we need the machines to do as much of this as we can.
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the disruptors
with liz farr
when scott scarano lost a few good people at his firm, he had an epiphany that he needed to change things. instead of continuing to grow for the sake of growth, he overhauled his management approach.
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“and things are better now at the firm, because we’re not focused on growth,” but instead on “growing everybody,” including himself, scarano said. by building better habits and finding better ways to do things, his team is growing its bottom line, and a few of the people who left earlier have now returned. “that’s the growth i like to see.”
under the eos plan (short for entrepreneurial operating system), the person at the top is the visionary, and since they started using eos about six years ago, “it was always, how do we get scott to be just the visionary, even out of sales, even out of everything? and that happened this year. i’ve not really been involved in the firm at all this year.” that is, he said, not much compared to the years when he was working 80 hours, doing everything from preparing and reviewing tax returns, and “being the bottleneck for everything at the firm.”
breaking out of that required trusting his team. “giving up control is the hardest,” scarano admitted. “and it took like an epiphany of, ‘i trust them. and the clients trust them. and i’ve got to listen to that.’ because the clients loved the team that they were working with, right, and they could make mistakes. i think everybody could be afforded a few mistakes. if you know, that’s how they learn. that’s how anybody learns anything. and you’ve got to let them make mistakes in order to learn.”
learning also means being willing to do new, uncomfortable things. when scarano told his team they were going to do loom videos to go over returns with clients they couldn’t meet with, they hated the idea. but as they did it more, they got comfortable with it, and everyone loves it, especially the clients. “it’s unlocked a lot at our firm. and it was something just as simple as that making them do something they’re uncomfortable doing.”
to really impact your clients and become a better leader, scarano recommends first looking inward and figuring out how you want to grow as a person. figure out what your goals and your purpose are. then turn that outward to your team, then to your clients. “you have to focus on yourself, then your employees and your team, and then the clients. i think that’s how that hierarchy should go for any kind of person that wants to become a better leader, and a better business, a better cpa firm.”
11 more takeaways from scott scarano
- it’s easy to start a firm today, so many young people today are entering accounting to start their own jobs that they work for themselves.
- no matter how you structure your firm, you have to have somebody at the top to make decisions. nothing ever gets done if you have five partners at the top all with equal decision-making power.
- growth for the sake of growth has no substance. you don’t even make that much more money when you grow. there’s no point in growth unless it’s for a purpose. otherwise, you churn employees, you churn clients, and you churn everything. attrition tends to keep everything pretty much the same.
- instead of asking employees what role they want, ask them what they want out of life and out of work. find ways to align the goals of your company with your team members’ ultimate life goals.
- we get younger people into the profession by tapping into their desires and who they want to help. we all want to make money, but helping people is what gives us fulfillment as humans.
- lack of communication breaks client relationships. but it’s not email communication – it’s having relationships with clients, meeting with them, and asking questions.
- one in 10 people has the magic touch where they can do the work and manage the client relationship. if we can eliminate 90% of the work with technology or outsourcing, we only need that one person.
- many accountants freeze up because they don’t know all the answers, so they’re afraid to talk to people. but there’s power in asking questions when you don’t know the answer.
- tracking your time can give you the data you need for forecasting and capacity planning. doing this helped scarano and his team make the changes to improve margins and resolve capacity issues.
- after you automate everything, finding ways to fill that freed-up time with purpose becomes the challenge. filling it with extra work isn’t the answer.
- the pains of change are greater than the pains of the present, and the outcome of the change isn’t guaranteed. this keeps many firms from changing because the present is not that bad: they’re making money, they have clients and enough work, and they have employees to do the work.
more about scott scarano 
scott scarano is an eccentric entrepreneur with the heart of a lion and the soul of a housecat. aside from owning a successful accounting firm, scott is also the rapping custodian at accounting high. scott scarano’s mission at accounting high is to equip accounting professionals with entertaining education that supports them in establishing practice models where they find freedom and purpose. he loves approaching problems from a different perspective and analyzing solutions—his “why” is empowering all growth-minded entrepreneurs to thrive and prosper. scott did the school thing and has the credentials, but his real value comes from his questioning mind and ability to push through any adversity. scott lives in raleigh, bleeds carolina blue, and dedicates himself to his astonishing wife, juana, and their three surprisingly intelligent kids julia, frankie, and arya.
transcript
(transcripts are made available as soon as possible. they are not fully edited for grammar or spelling.)
liz farr
welcome to accounting disrupter conversations. i’m liz farr from cpa trend lines. my guest today is scott scarano. president of paget nc podcaster. at accounting high and amateur rapper. how are you today? scott? good. good. it’s friday. yeah, you gave me your your, your signature piece sign. for all those who just listen and don’t see the video. i always love seeing that makes me happy whenever i see scott and his piece on.
scott scarano
awesome. well, i got to do that you got to do something like recognizable, right? my parents don’t like it’s too much for my kids do it now, too. so waiting for a picture where my parents are doing it with us. that’ll be dope.
liz farr
well, you know, i may, they may think that it’s a little bit too too edgy. but, you know, it’s a peace sign that could be better than that. peace and love and happiness, right? perfect. perfect. well, let’s jump in. because i know that you’ve got a lot to say about all these questions i’m gonna ask him.
scott scarano
usually, you have a lot to say, regardless of the topic.
liz farr
this is true. now accounting talent in the us and around the world has been scarce for years covid made it worse. what are your ideas on how to make things better?
