike whitmire: re-think your hiring and training practices | hector garcia: success strategies of a quickbooks youtube superstar | blake oliver: why tax work yearns to be free| private equity explodes in u.k. | brannon poe: the status quo must go | accounting nerds, unlock your super powers | disruptor: jason statts shakes up the status quo | think small to think big with matt wilkinson | when financial statements go extinct with corey schmidt | can geraldine carter save accountants from themselves? | re-inventing accounting with tyler anderson
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oates also believes accountants can choose whether they are playing a finite, zero-sum game with clients or the infinite game, which continues forever and results in an abundance forever mindset with clients, who will then be your clients for life.
he encourages accountants to “always be creating more value than you capture” and to “add value way above and beyond the transaction.” he said by creating a “connection and relationship for life with this client… you feel a deep responsibility and also a deep connection to do the right thing and to continue to add value.”
that value should flow both ways, oates said, so don’t be afraid to raise your prices as long as you provide additional value. you owe it to your clients to build a thriving business that will be around for the long term. while providing a library of questions and answers to clients – as oates and his team have done for 11 years – saves time from answering the same questions over and over and removes friction with the customer. he said cpas shouldn’t fall into the trap of giving everything away for free because they haven’t built or communicated the value piece.
oates seized the opportunity in accounting technology early on. in the mid-90s, as accounting systems were beginning to move from manual to computerized systems, he pitched the partners the idea of setting up a separate accounting business focused on small business accounting, tech setup, training and support. the usual business model for an accounting firm didn’t make sense, so they billed their services on a subscription basis with various service tiers. at the time, oates thought every firm would be doing the same thing within two or three years. fast forward nearly three decades, and this idea is just now becoming widespread.
even though many accountants spent time in the “sausage factory” of the big eight or big four, they may still be replicating that in their own firms because that’s what they know. oates encourages firm owners to “pass the baton to the next generation, to the future, better than you found it” to create a profession we’re proud to bring our kids and grandkids into.
oates said we also need to remember we’re running a business, so finding, attracting and keeping talent is just as important as finding and attracting clients if we want to build a sustainable business. “the great thing about the future of your business is you are in control of it. you can restart today,” he said. if you dread coming to work in your business, you can create a brand new one. “there are no rules that say you cannot do that. it’s totally up to you to do it,” he encouraged.
11 more takeaways from clayton oates
- if your firm is losing team members, you need to consider why this is happening because many firms are growing significantly. the phrase “a’s hire a’s and b’s hire c’s” holds true: high quality firms with a strong purpose, vision, ethics and values attract the same kinds of talent. if your firm is floundering in those areas, you’ll attract team members at your level or below.
- instead of regarding current talent challenges as the great resignation, think about it as the great reset or the great realignment. we have an opportunity to reshape firms to accommodate what people want in their work.
- once you start down the path away from hourly billing to value pricing or subscription pricing and see validation of the concept, there’s no going back.
- following examples from the corporate world can help you build a firm where the work isn’t at risk of one person leaving and taking an entire book of business with them. you build a business where the business is the brand.
- accountants tend to get caught up in a “busyness” trap, where we allow clients to have the expectation that they can call us 24/7, which leads to poorly managed client expectations. instead, focus on building a business and follow the learn-do-teach approach. apply what you learn in building your own business to teach your clients how to build their own businesses.
- create a team, which may include outside contractors and employees, and a structure for interacting with clients. leveraging that team gives your clients certainty about response times, increases your enjoyment and reduces burnout while creating a business that can grow and serve more people.
- packaging your services in a way you can replicate allows you to serve more people while sustaining yourself and your clients.
- consider surveying your client base to find out what additional services might interest them. a prime example might be setting up a budget for a small business. few accountants do this regularly, but most small businesses would love this service.
- see yourself as a conduit of tax, financial and technology information for your community and find ways to share it, whether that’s free information meetings, webinars or a content library.
- accountants are the conduit between vendors and clients and their data. it is our responsibility to be ethical custodians of our clients’ data. the vendors we choose to partner with should be aligned around the betterment of our clients and data security. we need to be clear about how the data is being used.
- the digital native generation is leaving bigger firms to start their own highly profitable bookkeeping and accounting firms. they are changing the profession from the bottom up by using technology to automate and create leverage, which allows them to create deeper connections with clients.
more about clayton oates 
clayton oates, the founder of qa business pty ltd, is an accounting technologist and small business enthusiast and encourager. he is a passionate and engaging communicator who speaks in a practical style based on his 30+ years of accounting and business experience. from humble beginnings as an uninspired tax accountant, oates is now recognized as a leader in accounting technology and applying it to small business. oates is a connector and works with software vendors, business owners, operators, accounting and bookkeeping professionals and event organizers to deliver solutions that enhance business performance and quality of life. discover more and connect with clayton on
twitter @clayton_oates and linkedin https://au.linkedin.com/in/claytonoates.
transcript
(transcripts are made available as soon as possible.they are not fully edited for grammar or spelling.)
liz farr 00:51
welcome to accounting disrupter conversations. i’m your host liz farr from 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间. my guest today is clayton oates, founder and chief solutions officer at q a business. welcome to the show clayton.
clayton oates 01:10
g’day liz thank you so much for having us on the call today. it’s wonderful to catch up with you.
liz farr 01:16
oh, it’s wonderful to catch up with you too. and i’m glad that we have this medium since i’m a little bit out of commission from attending conferences right now, but always great to hear your voice and see your face.
clayton oates 01:32
likewise, looking forward to the day when we can get back in real life and see you at a conference soon enough. thank you.
liz farr 01:39
it will happen. it will well let’s let’s jump in. now for years accounting talent has been scarce all around the world. this isn’t just a problem in the us. and covid and the great resignation made of worse. what are your ideas on how to make things better?
