erik solbakken: build the firm of your dreams.
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the disruptors 
with liz farr for 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间
q: why did the accountant cross the road?
a: because they did it last year.
erik solbakken, a.k.a. “the heavy metal cpa,” is on a mission to free accountants from an oppressive business model. solbakken spent 18 years working his way up to be a partner in a firm in canada, but when the partnership fell apart, he was liberated to create a new kind of firm, where he and his staff never worked overtime and he made more money. today, he acts as the guide he wishes he’d had when he started out, empowering accountants to create firms they love working in.
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how do you get away from the commoditization trap? simple, deliver to the client the transformation that they want for themselves.
solbakken said the profession has brainwashed us into believing three lies:
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- your worth is equal to the number of hours you work.
- your clients are naturally price-sensitive to your services.
- tax time has to suck.
further, he said, the traditional accounting firm business model is such an oppressive way to live and have a career that smart people are not going into the profession.
think about it, he said. “why would anyone want the current model? you work like crazy; you go through a really tough exam to get your cpa, then work ridiculous hours so you can struggle to the top and become a partner, and have even more stress and work even more hours. it’s insane.”
solbakken said we all want three freedoms:
- money: we want to make a certain amount of money
- clients: we want to work with great clients who appreciate our services.
- time: we want free time away from accounting, to have a life.
the solution, he said, is to fix the business model. use value pricing and position yourself as a client’s trusted advisor. you’re making the money you want, you have clients who appreciate you and you get free time away from the accounting firm. raise your prices, he said, if you’re too busy. however, you can’t raise prices for clients unless you also provide more value.
eight more takeaways from erik solbakken
- by explaining the incredible impact your firm has on your clients’ lives, you will have prospective employees begging you to hire them.
- you have three wins with this model: the firm owner wins because they have the three freedoms, the staff win because they’re not punching a time clock, and the client wins by getting better service.
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solbakken if you’re just focused on increasing your efficiencies, you are playing a losing game. if you haven’t adjusted your model to be actually helping the client make the transformation they want, then you’re just pushing the price down.
- accountants have a hard time charging higher prices because of cognitive dissonance. we constantly focus on helping clients save money by saving taxes. instead, think about it as building the client’s lifestyle and delivering the desired transformation.
- there’s no single best path to growth. to find the path that’s best for you, think about the life you’re trying to build for yourself. how much money do you want to make? what kinds of clients do you enjoy working with? how much time do you want off? with the answers to those three questions, you can reverse engineer the firm you want to build.
- business owners need four pillars for a successful life: business planning, wealth planning, retirement planning and estate planning. by helping business owners in all those areas, you become incredibly valuable to them.
- accountants already possess the skills they need to be successful in this new model. those skills are part of our education, but they’ve been oppressed by the hourly billing business model.
- make the changes from an empowered state, not from a victim state.
more about erik solbakken
erik solbakken cpa, ca is a speaker, author, business advisor and creator of the accountant success formula™. during his 26 years in public practice, he discovered a business model so effective that it allowed him to triple his firm’s net income while working part-time. his owner-manager clients loved the model as it provided them the real value they had always been looking for in their professional accountant.
solbakken realized the reason most cpas don’t make the money they deserve, don’t attract their ideal clients and work too many hours is because the traditional accounting firm business model is flawed.
a thought leader in his field, he now shares this updated business model with accountants around the world, showing them how to maximize profits, attract the best clients and claim back the time and freedom they deserve. he can be reached at erik@eriksolbakkencpa.com.
transcript
(transcripts are made available as soon as possible. they are not fully edited for grammar or spelling.)
liz farr 00:22
welcome to accounting disruptor conversations. i’m your host, liz par from 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间. my guest today is erik solbakken, cpa, author, speaker, business advisor and creator of the accountant success formula. welcome to the show, erik.
erik solbakken 00:40
thanks, liz. looking forward to it. it’s gonna be fun.
liz farr 00:43
yep, yep. it’s great to reconnect with you after a couple of years. so we have a lot to say. let’s jump in
erik solbakken 00:52
okie dokie.
liz farr 00:53
now, accounting talent has been really scarce in the us and around the world for years. and what are some ideas you have on how to make things better? and what have you seen firms do successfully?
erik solbakken 01:10
well, i think there’s, i’d like to take a little step back on that, that specific question. it has been difficult, but the pandemic and the recent events that’s happened has made it it’s kind of thrown gas on a fire, there was like the smoldering fire of discontent amongst professionals and people going into the profession, that just going, this just doesn’t feel right. there’s something wrong here. the pandemic has thrown gas on it, it basically put a big spotlight on it. and so now what we have is an increased like it’s, it’s exponentially gone off the rails in terms of difficulty, like every single firm that i talked to, you know, my coaching clients, everybody has problems finding talent. and it comes down to one reason and this problem was not, it’s it was here before, the problem was here before it’s just now it’s been elevated. now it’s pronounced, which is basically that the traditional accounting firm business model is such an oppressive way to live and create and have a career that smart people are not going into the profession, like so, like, i’ve talked to so many accountants, i did a video blog on this was last summer, i think it was, it was last summer. and i talked to a friend of mine, who is a partner in a firm, not in the accountant success formula. and he in he was saying his kids, he goes his, his son wanted to go into accounting and he begged him not to he’d like his parent, he didn’t want his son to go in accounting. so he was telling him not to go into the profession that he himself had gone into. i thought that’s incredibly sad that we like that he wouldn’t want his child to follow in his footsteps. well, that’s because we’ve gone through this meat grinder of a billable hour mindset that says, the person who works works the most hours wins. and so why would you want to work like crazy to finally go through a really tough exam, to get your cpa to finally get into an accounting firm, to work ridiculous hours, so that you can then finally struggle your way to the top to become a partner. so you can have even more stress and work even more hours. like, it’s insane. so for me, there’s a simple solution, you got to fix the model. like don’t like, you can fluff it up and say, oh, we provide a work life balance here. and we give back in the benefits here and there. and like if you go to every website, it’s all the same, every posting is the same. we really, we really pride ourselves on having a work life balance, we give you great benefits and lots of opportunity for upward mobility. so you can have more stress in your life. oh, no, sorry, they didn’t put that part in there. but you know what i mean, like, so you got to fix the model. and you got to make it so that people aren’t having to work crazy hours to make the benefits that they want in their life. and for for most accountants, i always call it there’s these three freedoms we want. and we want to money, clients and time, we want to make a certain amount of money. we want to work with great clients who appreciate our services. and we want free time away from accounting, we want free time to do things outside call it the life side of the balance, right? so there’s work in life. so for me, the way firms fix this is by fixing their model getting away from this billable hour mindset and cranking out tax returns to position yourself as a client trusted advisor and value pricing it so that you you’re making the money you have clients appreciate you and then you get free time away from the accounting firm.