scott scarano
well, you got to appeal to the younger generation, because that’s the pipeline. and how do you do that? you got to speak their language. and i really like, honestly, i don’t have i don’t have the foresight to be able to see what’s to come or what what young people even like, i know that what i’m trying to do at least with, with accounting hi, and with anything else that i’m doing is trying to appeal to younger generation, because that’s in my mind that the only way that you can get their attention is to appeal to what they like, what they do, you know, whether they’re watering watering holes, it used to be where people went into accounting, and they figured out through the job fairs, you know, and the big four are heavy in there. i mean, even at colleges, that’s all anybody sees is the big four. you know, what if there were some marketing, you know, what if there ways to market for smaller firms, and they could collectively market to the younger generation to and seem a little bit more hip and cool, not without trying too hard? i mean, obviously, you know, they can see right through it, if it’s just a guy with a suit that puts a hat on. i mean, it’s kind of like what i’m doing right now. right? like, in some ways it might seem i don’t know. i mean, that’s appealing to younger generation is something that i think that a lot of people talk about. and i don’t know if they do, because you got to talk to that generation, too. i mean, i have, i have a daughter, i know what she likes. and it’s not that much different than what i liked at that age to and what i was drawn to, and a lot of its money. and this is a very safe, stable profession to go into if you want to make money. so what are some other ways that we can attract them into this? besides the fact i mean, and there’s a lot of different paths to in this. i’m selfishly looking at it in the sense that how do i fill the pipeline for employees for my firm? and how, what’s an easier way to get younger employees in the door and attract to this because we can’t put job ads up anymore and find anybody nobody’s even know. nobody’s replying to job ads anymore. like they used to 2016 we used to have too much that we couldn’t even sift through all of them. now, it’s like nothing. so wow. there’s a little rambley answer. i don’t know. i don’t know how i feel about about all this. right now. i’m waiting to kind of see how things shake out. because you got people migrating to different professions or people just not working at all anymore. people that are trying to find their calling and go back and do do their passion. they may find out that they can’t make money on their passion. so then they go back to work. a lot of people are starting their own firms, and they don’t need to work for somebody else. because it’s that easy to start a firm. now, these days. you got a lot of solo practitioners that are basically starting their own jobs. not really starting businesses, but they’re starting a job that they work for themselves, and they’ve just got their clients and they start building a client base. they get a couple cloud software packages work out of their house. start doing taxes and bookkeeping.
liz farr
so yeah, i unlike your emphasis on appealing to the younger generation, i mean, i’m old enough to be your mom’s got in. i never heard sometimes, too.
scott scarano
yeah, you told me as possible way best possible way. well, thanks. so did that the first day we met. but
liz farr
yeah, but, you know, when i was in public accounting, there wasn’t any sense of the need to appeal to a younger generation. because back when i was doing public accounting, it was just well, this is what the job beings and this is what it mean, this is what you do. you know, you you wear these uncomfortable professional clothes, which for women meant pantyhose and sometimes heels. and you paid a lot of attention to your personal grooming, and you worked long hours, and you had high dry cleaning bills for sitting in in an office somewhere not really even seeing anybody
scott scarano
in my mind. so it has changed a lot. yeah, then. i mean, yeah, these days, firms don’t even make you go in. i mean, i don’t even have an office anymore. we used to have an office, you know, and when we did have an office, we didn’t have a dress code or anything. and we didn’t have any of these. but that’s also because i’m part of that next generation, right? i’m an elder millennial, right? and i’ve sort of bridged that whole gap of, you know, boomer and gen x, and then millennial gen z. i’m sort of like, right in the middle there. so yeah, i, you know, i always forget how i’m not gonna say how bad things were, but how rigid they used to be, and how people would just, you know, still find their way into the profession. and it’s amazing how many people stuck with, you know, with that, like 80 hour, weeks, 60 hour, weeks, whatever that might be. dry cleaning, like, i’ve never been to the dry cleaner twice in my life, for no suit for funeral or something like that.
liz farr
yeah, yeah, well, they had a dry cleaner and come by the office and pick up your stuff and then drop it off, and you write a check.
scott scarano
i mean, to give you a reason behind all that at first, but at some point, it just kind of faded, there are people that still go to the dry cleaner all the time, and then go to the office, we were talking about this at thanksgiving, just how like, first, we were trying to figure out what they do at the dry cleaner. like what happens behind they just put chemicals on the ship like language. so
liz farr
it’s, it’s kind of a a tumbler, i think, where they put in, it’s not water, but it’s some kind of solvents. and just kind of works its way through. i’m not exactly sure what it is. but maybe, maybe, yeah, maybe we can find somebody, an accountant who specializes in dry cleaners,
scott scarano
i would like to see the trends over time of dry cleaners, how busy they are, in the past, like, you know, some well established dry cleaners and what their trends are, because i’ll bet they’re seeing a downturn to
liz farr
i bet they are. i’m sure they’re now until recently, the business model for accounting firms had not changed much for decades. but these days, thank god, we’re seeing people move away from the billable hour. and they’re getting away from those strictly pyramidal. org charts. and i think that you have that, as well as at your firm, you don’t have the partner at the top and then then the managers and then people, your job titles suit have to do with what they do. it’s a little more what they do, rather than the position that they’ve risen to in your organization.
scott scarano
yeah, so we started doing eos maybe six years ago. and fortunately, like in the beginning, at the firm, it’s it’s a pretty small firm, it was just me and the owner when i first started, it’s part of the padgett network. and that’s, you know, that had a lot of foundational systems in place that allowed me to do things differently than the rest of the profession. and i didn’t really know it at the time. i mean, we were never billing hourly, everything was fixed fee, i think was priced upfront. everything had a standard process procedure. so that i took for granted almost in the beginning and then built the firm off of those systems. then about six years ago, like i said, we found eos started doing that and then we built the firm to model any other traditional business at a regular business model where you have, instead of the partner at the top, you have visionary at the top, and then you have the integrator below them. and that partnership, that co ceo type relationship where you’ve got an operations, we call it operations manager, whatever you want to call the integrator. and, you know, i call myself the president or ceo. visionary is basically what our where i sit right now. and then we have our accountability chart where all the roles at the firm are determined by what who’s accountable for that. and who’s accountable for everybody below them. at the end of the day, it still looks very much like looks similar. if you look at like just boxes of what you just described, and how we do i mean, still all look similar, you still have to have somebody at the top making decisions. right? right. because nothing ever gets done. if you have five partners at the top all with equal decision making? oh, no, nothing happens. yeah. so at the very least, you know, you’ve got some form of steering, you know, somebody steering the ship, and taking it in the right direction. and i guess some of your other questions, we’ll talk about what that means, like, is it growth? is it bottom line is what what are the goals? what direction are you going in, but it’s easier to do that, if everybody’s on the same page and rowing in that same direction, and you need a captain, almost to take everybody in that direction. so i think that really changed our firm altogether. and my goal was always to get out of all the other seats. so since we started, eos, it was always how do we how do we get scott to be just the visionary, even out of sales, even out of everything? and that happened this year? i’ve not done? i’ve not really been involved in the firm at all this year. so, you know, to kind of answer your question, i mean, i take it for granted where i’m at, i don’t really take it for granted. but i kind of like, i make jokes, like, i didn’t do anything this year, because i’m comparing it to the years that i was working 80 hours, you know, doing tax returns, reviewing tax returns, being the bottleneck for everything at the firm. all right, handling, sales, handling, day jar type stuff, the admin stuff, anything that came at me, it was just always, a couple of nights a week, i would work almost all night, you know, just to get everything done. so i don’t take it for granted. but now it’s like, see sitting in that seat, and i feel like i can use my powers for good, right, i can help other people figure that out and get there. but yeah, and have a bigger impact on the industry and help out. help help people move in that direction. i mean, i think eos is a great model, because it takes all the best of all the other business models and kind of created the system. so that’s why it’s an entrepreneurial operating system. for entrepreneurs, of any size. i mean, if you if you have only three people, you can start working your way toward that.
