that includes hiring non-accountants.
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the disruptors 
with liz farr
for 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间
you have to be intentional about creating the firm you want, said twyla verhelst, cpa. the head of accountant channel at freshbooks and creator of women in accounting mentorship said the first step is getting clear on your why, your firm’s why and your team’s why so you can approach growth more intentionally.
more: clayton oates: one way to keep clients for life | 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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she said cpas should be asking, “why is it that a particular goal appeals to you?” “is that the right thing to be working toward now?” “what will you do to get there?”
being intentional about the type of practice you want to have, the types of services you want to offer, and the types of clients you want to serve will help you determine the kinds of skills you and your team will need to have and the types of skills you need to hire.
growth isn’t always bringing in more clients. “i believe it is easier on your team to do more work for the same clients than it is to bring a new client in the door,” verhelst explained. client experience matters for keeping your base clients, who may then refer new clients who are like them. in her experience, “the best clients always come from referrals.”
clients aren’t buying your understanding of the rules, they’re buying the relationship with you and the firm and the expertise you bring to the table, verhelst said. what matters is “that you can think about what sort of knowledge you can apply from an accounting perspective and a business perspective, and then parlay that to an entrepreneur and speak their language.” some of twyla’s best experiences in being an advisor were when clients demonstrated their trust in her by asking about things that were outside the scope of their engagement, which gave her the opportunity to go deeper with the work. this may mean bringing on other types of advisors to help expand your service offerings, she said.
building an intentional practice also means you must stop doing the work you don’t enjoy. when you’re passionate about your work, your clients and your team will pick up your energy and enthusiasm. doing work you don’t enjoy can hinder growth, not only of your firm but also your own mental growth. consider whether a task gets you excited, and if not, see if someone else can perform this work. letting others do the tasks you don’t enjoy helps them grow and contribute in new ways to the team.
8 more takeaways from twyla verhelst
- if we’re burned out or overworked or not happy, this will impact those coming into the profession. we need to be creative to support the kinds of changes we need to make to keep people happy and attract new people.
- creative changes include supporting part-time workers and allowing mature staff to remain in positions where they can do the work they love, not forcing them into leadership. changes could also include hiring non-accountants to ensure clients are having a good experience and splitting up and changing workflows so that “the accounting staff is only doing the work that you absolutely need to have accounting experience or an accounting education to do.
- switching to value-based billing introduces a mindset shift from the time the work took to the impact the work has on the client. this can have a positive impact on how the client engages with the firm, client expectations and the team.
- younger people would rather stay in a profession where they can impact the environment, society and the world.
- cas and advisory work is challenging to market because clients have not had it before and may not know if they need it. your best salespeople are the clients who tell their peers in the same profession about the impact you’ve had on their business.
- consider hiring people with experience in various industries, even if they have no accounting experience.
- if you’re going to do more advisory work, relationship and communication skills can be more important than technical knowledge. the clients don’t always care if you know how to treat something without researching it. they just want to know you’re handling it.
- consider joining a community or mastermind to learn from others about things they are trying in their firms. this can yield faster learning and faster results than doing it on your own. you don’t need to do it alone.
more about twyla verhelst
twyla thrives on adventure, and she joined freshbooks because she saw the opportunity to make an exponential impact on the evolution of the accounting industry and the business owners it serves. she’s been both an entrepreneur and an advisor, and as head of the accountant channel and creator of the freshbooks accounting partner program, she supports and empowers other accounting professionals as they help small businesses flourish. twyla is an experienced cpa and tech entrepreneur with a passion for helping others find and leverage their confidence. she is committed to elevating forward-thinking accounting professionals with the tools they need to thrive, as well as helping them discover their most valuable asset — their authentic selves.
transcript
(transcripts are made available as soon as possible. they are not fully edited for grammar or spelling.)
liz farr 00:03
welcome to accounting disrupter conversations. i’m your host liz far from 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间. my guest today is twyla verhelst, head of freshbooks accountant channel and creator of the women and accounting mentorship program. welcome to my show, twyla.
twyla verhelst 00:22
thanks, liz. i’m really excited to be here and connecting with you.
liz farr 00:26
oh, it’s great to see you again in person. well, you know, at least in video, one of these days, we’ll get to see each other in person again, i’m sure
twyla verhelst 00:35
we will, we will make it happen. yes,
liz farr 00:38
yes. and maybe we’ll even go hiking at camp sometime.
twyla verhelst 00:42
ah, even better? i’d love that. let’s do it.
liz farr 00:45
that would be great. well, let’s dive in. because i’ve got a lot of questions for you know, accounting talent in the us and around the world has been hard to find for years covid made it worse. what are some ideas that you have on how to make things better?