liz farr 04:31
oh, that’s perfect. you know, and, and, you know, what about attracting new people, you know, the business model is broken, but how can we get new people into accounting?
erik solbakken 04:45
well, you see, this is where and again when i work with accounting firms, and that’s what i do in a executive level coaching program. i show accounting firms how to transition their firm from the traditional model to this accountant successful newer model that i’ve i’ve coined it the accounting sucess formula. and when you do that, you start telling the market and showing the people that here’s the model that we ascribe to, we don’t believe that the value that we bring to the table is based on how many hours we work, we believe that the value is driven on the transformation you receive. and it’s about giving the client that we’re working for that incredible transformation to improve their lives. once you start putting that messaging out, you’re telling potentials that are coming into the profession that, hey, you don’t have to work crazy hours, you get to have incredible impact on people’s lives. it’s not just about paying, you know, banging out tax returns and making sure your 1040 is filled out correctly, or your this form is filled out correctly, it’s about the impact you’re going to have on your clients lives. so so and i found this is already like when i speak to accountants or potential accounts that are looking to go into the profession, i tell them about the traditional model and how it’s flawed. and they’re like i said, is that what you really want? they’re like, no, then i express and i tell them about the different the new model, the updated model, and they get super excited. and i’m like, no, you need to get compensated for the value you bring to the table, and you’re looking at transforming people’s lives, not just cranking out their tax returns, they all of a sudden get excited, they want to be part of it. and so we’ve had like, basically, one of my coaching clients, we’ve had, i’ve been helping them with the interview process. and literally every person they interview is excited and wants to work for them. so it’s not like they’re having to say please, please work for us. they were like begging us to hire them. so it works.
liz farr 06:38
yeah, so make the environment better. change the business model. and you get money, good clients. time. yes.that’s that sounds perfect.
erik solbakken 06:53
it’s a triple win looks like it’s there’s a three what like when i look at any problem, and that’s for me, i’m a like, i think of myself as an intellectual capital company, i create ideas and concepts, and then i bring that to the market. and then you can use that to leverage and create the life that you want for yourself. and so i think about this quite a bit, every time i look at a problem, i always want to see three wins, there has to be a three way win. if there’s a if there’s a win lose, it’s not a right solution. and so in this solution, when we change the business model from cranking out tax returns, and billable hours to value pricing and quarterbacking for the client, three people when the accounting firm owner wins, because they’re not working like crazy hours, and they get their three freedoms, the staff or the new, the people coming into the profession are happier, and they’re not having to, you know, tie themselves to this billable hour model and punching in a time clock. so they win and the client wins. so it’s the owner, the staff and the clients, they all win because the model, it works for everyone. so there is a way to have a triple win.
liz farr 08:02
so what are what are some of the other benefits of this new model for your first year, the people that you work with?
erik solbakken 08:10
well, the number one benefit that that comes from all of it is, is a feeling of empowerment. there’s really i you know, when my book that i wrote the accountant success formula, which i’ve you and i’ve talked about many, many times, right and the and the caption here, if you can read it there, it’s it’s framed today’s accountant from an oppressive business model. okay, it’s an a, and i truly believe it’s an oppressive business model, not only does it it keep, it keeps everybody pushed down. and so they can’t attain their three freedoms. but it has it has a real mental, negative mental impact on our well being. and so what happens is, is that we fall into a victim state. and so most people, everyone lives in three states, you’re either in a victim state, or your anger, or you’re empowered. so if you think of it as a sliding scale, there’s a victim. anger and power. so what happens is, is as accountants think about it, you got to go in and you got to and you know, this, i mean, you know, the hours you used to put in, right, we’ve had many conversations, you know, you’re cranking out and you’re, you’re feeling like a victim, oh, i have to do this. i have to do this. i have to work these hours and and you feel like a victim. well, how do you get out of that state? that’s a low energy vibration. right? low vibrational energy. well, your body gets every once in a while you get angry and you get pissed off at the client. you’re like, oh, i don’t want to do this or screw my boss or whatever. well, there’s a little jolt of energy and anger is actually a good emotion to have it brings you to a new level, a higher vibration. now, it’s still not a good vibration to be at it’s anger. but every time you get angry, it’s because you feel like a victim. feels like you’re out of control. so but what happens is, is there’s this thing called the victim anger loop that most people get caught in their victim, then they get angry, and then they subside. they can’t stay in anger too long. so they dropped back down to victim, then they get angry again. and so there’s this victim anger loop that happens. and so i found that when i was in public practice, i did that for 18 years victim anger victim anger over and over tax season passed off by jen, you know, by the end of tax season, i was ready to quit and put on my strap on my guitar go down south and you know, play in the in the clubs and la, which is i actually had, i actually had that as an opportunity i could have played in my heavy metal band and gone down there. and i every at the end of every tax season, i’m like, i’m out of here, right? so there’s this loop that happens. but there’s a third level that we that would be much better to live in. and that’s up here that’s empowered. and in an empowered state, you don’t feel like a victim. you don’t get angry. but you’re also not arrogant and boastful. you are empowered, you’re simply empowered to work with the people you want to work, you know the value that you bring to the table. if someone says no, it’s okay, no problem. if they don’t, if they want you to do something you don’t want to do you say, nope, that’s not me, it’s over here. and so the thing, the biggest benefit that comes from shifting the model is this feeling of empowerment, where all of a sudden you get your life back, because you realize that you’re actually in control. you get to choose every single day, who you work with, you get to choose every single day, what you want to do, and, and that the problem is, and that’s why i call it an oppressive model, the traditional model is so oppressive, it’s like, soon as you get a client, you feel beholden to them, like you have to do everything they need you to do, because the only way you’re going to make money from them is by working another hour. so therefore, if they want you to go get their dry cleaning, you’ll go do it. i mean, that’s i jokingly say that, but there’s this and there’s also this, this strange thing that happens with accounting. and the reason why i understand this so much is because i was in public practice for 26 years, myself, i live, i lived the nightmare for the first 18 years. and then the next eight years, i shifted my model over and i experienced this freedom, but you feel like you’re beholden to the client for the rest of your life. like what an incredible feeling like soon as someone says, hello, someone said, yes, they want to work with me, i’m so happy. now i have to take care of them for the rest of my days and for the rest of my life. no. so this empowerment is like, you know, if the clients not a fit for me anymore, i let them go. i offload them, there’s an offloading way, there’s a way to offload people from your your, your your client list that feels so empowering. because once you offload those bad apples, offload those, those non ideal clients, or that low paying clients or the price sensitive clients, you get, like this incredible feeling of empowerment, it’s like, wow, this feels great. and you know, there is a way and my father taught me this long time ago. and there’s a clause in the book, that i share their story about my dad teaching me this, this example, there’s a way to tell someone to go to hell, where they look forward to the trip. so there’s a way to offload somebody from your firm, without them getting angry or upset with you or having it negatively impact your practice. you offload them in a way where they’re happy to leave, and you can get paid when they leave. and again, that’s in the accountant success formula. so we have a offloading model that makes the client happy to go and someone else takes care of them, and you make money to not do the work.