liz farr
so and listening to you know, i’ve worked at firms where the partners, were doing exactly what you used to do, you know, they do they were doing it all. but they’re still doing it all because they’re afraid or reluctant to give up any kind of control. and so what was it? what was it that helped you break out of that trust?
scott scarano
so giving up control is the hardest. and i’m having trouble doing that i had trouble doing that with my podcast giving up control of the editing process. that’s what is the big bottleneck. now in the podcast, i’ve got a bunch of episodes recorded, not released. because i’m the bottleneck to release anything i’ve not i haven’t given up control. that’s basically the model of what i was doing at the firm. i couldn’t give up control over the review, i couldn’t give him control of looking over the work or how everybody was doing what they were doing. and poking my fingers in there and looking at every detail. and it took like an epiphany of, i trust them. and the clients trust them. and i gotta listen to that. because the clients loved the team that they were working with, right, and they could make mistakes. i think everybody could be afforded a few mistakes. if you know, that’s how they learn. that’s how anybody learns anything. and you’ve got to let them make mistakes in order to learn. and i never really did that. sometimes i would just clean the shit up behind him and then not have the time to review it with them too. i mean, i was never just, i was way too controlling. and giving up that control was probably the hardest thing for me to do in that whole journey of letting you know getting on the other side of that i feel like on the other side of it now. and it’s because i trust them and i trust them with everything what they tell me. i trust them because they tell me how it is to and i’ve allowed them to be there. i’ve allowed them to speak to me freely to without any regard of my feelings or any hierarchy all type of, but i have a management team that basically tells me how it is all the time. and that’s why i trust them, because they’re going to tell me the good, the bad and the ugly of everything. and even if i don’t want to hear it, so
liz farr
yeah, and you just brought up an important point, that trust has to be two ways. yeah, you’ve got to trust your team, and they’ve got to trust you.
scott scarano
yes. and it’s, it’s not just lip service, either.
liz farr
yeah, it’s not just lip service. it’s it’s actual, genuine listening, and then demonstrating that you heard by doing something about it.
scott scarano
actions always speak louder than words, you know, you could have all this, these posters on the wall of things that you should be doing. and if you’re not actually living it, and doing it, none of those words matter. if you say you’re gonna do something, right, you don’t actually do it. that’s where you lose trust. and you could talk till you’re blue in the face. and if you’re not actually doing it, you’re never gonna get any results. and i think that’s where people kind of go blind is they think they’re talking about something, they talk it to death, and they don’t actually do it. so they don’t see any results.
liz farr
yeah, and that that’s a lot of what drove me out of public accounting, and the firm’s that i was out that, that i just honestly couldn’t trust the people at the top to actually act on what i was telling them. and to actually change their ways. and adapt. i just didn’t see any of that, because they they were locked into the old boomer model. you know, this is, this is how you operate an accounting firm. and i’m not going to look anywhere outside this little box. yeah. yeah.
scott scarano
but yeah, so hard to break that too. like, when i think of boomer model, i think of older white male, right. and at some point, i’m going to be that older white male, so i can’t really think of that stereotype to fit. but that’s, that’s like the, that’s what we’re all trying to fight against is, at least when i speak all, like this younger generation, we’re trying to fight against becoming that. and i think a lot of that’s driven by the comfort of that money affords to and they’re, they’ve grown and built, they want to protect that. they don’t want to let that go. so why would they want to change? you know, i used to say this a lot on the podcast, it was, you know, fraught by money and inertia, right? like, there’s no desire for them to change their ways, or change how they’re doing it. so they’re gonna have to just basically retire out for anything to really change across these terms. and the next generation may end up still protecting that too, because they’re making it afforded to do that they’re making a lot of money. and the only thing that’s going to end up forcing the change, is this pipeline, drying up and not being able to hire people. and eventually, their businesses are going to go under, or continue to get gobbled up by the larger ones. and the larger ones eventually adapt, you know, so i don’t know, i’m getting dark there, but kind of what you triggered when he said that whole,
liz farr
but that that is all too true. you know, i’ve been talking to a lot of other people for years. and they and a universal thread i’ve heard is that the reason why a lot of firm owners won’t change one of the older generation leaders won’t change is because they’re making really good money as it is. so why would they want to change that?
scott scarano
there’s no incentive to change if you’re making money, and you’re making that, that kind of money and, and it’s still like, that whole model of, you’ve got a lot of employees that are reinforcing that two that are basically, you know, like gonna say stockholm syndrome, but they’re positively reinforcing that through their actions to and through the way they are. and they’re just continuing to do do do and do what they’re told. and they stay within that system. and they don’t question it. they don’t question there on reality, or that things could be better on the other side, because they don’t want to change either. so you got a lot of employees that probably are, you know, afforded the lifestyle they want and they just put up with work, right? like they’re getting paid enough. but at the partner level, yeah, they’re making a killing. why would they change? i’m not even advocating they do. i’m just saying that this is a problem.
liz farr
this is this is all too true. now now what about growth. do two firms really even need to grow?
scott scarano
growth is for your ego? i think, yeah, you don’t even make that much more money when you grow. i grew like crazy, because i thought that was the way i thought that was the way you got to grow your firm to a million and i did everything, i could round it up to a million, we hit a million about around 2016. and didn’t take that long, maybe four years to do it. and then that’s when i hit the ceiling. like, i didn’t know i hit a ceiling. but that’s when we found eos. and that’s when things really changed. because growth for the sake of growth, there’s no like, there’s no substance, there’s no, you know, what’s the next thing, what’s the next thing that we get to hit? next goal. and simon sinek talks a lot about this and infinite game, you know, and a lot of us that, you know, this has just become part of my mindset now is there’s really no point in the growth unless it’s for purpose. so, right at some point that, you know, we changed everything i got stuck trying to grow because you churn employees, you turn clients turn everything, and it doesn’t really there’s the attrition just kind of keeps things still, if you’re just trying to grow. and then you need some, you know, i needed some epiphany, i needed some way out of that. and it took me losing some good people. i had some people leave, and then come back after we changed certain things too. and things are better now at the firm, because we’re not focused on growth, i was focused on growing everybody, personally at growing as people growing as like, you know, forming better habits and doing better things bettering themselves and growing as people because i’ve grown as a person over the past few years, and growing our bottom line, that’s growth that i like to see. so growing our margins and figuring out ways we can do things better, to make more money. but what does that mean, that’s that should mean that they’re making more money, too. everybody should be sharing in that growth. so that’s kind of what i think i don’t i don’t really see growth, for the sake of growth. i think, you know, everybody should look inward first and figure out how they want to grow as a person, and then turn that outward and figure out how they can help others around them, too. i know that sounds very, you know, too altruistic, but grow ways that you can still make more money profitably and still be very profitable in what you’re doing, and succeed to afford other luxuries that you might like, you know, i’ve never never against money, but you got to do it the right way.