clayton oates 02:02
yeah, it’s a great question. i think we’ve sort of come to this sort of focal point with with covid particularly where people are sort of reassess that, what they’re doing their futures. just that whole sort of work life integration or people work work life balance sort of piece as well. and i probably got to say that some of this is not new. i know in my 20s you know, i started out in a big eight firm, i think they went to six and now they’re four so who knows where to from here? last century. so, you know, there was the whole challenge of actually not only finding but retaining talent, whether we’re in a small business, whether we’re in a large firm, whether we’re in a regional suburban firm, or you’re a solopreneur and looking to grow for the first time and bring on team i mean, this challenge has always been there. but there’s absolutely no doubt that right now around the world really and more certainly the worlds that i sort of move in in the us and australia and new zealand, particularly. this challenge is very real. in fact, i saw a small business owner operator yesterday and having exactly the same conversation, you know, said look, i’ve got the work i’ve got, i can grow the business. you know, people are talking our economies down at the moment with i’ve got potential to grow and i’m prepared to invest but i just can’t find the team to actually enable that and give me leverage to actually grow. so it’s something that university accountants don’t have a stranglehold on this. it is in our client base. we need to understand that these challenges exist within our own client base. and if we can do some way to actually solving these challenges for our own purposes and benefits, it gives us experience to actually then teach and educate and help our small business clients as well. so that’s sort of saying, well, that’s what the problem is, but what’s part of the solution? and i think when talent moves, teams move or people move, you know, for various reasons, and sometimes we will say it’s a money and maybe that’s a reset on a, you know, they might have felt undervalued perhaps in their current positions, and they’ve got an opportunity to sort of reset with that there’s cost of living pressures and everything going on around the world at the moment as well. that’s one piece. but if someone feels as though they’re connected to a team, they’re working on with purpose. it’s theirs, they see a future pathway in staying where they are, i think all those sorts of things. hold a fair bit of weight as well. and maybe when we’ve been just busy being busy, wait center sort of lose sight of that as and particularly business owners, are we actually building a culture and, and a vision for the team to actually see that and that’s what i’m seeing. firms doing that are attracting this talent. so if someone leaves somewhere they go to somewhere else. right? they don’t often completely remove themselves from the industry or the profession. they may go to the adjacent possible which is sort of right beside where they currently are and and explore a new future but but keep and benefit and leverage off that career capital that they’ve already built up. so as the consultants but people becoming consultants that not just your tax accountants or business advisors, and so forth. so i think it’s up to us as leaders to actually make sure that the firm or the business that we’re creating is positioned in the right light, we’re attracting the right team for the right reasons. also, moving away from that sort of sausage factory, if you like to some of the big four firms now they’ve had that sort of reputation for a long, long time that we get to the mid 20s. we’ve done our degree we’ve got a few of those experience and suddenly great lit where’s the door? you know, how can i get out of here and for many of the firm owners, that are perhaps looking for the next succession plan for their own businesses, right at the moment, we were brought up in those sorts of factories. so we’ve actually and i don’t mean that as a disparaging term. it’s just, i suppose it is, in a way the devil so we’ve sort of replicated that model a little bit as well because that’s what we knew and learned. so i think it’s important to remember we’re running a business. so finding, attracting and keeping team is critical, just as finding and keeping clients is if we want to gain leverage. in actually building a business that has some sort of sustainability in the future to serve more people. so you know, i’ve also seen the firms that have been successful at this. they’re clearly articulating their message to the market. they’re saying, hey, we’re hiring. we’re growing. we’d love you to be a part of the team. come on over to us if you’re thinking you’re looking for a change or a vocation, that the case will change or wanting some more purpose in what you’re actually currently doing. so in some respects, business owners that are losing these teams, we need to look inwardly to say, hang on, why is this the case? it’s not just everyone’s losing team because many, many are actually growing quite significantly in this time, as well. so it’s really putting a mirror up to ourselves in one way to say, hey, we’re responsible and i love that phrase as high as a’s and b’s higher seas. and so if you’re an a type, personality type, but actually a high quality you’ve got strong purpose and vision have strong ethics and values, you tend to attract those that also have that maybe. okay, whereas, if you sort of floundering a little bit on that you’ve lost your purpose or your way you’ll tend to find those that are at your level or below. actually when you’re hiring, so that can be a downward spiral. so you can reset that that’s an individual choice, really. so i’m seeing the firms that are doing well, actually doing that. and bringing team across but i think looks into industry wide, professional wide, business wide global issue at the moment. and so herein lies an opportunity to solve.
liz farr 07:52
i think you’re right that it really is an opportunity. and, you know, so many firm owners that i’ve talked to who are doing well who have no turnover, say that they have a great culture. locally, there’s a firm that we refer to as sort of a black hole. and i mean that in a good way, because people would go there and they would just stay for the duration of their career. they weren’t going in and out. they we didn’t know very many people who had worked there, but i knew a lot of people who had gone there and had very successful careers. and when i’ve talked to the those owners, the managers and the partners, they all say that it has to do with the culture and how they care for their their team members. so
clayton oates 08:55
yeah, that says, you know, and i think it’s the way we think about things too. we might sort of think of this as the great resignation, and therefore i’m losing it’s a negative sort of connotation, but it could be a reset or realignment, as well. you know, if we think of it along those lines, it’s the way we think about things and yeah, absolutely on the cultural piece and also, you know what people want, you know, what we’re what our team members want, what’s important to them, you know, it may be that they’ve, you know, they may just want to work a part time role, you know, between maybe four days a week while the kids are at school, so that it actually is fulfilling work. it’s not they don’t want to be sitting in traffic for two or three hours a day. how can we actually look at ways to accommodate that? i mean, covid sort of forced our hand on that utilizing technology and thankfully, tech was around, you know, in a pandemic. and are we just going to go back to where we were as that rubber band is going to pull snap straight back or are we going to take it as an opportunity to say hey, let’s, let’s benefit from this moment to actually change things for the future and actually better cater for our people in a way that they’re happier. they’re more fulfilled and more content, and highly likely happy, fulfilled content. people don’t tend to be looking at other opportunities. if they’re really satisfied where they are so fairly simple, i think.
liz farr 10:14
yeah. then your mention of flexibility segues right into my next question, which is about how in the past and for years accounting firms have followed this very rigid business model. we built by the hour we have these structured roles. you come in at the bottom and then you move up this pyramid, and you’re expected to work full time there wasn’t much of an idea of what a part time basis could be. but what sorts of things are you seeing in new structures and new business models?
clayton oates 10:58
i’m glad you’re asking this question actually, because it really resonates to me, i suppose having built to a business as a as a joint venture or a division or a separate entity to actually have an accounting group. right back in the mid 90s. you know, i was 20. i started out price waterhouse. i left there and moved to country new south wales where my wife lived, and we still live there today in a small country town. and i went back into public accounting, and i really was felt like i was trapped there because it was the hey, this is how many hours you’ve got a year. doesn’t matter what you’re doing different or extra to the person beside you. you’re going to be pegged by that same metric. and i just couldn’t see a path forward. i didn’t really view being a top in an accounting firm as a as something i wanted to do and achieve it from a lifestyle point of view because no one was showing me how it is a lifestyle or a quality of life, vocation in that time, that has changed definitely in the last 10 years. so i was at that stage, you know, oh my gosh, i’m just going to get out and start my own business. i would like to maybe go and start up a coffee shop. like go and be a cfo for our largest clients. you know, what is it that i was i wanted to do? because i just this whole pyramid piece. i really literally had to wait for someone to you know, move on, fold your inventory to actually create space for a future and then wriggle my way in there. and i just wasn’t prepared to pay that price perhaps. so, i you know, just my example is that accounting tech started, you know, in the mid 1990s, early 1990s, we were going for manual systems to computerized accounting systems for small business. and i saw that as an opportunity in the accounting firm to say, hey, why don’t we get proactive here? we’re not getting great results because clients are stuffing it up when they send the book work in from the accounting system thinking they’ve got it all perfect, and it’s certainly not an electronic shoebox but why don’t we get involved in reviews set up training, support and education around these accounting tech solutions? and the partners thought it was a great idea. they’re great. go do it, and to come up with a way to actually fund it. we created a separate business entity. in fact, it was a couple years later we created a separate business entity. i was just an