liz farr 13:30
that’s a win win.
erik solbakken 13:32
triple win. the other accountant wins that does the work and the client wins because they keep getting their work done. but the best part is i don’t do it. somebody else does it.
liz farr 13:42
yeah, you know, i never experienced that in any of the firms that i worked in. but i did experience the joy of win one of our really horrible clients fired us. yeah, and, you know, generally, they fired us for what i thought was the wrong reason. yeah. but that was okay. you know, i remember meeting with a successor client for one of them. and i had no idea who these people were, they came in the office and wanted to meet with me and i, and they said, oh, we’re the new clients for abc company the first words out of my mouth were oh, i’m sorry. yeah, yeah. and they just kind of looked at each other. this was a manager and a supervisor and they just looked at each other and thought, what on earth do we just get ourselves into? like? yeah, good luck.
erik solbakken 14:48
and so there’s that victim mentality versus an empowered mentality. so, you can proactively off…-and you should and i show accountants how to do this all the time – actively manage your inventory. we tell our clients to do it all the time. bad inventory? you shouldn’t keep it on the books. so we’re always writing off inventory… that’s why the inventory count –you know you’re lovely audit that we talked about earlier- you got to make sure you write off that obsolete inventory. it’s bad. you write it off. well, let’s do that with our client list. there’s nothing more empowering than saying goodbye to someone who treats you horribly. because then you start to realize that you were actually complicit in the relationship. right? we’re complicit in whatever negativity was happening to you, you’re complicit in it because you stayed there. and so, again, coming back to the first question you had about how do we bring quality people into the profession – you show these quality people that are coming, we’ll call them the team members or the staff that are coming to work in the accounting firm, they don’t get necessarily the choice to offload the clients. it’s the partner that has to. so the partner has to be the lead. they have to be the leader that shows them, hey, when someone treats us wrong, we offload them. you don’t have to have that. and so, one thing that i used to do in my practice, which i get strange looks from everybody, once a year, i would hand out the inventory list and, like there was an official offloading day. everybody got the inventory list and everybody got to go through and cross out clients they didn’t like working with. then everybody came into the boardroom. and i sat down and i said, okay, did we get it all in and every got their letters, and i just grabbed it. and i said, and i handed it over, i didn’t even look at it, handed it over to my system and said, okay, send firing letters to every single client that someone marked down. and everybody in the room went, i went, if they’re not nice, and you don’t like working with them, they’re not working out, then it’s fine. i didn’t even look, i didn’t even look to see who the client wow. and the staff were so empowered, because they were like, oh my gosh, eric really does care. and i’m like, yes, i do. and so what happened was, yes, i offloaded a chunk of clients. but staff morale went through the roof. and because we did that our energy vibration went up, we and this is the thing i also talked about is that nature abhors a vacuum. okay, nature abhors a vacuum, soon as you create space, something else rushes in to fill it. well, we created the space. and we had it set and clear in our minds who the client one we wanted to have on board, which, you know, they had the means, the needs, and the fit. and we got literally the next week, foot we got ideal client, one pool, ideal client, two full ideal clients free, right, and they came in the door. and again, when you work the model properly, like actively empowered intentionally do it. we offload like, say 20 clients, and onboard three clients. and those three clients had the same revenue model as the 20 clients, we offload it.
liz farr
wow.
erik solbakken
so you’re offloading 20 clients at x dollars and your onboard three clients at x dollars? do the math, you’re making the same amount of money working less.
liz farr 18:08
yeah, or maybe providing more in-depth services, which is also a lot more fun.
erik solbakken 18:19
well, yeah, the modeling.
if you’re doing something you don’t like it’s gonna come through and just cranking out tax returns and treating clients like a transaction is it you might as well have automation do it and automation is taking over. and that’s why we’re also seeing a crashing of a pricing model. because more and more intern like we’ve got offshoring, we’ve got technology, it’s just crushing the costing model. so as it crushes the costing model, the pricing model has to adjust as well. and i covered that off in my book and all my programs is showing how that interaction plays that if you’re just focused on reducing and increasing your efficiencies in your accounting practice, you are playing a losing game. because you’re just pushing your costing down. well, i can do it faster. but now what you’re doing is you’re pushing the price down because you haven’t adjusted yourself in the model to actually be helping the client make the transformation that they really want.
liz farr 19:17
yeah, that’s that’s really the key. i think
erik solbakken
there’s two, there’s the two keys, right? it’s the billable hour. and then there’s compliance versus reliance. so it’s like the billable hour versus value pricing and compliance filings versus reliance. and those are the two keys.
liz farr
yeah, yeah, you know, it’s much more exciting to come into work when you know that you’re going to be helping a small business with challenges rather than just, oh, well, i may get the trial balance into the tax software and get all the numbers adjusted and the workpapers lined up and then do the next one and do the next one and do the next one.