twyla verhelst 01:08
yeah, you’re right. covid has made this worse. and i think there’s two parts to the challenge that we’re seeing now. one is existing talent or existing people in the profession, leaving the profession, and also that we’re seeing less people join the profession. but here’s something that was interesting that somebody from cpa canada told me recently, and i’m gonna get to the source of this data, because i want to know, myself too. but if still, the context of this, i think is interesting. they said that the the new people who join as a, as a candidate, or as a student in the accounting profession, most often have somebody in their inner circle, like their closest friends or closest family, that is an accountant. so we accountants are heavily influencing the people coming into the profession without even realizing that we are, which to me says we probably have some work to do with the people in the profession before we should be thinking about how do we attract more people to the profession, because if we’re burnt out or overworked or we’re really not happy with our work, life balance, or all the things going on in the profession, i think it’s organically impacting those coming into the profession. so i think when i think this through and talk to a number of people about it, i think the number one thing that we need to do is be more creative. now, accountants don’t tend to like that word creative, because it makes us think about, about rules and tax and government. but nonetheless, i do think that there’s some creativity that needs to come into our firms, in order to support some of the change that we’re going to need to see happen. so whether that’s a change in structure that supports part time workers, whether that’s a change in structure that facilitates more mature staff, and having those mature staff, not be leaders of others. instead, they can sit and do the work that they really comfortably love to do, perhaps even the last 10 years of their career, we could see that this structure could facilitate different time zones. and we’re seeing that happen with some offshore staff joining some of the firm’s it could even be things like splitting up rules and workflows, so that your accounting staff is only doing only doing the work that you absolutely need to have accounting experience or accounting education to do. because i think that despite a splitting up workflows and changing workflows, i believe that probably every person who’s got an accounting degree or designation or experience is probably doing something inside of their workload that they don’t need to have that level of accounting expertise to do. in fact, part of it could be even better served by somebody who’s got some other expertise in another area. so i think that there’s going to need to be some sort of creative thinking around this and some splitting of roles and even roles that don’t even involve accounting at all, like technology, gosh, big focus, client experience roles. you don’t necessarily need to know accounting inside and out to ensure clients are having a really good experience. and the the times that i’m seeing this go really well inside of firms are firms that are actually looking outside of the profession to model some of their structures or some of their team staffing different than the traditional accounting model that we all know that clearly is a bit broken right now or need some some change in order to foster kind of the next phase of our profession.
liz farr 04:56
those are great ideas, and i especially like your idea about dividing up the workload between accountants and non accountants? because there are there were so many things i did, especially in even in the end of my time in public accounting, where i really could have handed that task off to somebody just out of high school and said here, key in this list of account names and meaningless numbers, and just make sure that they’re accurate. come on.
twyla verhelst 05:39
i think there’s a lot of roles that are pieces of each role, that that’s true. and it just made sense at the time that you did that work, because you were doing the next piece of that sequence of work. but i think some creativity around splitting that up or some technology or some other hr functions or some other even leadership functions, does the leader of a team of accountants on your staff? does that person need to be an accountant themselves? and is the account our accountants the best to lead that team? maybe the answer is yes. but until we determine that it’s no, we shouldn’t default to it being yes, because that’s the way the model was before.
liz farr 06:23
exactly. yeah. and speaking of models, the business model for accounting firms hasn’t really changed much for a long time. no one’s billing by the hour and the strict hierarchical org charts. but we’re beginning to see some changes. what are some changes you’re seeing in the firms that you work with?
twyla verhelst 06:49
well, naturally, as i’m sure you’ve had this conversation with a number of your guests, we are seeing the change to value based pricing, which although that’s not everyone, it’s certainly trending that direction. and we’re seeing more and more firms adapt to that model, which is fantastic. because you know, the the billing by the hour with the focus on how much time something took versus focus on the impact of the work that was done. it’s just such a shift in not only the client and how the client engages and what the clients expectations are, but also for the team. because part of again, some of the work we have to do is, how are we supporting the people who are already in the profession to keep them in the profession. and even that single mind shift can support their staying in a profession versus feeling like they’re grinding at a profession, or even being enthusiastic about a profession, because impact is important to the younger generation, the impact that they’re having on the environment, on society, on the government. and these are all things that are really important to this younger generation that’s coming behind us. and hourly versus value based pricing is part of that, and i think can really support that that impact. the other thing, though, i think that value based pricing does is it allows us to do this, this have this opportunity to really hone in our expertise, and have the the engagement built around and the pricing built around the expertise that you bring to the table. if you think both you and i say we’re both senior in our, in our career, and we’re both experts in doing tax returns were well tax accounts. how do you charge a different fee than i charge when the deliverable to the client is a tax return, there’s no real difference to the client as long as the texture and got filed on time got filed accurately. and perhaps some tax saving tips that one of us offered that the other didn’t. but even those, in our more senior years of this profession, we probably offer very similar tax saving tips, versus the expertise that you can have with your experience versus my experience or your unique take on something versus my unique take or your expertise in working with veterinarians versus my expertise in working with marketing professionals. so there’s so much more that we can