liz farr
yeah, you know, your talk about growing personally, takes me to one of my other clients, i do a lot of work with mike whitmire, who’s the ceo of a tech company, they make software for controllers. now he’s cpa himself. and he talks about leadership as being willing and being motivated to help your team become better as human beings. not just trying to get them to do what you want them to. but to become better themselves. and i think that’s, that’s a key thing that too many leaders just ignore?
scott scarano
yeah, where they don’t understand it. they don’t understand how much it’s going to help them and their business, if they can help their employees become more well rounded humans and figure out what do they really desire? they desire freedom, like, what does money afford them? does money afford them more freedom? or more luxuries? you know, if it’s if it’s more luxuries and more stuff, then you still become a slave to that money. i mean, i think that ultimately, people have to figure out what they want, and what their desires are. and i think that’s, that’s usually where we start with employees is asking them, what do they want out of this? you know, not not what role do they want? not what title do they want or anything, but what do they want out of life? what’s their ultimate end game? and a lot of people don’t ever ask themselves that too. and once they start really thinking about it, then they start questioning, you know, what a lot of their choices and figuring out how they can grow as people. and then that’s really where your vision start to align. and that’s really where you start to align. and i can’t keep referencing enough dave barrett’s episode on our show, because he talks a lot about this and talks a lot about how their company, you know, aligns with people’s ultimate life goals, to when they hire somebody, they want to know what would you do with your life if you had an unlimited amount of money? and they’re looking for the answers of how can people still better themselves working for the company and how do they work together to achieve a common goal to and that’s inspiring. i thought that was really cool.
liz farr
that’s, that’s a really different approach to looking for team members, rather than what is it that you think you can do for me as the executive? but what is it that would bring the most joy in your life? what can we do together? yes, what? what is it that we can create together?
scott scarano
because it’s not just, what can i do for you? or what can you do for me, it’s got to be together. and that’s how everybody continues to drive forward. if it’s, if it’s what can i do for you, then i’m gonna get worn down to, if i’m just doing something for the employees and just making their lives better, and they’re not making my life better, then i’m gonna get worn down, and i’m gonna get burned out. so yeah, it’s got to be both ways. what can you do for me? what can i do for you? what can we do for each other?
liz farr
yeah, and also, what can we do for our clients to make their lives better, because if you’re just doing cranking out the basics, then you know, you’re, you’re solving a pain point. but you may not necessarily be making their lives better.
scott scarano
i love that you said that, too. like, that just kind of came up recently with me is, how are we really impacting our clients like, first, you have to look inward, first, you have to focus on yourself, then your employees and your team, and then declines. i think that’s how that hierarchy should go for any kind of person that wants to become a better leader, and a better business better cpa firm. start with yourself, figure out what you want, figure out what your goals are purpose, and your team, then your clients. and that’s really where you’re going to see some magic happen. because that’s where you can really dive into, we could talk about niches and you know, verticals, niche, whatever you wanna say, you know, that’s where you can really start to align everything. if you can find industries that you want to impact, and clients that you want to help. we have the keys to the kingdom, we see their financials, we see everything, you know, if we’re just using that to fill out forms and fill out tax returns and give them financials and not actually help them do anything. and we’re not doing our jobs, and we’re not using our powers for good.
liz farr
absolutely, you know, i had so many experiences in public accounting, where we could have done so much more for a client who was really in a dark place. but it just felt kind of cavalier. oh, well, you know, joe smith wants to sell his business for a million dollars. and that’s his sole retirement plan.
scott scarano
and, well, he’s not ever gonna get anywhere close to a million dollars for they’re not gonna sell it because it’s his, he is the business, right? if that’s the situation you’re in, he’s, he’s controlling everything. and then people can start to see themselves and their clients to like, wait, i was just, i used to be like that. and i wouldn’t have been able to sell my business if i was the one working 80 hours a week touching everything, right? you know, because that’s not sustainable. you can’t step away from that. and when we see that, and we have, it’s almost like, we used to see that in clients, we would have that same like mindset of oh, wow, that that sucks like that. that’s what they think is gonna happen. not we can help them. but like, that’s terrible situation they’re in and almost like, have pity on it. and now it’s like, how do we how can we get them to where we’re at? and help them? what are some some ways we can do that. and i think that’s, that’s our next step in the process of at our firm, because, honestly, i haven’t even done that. so that’s why i like that. you mentioned that because that’s our next phase is figuring out our niche, figuring out the clients that we can really impact and the ones who can really help and go deeper with them. because i haven’t even done that we’re still doing surface level, just books, taxes, write up for, you know, cash basis, write up for the tax return all year. and it’s a machine, you know, we’re, we got a good operation, but now it’s time to start impacting clients too.
liz farr
yeah, because there’s so much you can do when you have all that data. you can have really a great impact on somebody’s life. if you say, well, if you don’t just stop at well, that’s a terrible situation they’re in. but then think, well, what can we do to help them get out of that situation?
scott scarano
and i think that’s really how you also get younger people into the profession because you, you tap into their desires and who they want to help. and you start molding a practice around that and then attracting them that way. like how can you have an impact you’re good with numbers, how can you have an impact on these businesses that you care about to and these business owners that you care about? and, and that’s really what drives people at the end of the day is helping others, whether we like it or not, we all want to make money. but when we’re helping people, that’s really what gives us fulfillment as humans, i, i always feel that as much as i go into my, you know, this tunnel in on making this money and doing this, and this is never fulfillment. after that, it’s always just, what’s the next thing to buy? what’s the next thing to do? what’s the next iphone that comes out all that when you turn that outward, all of a sudden, you start, you know, really seeing what happiness could look like to so.
liz farr
and happiness isn’t just more dollars in the bank.
scott scarano
never, never is money doesn’t make you happy. and everybody says that. it’s not until you have enough money that you really can know that. and it took me a while to get there. but yeah, i feel like.