erik solbakken 20:00
right? yeah. and and i add something to that it’s exciting to go into work when you know, you’re going to have a positive impact on someone’s life. and you’re gonna get paid incredibly well to do it. that’s the big missing piece like for accounts, and i had to get my head out of that because for accountants we have, i call it cognitive dissonance. you know, the concept of cognitive dissonance is trying to hold two opposing thoughts in your mind at the same time. it’s very, it’s impossible, you can’t say we can’t think i am good, i am bad at the same time because it doesn’t resonate. so with accountants, we’ve been forced as a well, what’s the value we bring to the table, oh, save the clients money, save them money, save them taxes, save them taxes, save them taxes, save them taxes, and then on the other side, you’re going, i want to charge more, charge more charge more, because i want to get paid more per client. because if i get paid more per client, i can work with less clients, which gives me that life boundary that we talked about, right? so now i’ve got cognitive dissonance, i’m thinking i gotta save the money. and on the other side, i’m trying to charge more. that’s why accountants have a hard time charging prices is because of cognitive dissonance. but it’s not about saving tax money. if you’re constantly focused on saving tax money, you’re you’re going to have cognitive dissonance. it’s about it’s about building the lifestyle that the client wants for themselves as give delivering them the transformation, once you start thinking about it that way, part of it could be tax minimization, which is all great. i mean, i love paying as little income tax as possible. but if i have to pay double the income tax, because i’ve doubled the value of my business, and i’m making a million dollars, instead of a half million, i’m more than happy to pay the extra tax rate. so that’s where i find that most accounts have a really i did, personally i had a really hard time with it was how can i charge more? and that’s the mindset, we have to break it out. it’s about having the right client conversation. and then the accountant success formula. i talked about that. you know, there’s there’s this, the account success formula has a methodology to it. and it’s it’s positioning inventory, client conversations, professional service agreements and referral network. and it’s like a cycle that goes through. but one of those areas is client conversations, which is how to have the right conversation with the client, so that they see the value that you work on the value, they see the transformation, then you set your price with them. and if you’re getting paid really, really well. makes going to work so much easier.
liz farr
it sure does. it sure does. and i really like how you emphasize the transformation for the client. and it’s not just a transaction. because that is satisfying a higher level of need. and that is always more valuable.
erik solbakken
it’s yeah, it’s not a commodity. right? it’s not a commodity currency. no, because it’s personal to you. so it can’t be a commodity.
liz farr
exactly.
erik solbakken
how do you get away from the commoditization trap, simple to deliver to the client, the transformation that they want for themselves?liz farr
exactly.
erik solbakken
it’s a simple, simple, simple, but we have so but the problem is, is our professional bodies and our institutes have has been training us away from that. they train us away from the transformation to focusing on the on the nitty gritty details. they also don’t let us capture value pricing, they focus on billable hours. like there’s there’s reports that you cannot get from the institute on like they do these widespread reports. and you can only get a copy of that report if you contribute to the report. but the report is all about a billable hour model. so what’s your billable hours? how many billable hours you charge and all the rest of it? i don’t like i could never get those reports because i didn’t have billable hours. i didn’t have timesheets in my firm. and so they’re skewed towards billable hours and just transacting like this instead of value pricing and transformation.
liz farr 24:07
yeah, yeah. well, i definitely am a fan of value pricing. and i tried to do that in my writing business as well. so yes, yeah. now now, what about growing a firm? how, what are some strategies for growth? you know, i mean, you can get more clients, you can provide more services, you can provide higher value services. what would you recommend to a client to somebody who’s working with you?erik solbakken 24:45
well, so here’s where eric zags when everybody else is zigging, okay? there’s lots of gurus out there. lots of coaches for accounting firms, and they keep saying this is the way to do it. this is the way to do it. this is the way to do it. see, i don’t take that approach. i take the approach the other way around with the same way i show my accounting firm clients how to work with their clients is, let’s go back to what you’re trying to accomplish, what is the life that you’re trying to build for yourself? so when i work with accounting firm owners, the first thing we do is we go back to basics and say, well, what is the life you’re trying to build for yourself? how much money do you want to make? what are the ideal clients that what’s the work you really love to do? and that you’re passionate about? and that if you did every day, you wouldn’t feel like you’re working? and number three, how many free days you want? how much free time do you want, okay? from there, you then reverse engineer the model, the business model, to figure out exactly the firm that you want to build for yourself. so if i go out in and give you an example, and i say, well, the way to grow a firm is to do xyz, well, that might work for that might work for jane. but it won’t work for joe, because jane is building a different kind of firm than joe is. right? so to come out and say this is how you grow and scale a firm to everyone is you can’t do that to your client, you can’t tell your clients exactly how to every client is individual, they have a certain transformation they want and they have certain situations. so you have to you have to customize it to their needs. but the first thing you need to do is figure out what the end goal is. so for example, i have one client, it’s like an accounting firm and say, well, how much money do you want to make? and he might the accountant might say, i want to make $500,000 a year? okay, fine. who are the type of clients you want to work with? well, i want to work with just really small startup businesses that need help with x y&z okay, well, therefore, they’ve got a certain price threshold on that. so therefore, we have to build the model out backwards to say this is how many clients you need at this price point, to give you this much revenue model, and then if you have this many clients, at this price point, you’re going to need this much expense model to give you the net income you want, which is the 500. and so now we reverse engineer and say now how do we attract those, you know, two, five, you know, 300 clients that you need at that number. another option, which i call the dream 100, for an example, let’s say an accounting firm, they say, okay, you have 100 corporate clients, that’s it, you take 100, corpse, $1,000 a month, gives you a $1.2 million revenue model. and then you you provide them and we figure out the services, you’re going to provide them, there’s your revenue model, then the expense model is i’ll need this people to deliver the service. there’s the expense, and then here’s the net income that kicks out. and inadvertently, it kicks out like in that model, you could have 100 corporate clients call it the dream $101.2 million billing, you could probably have an like a revenue model expense model, say 400,000, you’re making 800 grand a year for 100 corporate clients. so it’s a different model, right? and so how do you how do you grow and scale the 100 firms is going to be different than someone who’s going after 300 small corporate clients, right? so you can’t, there’s not for me to say, oh, there’s this just the one way to do it would be would be missing the mark.
liz farr
i love how you reverse engineer it by helping people figure out where they want to get to. because that’s exactly what you’re teaching these accountants to do for their clients. where do you want to go with your business? and let’s help you get there.