employee just start with over well, okay, i’ll go do it. and then the trouble is early on, we were getting measured the same way as everyone else, you know, how many hours are you producing? what, you know, what’s that? write offs, all these sorts of things. and we wanted to build differently when we wanted to actually bill on a subscription basis, which we did. we introduced a subscription service for clients to call us whenever they wanted. this is packaged up these are the services you get within that subscription model. there was various tiers within that model, as well. and i think that this is the mid 1990s. so it’s not wow, people think oh, wow, that was groundbreaking. well, it just made sense. from a business perspective. we’re running an accounting business, not an accounting practice, you know, so how can we make this and we create a separate entity which i had a share of and so joint venture partners have a separate entity with the accounting firm, purely focused on small business accounting, tech setup, training, and support and i honestly thought that every single accounting firm would do that probably within about two or three years. little i know that it’s taken a couple of decades and some are really getting across it now. but it was something that i suppose from a selfish point of view, this is my, i wanted to own my own business one day and have, you know, obviously the risk and rewards of actually doing that. and this is what was the perfect way. being an accountant in a firm taking an idea to the firm, not just leaving and walking out the door with all that career sort of capital lost or perhaps becoming competitive. it was how can we actually build something out here that didn’t exist before? i mean, that’s the entrepreneurial spirit, isn’t it, creating something that i need filling a need that was never built previously in a way that actually benefits all parties? and so that for me was i was very thankful and we moved away from the billable hour. it was fixed and value pricing. you know, some of those confidence. some of that is experience, a leap of faith to actually do it. but once you’ve started down that path, once you see the validation on that, you’ll never turn back to billing by the hour, for example. so yeah, that model changed and then it was more of that sort. of corporate model, you know, in terms of you know, how do we incentivize team can we can we do profit shares in amongst the team? how do we actually, you know, it’s not just hey, the business owner or the partner getting all of this or being seen to be the one that creates the asset value. so that’s getting about getting creative. you know, there’s been plenty of great examples in corporate world as to how that can be, should be done. it meant that the firm wasn’t at risk or the business one wasn’t at risk from just one individual deciding to move on. and then taking the whole book of work with them. we were creating a business the business was the brand. it was the service. it didn’t matter who in the business was doing the work. we we had our standards, so i as a business owner didn’t want to be the one taking the phone calls all the time naturally. so it was that whole notion of what are we creating here? and i see a lot of business owners and think accounting professionals think of yourselves as business owners, you may actually own part of the firm that you’re in. you may not be maybe just working for that firm, but have a business owners mindset. what if i own the firm what extra value can i add? to the firm and the clients that the firm actually serves? so that was, you know, an important sort of, i suppose mindset more than anything, and then building that structure. so you see businesses, a lot of professional services, businesses go straight from themselves to the client and think, hey, i’m here. to serve you which we are as a business. but we tend to get caught up in what i’ve sort of phrased as a small busyness trap, and we go straight to the client. hey, we say things like, hey, client, call us anytime you like i’m here for you, 24/7 they’re all these sort of anchors that we start to build up around ourselves and in poorly managed expectations in relationship with the client, whereas the business owner, the purpose of the business owners purpose is actually to help to build and create a team and that these days team is broader than just employees. you know, it’s it could be, you know, distributed teams, it could be contractors, subcontractors, it could be international, it could be partners, that you buddy up with for specific services, so teams just don’t think just as employees and then from there, the team actually helps him put the structure in place to the team to support the client. the client then supports the business the business then supports the owners and operators of that business. so you know, a try to circumvent that going straight to the client, doing everything for them. have a view and a mindset that you as an analyst, suppose i’m speaking more to the smaller accounting firm professionals here, even if you’ve got a couple of partners or, or whatever. try to put in place systems that actually can give you leverage, and also can give the client certainty that they’re going to get the phone call return. they’re going to get a standard sort of answer in the firm as to how we do things around here. and it actually means that you’ll probably enjoy your experience and lifetime in this location, and to have a longer period of association than you would otherwise you’re not going to get burned out like some do, trying to do everything for everyone. just think you’re building a business as your clients are building a business. so what you learn in building your own business, you can actually learn to teach approach. you can actually teach them the same thing and you’re teaching with authenticity and actual score on the board because you’re actually doing it yourself in your own business. so i think that’s one piece that i’m excited to see over the years in the last number of years, is that people looking at accounting firms, accounting businesses, and packaging up their services and product offerings in a way that has some replication to them also that has that i don’t really really love the word scale. i just i think just grow you know, to be able to grow that business and serve more people. you know, if you’re great at what you do what why are you holding back serving more, and enabling others to receive your services in a way that sustains you and the clients you’re serving?
liz farr 19:44
i love all the things that you said especially about putting together systems and processes that make it standard because that makes it so much easier to onboard clients to onboard staff members to establish relationships with partners if you have something that’s already set up. and then if you can demonstrate that to the small business owners, how effective it is to have systems in standard ways of doing things, then that helps them to become more efficient also.
clayton oates 20:26
yeah, absolutely. and i had to get myself out of the road. you know, we know we know that the bottleneck is usually at the top of the bottle. and you know, that was i had a very clear i suppose personally, you know, i’ve read a lot of books i continue to do that about building a business create time for yourself. you know, the e myth is a great one in terms of building a business with systems in mind to create sort of leverage ability and replication system, pricing your business gives you freedom, you know, it frees you up and we all know the price of freedom is not free. so there’s a fair bit of effort that needs to go into this. but it is worth it. and, you know, just a small example. i know in our business, we were getting software inquiries, you know, that particular software products that we’re supporting. how do i do this in this software? you know, how do i write off a bad debt? how do i contract and accounts receivable accounts payable if i’ve got a customer and supplier of the same name, how to just those little how to questions along the way. so we decided i thought, well, okay, why don’t we just document an answer these questions simply. and every friday afternoon, the team would actually sit down, we’d have a running list and we say which one are we going to get out this week? and it turned out turned out the 550 weeks later, which is 11 years. every friday afternoon, we delivered to the client base and we built up a library of answers to specific questions and it can go across any accounting software these days are the same questions. this is the question. this is how you handle it. this is what to watch out for when you’re handling it. and they would then we all started to reference them and what it is, you know, we’ve got clients today that still subscribe and to that resource more than 20 years after starting to create it. and it means that you can actually educate and provide knowledge without you having to be the one to answering it every single time because what what annoyed me with my personality is i’d get off the phone answering a question from a client and then five minutes later, a different client would ring with the same question. and it’s like why i was getting frustrated thinking hang on, this is my problem, not theirs. so i needed to work out a solution and building a resource library searchable, you know, for them to actually educate themselves. we’re still gonna support you on that of course, but it’s been a great lever for us in the business because it cut through all those niggly sort of questions and if we’re billing by the hour, which we weren’t, but if we were, we’d be trying to send six and $10 you know fees to people over a five minute question. it’s just ridiculous. it just creates friction between you and the client. we need to remove that friction.
liz farr 23:07
yeah, and i love your idea of building up a resource library. there are a few others who are doing the same thing. hector garcia comes to mind of course. and i know steph hines in australia is doing something similar. so i think it’s a great way to go. and i’ve tried to do that when i was writing blog posts for cpa firms. to find out what are the questions that get asked the most and let’s just put together a blog post that answers that.
clayton oates 23:42
absolutely. yeah. and it also meant that the team, you know, there was consistency in the team. you know, this was the way we this is the qa way. and you know, we others may answer them slightly differently. that’s fine. we still got to an end result but this is the way that we do things around here. so i knew that the team was actually supported internal resource tool for educating the team actually, that turned into also a client resource that we’re able to share with a model that made sense.
liz farr 24:11
that sounds like a multipurpose asset. and extremely valuable. yeah, very valuable. now what about growing? what are some good strategies for growing a firm or should we start up? do you even really need to grow?