liz farr
now, it used to be that to be good as an accountant, you had to be really good with a 10 key. and years ago, we had to practically keep the irs code in our hands. but computers have changed that. and automation has changed a lot of that also, what are the skills that accountants need to be successful in the future?
scott scarano
i’m not gonna say soft skills, because i don’t like that word. i think we need to be better humans and form better relationships and communicate better. and that’s hard for accountants, a lot of them aren’t the best communicators. and that’s what really, that’s what really breaks a client relationship. and that’s why clients leave is because the lack of communication, and it’s not email, email is not the answer to any of this stuff. i hate email. i know we can’t live without it. these days, everybody lives in their email. i’m trying to figure out what a world without email looks like. and for me, it’s been hard this year, i haven’t used my email. but i’m going to talk about communication. but i just wanted to bring that caveat that it’s not just email communication, it’s having relationships with clients, it’s meeting with them. and it’s asking them questions, it’s talking to them, we can do our jobs. but our we’re going to our like, i think part of the answer is we won’t need as many people helping us do a lot of the work because that’s what the machines are doing. so the pipeline may not matter as much. if you can find the right people with the right skill sets, that’s usually one in every 10 people has that magic touch where they can do the work, but also manage the relationship with the client. and if we can eliminate 90% of the work, then all we need is that one out of every 10 anyway. and having somebody guide and manage a client relationship. i mean, our firm has drastically changed. i didn’t talk about details. but you know, we just have 12 people here in the states, now we have six, and we have four people in the philippines. and we have the six, you know, we really only have four client facing client people. now, it used to be a lot more. but that’s all we need, because they can manage the relationships. and then they have, we have machines we have, you know, when i say machines doing the work, we’ve got a lot of automation set up, we’ve got a lot of tech that we’re using. but we also have a lot of the low level work being done in the philippines. and that’s they’re part of our team too. you know, i don’t say out throughout like they are they’re in our team meetings, we, you know, we have overlap in time with them. and we they just feel like they’re part of the team, you know, we’re fully remote, fully virtual. and we’re, i think that that’s, that’s part of the next way forward is you don’t need as many middle people that are facing that are client facing. but when you do you need the people that have the skills that can communicate, and they can relate and have empathy that have you know, that have that have the knowledge to ask a question and know that they don’t need that or be asked a question and they don’t need to give the right answer. that’s what freezes up a lot of accountants is if we don’t have the answer, then we’re worthless and and that’s why we’re afraid to talk to people because we’re afraid of clamming up and then not giving them the answer that that the right answer to. i mean, we’re taught, you know, there is a right answer to everything, and we should know it. and we’ve worked so hard to get our licenses that we don’t know what we’re if we’re good for if we don’t know the answer took me a long time to realize there’s a power in that too, to ask questions and not know the answer. and say, i will get back to you that was always something that was hard for me too. so i think the beginning starts with the human skills and some form of like, you know, really relationship that you’re building over just the work because the work is going to get done and that you know, it’s always the people always talk about machines. replacing humans, oh, you can automate a tax return? because then what are what’s gonna happen? all the people that do taxes, right? nobody’s doing taxes anymore. there’s no but we can’t hire anybody. so we need, we need the machines to do as much of this as we can. and the people that are left need to focus on that client relationship and focus on on looking, you know, looking forward and building relationships, rather than just building a client base that you don’t even talk to.
liz farr
ya know, how do you grow those kinds of skills, because we don’t, we don’t learn that in school. and we don’t learn it. i didn’t learn that as part of becoming a cpa, and i’m sure you didn’t learn that as becoming an ea.
scott scarano
so it’s getting uncomfortable. and when people start doing things, that they’re uncomfortable doing more, then naturally they get comfortable doing them. and wow, this isn’t as bad as i thought it would be. everybody hated the idea of doing loom. like when when i told my team, we’re doing loom videos to review returns and sending it to people, if you can’t meet with them, you’re still going to do a, you know, 510 minute loom video, and they hated the idea of it, they dreaded it fought it every step of the way. now they love it. now the clients love it, they’re getting more, you know, they’re just getting more out of their work, because now they have to interpret it in a way that they can explain it to the client. i don’t know, it’s just unlocked a lot at our firm. and it was something just as simple as that making them do something they’re uncomfortable doing. and i’ve done that a lot to the point where people get too uncomfortable. you know, i forced a lot of change on them. so that’s also probably why i’ve stepped back a little bit, and eased up on the gas, because i’m always trying to change everything. but yeah, make people do things that they’re uncomfortable doing the gun to learn those things, i used to say, you had to hire people that had that, you know, had that it factor. and you can’t teach that. and there are certain things that you can’t teach. there’s certain skill sets, some people have, that you can’t teach, i started to realize this as i stepped away from a lot of the work. you know, i don’t have any special gifts or anything, a lot of people can do what i do. but you have to allow them the freedom and power to do that. and then people get better at doing things. but there’s some people that just still are never going to be that great at sales, or, you know, at asking questions, instead of just delivering work, a lot of people are never going to be comfortable with that finance, cfo, outsource type service, like a lot of accountants. you know, we’re struggling with that. now we talk about advisory, and we talk about, you know, changing the profession. a lot of people mistakenly think that they’re, that now they have to be doing, they have to be doing finance, and they have to be doing forecasting. and a lot of accountants are not comfortable with that. so you can’t really change somebody’s stripes altogether. but you can find the right people that are comfortable doing those things, and then teach them how to do that, too.
liz farr
and also give them the tools. yeah, that helped him do that.
scott scarano
training. education.
liz farr
yeah, yeah. just, and opportunities to just try it. try doing things. it’s, it’s an experiment.
scott scarano
yeah, patience, if you’re gonna do that, like i have. i don’t have a lot of patience sometimes. and so i’ve learned these things. the hard way is, if you don’t let things, give it give things enough time to try and you know, and continue to iterate, then you’re going to be missing out on a lot like some patients to patients iteration. and always try to do things a little bit better – 1% better every day. we talked about that on a few episodes. we’ve done book reports on the podcast to check out atomic habits, fresh book reports i do with twila. we have a three part series on atomic habits, and that’s getting 1% better every day.
liz farr
exponential. yeah. yeah, it’s huge. if you just do one little thing, just make things just a tiny bit better. it adds up. now, what are some things that accountants should stop doing immediately?