do in terms of that value that we bring to the table that value race pricing supports. and then i think this is something that we hear people talk about in our profession, and i’m gonna probably get some groans by those listening by hearing this word is the word niching. and there’s no denying that when you are value based pricing that then it changes up the types of services that you can offer and get paid for those services. and then you can niche and in some cases, micro niche. and gosh, the last few conferences that i went to and i was having conversations with some professionals about how their micro niching it’s in critical to see how far down they’ve gone with their niching. but how much of an opening that creates for them to do more of this other type of advisory work or consulting work or other layers of professional services offered inside have also their tax returns, that they’re able to really hone in on their expertise and their industry knowledge, and able to really offer high value for that type of client, not to mention their marketing. their marketing engine is just working because they become the expert to this type of business. and then those folks talk to one another. they have yours in that same profession. and there’s one thing i know about when i was doing advisory work is it’s really challenging to market advisor work, what the heck do you do, and in some cases, you’re doing something they’ve never had before. they don’t even know if they need what you’re offering, versus peer to peer. they’re the best salespeople when it comes to selling cas or advisory work, because they talk to one another about the impact that one one accounting professional has had over the other and that accounting professional being you. and so that i think is something that is part of this value based pricing. and i think that we shouldn’t stop with value based pricing. i think we should continue on with what should you do with that now, where should you take your practice now. and this also circles back to you could hire people who understand that that type of business that don’t yet have accounting experience, and it could still instantly add value to your firm, because they know maybe they did some sort of their dad’s a veterinarian and they grew up inside of veterinary office. and now your practice focuses on veterinarians. i suspect there’s something that they can offer a value, the day they start that isn’t accounting. and so that’s another area to start thinking about new talent and attracting talent is to be micro niched or at least niched. i know some people think it’s a curse word. but it’s i think it’s something that we could take value based pricing a step further and really have a different type of firm.
liz farr 12:19
all right, i agree with you there. you know, when i was in public accounting, i worked with a couple of microbreweries. but it was just one or two, and they were asking me questions, and asking for help. and i had no idea what solutions to ask to suggest to them. and so i ended up looking at other accountants who specialized in brew pubs and breweries, and asking them for advice. and honestly, some of these clients would have been better served going with the people that i was asking questions of, because i really didn’t know i really had no way to advise them on this stuff. so i do agree that if you specialize in in industry, that’s when the magic really happens. because then you can really get insights, you can look at a p&l or a balance sheet and see instantly where something is is not right. or something is strange or something is or someone is way outperforming everybody else, and you can find out what their secret sauce is. so yeah, i am all for micro niching micro niching, whatever you want to call it. i am, i am agnostic, i have friends from all over the world. so i don’t care.
twyla verhelst 14:04
that i was saying niching when i probably should have said niching. niche niche, tomato tomahto.
liz farr 14:12
it doesn’t care, it doesn’t matter. now, what about growth? do firms really need to grow? and are there different ways to grow?
twyla verhelst 14:27
well first say i think it’s important to answer your question as a firm owner answer your question do i need to grow and then and to really take advantage of what i consider right now as a market moment where we’re post-pandemic, mostly, post-pandemic but also heading into a recession. and so really giving thought to what matters to you. and what’s your why what’s your firm’s why? what’s your team’s why? because is it that you want do more of a certain type of work? is it that you want to have a better lifestyle for you and your team? is it that you actually want to grow revenue or number of clients? what does that look like? and as much as i absolutely love the community in the collaboration inside of this, this profession, in fact, it’s something that i believe has got us to the evolution evolutionary spot that we’re at and will continue to project us forward. i also don’t love that sometimes, sometimes, that makes us feel like, well, i’m striving for this, because i admire this firm owner or this firm, or this accountant. and that’s what i’m working towards, without being really intentional around. well, why is it that that’s what you’re working towards? and is that the right thing for you, or your stage of career or stage affirm, to be working towards. and so i think it’s getting 100% clear on what it is that you want, and being okay with it being different than the last time you might have done this check in, that’s okay, it’s okay to change that and to really be in a different spot than maybe when you started in this profession or as a firm owner. and if you get clear on this, then you’ll get clearer on well, what does growth look like? does that look like more clients? does that look like more revenue, which means our clients could could change but our, our revenue per client looks different, which means you need to either increase your prices or change up your service offering to do more work for each client. so i think it’s really being clear on what matters and where you’re going, and what you’re going to do to get it there. it’s easy to say i want to have an x million dollar practice without knowing well, why do you want that? and what is it that you’re going to do to get it there? and what type of practice are you going to build, or team are you going to create in order to support that. and if maybe where you’re at right now is 100%, where you want to be, and you just feel this pressure to grow? well recognize that take the moment to recognize that i’m actually really liking this size of firm this size of team this size of client base, because i know everyone’s name, we hear some people in our profession talking about that where you no longer know everyone’s client, every client’s name, or you know their business really well, because you’ve grown to a certain part point. and that makes you feel like you’re not contributing. and there’s a lot that comes with that growth. so if you love where you’re at right now, and it’s really working, well just get better at what you’re working on right now versus trying to strive for what’s next without intentionally knowing that that’s where you’re wanting to go.