clayton oates 24:32
i love that question. that was gonna say, why do you want to grow? you know, growth, means different things to different people. and i suppose, you know, change and growth sort of go into changeably here a little bit change is going to happen to us our choices whether we grow from that or not, you know, we we have control and choice actually over that. so this is you’re going to grow and change in business, in your when your work personally that’s going to happen consistently and constantly so that the growth piece i know it’s a couple of parts to this one is i see some firms wanting to sort of replicate the model of the software world, you know, trying to say, okay, i’m now no longer a service company. i’m a saas company or, or service as a service, whatever it is, thinking that that’s the answer. you know, i probably question that a little bit. accounting professionals. and we’re seeing, i suppose this realignment of software valuations right now around multiples of revenue versus multiples of profit. so i think as accounting professionals, we do have our eye on the on the bottom line, the top line and growth so we know that one sort of goes hand in glove with the other. so some people are solopreneurs or small, you may be just starting out, and you felt clayton the reason i want to grow is actually want to hit get some more time back in my life. and i know that seems sort of counterintuitive, but yeah, we need to invest time to get time and invest resources to invest so you know, money to make money for example. so there comes so building a team building a business is actually a great way of actually buying that time in your life. if you really do think about it because it’s gives you leverageable income. it gives you some choices and freedoms around how you work and operate over and over not swap it. i know there’s been plenty of challenges along the last 25 – 30 years of building our business. but our net balance, i would definitely not swap it. i think business ownership. you’re adding a lot of value to the world. you’re bringing. you’ve got the privilege of having team members that you sort of responsible for and actually seeing them grow and develop. team members don’t stay with you forever. they move on just as we’ve moved on, you know, that’s okay. that’s part of the natural cycle. so there’s a number of things. i mean, obviously we need to know well, why do we want to grow? what’s the outcome here? you know, some people when they’re building their business, i see three types of businesses out there and the accounting profession is no different to any other business arena, is whether we’re building a business to either exit, you know, to actually with the endpoint in mind, you know, is to actually exit realize the asset value, and perhaps then move on to you know, it could be retirement, it could be investments, it could be other things or you’re just only in it for a certain period of time. i see other people build businesses that they really want to keep, you know that they don’t demand a huge amount of their time they enjoy it, it keeps them connected to their community. it actually creates income and time for them so it’s some people put that under the lifestyle business banner, which years gone by seem to be like a dirty word. it’s like oh, it’s a lifestyle business. well, yeah, right. yes, it is. and how brave is that? you know that you can actually do that a lot of businesses though. the third sort of category is the business. people despise they they’re building up their despising. it’s like, do i really have to get up out of bed again tomorrow and do this again. and that’s where you haven’t sort of gained leverage you haven’t thought about distance you record the great levers or team building a team technology processes, you know systems, but there are couple other great levers too as partnerships, partnering with others, and particularly accounting professional software community that that’s done well and done right, it can be a great lever. then the other great lever is the attitude of the owner. you know, the business mindset. actually, and that you have total control over. so going for growth. i think you’ve got to pay attention to why you’re doing it. what is the outcome i want from this growth for growth’s sake really isn’t the answer. it can create a lot more stressful, anxious state but then it comes down to strategy, you know, defining that strategy is actually how do we grow what services are needed. clients are prepared to pay for, we have a skill set to be able to deliver them and we’re actually interested in delivering them, you know, we want to actually offer those services. so that’s important as well. so i think the how to grow is not a hard question. there’s plenty of ways to actually just discern what the market needs or wants, what you can deliver. pricing accordingly. all is this sort of blank sheet of paper. that’s totally up to you. the great thing about the future of your business you are in control of it, you know, there’s it you can restart today. you know, it’s not so it’s not so much thinking about the new but i’m thinking or unlearning the past, you know, the anchors that we’ve sort of built up, breaking them and breaking those shackles, you can create a brand new business with your existing business, right now. so if you’ve, if you’ve got one of these businesses where you wake up in the morning and you’re despising going to work, you feel like you’ve had enough it’s just weighing you down, change it. you know, there’s no rules on this that says you cannot do that. and in fact, it’s totally up to you to do it. so one of the things i would suggest to is actually, if you’re looking at new services, because you’ve already highly likely you’ve already got the client, you’ve got the customer and i i love what peter drucker talks about, you know, what are the purposes purpose of a business? and you know, being an accounting student, i thought i knew the answer to this 30 years ago, i thought he wants to make a profit return money to the shareholders, blah, blah, blah, no, that might be the corporation goal, perhaps. but it’s to actually find and keep a customer or client, patient, you know, so, and he talks about the two functions of doing that. you know, there’s just two functions is innovation and marketing. you know, find a need and fill it and actually communicate it. i know a lot of accounting professionals get a bit hung up or scared about the word marketing and think sales and i think all these these contract these, you know, fearful sort of connotations. no, it’s just communication, really sharing to think of those sorts of phrases. that take a bit of pressure off your day. and so you’re paying attention and one of the best ways to find out what the client’s needs are it’s to ask them. you know, when was the last time you actually surveyed your client base to saying, hey, over and above the tax return or the compliance work if we were offering these services or any of these of interest to you, and give them a half a dozen there’s at least a dozen services that accounting firms can offer to clients that they’re probably not already offering or someone in your firm is doing part of that off their own bat on a job. let’s say an example. might be budgeting, setting a budget for the client for next year. and you know, i know when we serve a small businesses around australia, particularly at accounting professionals, when i speak at events in australia and around the world, i always asked who in the room is actually actively setting up supporting and reviewing a budget your client or who if you’re a small business, have you got this set up and you’re monitoring it on a monthly basis? and it typically is around about 3% of the audience, both accounting professionals and small business owners that say, yeah, we’ve got that in place. and then i asked the small business community, is this something you’d like and would benefit from and articulate why as well, most of them put their hand up and say, i would love that. and their software can do that in sort of five minutes at a base level. but you need the eyes and ears of the accounting professional to discern, you know, to smooth that out to actually set realistic sort of parameters and actually measuring and organizing that budget in a way that’s meaningful. so that’s a skill set that is already available and exists in every single accounting firm but highly underutilized and actually need it. so yes, we’ve already got the client, what other services can we offer that client you know, that’s where you gain leverage the multiplier effect between number of products or services that you can actually distribute or have clients engage with, and then that will dramatically increase increase the growth of your business without actually even finding another client.
liz farr 33:01
love your example of budgets, you know, it takes me back to one of my very first accounting classes back when i was getting my masters of accounting, and it was in a managerial accounting class and we had to use excel to set up a budget projection for some hypothetical company. and the professor said, now, if you know how to do this, you can set up a nice little side income for yourself of maybe a couple 1000 a month or just doing this for small businesses.
clayton oates 33:39
absolutely. wow. but i think you’re the first person that’s articulated that from someone suggesting that i’ve heard that’s true. that’s true. it creates connection. it actually it shows that you care. it shows that you’re prepared to x because that’s the business owner and operator gear when they look at their financials something when they look at their financials at the end of the year, the tax return that’s all historical, sort of looking backwards in the rear vision mirror. they’re focused on now and in the future, you know, business owners and operators and you’re actually creating this direct connection with them to their now and the future in a sort of financial sense. and you may grasp that as well. so some some people will learn better seeing the visual representation. and so that actually gives them sort of some golf goalposts to aim at and what you said is what you get, i have total believer in this because i know you know own business close to 30 years now i’ve read operating qa, there’s been four or five years when i just haven’t set a budget. i got lazy things were going great scorecard was fantastic. and when i turned back then the year after or two years after i go, oh, i sort of dropped the ball there. the years that i set the budgets like it’s amazing. what you said is what you get, you know, are the cheap 101% of the budget. so that tells you one or two things. isn’t that great? we’re on target. the other side of the brain says, oh, hang on, you should have set the budget higher. so yeah, but at least it’s in place. it actually gives us a focal point. and you know, where the energy sort of goes the activity flows, i suppose, as well as part of that.