scott scarano
good question. you gave me this question yesterday and honestly, like, go with the cliche responses, like billing on time, but that’s hard. you can’t just stop doing that immediately. your whole firm is structured around time ever, like everything you do has to change. you can’t do that immediately. and i don’t like to talk about time anymore because that’s a really dumb wait until we have another debate on time because, honestly, i used to have one opinion then on it. and now we track time, for the sake of our capacity and to see how we should price. and there’s a lot that we do that we we never looked at time until the past couple of years, it was only a little over a year ago that we started tracking time. and it’s unlocked a lot for us to capacity plan to see what we’re we’re working with, with all of our clients to cut our margins. and i know a lot of people say that’s bs, you can see your margins without that you can’t overall, but you can really dial certain things in and you can change the direction of your firm, if you know those details, and we had no idea and nobody could estimate how much time they spent on stuff because they forget. and they just, you know, it’s whatever’s right in front of them. so i don’t know, i can’t say that i can’t say you got to stop doing that immediately, i think immediately you got to stop. people got to stop with the hierarchy, the way that we’ve talked about in the beginning, like the way that you have to dress like this, you have to look like this, you have to, you have to come into the office, like you know, and i get to people, i don’t think people should stop going into an office because some people need that some people need that human interaction. i travel so much now because we don’t have an office because it’s not enough to just see people on zoom, i need to see people in real life, i need to have that empty space. and i didn’t know how much i missed that until i didn’t have, i thought this is great. we’re saving so much money without an office, we don’t have rent, we don’t have expended all the expenses associated with an office, we don’t even have a front desk person that we used to need. and so i’m saving a lot by not having an office, but i’m losing a lot of losing the people popping in and out of my office and all those miscellaneous conversations that just happened. we tried to recreate that with office hours. and that that i don’t know if i’m going to your answering your question. i’m kind of rambling a little bit. but, you know, i’ll scope back out and say, i missed that just the clients coming in just to chat, you know, and just to interact. so i went to five different cities in this past month, just traveling with different people, because that’s my office now is meeting with people. so i can’t say that it’s not going to an office anymore, either letting people do what they want to do. i think it’s, you know, what they should stop doing is chasing the money and chasing growth. i think that’s, that’s probably what they could stop doing. and then pause and reflect and figure out what they want and then go forward again. and if that’s what they want, if they want, because growing is not bad, either. i think i can go back to that question. if you grow, to build something that you could sell to build an asset, and you want to grow that because you want to say i want to sell my firm, and i want to grow to 2 million, because i want to be able to cash out $2 million. i don’t know why i threw that number out there is arbitrary million, whatever it is.
scott scarano
you can work toward that. but that’s also means you have to change a lot of things to if you’re the one doing all the work, you’re at 300,000. now, you want to grow to a million, a lot has to change to get there a few different iterations along the way, too. and there’s proven models, and there’s different ways to do that. but same story every time once you hit about 300 once you hit about 800. and then once you hit about 1.2 million, it’s all the same hurdles that everybody runs into. and those are usually the ceilings that people hit is that three, eight and 1.2? what happens after that? because i haven’t i haven’t hit the next one yet. but i’m sure there’s others. so yeah.
liz farr
and i like what you said early on about tracking time as a data point. because in that sense, i think it’s a really useful tool. so that you can make sure you’re building out appropriately. and that you have the capacity because if you don’t know how long something is going to take, then you run the risk of keeping on way too much work for your team to do.
scott scarano
you’re gonna burn them out. you gotta leave some space in the cup. you can’t fill the cup to the brim. and the only way you can figure out how much space to leave is figured out what they’re doing. you can’t just keep like because we the reason we started tracking time is because we had a capacity issue. we were over capacity we had and then i couldn’t i took on clients too fast. and then everybody got bottlenecked and then then they were left with the still a lot of capacity because when you’re onboarding we were just not to go into too many details. but we had to, we had to let two people go. and we started tracking time we changed a lot. so we went from our margins were super super tight to now. things are great this year, but we changed a lot to get there and we needed to we needed to see the time in order to forecast that, and you know, now it’s like we’re pretty much at capacity. but we know that we’re comfortable. we know when we need to hire, we know, you know what our runway is, and we, you know, we have a lot more knowledge into what’s what’s ahead by looking at what was behind. and that’s the time and time is, is time and money. those are the two things that always come up. because those are the, you know, the time first. and i know ron’s ron’s new book, time’s up, i got that same here, you know, he will forever die on, you don’t need time. but in my, you know, my original co host, ackerman doesn’t leave look at time at all. but that’s, you know, he says he doesn’t look at time, but they do they just look at it in days, and not hours. right? they look at how long things take based on how many days it might take. everybody’s looking at, i’m in some way or another to form their reality. you know, and i read a great book recently on where he talks about einstein time, it’s the books called the great leap. and that is that, that blew my mind. because the concept is that we’re in control of our time we create our time, we’re not a slave to it. and if we can create our time that we can forecast our time, we can plan things better. and knowing how long things take is an important aspect of that. because then you can create your days based on the anticipated amount of time. and if i’m not gonna able to do it any justice, i’m not even going to start talking about it. because anybody that’s read it knows that i’m not doing it any not doing any favors there. but look up einstein time is pretty cool concept. obviously, mr. albert figured that out for himself, and others are studying it still. but i think our traditional mindset around time has always been, we’re only allowed this many hours in a day. and this and this, and this is what we have to figure out what we’re going to do with it. as you know, i think we can look at it from the other angle of we’re creating those hours in the day, and what how are they going to? how’s it going to help us? so i don’t know, scratch that. i’m not gonna even go too far into it, because but otherwise, yeah, i think time is so important. we can’t stop talking about it, but we just can’t build on it. that’s the one thing that you can’t do. we’re not prostitutes, we’re not billing ourselves out by the hour.
liz farr
so yeah, i think that’s a good approach to take. you’ve got to have the data. you know, when i was in public accounting for most of the time, time was used as more of a cudgel that kind of like a, a hammer or something. okay, club, a club. yeah. and if we didn’t get to our quota, our quota of billable hours, then that was bad. but what that meant was, we were not incentivized to find efficient ways to do things.
scott scarano
and that’s a whole other conversation to figuring out what we can do with our time, once we have more of it. that’s, that’s something that i still struggle with, you know, i have a lot of time these days, and i’m trying to fill it with purpose, and do the right things with it. and because when you automate as much as you can, then all of a sudden now, what are you going to do with those eight hours that you used to spend doing this? because it does itself? you know, you spend, i used to say this, when we found xero, we would, you know, what used to take us weeks, we could do in a couple hours, you know, a whole year’s worth of books, maybe would take us 910 hours, now took us a half hour, like now, what do we do with all this time, we just took on more clients and kept filling that time with more work, so we can make more money. and that wasn’t the answer either. so no, it’s but it takes a lot of time to figure out what you’re gonna do with that time, and it takes a lot of trying and failing certain things and, and testing things out to figure out what’s your perfect balance of, of everything. so yeah, don’t call juillet either. or call it what it was that kegel? yeah, don’t don’t hammer it, don’t hammer it away and, and try to force things out of it and try to force people to do things, you know, work worked together to figure that stuff out.