erik solbakken
yeah, and with the account. and so there’s, there’s a really key point here, with the account success formula, i not only show them, it’s it’s about the four planning pillars. so it’s it’s like a life. so i picture like someone’s life has a house, and there’s a roof. and that’s the life that your clients are trying to build for themselves or the accounting firms that i’m working with. but let’s just talk about clients for accounting firms, because that’s who our audience is right now. so let’s just talk about their clients. there’s a house and it there’s four pillars that hold up that house. so you picture that four pillars that hold up the roof of the house. and those four pillars are the business, the wealth, the retirement and the estate. those four pillars hold up the roof of the house. well, what kind of house are they trying to build? so if we were building a house, like a construction company, and i went to a client, we had a conversation they said, well, we’d like a house with two bedrooms, one bathroom and two car garage. perfect. and here’s how it’s going to dial in. so then what we do is we go out, we get a roofer, we get a plumber, we get an electrician, they come to the general contractor meet, and i have the general and i have the blueprints here on the plan and say here’s how we’re going to build the house and then they all come in with their specialties. and they put in their pieces to make sure everything’s in alignment. so the house is built properly. but that’s not how houses are normally built for business owners, they have an accountant over here, a lawyer over here, a wealth advisor over here, maybe they got a business coach over here, maybe they got an insurance provider over there. and none of them are talking to one another, or working from a set of blueprints to build the house. so can you imagine what a house would look like if you had a plumber or drywall or an electrician just building it the way they think it should be built, based on their one conversation with the client. it gets built like a mess. so instead, you have a conversation, you sit with a client, and you figure out what are those four pillars. and inadvertently, clients don’t even know that these are things they should be looking at. so just having the conversation with them, and just trying to figure out what the plan is, is incredibly valuable. it’s super eye opening, and they go, oh, my god, i’ve never had an accountant talk to me about this stuff before. and i went, well, i’m not sure how you could possibly do your taxes. without even knowing these things. i think accountants can’t even do that. how could you do proper tax planning without knowing what we’re trying to actually accomplish? and so then you work into these areas, and then you find inadvertently, okay, there’s something wrong with the will, the will is out of alignment with how we’re building the business and where they want to leave it to their kids? well, there’s a special project, let’s do a special project and fix that. let’s do another project to figure out what the business plan is going to be. and the best part is as the accountant, you don’t have to be the specialist. right? this is about collaboration with your other professional advisors. so when i had my public practice, i had lawyers and financial advisors and bankers, and they love to work with me because i worked with them, never, never against them. and so i always came to the table and said, let’s have a conversation about the jones’s file. and they were like, most accountants don’t spend this much time with them. and i said, i know because most accountants are on a billable hour model. and the clients would never want to pay that dollar per hour for me to do it. but i had built a model similar to the dream 100, where i was more than happy to spend that time on that one client because i was getting paid incredibly well. and ultimately, it wasn’t about the one client paying me really well. it’s the overall business model. like if i’m making $800,000 a year, and i’m working part time, and a client needs me to do some extra digging into one area. okay. and it’s fun, i can do that. and i might find a special change or a project i can do. so it’s really all about what’s specific to them. and again, to come back to the accountants, what are we trying to build? what’s the life you want? and so once you figure that out, then we reverse engineer and empower you. and remember, not a victim not angry, but empowered to go forward and make it happen. and that’s basically the accountant success formula in a nutshell.
liz farr 32:59
well, i love that, that model where you put all those things together, you know, i’ve written pieces for writing, for the writing community that incorporate all of that, because that’s something that every small business owner really needs to think about, as they see you as they build a business. yes. and you know, and they’re there’s so many times when the work of the attorney and the work of the accounting firm, and the goals of the client, we’re all at odds with each other.
erik solbakken 33:41
anybody who’s been in public practice long enough knows that they’ll have a meeting with a client, and then the client will tell them in passing because they don’t talk to them about it. and again, in my firm, we there’s a methodology, we talk about those four planning pillars every meeting, they’d go, oh, yeah, i got my wills redone. and you go, oh, can i take a look at it? and then they’d send you a copy of it. and inadvertently, you’d go, yeah, that’s wrong. we need to fix it. and then you have to have that uncomfortable conversation with the client and tell them now we got to fix this. and then the second uncomfortable conversation is going back to the lawyer and saying, i need to fix this. so the lawyer looks bad. you’ve made the lawyer look bad. the clients not happy, then you have to figure out some way of billing for your time to fix it. i’ll pass.
liz farr 34:30
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, i remember one client who, whose attorney decided to set up this really crazy new business structure that we didn’t really quite understand and the client certainly didn’t understand. but it meant really quite to go to the secretary of state and redo all of the ownership and everything, it was just this incredibly complicated stuff we had to do. and, and i’m really not sure what the point of any of it was, except to get the lawyers some extra fees, because i, i really didn’t get why they were doing this. but it just meant more hassle for the client and more stuff that we had to do. and we didn’t really quite understand and why.
erik solbakken
well, that that fantastic book by simon sinek. start with why i love that book, love that book, start with why everything is a why start with why and then move from there. so again, how does the accountant want to build their how do they grow their practice? let’s talk about what you’re trying to build first, then we’ll we’ll send generic.
liz farr 35:58
that’s right. now, we’ve talked a little bit about the changing business model. and and as we move out of pure compliance, that’ll mean that accountants will need to learn how to do different things. so what are some of the skills that you think accountants should learn, or should strengthen to be successful?
erik solbakken 36:07
well, so here is the best part. this is the hallelujah moment, i want everybody who’s on this call that’s listening to this podcast watching this podcast to hear me clearly, okay. you don’t have to learn a whole bunch of new skills, you already have the skills necessary to do what i’m talking about. it’s just you have to work in a business model that allows you to bring that thinking to the forefront. so literally, the account success formula program that i have is not some big, it’s not like getting another mba, or getting a cfo designate or getting a special, you know, bunch more letters behind your name. when you are a cpa, you have been trained by your professional institute to be a professional, you’ve been trained to look at all these areas. but what happens is, is that when you get back into the accounting world, and you start working in the practice, the model is oppressive, and it forces you just to do this, but once you open your eyes and you go wait a second, the model is holding me back from actually delivering the value that i already have innately inside me. and that’s the wonderful thing that happens when i’m working with accounting firms is that they think it’s naturally they’re like, okay, well, it’s gonna be a lot of work. and i’m like, no, it isn’t. it’s very freeing. so what i what i do is i consider myself like, you know, the donald miller story brand. i love that the whole thing the whole thing for me is like a story brand conversation. they the the, the hero is the accountant that i’m working with. they’re the hero of the story, but they’ve been held back. and they’ve been held back by the evil tyrant known as the traditional accounting firm model. so that’s the villain, the villain is holding down the accountant, right? and then eric comes walking up and door do not there is no try, i am yoda. okay, i am merely the i am merely the guide that shows them there is a path to freedom, there is a path for this i call the accountant success from the path of freedom. and i simply show them what’s already inside them. it’s already inside you, it’s already there. you just need to be freed from it. and so we we fight away the evil tyrannical model, get rid of that. and all of a sudden now what’s already inside you and the ability for you to use your talents and your skills which you are trained for, can flourish. and so once i show them that some simple minds, it’s all about mindset. you and i talked about this in the beginning to when we were just catching up. it’s all about mindset. it’s about empowered, it’s being empowered, it’s in the mindset, right? and so once they get their mindset, right, and they start seeing how to apply it and then they start doing it. they just take off. so
liz farr
wow. you make it sound so easy.