liz farr 17:56
i agree with that. because i think that too many firms just try to get more clients in the door, without really thinking about how that extra business is going to impact their firm overall. is that something that they can really do a good job on? is it something that they want to do? other than just bringing in more dollars to the top line? is it going to be a profitable relationship? yeah, we need to be a little more intentional about what we’re doing in the firms that we’re building.
twyla verhelst 18:44
when i think as we’re thinking about, really trying to be a bit protective of some of our staff, where we’re trying to keep people in the profession and protect the protect the piece, per se is of our staff who maybe have are feeling burnt out or still feeling quite tired for the last few years. i believe it is easier on your team to do more work for the same clients than it is to bring a new client in the door. onboarding a client is stressful, and it’s this influx of work to get up to speed. in fact, sometimes clean up a client and even though you get paid for that cleanup, and in most cases, it’s still pressure on your existing staff to take on that work that has this kind of big hump that you get over. rather than inching up the the work that you’re doing with each client that they already know really well. they understand their business. they understand the flow of their data. they understand what kind of backup they give them, where they where they were that backup plans are not teaching them on new processes and new technology. it’s far easier to gain more from each client and add more value for that that increase of revenue than it is in my opinion to bring on new clients. to over and over. and so that’s where i think client experience can really matter in terms of keeping the client base. so you have an a increasing those services that you’re offering to that client so that you increase the value. and then typically, again, going back to marketing, when it is time to bring on a new client, often that can be a referral from your existing clients who tend to refer like clients, they’ll tend to refer almost like similar maintenance of client, another industry, you’re already working in. same sort of mindset around what matters from an accounting professional that helps with that onboarding. so you don’t onboard the client that nobody enjoys working with you. hopefully, when you do onboard, it’s the client that everybody likes working with, because it came as a referral from the client that everybody likes working with.
liz farr 20:48
those are all really good ideas. and i really like the emphasis on getting providing excellent client service. so that then those clients refer you more of the same. because that that just makes it easier. really does,
twyla verhelst 21:10
i believe it does. and i think it’s something that we often don’t think of it from a referral perspective, we think of client experience, from other elements in our workflow. but from referrals or marketing, we don’t necessarily have that at the forefront of how that matters. and the trickle effect of having good clients in the in the door with processes, your team, the onboarding experience, sometimes the clients who don’t go and well now you have to part ways 612 months into an engagement because it really was friction up front. so i think there’s a lot of value in efficiencies gained by by really finding those good clients. and from my experience, the best clients always came from referrals.
liz farr 21:52
that’s mostly been true and true with my experience, but not always. not always. but the better you get to know your clients, the better quality referrals you have. yeah, for sure, yeah. now, it used to be that to be successful, as an accountant, you had to carry around all the regulations in your head and the tax code, and you had to be really good with the 10 key. but technology is taking care of most of that. what are the skills that accountants need to be successful today, and in the future?
twyla verhelst 22:36
i’m giggling because you talked about the tanky. and just the other day, i was explaining to my staff what a tenki was. and i used to be so quick on the tanky and then gave me these funny looks. and i was like, okay, nevermind, i’m starting to date myself here. but that was our 10 key lesson of the day. but in terms of the skills that i think the accountant needs to be successful today, it’s changed. our our profession is changing. so of course, our skill set is very likely to change along with that, and i believe it has. that said, though, i also think it depends on what type of accountant you are. because although i’ve been talking about advisory services and doing more for each client, and i appreciate that’s not everybody’s journey, i mean, when you come to the moment of saying what do i want to build what i want to do, maybe you do land on, i love tax, and i really still want to keep doing tax, despite what all these people are saying to do other these other work, i want to do tax, well, there’s still a space for you in this profession. i think one, one skill set that it’d be hard to avoid is around technology. but even that, there’s a range of tech knowledge that you need to have inside of being an accountant or inside of the accounting profession. so if you’re going to focus on tax, and that that’s going to be your practice, your tech stack is likely a bit smaller than somebody who is doing advisory, who does need some of this other technology. or maybe you’re doing payroll or you’re doing hr advisor, like you’re really expanding that those service offerings, you probably are also expanding your tech stack. and so then you’re also potentially expanding the types of staff and types of clients that you’re working with and your engagements with them. communication tools matter. and so i think that technology is one that you can’t escape no matter where you land, but the depth of technical knowledge that you need around the tech or apps that you’re using, can vary. i think data analysis is something that is going to continue to be important, probably even more important. so whether that’s what’s the ability to what’s your ability to track data and analyze data and then interpret that data for your client. i think that that’s going to be a skill to continue to home. and then another one is that the relationship and the communication skills, if you’re going to do more of this advisory work, that almost matters, in some cases, more than your technical knowledge, mainly because you could check your technical knowledge. you know, if you’re like, i’m not sure on on the rules, or the regulations, or how we should treat this entry, or your clients probably don’t even care about that piece, they just don’t want to know that you’re handling it. instead, they’re buying their relationship with you or your firm. they’re buying that interpretation of data or financial insights. they’re buying that understanding or expertise that you bring to the table. and that’s where machine comes back into the conversation around their buying your experience with a veterinary service type client or a microbrewery? and what benchmark should i be looking for, and operationally, this isn’t flowing, right, or, they’re, they’re buying that. and so the more heavily you lean into advisory, i believe, the more that your communication and relationship, your business knowledge. so just getting in the mindset of being an entrepreneur, it’s stressful to be an entrepreneur. and if that isn’t something you’ve been heavily exposed to, either through your experience or through your, you know, your organic kind of influence, meaning like, in my example, my parents were entrepreneurs. so i knew how stressful it was, was to be an entrepreneur, and i can sit in the seat of an entrepreneur really quite easily, both from having been one and also growing up with them. and so that matters to that you can think about what sort of knowledge you can apply from an accounting perspective, and a business perspective, and then parlay that to an entrepreneur and speak their language. so there’s a number of key soft skills that i think weren’t really where we lead with the profession versus now depending on the type of practice that you intentionally want to have, and the types of services that you intentionally want to offer, then that impacts what types of skills are going to serve you best and serve your team best, if you’re going to have a big team, you better have some leadership skills, right? like, all of those matter, now in the profession, probably more than they ever have before, and will continue to matter, even as the tech changes, and our profession involves more the value is in the human element, and how you show up for your clients and your team, and your partners in business, etc.