liz farr
because i remember, during quiet times of the year when there wasn’t a ton of work to do and maybe what i had on tap was doing some business tax return. and well, let’s see, i could stretch it out the time by manually keying in the trial balance, i could do that. because that would get me closer to the hours that i needed.
scott scarano
or i could take that’s kind of therapeutic too, because it’s just getting the 10 key, right?
liz farr
it’s pretty mindless work.
scott scarano
you don’t have to deal with human emotions. you don’t have to talk to people, you can just tap away and you know, the right answer is going to come, especially when you work with a trial balance, it’s going to balance.
liz farr
that’s right. that’s right. or i could use excel and pull it into the trial balance software. in five minutes. yeah, what what should i do? well, let me look at how many hours do i need to fill up this week, which didn’t always have any relation to what the partners would ultimately bill out. but what do i need to do to fulfill the expectations on me as a cog in this machine? just lost your sound.
scott scarano
that’s all right. yeah. kids are kids play and finding the elf on the shelf right now? oh,
liz farr
good for them.
scott scarano
christmas. yeah. sorry. i didn’t mean to turn up there. oh, okay. interruption happened here. so
liz farr
that’s okay. now, we already talked about this a little bit. that one of the things that keeps accountants from changing is that they’re making a lot of money with the status quo. what are some other things that keep accountants from changing?
scott scarano
who is a good one, this is i had a quote, that just came out an episode i released yesterday, the pains of the present, are not, so the pains of change are greater than the pains of the present. that’s why people aren’t changing, because they don’t have any pains in the present. the change, the idea of changing something is painful. and they have to, it’s going to take a lot of work a lot of effort. and they can see that at the end of it, they might be better off. but not that much better off because the present is not that bad. so if you’re making money, and you have clients, and you have enough work, and you have employees to do it, why change if you and then you have 95% of your clients on quickbooks desktop, right? so on top of all that, and everybody’s telling you, you got to get them on the cloud, you gotta get on the cloud, well, nothing’s broken, nothing. and we’ve been doing it like this forever, making a healthy dollar here. and they’re scared of changing to they’re scared of what’s going to happen at the other end, because it’s not guaranteed they have to learn something new. and why would they do that they’ve been doing this for so long, successfully, who’s going to tell them now all of a sudden, i gotta do something differently. i empathize a lot with the people that are doing things, older, traditional ways, because they don’t have that many pains besides other people, other external factors and people outside of their situation telling them they have to change. and you have all these talking heads, people like me saying, you got to do this, you should do it this way. you should do this, you should change this. well, they’re, they’re saying, you know, they’re putting up a big middle finger and say, look, i’m good. like, i don’t need to change because i don’t have anything, there’s nothing that wrong with my situation, you know, i’m, i’m doing fine. so it’s only when the pains of the present are greater than the perspective pains of change. and when you’re dealing with you, the last employee finally left, and you can’t hire somebody, and now you got somebody new coming on. and they don’t even know the old systems. right? right. and you realize, everybody that you’re hiring now, you’re gonna have to teach them, the old systems, why not have them start something new, because you already have to change a lot anyway. so if you’re already going to change something, you might as well change a bunch of things, and i can’t i love change. so i’m not really one to steer away from that i used to do sick change just for the sake of changing. so i’m a poor example of somebody that doesn’t change because i changed everything and always changed everything in the firm. my team hated it. and that’s also why again, i’m not as involved. i love change, but what blocks people from change is fear. and the idea that they don’t really, there’s nothing really wrong like with what they’re doing. nobody told them before. at some point, quickbooks desktop came into the picture. and people were doing things by hand. and that was a big change. right? at some point, the tax software came in, and people were filling out forms by hand. and that had to change, right? so people have already dealt with a lot of change, a lot of firms now have dealt with change in their lifetime. they don’t want to deal with it again. and i can definitely empathize with them at that, at that stage, it’s not just that they’re sitting at the top, like we said earlier, and making all this money and they don’t want to change, it’s that they’ve dealt with it already once in their lifetime. they don’t want to go through it again. especially if they’re coasting, they’re on their way out the door.
liz farr
that’s right. that’s right. so and, and another thing that i think a lot of firm owners who are doing things, the way they’ve been doing it for a long time overlook is that maybe their clients want more, but they just haven’t offered it to them. i was talking to somebody yesterday, who just bought a bookkeeping firm, that does everything manually. and he’s a big tech proponent. so he was going to bring in a lot of tech, to do things to automate things. and he talked to some of the clients and they were really pretty excited about these changes. and how that meant that they were going to get more insight about their businesses from him. they were pretty excited about that. so. so i think one reason that accountants don’t change is that they haven’t offered these opportunities. and their clients may have an idea that something is out there, that there’s something more that their accountant could be doing for them. but they don’t really know how to ask for it or what that is.
scott scarano
and yeah, a lot of times accountants don’t know what that is, too, because that word advisory is thrown at them. and then that could mean, it could be a trigger word for a lot of people. and it can mean so many different things. and then they get overwhelmed with what’s all the things i can do. and they have all these different directions. i think it starts by asking your clients, what are their i was going to start with this because this is what this is the exact position i’m in? what how can we do more for our clients? we have to ask them, what are their fears? what what keeps them up at night? what what are their desires? what do they want out of their business, and start trying to find some common themes, see, okay, here’s our client base. and here’s what they want. here’s the problem we can solve, and then dive deep into that is it that they want to sell their business, and they want to build a business that works for them, they want to get out of their business, because if you have a lot of clients that are similar, then that’s what you could be offering is some form of coaching or consultative services, if you’ve done it already. so it’s something that you as a business owner have done, you can relate that to them, and start selling that as a service and going deeper because then that’s you’re hitting the core, you’re hitting their most, their biggest fear or their biggest desire, and trying to solve that problem. that’s how you help the game client today have the biggest impact on clients. and i’m just talking in generalities now because i haven’t even started doing it. a lot of people like going into taken one way of helping a client and doing that across as many clients as they can help. it could be cashflow forecasting, because people are having cashflow issues, the dive into that we looked at live plan and live plan has some great systems and processes around that. never really stuck because none of my team could really stick with it. didn’t really want to do it. so you got to figure out something that you can master and at the top level, and then turn that into a system or a process for the team to to help and dive deeper. right. i honestly don’t have an answer to that. but i think that’s that’s part of the answer.