liz farr 35:13
yeah, and not only just for for an accounting firm. if you want to grow then you can figure out how to break it down. you know, the average tax return is this much. and audit engagement is this much a bookkeeping client is this much and then build all of that as a model for how you achieve your revenue goals. and then and then tie that back to well, how do we get those? we need to do so much outreach. we need to speak at different events locally. we need to show up in newspapers as the local expert, we need to be on talk shows. we need to go to networking events.
clayton oates 36:08
i love each and every one of those exact examples. that’s, you know, that’s exactly what we’ve done. i see others doing that as well. you know, we would run roadshows you know we’d run informational days and evenings you know, for clients, but not only clients clients would then invite their associates along so there was other businesses coming to these events are purely informational. it’s what’s new here. i’m accountants are getting so much information coming in the door through the better irs or the or just compliance changes could be tech changes. you are actually receiving all of this information and in some respects, trying to digest it and hold it. why don’t you just see yourself as a conduit to actually receive disseminate, communicate with the client or with the small business community? and what that does is actually positions you in a whole different light than the other company in town. he is someone who’s taking knowledge and sharing it with others for the purposes of actually really sharing that knowledge. or you may run workshops you might put on webinars, you know, build out that content library you may charge for things might put a value on it and i’ve always attribute a value of some sort where that says to physically paid or not. so that, you know people can see that yes, this is valuable, and package it and bundle it. just keep it simple. and build up your database. i think the thing is, accountants haven’t traditionally been that great at actually dissecting the database in a way categorizations of you know, so that you could communicate for example, you know, in the client base, who do we know that has a rental property and, you know, we’ve now got some changes that have occurred, and let’s mark it or let’s send an email out to everyone who’s that could be relevant to that those changes, or who’s using xyz software product? you know, there’s been some changes in that solution. why don’t we target and we’ll just communicate directly to those end users. so tracking that information and what software the client uses what, what’s the breakup of their investments? and what if interest do they have and you need a good crm system or marketing campaign system to actually make sure that you’re communicating appropriately with the right people at the right time with the right information?
liz farr 38:25
yeah, you know, so so many accountants that the objection that they put to doing that is, well, if we give our information away for free, then how do we get paid?
clayton oates 38:40
yeah, well i tell you, what, if you do it though, yeah. and look, hey, this commercial, this is up to you to work this out. you know, where that where those lines are, but i would err on the side of adding more value creating more value than you capture. always be on that side of the ledger. always know and feel as though you’re creating more than we’re capturing here. because that’s self perpetuating that let’s see abundance mindset, basically. and, you know, just just to touch on it, i mean, the finite infinite game thinking really, you know, the accounting profession is an infinite game player, you know, highly likely yourself and accounting professional, you are an infinite game player, you have this abundance forever mindset with your clients. they’re a client for life, obviously, unless something changes, you know, they, and that’s often the client prerogative, or if there’s something untoward that they do that doesn’t align with your values, then you need to exit that relationship. so whereas a lot of people have this sort of finite game sort of view that it’s a zero sum game, it’s winner takes all it’s about beating the competition, and that’s a very different mindset. simon sinek has got a great book on this. and james carse wrote a book 20 years ago called finite infinite games, and i’d highly recommend any accounting professional just to read that because it starts to hear understand there are two games that exist in business in you know, in corporate world and so forth, that the two games do exist and it’s not trying to make someone come from one game to the other. it’s understanding that which game are you playing? which are your clients playing the same game? the vendors you partner with on the same playing field? and once you’ve got that alignment and understanding that you can then create a base to grow from
liz farr 40:20
yeah, and you know, i’m always in favor of giving out more free information because that makes that brings in a higher quality client, because they already know something. and they if they’ve consumed your content, then they already know something and they know that you’re an expert. and many of them will implement this on their own or they may try and then they give up and say, oh, let’s just call clayton he’s the expert. yeah, well,
clayton oates 40:59
i would also say to test and measure this, you know, with the client base and those who are looking to attract is that some things may be notionally free. and so but that’s always an investment. someone has to turn up. you know, nothing’s free, isn’t it? you know, if someone’s made a commitment to invest their time, that’s a huge investment in itself, probably the most important investment they can make. i’d also try and bundle more value into anything to something you know, you might build out some checklists, some processes, it could be an ongoing series that you’re running. so, you know, you can get well compensated for your time at the outset, if that’s bundled and communicated in a way that makes total sense. you might put together a packaged workbook or something along that lines as well. put more meat on the bone there. so don’t feel as though everything’s got to be for free. it’s just, you know, i’ve got to give give given i don’t get it in return. the other thing is, the more you give, the more you get, i mean there’s just this is just more of the universe. and the one thing is though it’s not necessarily a straight line, and it may not even be the timeframe you expect, so that’s okay. but don’t burn yourself out and run out of oxygen just because you haven’t priced or haven’t built the value piece or communicate the value piece properly here because i do see people fall into that trap and think i’ve just got to give given all eventually get what you need to be smart about this. you know, you need to discern we’re accountants after all, we need to have a look at how the business model would work and critically sort of review that but the market will tell you, you know if it’s appropriately sort of hitting the right mark anyhow, too, and if your marketing is effective.
liz farr 42:39
yeah, and i love the emphasis that you’re putting on being a business owner and looking at your firm as not a practice where you just serve, but as a business where you need to generate a profit to keep the business going.
clayton oates 43:00
and he wants you to do that as well. you know that? i mean, imagine a client having lying awake at night thinking oh, it’s my accountant going to survive in business. you know, what’s the next thing? oh, i should move accountants, you know, if they, if they don’t feel that certainty, that, you know, i mean, obviously, there’s, there’s got to be a fair value exchange, you know, and that’s, that’s that sort of set point, isn’t it? you know, is like, is there a fair value exchange here? i mean, you know, and often when people leave a firm, they feel as though that’s just isn’t the case. you know, i’m, i’m, i’m paying the same amount as last year plus 10%. you know, it’s gone up by cpi double. you know, i just had a conversation yesterday with a firm that i hear we’re putting up our prices by inflation, plus, well okay, are you bringing any more value to the client is just doesn’t make this is just a track. this is just a transaction. you know, we’ve all probably read the trusted advisor book i hope we have, you know, in terms of moving from just this transactional sort of, get out of the row, get the transaction done, move on to actually being the trusted advisor, you know, the person that you’ve just created this connection and relationship for life with this client, and you are the most trusted resource to them not, not in finances or finances, of course, but parts of their life. you know, if you go into that zone, you feel a deep responsibility and also a deep connection to do the right thing. and to continue to add value. way above and beyond just the transaction.
liz farr 44:33
yes, yeah. it really has to always be about adding more value.
clayton oates 44:40
yeah, and communicating that as well. that’s right. absolutely.
liz farr 44:43
yes. it used to be that we had to be really good with the 10 key to be good at accounting. but technology is taken over a lot of that. so what are the skills that accountants need today to be successful? in in the future?