liz farr 27:49
i agree, i think you bring up a good point of the need to have tech knowledge. but if you don’t, that doesn’t mean that you need to know every single app that’s out there. you know, a tax person probably won’t need as much as the bookkeeper who is working in a field where there are a lot of apps that do the heavy lifting, you know, an e commerce business will have much different need of technology expertise, then a restaurant. so you’ve got, and that speaks again, to the need for specialization, because you won’t know the best tech that’s for restaurants, and e commerce providers and furniture sellers and lawyers, you won’t know all of that unless you specialize. it’s really tough to do that.
twyla verhelst 29:01
yeah. and it’s also overwhelming, right? like if you, if you just take all the things i said you should be good at all these things. plus know your technical knowledge as much as possible. that’s a lot, right. that’s a lot to know, keep up on tech, especially things like rpa and machine learning and, and then tech isn’t set it and forget it, you got to be able to maintain it. and then you’re trying to make sure that your workflows are working correctly. now you got your team and now you’ve got these interpersonal skills. it’s a lot and so i think that’s also why really focusing on well what type of firm do you want to be? what types of clients do you want to serve? can you nish that helps kind of eliminate some of the different types of tech that you really need to embrace or at least embrace right now. this could also be the the argument for hiring some different roles. can you bring somebody into your firm who’s actually the tech wizard and now you can give them guidance on who you’re trying to sell, here’s the plethora of apps to start looking at, to find the one that’s going to solve the pain point and help with our workflow or support our client experience. so i think, i think, again, going back to know what it is that you’re trying to build inside of your firm or inside of the offerings that you’re providing. and then that helps you hone the skills that you need, or hire the skills that you don’t have. and to be sure that you’ve got those all those covered in order to support the growth that maybe you are trying to aspire to.
liz farr 30:33
yeah, yeah, i agree with the need to specialize and to be discerning about what it is you really need to know. now, speaking of that, we’ve talked a lot about the different things that accountants should do. but it’s easy to get overwhelmed. what are some things that accountants should stop doing immediately.
twyla verhelst 31:03
i feel like a dictator sharing this, but i’ll share it. should you stop doing stop doing that? honestly, i think that we should stop doing the work we don’t enjoy doing. and now i appreciate as an adult, or as a firm owner, or as somebody who’s running a book of business, there’ll be pieces of each day. that is some sort of task, that’s not your favorite. you do it anyway. but i also think that there’s work that you’re doing as an accountant that you don’t enjoy doing, and you’re not the one who should be doing it. and i think that sometimes we as accountants, maybe i can say i’m a self proclaimed control freak, at times, i don’t think i’m alone in that. and i think that we sometimes are just doing the work that we traditionally did, or that we feel like nobody else can handle. or we feel like this is what pays the bills, i’ve heard that before. it’s this work that pays the bills. but ultimately, if you’re not doing a lot of work that you enjoy, or a big chunk of your week, is not doing work that you enjoy, i believe that that’s going to impact your growth, not only your actual growth in your firm because of things like scaling. but as also with things like if you think that your staff or your clients can’t feel the fact that you are doing work that you really don’t enjoy doing your little bit night, because people give off energy. and i know that in your conversation with jeanne whitehouse, and previous episodes, she was talking about being a bit woowoo, because she said she had to fit that in from being from california, i probably don’t have that same excuse. but i do believe in the energy and the enthusiasm that you share when you’re doing work that you’re really passionate about, that you almost can’t control. that’s just part of your makeup when you’re doing work that you enjoy doing. and so i believe that indirectly or directly doing work that you don’t enjoy doing impacts your growth, not only does it do that, it hinders your mental growth. i mean, nobody wants to be bored all day long. if you’re doing work you don’t enjoy doing it can also feel boring. and that impacts your motivation and your excitement about getting up in the morning and excitement about the team that you’re building and the clients that you’re serving. and so i think that that’s one of the biggest things is look at everything that you’re doing to say, do i love doing this? does this actually get me excited about the work? yes or no? am i the only one who can do this work? and this is a challenge i’ve given myself this year with building a team, obviously in a different space than inside of a firm, but