liz farr
yeah, and you bring up an important point that you can throw all these tools at your team. but if they’re not willing to do it, if it’s not something that turns them on, that really excites them, then they’re not really going to care about it. and they they may just let that slip by the wayside. yeah, for sure. as as maybe just another box, they gotta check. oh, we gotta do this report at the end of every tax return. okay, here’s this report. i don’t really know what this stuff means. and i don’t know how to talk to the client about what i see here, because i don’t really understand what it is i’m looking at. so i’m not sure how i can talk to the client about it. but you could just start that easily by saying, hey, there’s this report. and does this help you? does this tell you anything useful about your business, mr. client or ms. client? you know, is there something about the way that your business generates money? and, and also generates expenses that we can help you with? if you can track it better in a more visual and immediate way?
scott scarano
yeah, yeah, you got to make it tangible? and have people really understand it in and out for them to want to do it. and that goes with what we were saying earlier. like, you got to match up, what problem are they solving? and if they know that’s the problem they’re solving, then everything else they do is going toward that it’s not just checking the box, and it’s not them just a cog in the machine. and they don’t know what machine is that they’re making.
liz farr
you know? that’s, that’s all very true. now, now, the next question, scott, i want you to get out your crystal ball. and tell me, what do you think is going to be the next big thing in the future for counting cas is big now. what’s cas? client accounting services client advisory services. that’s two different things. i know.
scott scarano
i still don’t know what cas is. i hear cas 2.0. now, i mean, it’s cas 3.0. the next thing, i’m being facetious. what’s the next big thing? i think, you know, anytime i go really big in the thoughts, it’s a lot, it’s going to change a lot is going to stay the same. i think the next big thing is going to be that we figure out a way to work with all these tools and go back to just the way we used to do things. and that’s working with a client and helping a client one on one. and so the next big thing is going to be old school is going to be going back to like, meeting with somebody with just a notepad and just talking to them, and not needing all the tech to form a relationship and not using the tech as a shield. and using the tech behind you, just like you would a team in your office, the techs working in the background, but it’s not what we’re leading with, with a lot of clients. now, a lot of accountants now lead with the tech, oh, we’re going to set you up with this system. and we’re going to do it, this is what we did. we, you know, we we lead with xero, and we lead with all the tech that we’re using, and we flash that. and those are just our tools. that’s not how you form a relationship and how you help a client. so i think the next big thing is going the i don’t need the crystal ball, i need the time machine. i need the delorean to go back to an old school, meeting and talking to a client and actually forming these human relationships. and i don’t think we talked about that enough. going back to the way things used to be and it’s not for nostalgia, we’re not going back. we’re going back because now we figured out this tech, we figured out how all these automations are gonna help us how all these rpas and zapier is and no code, low code and, and, you know, bank feeds and cloud and all that shit. we figured all that out. now, we got to go back and journey back to the go back home and help people. so it’s like that hero’s journey of you gotta go out into the wild, figure your shit out, fail, slay the dragon and then come back home and be the hero. and that dragged out a slays the tech and the automations and everything. and everybody’s clouded and confused. that a lot of fucking money in our in our in fintech right now. and they are marketing. at us, our email boxes are overflowing. everywhere, there’s webinars, there’s, you know, there’s everything is getting thrown at us telling us everything we need to be doing with all this tech, and all these apps we need to buy and all these subscriptions we need and $4 ahead for this $30 for this $100 a month for this and all this. people are overflowing and then they’re lost. they don’t know what the hell’s going on. they need to figure that out. and then the next thing is really just getting back to the human relationship. and that’s, i think that’s what’s gonna save us all.
liz farr
and i think you know, going back to the hero’s journey, accountants have to see themselves in, in kind of a different role than they have. they’re not the hero who’s out slaying the dragon, but they are the guide, the mentor. they are the one i didn’t invent this, you know, i’m not the only one who says this. but they’re the ones who are guiding their client, who is the real hero in helping them to slay their own dragons, and to reach their own transformation.
scott scarano
that is awesome. i’d love that. because a lot of people say you got to be the hero, you got to be the the tax hero and this and that. that’s not it. you know, all we’re doing is guiding them in the right direction. they’re the fucking heroes. sorry, again, my language. i get excited. that was uh, that they are the heroes. and, and we just have to be the maj the guide, the guiding post. i love that because i’ve called our blog on accounting. hi, the guide, the accounting hire guide. and we don’t even have a blog post yet. but that’s what it’s called. they’ve got a big place for it on the website. yeah.
liz farr
well, well, well, now i just gave you the topic to write about for your well,
scott scarano
you may be a guest, a guest contributor in there, we’ll see.
liz farr
i mean, i may be able to do that for you.
scott scarano
that’d be dope. we got some we got the founding faculty that we’ve worked out. and now we’re kind of seeing with all that means. my mom’s gonna be helping with it, too. that’s, that’s also i mentioned it because you too, could probably work together?
liz farr
probably, probably. well, scott, i think that we found a good place to stop our conversation and being good for each other helping our clients out, because that’s what brought most of us into accounting was to help our clients should been, yeah, should have been.
scott scarano
what brought them into accounting as money. i’m not gonna lie. so it brought me into accounting, i needed a way to make money. now i want to, but
liz farr
well, money helping people, you can’t help people if you don’t have the resources to do that.
scott scarano
it’s about money until it’s not as what i say a lot on the podcast are people about that all the time. you’ve got to build that maslow’s hierarchy, that money is the foundation. and you can’t help anybody until you’ve helped yourself first.
liz farr
so yeah, well, i think that that is the perfect note to end our conversation on. now, scott, if people want to find you online, where’s the best place to find you?
scott scarano
i’ve been on twitter a bunch this year. so at scott serrano on twitter, go to our website at accounting high.com. that’s pretty cool place ai. it’s just launched like this week. but check out the podcast. there’s a ton episodes, there’s a lot more that are going to come out accounting hi, search for it on your podcast player. if you like any of this, you’ll probably like those conversations. a lot of probably we probably interviewed a lot of the same people anyway. so that’s always fun. and i’m on linkedin too. don’t don’t try and email me though, because i don’t really check my email.
liz farr
i know why you did. you did respond to the email that i sent you with that list. question? yeah. my v or v. a. somebody did it for you.
scott scarano
well, he prompted me which emails i needed to reply to. and there was only like three in a sea of emails. over a week, there was three that i needed to look at, and then i helped them out with those. perfect, here’s just one of them.
liz farr
well, thank you so much for talking to me, scott. and i look forward to seeing you in person again sometime soon.