erik solbakken
it is it’s it’s it’s it’s simple, but not easy. and the reason why it’s not easy. it’s because we’ve it’s between our ears. it’s all the way we’ve been thought and when you think about it, we’ve been conditioned by the mind the model by the accounting firm, the traditional model, conditioned over billable hour, billable hour, you have to work hard. it’s like there’s these three laws, these three lies that the profession has brainwashed us into believing, okay, the three lies, one that your worth is equal to how many hours your work to that your clients are naturally price sensitive to your services. and three, that tax time just has to suck. okay, those are three lies, but they’ve been ingrained in us, conditioned in us. and i’ve got a degree in behavioral psychology as well. so there, it’s been reinforced over and over again. and to try and untrained the mind to stop reacting the same way it’s always done. it just takes time and repetitive. it just needs a guide. and that’s why i think of myself as a guide, i show them. and i just reiterate. and that’s why i found that the coaching model is the best model that works. i’ve got an online course and a program that works. but the client, they don’t get the results, when you get results is when you work and you have someone that keeps you accountable. and every day you just keep fixing your mindset. and then it builds upon itself. and that’s what frees you. so it’s it’s the mindset that needs to be shifted. but when i explain it, it sounds super simple. but it’s not easy. but it’s not easy because of the mental hurdle you have to go through. but there’s not a there’s not some big encyclopedia book that you need to go through. you just need to “unlearn what you have learned,” according to yoda.
liz farr 41:19
well, speaking of unlearning, and changing what you’re doing, what do you think accountants should stop doing immediately?
erik solbakken 41:35
stop billing by the hour! stop billing by the hour! stop billing by the hour, number one. number two, stop thinking that you’re going to become successful by doing more. okay, stop thinking that you’re going to become successful in doing more. right? and number three, start saying no. and if by the way, if for any listeners, any readers, and they’re and i talked to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of accountants, they’re not ready to change, they don’t want to change. i get that. i understand that because we’re creatures of habit. like, you know, the, the, the funniest joke is like, why did the accountant cross the road? because they did it last year? yep. okay, we’re just creatures of habit, we just follow and do this. and some accountants aren’t ready to do that. okay, they’re not ready to change the billable hour to do a value pricing to get away from just cranking out tax returns. they don’t. and i say they’re not ready for their freedom yet. that’s fine. if there’s one thing that they could do learn to say no. number one, to just learn to say no. so in other words, when another client comes in the door, and you’re already working your brains out your crazy hours, and another client comes in and wants you to do the work. it’s okay to say no. but don’t say no, angrily. because if you say it angrily, it’s because you’re feeling like a victim. right? say no, from an empowered state, which is no, i’m, i’m sorry, i can’t do your work. i’ve got maximum cover. i’m full. but not being angry about it. just nope, i can’t do it. right. right. and if you’re, if you’re super busy, and you got tons of work, then you need to increase your prices. that’s simple. yeah. but how do you increase your prices, without changing what you deliver your clients. and so that’s why this shifting the pricing model, and getting it from a lower price to a higher price means you have to show a shift in value to the client. so if you shift in how do you shift, and if you’re staying your billable hour, you’re cranking out tax returns, you’re doing the same thing, you go and charge the clients double, they’re going to be upset with you, because you’re not giving them any more value. if you simply shift over to the new the, what i call the psa, the professional services agreement, you give them more value. there’s four benefits to it. like if you if you give them a value pricing subscription model, they know the price ahead of time, it smooths out their cash flow, they get unlimited access to you. and they can cancel it anytime. that’s extra value. so simply by shifting the billing model, you can increase your pricing. yeah. simply by shifting your positioning with the client you can increase your pricing and in instead of being the compliance driven person being the reliance one, we talked about this already like you doing the transformation, helping them that also can increase pricing. and the third thing that can increase pricing is changing the the conversation, the client conversation. so the way you talk to the clients, the way you have the conversation with them, they will perceive the value higher than if you do it under the traditional model. so if you want higher prices, change your positioning. change your client conversation, change your billing model.
liz farr 44:56
simple,
erik solbakken
simple.
liz farr
simple. so, so it sounds simple. but and we’ve already talked about the problems with mindset. what are some other things that keep accountants from making these changes that, that seems so simple and so logical?