it still applies is am i the only one who could do this work? and if i’m not if i’m i’m not the only one who can do this work? why am i doing this work? maybe once i’ll give myself the excuse, but week after week, why am i doing this? and in fact, yeah, i’m probably hindering somebody else’s growth on my team by not passing this over to somebody who’s fully capable of doing this work. and then that nurtures their growth and their excitement to learn something new and contribute to the team. so whether it’s outsource, whether it’s a partner that you can divvy up some work with are some of those responsibilities of running a firm with whether it’s giving some work to your staff that might be actually getting bored in their work, or it’s hiring for something that you’re doing that you don’t enjoy doing, somebody else could support you with. just really look at your day to day and focus on things that you love doing and only you can do and i love that some of the profession is doing this after coming out of a pandemic or like life to short, i’m not doing this part anymore, and that they’re making those changes versus others are not necessarily making the change. and so i encourage everybody to start today was just looking at your calendar, like, is this work that only i should be doing? and do i get excited to do this? or do i dread this piece of the workflow or the week, and considers that an opportunity to change things up and give some of that work to somebody else making space for you to do work that only you can do or work that you actually really love doing?
liz farr 35:33
i agree with you there. and i would say that a big part of what forced me to flee the profession was that i got stuck doing a lot of work that i just couldn’t stand doing. and some of that was because i didn’t really know what i was doing. and perhaps if i had been trained a little better, i might have enjoyed going out on those audits more. but when i was the warm body, because they needed warm bodies to go out and get this big audit done. that wasn’t much fun for me. and so i would say to people who are maybe not firm owners or part of management, maybe that’s a sign that you need to move to a different place. and maybe it won’t even be an accounting firm. i know that there are a lot of tech firms, like fresh books, for example, that are hiring all kinds of accountants to do very, very different roles. so maybe it’s not accounting, maybe it’s not public accounting, maybe it’s not accounting and industry. but there are many, many other roles that we can perform as accountants.
twyla verhelst 37:01
yep, absolutely. and what you said there about going out to the audit firm, where you are, or going out to do an audit, where you were feeling like it was outside of your knowledge or outside of your experience or expertise. i recently read the book, atomic habits by james clear. and one of the things he shared at the end was the goldilocks rule, which is doing things that are not too hard, not too easy, but just right. and he described just right as 4%. beyond your ability, he also admitted that 4% is pretty tough to measure. but it’s still an interesting kind of thinking of four percents, really not that far. but yet, it’s also not doing the same thing day in and day out that it’s boring, but also not so far, like your experience with audit that you might have felt like i have no idea what i’m doing, and this is uncomfortable. and then that prompts you to not feel good about the work that you’re doing. whether that’s due to you feel like well, i’m not giving the quality, or i feel like i’m too slow, or i don’t have anyone to mentor me, whatever that felt like when you were doing work that wasn’t feeling like that was where you should be at with your skill set and where you’re at in your career. 4%. so i think that applies to individuals as you’re able to control your own work day to day or at least make changes to them day to day. if you’re management or firm owner, then that still applies to you. 4% are you 4% beyond your abilities, meaning that some part of your work is stretching you a little bit, but think of it for your staff to is some part of their work? are you stretching them a little bit. and then like you said, if you’re somebody who’s inside of a firm or inside of a role, where you don’t have the ability to change up the work that you’re doing granted, i will encourage you to ask i have team members now on my team that they asked me they say i want to do something kind of on the side of my desk that just gives me something different instead of the routine day to day. and i love that i love that they bring that to my attention, because otherwise i assume, well, they’re consumed by the work that they were hired to do, and don’t have space to do something else. so if that’s your case, i encourage you to say something now in the event that that doesn’t scratch the edge or get you to that spot. absolutely. that could be why you’re not feeling fulfilled in that role is because you’re not able to get to that spot of the just right feeling that goldilocks rule from that book. that’s not too hard. not too easy, just right, which means you’re actually slightly outside of your your current ability.