clayton oates 45:05
yeah, look, and again, i’d probably say these are the similar skills that i saw being adopted in the progressive firms throughout the last 30 years too. but more so now. you know, it’s been the focal point has been sort of spotlight on the firms that are doing this really well. and the people that are doing this really well, you know, if we traditionally are sort of viewed as the technician, with the accounting technicians, and, you know, just being a great technician, i mean, that’s just table stakes. it just, you know, you’re at the table every every client would expect that every firm, every accounting professional, would be able to correctly process their tax return and their compliance work. now, we know in the profession this can be even a disparity there between people and professional individuals and firms on that, but from a client’s perspective, that’s just a baseline to gauge accounting professional. so we’re to beyond that, and in some respects, and i look at the australian taxation office, the irs in the us and other bodies around the world. they’ve actually been the marketing arm for accountants. for decades. and if they no longer existed, then your whole marketing team is going to disappear. so beyond that, and i think the other thing to remember is the last 10 years have seen people sort of jump up out of the woodwork saying, technology is going to take over the robots. are going to take that take you out. compliance is dead, all these sorts of really negative, maybe self serving phrases for those that were actually saying them. be wary of those sort of motherhood type statements or big statements around that. from what i’ve seen around the world, compliance is getting more complex. there’s more of it. there’s more legislation this year than there ever was before. so the need for a very competent tax agent or a tax professional in your small business life is probably more critical now than it ever was. now, having said that, though, beyond that, though, is how could you be counted? i think the accounting professional has an opportunity to be way beyond that. and really a partner to business, you know, they are a trusted business partner to business. and what does that involve? i think we’re ultimately in the people business. we’re in the relationship building business. we just happen to do accounting. and if you speak to most small business owners and operators, they would say the same thing. it’s what’s the most critical thing in your business? well, obviously the product but it’s the service. it’s the connection i’ve got with the customer and client, i understand what they need. i deliver the things on time i’m, i’m reliable, i’m trustworthy, you know, all those sorts of things, not just statements, but actual actions. because you do see people and even see software vendors sometimes say there’s all these phrases, that your actions speak so loudly i cannot hear your words. i love that phrase, you know ultimately will be your actions that determine this. so people skills, i think is one of the great differentiators. disappointingly really, because again, that we are in the people business so are we engaging in our personalities? now, some people will be more naturally predisposed to this than others. i’m not saying saying being the being out there. spruikers or, or the or the, the charismatic sort of personality that you’re not, don’t you need to be, i think our what we need to be our authentic selves. and that that is enough, actually in terms of your communication with others, but hone your people skills. i think that’s one of the things that we can learn ourselves, and we are in control of so be interested and curious in people and the interaction and the way we interact with others. curious is how we are viewed or perceived in terms of what am i doing that’s actually impacting this relationship. we could always get better you’re out you aren’t good enough as you are. i think this is the one key thing is we aren’t you as a person. all of us as people are good enough. we don’t have to be this new, better, bigger, brighter, someone else. but i think there’s always course correction. there’s iterations and we’re growing. you know, every cell in our bodies is evolving and growing and changing. so it’s important i would say double down on people skills, learn what you can learn about communication. if you haven’t spoken in public or presented a session to a client and highly likely you have now because of zoom or teams, you have spoken in public one on one with a client. so you know, learn those fields there is great books around all of this, you know, just toastmasters or online sort of learning around look at the great communicators. your storytelling, actually, i mean, how can we take the numbers and bring that to life through a story that’s actually real to the client and actually helps them change and grow and develop their business? why? so that they can have had some time back in their lives so they can grow a better asset value? what is it that they want? how can you help them actually get it? so i would say, you know, a successful accounting of the future. and actually, it’s a great book the future of the professions by daniel and richard susskind that talks a bit about this as well, not just the accounting profession, being an empathizer. you know that that skill set of communicating information in a way with empathy, the robots are not going to do that. in fact, it was interesting watching the adoption of cloud accounting in the last 12 -11 years here particularly and more so in recent in the us, perhaps but there was this massive fear that the tech was going to take us out, you know, bookkeepers are no longer going to be needed. accounting professionals are no longer going to be doing the work we’re doing or maybe some tasks are automated, and so they should be. but what i’m seeing more now, really is that the accounting professional is adopting tech for leverage. you know, we’re utilizing, you know, our bank feeds and our automation and all that heavy lifting that was manually intensive and boring, and mind numbing, and accelerated the exit for the profession because of those that those tasks are now being done by the robots. which is fantastic. we want more of that, so that we can actually get more connected with the clients stay more present with them. proactive advice so software can give us proactive alerts. hey, there’s a cash flow issue happening here in six weeks time for this client. oh great i need to talk to them about that and look at strategies. here’s some suggested strategies. you know, that sort of stuff like we want to push the technology profession to continue to better service in that area so we can better serve the clients. it’s just not about a data grab, you know, from a tech company. it’s actually about this feedback loop and also utilizing tech as a lever to help us help more clients. and i think we still got a promise to keep in accounting tech and that’s sort of a space that i’ve loved have grown up in over 30 years, but to buy back time in our lives, you know, what was accounting tech going to give us or what was tech going to give us in the 80s and 70s. you know, i remember on tv saying, oh, two things, it’s going to give us less paper or we’re gonna go paperless. okay, well, we are way down that path, baseline, but we’re also going to have more leisure time, remember that term leisure time. we tend to sort of walk around with the screen now wherever we’re outside or wherever, whatever sport we’re playing, but we haven’t even quite delivered on that yet. and i think we can, it can help us actually create more balance in our life and the things that are really important. and i think accounting professionals, you know, pivotal to that through the vehicle of business and the clients that we work with to enable that.
liz farr 52:55
i really like your emphasis on technology as a partner. and i know you’ve spoken about that. that we need to push back on the tech companies to make sure that they provide us with what we need to give to the clients.
clayton oates 53:17
yeah, well, i think we look i view the relationship between the accounting profession professionals and the tech companies. when it’s done well. it’s just a symbiotic sort of relationship that we’re working almost seamlessly together to enable and empower small business to empower clients, whether it’s worth buying back time gaining or leverage producing more income, whatever it is that they are more efficiencies. what are more effective, you know, we need that with efficiency, trump effectiveness. watch out for that. so and i’ve seen some great partnerships over 30 years, you know, we’ve had many, many wonderful partnerships, but i’ve also seen some fall apart as well because of that whole different game playing the finite infinite game piece as well. and so you know, quite frankly, there are some vendors that actually view the accountant relationship as a pass through as a channel to market for the purposes of extracting data from the small business client and data if you want to data is the new oil sample, some will see it as that and, and the technology, the software is actually the pipe to access the oil, and that has a lot of value. now, i think the flip the flip side of that is there’s others vendors that view the data as water. it actually brings life it’s actually free it is and it’s actually the client’s stuff. so i think we’re at this moment to talk about at this inflection point where which way are we going here? what are we prepared to accept as an accounting profession on behalf of our clients? because we are smack bang in the middle here, as the pipe layer if you like if you want to think that in bad terms, or the conduit between the software vendors and the and the clients. i don’t think we’ve had a deep enough discussion and a clear enough answer around the whole data piece and where to from here. and, you know, i think we’ve got to align ourselves with ethical data custodians that do understand that it is in fact the client data as to what you can then do with that i mean it’s a marvelous things that you can do with it in terms of extracting insights and knowledge through an opt in it could be offerings around you know, maybe capital and finance and and better pricing and all sorts of things on our things that we buy for our business. however, i think we’ve just leapt in there a bit quick. i think the profession needs to take a step and or stance and say, hey, we’ve got a few questions that need to be asked and answered. so that we can work out who’s who in the zoo here. which game are we playing? and i think once we’ve done that, we’re off and running again, in terms of knowing that, okay, we’re deeply partnering with these vendors for these reasons. and you know, for the betterment of our clients and also around that data security security piece, not so much data getting stolen. it’s almost a bit of how’s it been utilized? and, you know, i suppose a scary notion is our clients actually renting their own data at the moment. they’re actually paying a fee, but it’s not theirs. so, you know, how do we know that’s not the case? so, yeah, this is a global issue. it’s not picking up particular it’s not a single vendor issue either. so i think there’s just some of the things that we need to address and the client, i think, would well want us to, and now they’re strong, strong opt ins and opt out. so if any of these sorts of arrangements as well, but i have seen it work, you know, we’ve got some partners that we’ve partnered with nearly 30 years software vendors and so this can and does work but it’s also being a channel to market you know, it’s there’s nothing wrong with being a channel to market necessarily product needs to move for vendors to survive. but the challenge is if you don’t know you are that you know, some accountants wake up one day oh, hang on. i didn’t realize this was the arrangement. so it’s mainly because we haven’t asked the right questions to get the right answers. so yeah, it’s just self has left plenty of others thinking about this. right now. i think we’re right at this moment. and i’m sure there’ll be some clear answers as we go forward once all the questions laid on the table, and it’ll be an opportunity for everyone really to declare their hand and this is how we operate. and so accounting professionals can then discern which direction they go in the future with who, for what reasons.