erik solbakken 45:09
well, you know, originally was when i was in public practice, i didn’t even know that a different way existed. okay, so that was a real problem before, like, and so we’re talking 20 years ago, plus, that was a difficult thing to find, right. and for me, i’d like i’m on year 34. now, i started 34 years ago, and they are in public practice, and working with accounting firms. and, and so i didn’t even know there was a different way. so at least today with with, you know, social media and more content and available, you know, quick typing on the keyboard, almost every accounting firm has heard of value pricing. now, back in the day, when i read the book from ron baker, and paul dunn firm of the future, no one had really heard about it, like, are very few. so i mean, there’s a, there’s a, there’s a massive movement here, there’s, it’s, so there’s a great shift for them to note. so now, you know, okay. the thing is, it’s one thing to hear about value pricing, and then just poopoo it and just go oh, forget it, what’s holding them away? right? the reason why they don’t look at it is because they don’t think it’s ethical. accountants don’t think value pricing is ethical. okay? on the contrary, billing by the hour, is not ethical. right? if you build by the hour, you’re actually in a conflict of interest with your clients, as they want to, they want to know the price and you you’re trying to maximize your income, and they’re trying to minimize the price to the value that they’re gonna receive. but when you go by a billable hour, you’re instantly in a conflict of interest. right. but accountants seem to don’t think that they don’t think that they’re no, no, that’s the only ethical way to bill is by the hour. it’s because they’ve been trained to believe it. we’ve just been trained to believe it. so the thing is, for me, i just simply bring the message out to the to the accountants and say, there is a have you ever, you know, and again, there’s, there’s the beginning part of the book here. have you ever asked yourself? does it always have to be this way? right? have you ever asked yourself? no, if you haven’t, i’m going to make sure that you have. and then you can ask yourself that. and so now, you know, once you know, you can’t unknow. so the thing is, there is a way to do this, that’s going to free you. but again, the hindrance that was holding most accountants back because they didn’t even know. so for me, that’s why i wrote the copy of the book. and so the book, you know, you can get it free on my free on my website. it’s like $9 shipping, it’s a free plus shipping offer. i just give that book out like chiclets like here. read it. because once you know you can’t unknow then you can decide whether or not you want to move over and try and shift the model over. and as we’ve talked about it, it’s it’s very logical, it makes a lot of sense. so then why aren’t more accountants moving towards it? big, big four letter word. fear. right. that’s why they’re afraid because they’re afraid of losing market share. they’re afraid of all the hard work that they put into building their business and getting their designation. they’re afraid of something new, right? where we became accountants for a reason. we’re not entrepreneurs at heart. we’re accountants, right? right. i realized now that i’m an entrepreneur stuck in an accountants body, because now i’m more of an entrepreneur, right? because i’m trying to bring the message to the accountant. but i’m still an accountant at heart. so i understand that fear, it’s afraid of changing something. it’s we’ve always done it this way, right? we’ve been conditioned by the institute. think about it. how do you present your financial statements? well, you better do it the same way you did last year? because you got comparatives? right? so right. it’s always about making sure it’s the same as last year, so we’re naturally and, you know, you asked what other than mindset is holding us back. it’s all mindset. it’s all mindset. right? conditioned mindset. that’s not that’s afraid of change. and that’s all it is. and fear, the acronym for fear, which i love is false evidence appearing real. it doesn’t exist, right? but it’s real to the person feeling it don’t get me wrong. like if you’re feeling the fear of changing the model, i totally get it. i’ve done that i was there. but the difference for me was back then i had to i did it on my own. i had to do it myself. i jokingly say i wish i had met me back then. i wish i’d had someone like me to help me back then. but i didn’t. so that’s why i shifted over and that’s why i’m coaching accounting firms on shifting the model. so i can be that i can be that guide to lead them through the fear and show them and it’s just false evidence appearing real there. here’s the here’s a bunch of accounting firms that have already done it. and then they come into my world they get become part of the mastermind groups that are that are involved with firms that have done the same thing. so it’s all mindset, really.
liz farr 50:07
yeah, and you know, mindset and just force of habit. you know, we love sally same as last year. that’s our favorite way to approach our jobs. you know, i remember when i was still in public practice and reading accounting today and accountingweb seemed like subversive activities, never mind, 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间, or any anything like that, now, it seems kind of subversive.
erik solbakken 50:24
so here’s the interesting thing, the way i look at life is that the more i can understand this guy, the more i can understand, erik, and what makes erik tick and why i think the way i think, the more successful i can be in the world, because i’m gonna understand how to operate this machine known as erik. so if we think about ourselves, in that perspective, we go, why do i keep thinking this way? why am i afraid to make a mistake? because that’s what it’s about, right? think about it. we’re afraid to make a mistake, we’re afraid to try something new and make a mistake. one plus one equals two, we know we’re going to get an a on that one. entrepreneurs go, i wonder if i can make it come out to something different. accountants don’t think that way. but think if you look at it, it’s because we’ve been conditioned to think that way. you you became you did your exams and you would get, you would get a plus, or you would get a you would get a passing grade or failing grade, you either did it right, or you did it wrong. it’s black and white. then you became then you article, then the accounting firm, and you started doing files and gave it to the partner or the reviewer and the reviewer, give it back and show you all the things you did wrong. constantly focusing on all the things you’ve done wrong, not focusing on all the stuff you did, right. but really focusing on the things we’ve done wrong, because nothing accountants love more than finding a mistake. another accountant make, right? like i mean, it’s perverse, it’s perverse, you get a set of statements from another accounting firm, because you got a new client, you’re like, oh, look, they did this wrong. you know, you get this little adrenaline rush. well, we’ve been conditioned to constantly be punished for the mistakes we make. okay, which is anti-entrepreneurial entrepreneurs who are our shift, they shift their mindset and going, hey, i just made another mistake. great. i’m getting closer to the right answer. right? like was it 10,000 tries to get the light bulb to work? edison, right. 10,000 failures, great. every failure is one step closer to the right answer. but that’s not the way accountants are built. we’ve been we’ve been built. if you make that first mistake, whack, you get hit rapped on the knuckles. and no wonder you’re going to stop. no wonder you’re going to be afraid to try something new is because we’ve been conditioned to be punished for doing something wrong. that’s right. and so now i understand how the mindset works. and i’m like, okay, now i’m conditioned to, i’m gonna go try and do some what, you know, one of the conversations i have around the dinner table with my daughters. okay, how did you what is one example of you tried something and failed today? what did you fail that today? what did we do something today and fail at it? and we talked about oh, well, i tried to do this, and it didn’t work perfect. would you learn from it, i learned that i got to do it this way. fantastic. because if you’re not failing, you’re not growing. but that’s not what we get taught in accounting school, we get taught that we are the trusted adviser. and we have to make sure the numbers are right. and you can’t associate yourself with anything false or misleading. and if it’s wrong, we’re going to give you a rap on the knuckles, and you’ve got to get that file done quicker and faster and better and more perfect. we create our own problems. we create our own problems in the profession. but having known that and understand that and see it, we don’t have to live that way anymore. so once you know you can you can never unknow. so from now you go, there is an opportunity for you to create a better life for yourself. shift away from the traditional model, update your business model and give yourself your freedoms back.
liz farr 54:14
that’s that’s absolutely right. you know, and, and, you know, when you were talking, there was a quote running through my head that i brought into a book that i’m working on. it’s a quote by humphrey davy, who was a scientist around, oh, he’s around the 1800s. and what he said was, “i’ve learned more from my failures than from my successes.” and that is absolutely true.