liz farr 39:34
i really like that idea of just pushing yourself a little beyond where you’re comfortable. and i would also recommend that any accountant who hasn’t read atomic habits, yeah. does she go out and read it? yeah. yeah, really? yes. now, accountants know that they need to make some changes. but what is it that is keeping them from making those changes? yeah,
twyla verhelst 40:09
i mean, the obvious roadblock is the change itself. it’s risky, it feels uncomfortable. it depending on where you’re at, if you’re you know, you’re running a firm and that firm is profitable, you might think, well, i don’t want to break something that’s not broken. even though i potentially can’t sustain this firm this way, whether that’s my own health or balance, or whether that’s my the churn of my staff are being able to scale the firm, but it’s still, you know, risk and change or thumps things that accountants, generally, broad stroke, generally we shy away from, it doesn’t feel comfortable. and it’s something that if you’ve got, if you’ve got income in the door, whether you’re running a firm or you’re actually in a seat in a role, you don’t necessarily want to disrupt that, in order to embrace something that may or may not serve you perfectly well, in the future, because there’s always the risk of change that it didn’t work. we tried it and it didn’t work, or it took longer to see the results from that change than we were expecting it to. so the number one thing that i think will help to combat this or to move that block on the way, honestly, is the collaboration. so i know i, i was down on it a bit earlier in our conversation to just make sure we’re not chasing something that was somebody else’s dream. but i do believe the collaboration, whether formal or informal, can really impact the the change and support that change management. so whether that seems like we’re seeing now in the profession, mergers and acquisitions, which can disperse some of that change, or it can absorb some of the potential hit in revenue by one division that you’re going to change while the rest of it supports, you know, your your ongoing business. or if you’re going to rework a part of your workflow or your tech stack, or you’re going to try to have people inside of the workflow who don’t know accounting at all, and you want to try that, if you’re a bit bigger, firm, that’s easier to do. because you can have the rest of your firm operating that business as usual as you have it today or had it yesterday. and you can kind of baby step into it without impacting everybody on the team. versus if you’ve got, say, a five person team. well, it’s challenging to do that, because each person on that team potentially works with different clients in different areas of their work. the other thing that is really interesting is outside of going in so far as a formalization, like a merger acquisition is things that i’m seeing happen in this space, which around community, and even mastermind groups where i’m seeing some firms come together where they’re not formally partnering together, but they’re actually getting into conversation. so in depth with one another around, i want to try this in my firm, and they’re trying together. so their learnings are happening faster, and they’re yielding results faster. and the management of that change on their selves, their staff or their clients is kind of the shared learning that they can really pull that information together and make it a better experience for everyone. i think that that’s something super powerful. so that if you’re not part of some sort of community, especially as a firm owner, where it can be really daunting to make a change and feel like nobody else has made this before. they haven’t told me what happened when they did make it to come together or some folks because you’d be surprised how often there’ll be others who are wanting to make a similar change. and you could really go through that together and, and support one another. and then the other thing i think this profession has gotten really, really good at is coaching and mentorship. sometimes the people who have gone through this change are so open to sharing their experience. and heck, don’t do this when i tried that we did this and it was a disaster. and i would do this different. it’s amazing how much just a bit of outreach, or again, having that community and you get to know somebody through the community. they loved and share this scart scarcity. scarcity mentality is starting to disperse. and this collaboration that’s an intern coming up as a result of that is so powerful. so the last thing that we want to see people do is trying to consider trend change and then think it’s too overwhelming or too risky because i’m doing it alone. but meanwhile, you don’t necessarily need to be doing it alone. if you start to lean into your network and find some other people inside of a formal or informal community who are either going to go through the same time so you could have a shared learning or have already gone through something similar. and you could take that knowledge from them that they’re usually really open to sharing and apply not so that you get to your results, and you manage the change efficiently and exponentially.
liz farr 45:14
i think the power of mentorship and community cannot be overstated. that was something that really helped me when i was starting out as a writer is finding a community of other people. and we’re starting out as freelance writers like myself, and figuring out how, how do we find new clients? how do we talk to them about money? how do we negotiate fees? how do we get retainers? how do we do this? how do i raise my fees? and should i fire this client because they’re mistreating me? that’s really powerful. and i’m so happy to see so many groups like accounting salon, and like jason bloomers group, thrival. and similarly, and ryan was anuses group, i’m so glad to see all of those different groups coming together to help firm owners and firm leaders grow together. i think that’s really wonderful.
twyla verhelst 46:28
yeah, i agree. i think that’s part of what’s going to lead us into this next evolution of the profession is that collaboration, and then those groups that facilitate that collaboration, for for for leaders, and those who are wanting to make change, but don’t even feel comfortable doing it alone, which is most of us. nobody wants to go through anything alone, really in human life. and so that that puts people together who are like minded and can really come together and collaborate on those changes.
liz farr 46:59
yeah. now, these days, client accounting services, client advisory services, cast casts, that’s the big thing right now. what do you foresee is the next big thing and accounting?