liz farr 57:30
yeah, it is. all about discernment. and then speaking of discernment, what should accountants stop doing immediately?
clayton oates 57:45
oh, good question. i see. look, i see a lot of people in the profession compare themselves to others. and, you know, in a negative light in terms of are they’re doing this, i’m not i shouldn’t be, you know, so i would say stop comparing yourself to others. run your own race. that builds confidence. you need to find your own confidence in a confidence short we can learn off others we can see things don’t try and copy anyone else. i mean that, you know, that’s already taken. you’ve got clean air in your own lane out in front of you. when you’re running at races, or arguably not even a race, it’s a journey. so, you know, i would say stop comparing yourself because then that brings up fear of missing out comparison with we tend as human beings, you know, write ourselves down and just, it’s stifling doing that. so yeah, that’s probably the number one thing stop, stop comparing. discern your own define your own race, or own future. and and start the journey.
liz farr 58:48
that’s a great ideas. now, clayton, you have been in the accounting tech space for 30 years, as you’ve mentioned. and you were expecting that other accounting firms would copy exactly what you’ve done, but they haven’t. what do you think are some of the blocks to making the changes that accountants know they need to make?
clayton oates 59:18
yeah, well, i think there’s a couple one is one’s fear. so that’s just a human condition that we’re fearful of change or we’re afraid of the future. and we prefer the status quo, you know, in terms of were prepared to, perhaps be comfortably numb instead of creating that new future. so there was there’s that you probably need enough reason to change. and, you know, firms are incredibly profitable from a partner point of view. and, and that model is sort of stayed in place the pyramid model, as you sort of described it for for decades. there’s a perception that there’s nothing really much that needs changing, you know, we’ve got a great scoreboard i would argue i would push against that a bit in terms of your customers, clients, net promoter score, or the satisfaction of the client or they’re going out of their way to refer business to you and your firm. there’d be a lot that would say, no, well, that’s not actually really happening. i’m just, i’m growing by increasing my current prices on what i’m already doing. i’m not adding anything new. so i don’t see that as a really sustainable and fulfilling model of the future. so yeah, that definitely that fear and and is holding people back. that’s probably the main thing actually the fear and complacency is holding people back. however, the next i’m super proud of the next generations really, that they’re actually stepping into this or changing the changing the status quo, really. and it’s more or less from the bottom up because a lot of bookkeepers and accounting professionals that maybe left big firms hang up their own shingle online, very agile, and prove really to the larger firms that pay different types of services are actually profitable. they’re a growth area, they create a deeper connection with clients, and we’re out there doing it. you know, the digital natives, you know, that actually are utilizing tech to automate and create leverage for their own business and their workflows could be pricing, it’s then billing, the subscription model, i think is great. that and then they’re in the service business are we delivering on this service on this promise you pricings all your income is set every first day of every month, for example, and assessed or software as a service or a subscription model in the accounting profession. and that was what we’ve been doing for close on 30 years. and people often say how do you have less time to go do all the things you’re doing i mean, that’s because you build a business that actually creates value for others with a model that actually can sustain you and your team and, and the people that are creating the business. so that’s not nothing new there. so yeah, i think that’s sort of the fear is holding people back. i would just encourage people to just break through that barrier. it’s going to be painful, no matter what, it’ll be painful to stay and not change. and it’ll be painful to change. but once you’ve made that change quickly, then that pain is actually dealt with. so that sort of extending it through years or decades ahead of life.
liz farr 1:02:24
you know, when you talked about complacency that brought to mind something that the late steve major told me shortly before he passed away, and he said that one of the big reasons why accountants weren’t changing was that they were already making too much money. there’s no no reason to change.
clayton oates 1:02:52
i don’t know what too much is, but, you know, i, i suppose that’s satisfied. they’re satisfied with what they’re currently generating. i wouldn’t say making lessons the answer either. but look, i suppose we need to view it i below why viewed through the lens of this is a day in our life. and, you know, once you’ve what’s enough to you know, if you’ve got a generating income and and what purpose if your purpose is just to get out of bed each day to make more money. you’ll eventually make more money. but you will have that lingering feeling that is this all there is, you know, is this enough, you’re getting caught in that trap of i don’t have enough so therefore, i have to have more and the more you have you realize this is still enough. and so it’s a pretty lonely, soul searching sort of place to be and because you thought that going into business, the purpose was to just make a heap of money by back time. now i could do whatever i want. well, actual discipline gives you freedom, not more freedom, more freedom. so it’s it’s a really interesting place to go to, but it’s a good thing to experience. i can tell you that so. so yeah, i think it’s, it’s that’s inwardly thinking, what if you thought outwardly? you know, are there other businesses that could benefit from what your services and offerings are? have you shared? and communicated? what you’re doing, if you believe in what you’ve gotten, what you’re doing, why you’re sharing it with others, is to enable them to have that benefit through your knowledge and experience that you can actually bring to them. so i would say perhaps be a little bit less selfish and actually, you’ll still make money. don’t worry about that. that’s still going to be there. but what if you could pass the baton to the next generation to the future, better than you found it? you know, we imagined is this a profession that we’re proud to bring our kids and grandkids into? and i don’t hear a lot of people saying, yeah, i’m really encouraging them to go and be accounting profession. i think that they can change and will change, but it’ll take you, you know, are asked to individually to make that choice and decision. i’m a custodian, you know, for a better future. i respect the past. understand that. but i’m actually looking at creating this better than i found it. i mean, imagine passing the baton in 10-20 years time or whatever age you’re at, at the moment, to the next generation, and saying here, have all this, this is what i’ve done. you’re gonna go through the same thing as i’ve gone through and i’ll see you in 40 years and you’ll be just throwing up throwing the book at the next gen as well as terrible. we need to be, you know, creating building for better for the next gen and getting them involved. you know, not this isn’t just like us a meme or anything like that. leave it better than what we found it. and so we start thinking bigger, or more of altruistically, perhaps about that. the money piece certainly goes down the ladder, it’s still going to be there. don’t fret about that. because that’s just fair value exchange, if you’ve got that, right. and if you haven’t got that, right, the money is eventually going to disappear. because you know, it’s built on the wrong foundation. so, yeah, definitely. that i’ve heard that mentioned over and over and over again, but it doesn’t tell me the solution. it tells me the problem. but what is the actual solution to that and i think getting beyond ourselves, and you know, being that mentor for the next generation, in parting, share sharing, or creating more value that we capture is probably probably a piece that it’s worth thinking about.