erik solbakken 54:50
yes. there’s also one here that…i don’t want to quote it quoted the wrong quoted the wrong way here. yeah, i’m not gonna i’m not gonna find it now. it’s um you know, i’m gonna i’m gonna thomas there we go. thomas paine you know the quote by thomas paine thomas paine so here’s the quote, “a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it the superficial appearance of being right.” hmm, let’s just say that one more time. a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it the superficial appearance of being right. yep. and then and raises at first a formidable cry in defense of custom right yes. sounds like the accountant sounds like the accountants moving from the traditional to the new model right? but here’s the best part and this the last quote from thomas paine’s 1776 essay common sense. it says the last sentence is this it goes. but the tumult soon subsides, too time makes more converts than reason. yeah. so over time, you’ll see more and more firms are moving to a value-based model. they’re moving away from the billable hour. most firms are doing that. so over time, we’re starting to see more firms going to the value pricing system. the the part that i believe is a missing link on that, if you really want to exponentially increase the freedoms is by getting away from the compliance-driven and moving to the reliance side. that’s the second part of the of the of the of the switch.
liz farr 56:50
absolutely, i think you are, you are onto something new. and you’re not the only person i work with who has said the same thing, or maybe not using the same words. but it’s really what we’ve got to move away from compliance.
erik solbakken 57:16
yeah, this i mean, these are these are, you know, the two, my mentors, and that i am eternally grateful for is is paul dunn. and ron baker. those two changed my life when i had my accounting practice. and i read the firm of the future, they literally changed my life. i read the firm of the future, and i changed my practice right over. and when i told them both that i had done that the first time i met them, they went you did what you actually change your you did it by yourself. and i went well, yeah. and they said, that’s, it’s unusual, very unusual. and so that was another reason for me to go in. well, if it’s very unusual for someone to actually take that action and make it happen, then let’s create a program to help them do that. that’s why i’m i’m not the hero in the story. it’s the accounting firms are the heroes. they’re the hero, i’m merely the guide, i just show them the path to move the model. because i’ve done it myself, i’ve done the path myself, i i’ve got you know, doing it myself by myself was probably the most painful thing i ever did. i’m glad i did it. but i don’t want anybody else to go through that pain. that’s why i have that’s why i do the executive coaching model.
liz farr 58:19
well, that, that sounds like something that all of the firm owners that i worked for, could have used. you know, i, i had many, many conversations with them about how they should leverage their experiences to provide higher value services and to really help their clients with the things that they wanted. but they all just kind of nodded. yeah, that sounds great. and i’ll get to that when i have some time. yeah, yeah. yeah. yeah. yeah. now, now, client accounting services is a really big thing these days. what do you think will be the next big thing for accountants? once you use your crystal ball and peer into the future?
erik solbakken
you’re gonna have to, you’re gonna have to, you’re gonna have to enlighten me here. what do you mean by that phrase?
liz farr
accounting client, client accounting services, client advisory services. this is this is something that is big in the u.s. right now, where you’re not just providing bookkeeping, but you’re providing a next level up from bookkeeping.
erik solbakken
okay, so you’re just you’re talking about advisory advisor, which is what we’ve been talking about the whole time, moving away from compliance driven transactions to reliance based advising, right. okay.
liz farr
yeah. do you think there’s anything beyond that? or do at a higher level?
erik solbakken 1:00:00
i can extrapolate in a whole bunch of different areas. okay? the only thing that see the thing is what we’re going to is moving away from what we’re doing just what we’re doing to why we’re doing it. it’s from a what to a why. so if you think about it, kind of accountants that are just cranking out tax returns are doing the what? bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. as soon as you turn in, you have the conversation with the client and figure out why they want what’s the transformation, they’re looking for the why. now, you can focus on that, and that’s everything. yeah. okay. there’s nothing beyond the why. why do we do anything? that’s the purpose. that’s, so we call it like, the wonderful book man’s search for search for meaning. right? what are we doing? why are we doing it? there’s nothing beyond that. once you know the why of what you’re trying to do, and you can articulate and have the conversation, but it’s about understanding the why, where, why are they doing it? what are they trying to accomplish? now, how we get there, there’s a whole bunch of stuff that can happen. i mean, ai, artificial intelligence, ibm, watson can start analyzing and figuring out a whole bunch of extra stuff in there. so there’s going to be a whole bunch of artificial intelligence that’s going to help get to that, why, and maybe even deliver on that. why, but there’s nothing beyond the why. because that’s, that’s why that’s why we’re here. that’s what we’re doing. how can we go beyond that? that is a deep question.
liz farr 1:01:39
you’re right. that is a deep question.
erik solbakken
but is that’s not what that’s it. that’s that’s it. the why.
liz farr
that’s, that is indeed. why some of us became accountants.
erik solbakken 1:01:54
why why does anybody do anything? what’s what are we actually trying to build? it’s the difference between being consciously aware and intentional. so it’s about intentionally building the life you want for yourself as opposed to just letting it happen. right accountants started an accounting practice and it just accidentally turns into a business instead of actually intentionally building a business. and so for the first 18 years of my life, i was an accidental entrepreneur. because i just started in an accounting practice that already had a partnership i bought into partnership i just did what they did the previous years and didn’t do any innovation, no changes. then the second eight years of my career, i actually created intentionally a business model that worked for me. for those last eight years, my staff never worked a single hour of overtime. i made more profit than i did in those last eight years and i ever made in the first 18 okay, i was intentional and how i was building my life. so it’s all about the intentionality that was my y. that’s it. once you know your y, and you intentionally build towards it there’s nothing beyond the y except the new why once you get there.
liz farr 1:03:05
that is, i think, a perfect note to end our conversation on eric. i want to thank you so much for your time. now if people want to get in touch with you what’s the best place to find joe?
erik solbakken 1:03:22
i normally say the best place to find me is eric soul back and cpa.com but trying to spell eric soul back in is difficult a task so if they want to remember one quick one is accountant success. formula.com the accountant success formula.com punch that in hit the button you’ll find me.
liz farr 1:03:40
okay. all right. well, it has been so fantastic talking to you, erik, and benefiting from your intellectual capital. thank you so much.
erik solbakken
that’s a lot of fun. liz, thank you so much.
1:03:54
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