twyla verhelst 47:16
the crystal ball? truthfully, i wish i knew, but i think there’s there’s kind of two things that i’m seeing happening, which we’ve already alluded to them, but i’ll restate some of them already, which is around versus around micronation. some of the elements that i think are going to push some of these firms towards towards micronesian isn’t just the things that we already talked about. but it’s also offering broader services. so i’d almost call them like business advisory services, instead of our more traditional thinking of cast, which opens up things like hr advisory, which we touched upon a few moments ago, marketing advisory, operational advisory, it services. and the reason that i think that this could happen is with the micro niching down, you’re going to get to know these businesses so well that it’s going to almost be hard not to start to expand your services. because when i’ve been an advisor, my best roles as being an advisor are the times when my clients would then ask me about things that were nowhere near the inside of our engagement. but that was showing how much they trusted me how much they viewed me as a partner, and how much opportunity there was, for me to go deeper with the work that i was doing for them or our team was doing for them with, again, not having to find new clients, and that they would change, we would change up the scope of their work and their engagement as a result of that. i also think though, the reason that there could be a push to this is it means that you can scale and grow, assuming you want to intentionally scale and grow without it having to always be accounting talent that you find. so if you expand on to things like hr advisory, well, now you could find an hr professional, not saying accountants can’t be our hr advisors because they can and i think gussto is doing a good job of teaching us about that. but if you want to lean into it even more, why wouldn’t you bring on somebody from hr or having that sort of experience with talent or recruiting or maintaining teams, or marketing or it like these are different, completely different areas of expertise that could help you expand your service offering and grow your firm without counting on always being accounting students or those that want to pursue accounting as fueling, you know, your talent pool in order to provide the services so i think that’s one i think the other is could be could be micro casts now hear me out. this one i haven’t haven’t seen this tested fully. but i’ve seen people dip their toe into it. and if i gave you the one of my secrets it’d be if i wasn’t working with fresh books, i would test this to the nines is that because of if we go back to do the work that you really love doing. so if you’re a smaller shop, and you’re wanting to still support small businesses and have impactful work, but you recognize that, there’s really only one piece of the workflow that you absolutely love and get lit up about, and the rest of it you and your team have to do, and nobody really enjoys doing it? well, if we go back to the idea of collaboration, what if it took two to three professionals per business, to support them in all of that accounting or cas through to filing a tax return work. and so if you think about then, different types of accounting professionals working in in collaboration, where there’s at different stages, whether it’s each quarter annually, there’s there’s almost as gentle handoff of okay, it’s time to start prepping for your tax return the now the tax professional that i’m working with, because i don’t enjoy tax. so if i was doing this, i would not do tax returns, i would say, that does not give me joy that does not light me up, i enjoy the advisory the operational day to day advisory. so i’ll do that all year long. and then i’ll make sure that i’m maybe an a bookkeeping firm does really do good quality bookkeeping, so i can advise, and then when it comes time for tax return, then that handoff is seamless. this is a well informed, financially educated, i’m using air quotes, because i’m the one who’s educating them as the advisor. but i’d like to think they’re financially more savvy than somebody who didn’t have me in their in their corner. and so the bookkeeping is quality, because i’m watching that every month, i’m providing advisor services on a day to day basis, or week to week, month to month. and now when it comes down to the tax return, all the ducks are in a row. and this tax professional loves working with us because we’ve got a financially savvy professional, that also has clean quality data all in one place from the bookkeeper that i loved working with. and now the tax return becomes a very efficient process. and there could be some overlap of some advisor there around how we can do some tax planning. okay, we need to set aside some money. and we’ll work that into our advisory plan. now we start the next year with. so i think that this is a model that i’d love to see tested. because if we go back to trying to attract talent to the profession, trying to keep the people in the profession, instead of having them come out because of burnout, or doing too much work that they don’t love, or it’s boring, then this could be another one, those creative ways of collaborating, providing a really great client experience are all pieces of that. that’s that workload without it having to be you who does all of it and tries to do all of it really well.
liz farr 52:59
i think so i, you know, it made me a little crazy in public accounting to try and do everything. because i was called on to do so many different things. but i do think that your idea of the micro cows, i think that is a brilliant idea.
twyla verhelst 53:25
maybe one of our listeners will test it out truly, because like i said, i with my full time work and put some other my other side hustles. it hasn’t happened. but i’ve seen some people exploring it and starting to do at least two of them together. i’m seeing the bookkeeping and the tax and there being better collaboration across those people. but i think the advisor in the middle is something that i’m not seeing as as much. but i think there’s space for it. because there’s bookkeepers who don’t want to do advisory. there’s tax professionals who they love doing that piece of it. they in fact, when it’s their offseason, they want to try to make up for the overtime that they worked countless hours in other months, that they don’t want to have to do ongoing work versus the advisor perhaps isn’t like myself, i don’t enjoy tax and didn’t want to do tax or even though i was a designated accountant. so i think it could be an interesting piece as well as and if you’ve got somebody who’s like that hr people advisory type person in that group, i think it would be really, really interesting to see that that level of collaboration, and then impact of a client experience on that.
liz farr 54:35
and it’s the client experience that really is foremost. and i think that’s the perfect note to end our conversation on. thank you so much twyla for agreeing to talk to me. now if listeners want to connect with you where the best places to find you.
twyla verhelst 54:56
truly, the best places to find me are on twitter and linkedin those are my two preferred platforms. you’ll see me have radar coming in and out of instagram and facebook, but you’ll see me on twitter at twila verhelst and linkedin just searching my name tyler verhelst.