liz farr 1:06:29
now, quite you’ve already proved to me how forward thinking you are by explaining how 30 years ago you had the foresight to set up a technology consulting firm. so i want to ask you to put your hands on your crystal ball again. and think about what is the next big thing?
clayton oates 1:06:57
oh, goodness, well, this is where you got to keep your ear to the ground and paying attention, i think and staying curious. absolutely. and there’s also that little bit of, you know, trying to overcome fear too because an inertia staying where you are, you know, either growing or going up. so and i think, you know, we’ve obviously seen tech adoption, they very significant. i think we’re still at the start of all of that. i think there’s a long, long way to go with that. and look, it’s going to be with us forever. so i think that’s just going to get better. there’ll be next iterations of tech. i mean, obviously, we had manual to desktop and desktop was a thing. and then cloud was a thing and you know, there’ll be another iteration of that. it could be blockchain. it could be, you know, digital could be metaverse, it could be all that sort of stuff. i’m not going to get into sort of crystal ball rolling around that i want to think about and talk about what’s real and present and tangible. obviously, client accounting services, tech was sort of built off of that tech enabled a lot of that, interestingly, on that piece, and i know that’s had quite a run run up in the last number of years, particularly in the us it’s not something we see happen much here in australia, because i tended to view this and maybe we had a little bit of do with to do with this with a lot of the tech companies and other consultants early on was we viewed accounting software and payroll software and payments for example. as something that perhaps should stay in the domain of the small business so that if the tech is good enough, our job and role is the the sherpa or the guide or the educator to ensure that clients are utilizing this technology well in their own business. so we didn’t see a lot of outsourcing of that internal client accounting services or pass type piece to firms. we did see a few firms pick up bookkeeping services in the early 2000s when bookkeeping was regulated in australia or the bookkeeping industry. but by and large, my personal view too is that if tech is good enough, we need tech to continue to get better to enable and empower small business with the tools. working with the accounting professional. i think the accounting professional has a great future role still on being the connector to ensure that the solutions are set up people are trained well. the digital plumbing is done to ensure that the data flow has integrity and, and then obviously implementing additional pieces like budgeting as we talked earlier, cash flow management, how can we upskill businesses to actually take more ownership and control of their books without them having to invest more time? and this is the thing that’s worth taking give us because time is the you know the thing that the small business owner just doesn’t have more of and none of us do, really but they’re wearing all these hats. but i think when we speak to a lot of business owners, they want to know they don’t just want to abdicate the role. they want to delegate so how can i then delegate this back office accounting to a firm perhaps the one concern i do have around all that is i’ve seen firms be opportunistic around that thinking, oh, yes, i’ll get them on pass so that that locks them into me. and then how do they actually move off of that? and that’s a concern because you’re actually building that expectation that you’re the owner of their finances. and, you know, what else you actually offering for me? i don’t, i think in 5-10 years time, if a business says is that they’re owning my data or owning my finances, and not doing anything else, that will be a transaction that the business will say i don’t want to do that anymore. i want someone else and then you’re going to have that breakup, but that potentially will break up everything else it will crystallize the relationship, because you haven’t thought about well, when do you hand that back? you know, if you want businesses to grow, and then you want to do their cas work, then is that forever. i mean, if they’re going to grow into a large company eventually got to hand it back. so i’ve we believe anyway, so putting that piece aside, there’ll be of course there’s plenty of businesses that will need want that service. australia is a little different because we’ve got four major banks. we’ve got several software companies. and we’ve got 95% of small businesses, well automated in their accounting software. so you know, very different market to perhaps where the us is at and we’ve got sort of six or eight states and territories, not 50 countries or sorry, 50 states, right like the us and we trust the feds here a bit more the feds actually collect our sales tax or gst. and then they distribute it to the states and the states guys. sure. well, that’s fine. you do that? whereas i think obviously the states and the local municipalities want their money first various reasons in the us so putting geography aside there, i think, book beyond the future really is that as i sort of touched on before is how can you move into more that trusted advisor and i know that term has been overdone. people would get confused or concerned about that term really need to reread the trusted advisor book that was written around 20 years ago. to understand those levels of trust in a client professional server relationship. but coaching and mentoring when you think about it, accounting professional and you think that have a fulfilling work as an accountant that you can do. we tend to know a little about a lot of things we do have a deep specialization, but in a lot of areas. we’re generalists, and which actually gives us a really broad view of the business landscape. and which, when you’re talking to a client, you’re actually bringing in potentially hundreds of business client experiences into that one conversation. that you’re going to have with the next small business that you’re working with. so that’s an incredibly powerful validated and real experience set that the small business owner can receive from you. so i don’t think we’re doing enough in that space and the coaching and mentoring piece does require some skill sets and skills can be learned right? so that’s what a skill is, you know, we learn to be taught and learn so people skills are skills that can be learned you can learn to connect more with with businesses and owners around that, obviously as you keep clients for life and as our practices and firms so build and you’re in the profession longer. you’re going to have as your trusted advisor as well. you’re going to have the business owners want more from you in terms of maybe you’ll start to set up and manage their family offices. so a family office is where they you know, they’ve got a you know, a large, several businesses or there’s that there’s a family estate involved or there’s multiple interests there and you are that trusted connection so you might be a bit more of a connector you might bring in other services, you know, could be wealth management. or financial planning or succession planning, advisors or legal teams. so you’re actually sort of this hub that actually they’ve sort of engaged you to bring in other services that you know, and trust that can actually work with them. so i think there’s a huge amount of value there as a sort of that next shift of business assets and personal assets actually shift to the next generation to through an aging population. and we’re seeing some firms just purely go down that path, you know, that are really owning that workspace. i think there’s an interesting area in a role and maybe even some responsibility we have to better serve not only our own businesses but our clients around the mental health and wellbeing piece. and whole of person piece. i think there’s we’ve probably skirted on that a bit. we haven’t really been through either fear or not knowing who to bring in to to help us in that area, i think but i think we need to try and resolve that because or at least have a connection there. and so ultimately, this wraps up in being the the connector, being the the business partner, you know, to to our clients and so, and being attentive to, you know, what needs do they have, you know, you don’t need to be tried to be everything to everyone. but you can build out a network and a community and a partner, community that actually can solve the challenges, the endpoint challenges that your small business client has. so let’s take a full service as not you doing it all, but actually, you’ve been the connector to enable it all to be done. that’s my two bits to bob’s worth. and we’ll see where that fits out in the decades to come.
liz farr 1:15:28
why i really like the emphasis on not just focusing on the next transaction piece, but in building your own expertise, and becoming more relevant and really providing that advice. the mentoring that the business owners need.
clayton oates 1:15:55
feeling work too, you know, it’s something that and it can be, it can be scary. you’ve got to watch out for a couple of things. you’ve got to watch out for the imposter syndrome and the dunning kruger effect so much about either of those, look them up because that can happen in our space. because and yeah, we don’t, you don’t have to be the font of knowledge, but you can, you know, find those solutions and be the connector i think is an important part of it.