Latest / The Accounting Leads Now Podcast / You’re Losing Clients in Every Meeting and Don’t Know It - With Jordan Vickery

Transcript

You’re Losing Clients in Every Meeting and Don’t Know It - With Jordan Vickery · The Accounting Leads Now Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas, happy holidays.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome back to a special episode of CFO Chronicles.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: I hope you're having an amazing holiday, enjoying time with family and friends.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna jump right into this.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: We got an amazing episode coming up.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: This is one you are not gonna want to miss.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_02: Make sure to listen through to the end for all the actionable insight.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: Most firms treat meetings like a checkbox.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: They jump on Zoom, they talk, they wrap up, they move on.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: But what if that casual habit is quietly costing you sales, follow through, and insight?
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: Today's guest has spent 12 plus years in the accounting tech world helping build tools, run one of the UK's biggest accounting conferences, and advise 40 plus vendors on how to actually market and sell to accountants.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: And like so many breakthroughs, this one started with a pain in his own business.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: Too many meetings, too many where are we at with this follow-ups, too many decisions forgotten the moment the call ended.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: So he built something different, a tool that now powers over 400 firms worldwide, turning conversations into action instantly.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: And since this is our Christmas episode, we figured what better gift than more clarity, less rework, and a sales process that actually remembers what was said.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: Here's my conversation with Jordan Vickery, co-founder of vinyl.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the show.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so excited to have you on here, man.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: We had a chance to connect in Phoenix or Mesa, sorry, um about two months or so ago, and then um tagged along and saw you in Vegas at one of the events you guys were hosting.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: How have you been, man?
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's so great to see you again.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, good to be here.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me, mate.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And great to uh great to connect again after meeting the other month.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, it's been good.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a busy few months for me.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, lots of travel.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, I met you first in uh Arizona, then Vegas, and then I went to Bali and I've been back to the US since.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: So it's been a pretty hectic year of travel for me.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: But um, yeah, all good stuff.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like vinyl's been going really well, lots of great traction and feedback in the market, and excited to talk more about that today.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's amazing.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: Well, let's jump right into it.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm really curious to hear a hot take from you right away to get things started.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: You recently shared how a firm used vinyl to improve their client meetings uh using transcripts from about 30 plus um QBRs.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: What did that unlock for them and how can other firms do the same?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I think like I don't think people realize just how much value is living within meeting transcripts.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: They kind of think about meetings as just the recording and then it's done.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: But there's so much you can do with a recording and a transcript once it's actually taken place.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, like the example you shared there uh is a firm based out of the UK here, and they have their team running these quarterly business review meetings with clients.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: So they get together once a quarter with the client, they run through the business, how they're doing, where they need to improve, they look at some key metrics and stuff.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the the guy who was running this uh is kind of like the director of the business, and he was basically analyzing all these meeting transcripts to identify where his team could do better at running these meetings.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: So he created like a QER framework for how these meetings should be ran.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then he analyzed each meeting transcript against this framework to identify how they can do better at asking questions, or how they can do better at relationship building, or how they can do better at talking through the financials.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then he's able to create almost like an action plan for each of his team members to say, this is how you can improve at running these meetings.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: So previously that would have taken hours of time.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: He would have probably had to sit through each one of those meetings and then go through all of the coaching and the feedback manually.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: But now he can do that within minutes directly through a product like vinyl because the recordings exist there, the transcripts exist, and it's just a case of prompting it, putting in some instructions and saying this is what I I want you to do, and you get that output in real time.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, like that's one of probably infinite numbers of um transformational opportunities that exist for accounting firms when it comes to using meeting transcripts.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's so cool.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: So, what would be I mean, what's one of like the biggest pushbacks you get or you hear from the marketplace?
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, let's be honest, a lot of accounting firm owners, they're maybe tip they're typically slow to move on things.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: They're not maybe willing to jump into the newest tech.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: So when you say, hey, we we have meeting, you know, we have a meeting recording software, what what's the general either pushback or kind of like reaction you get to that?
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I actually find that a lot of firm owners are quite inquisitive and curious about trying new technology.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's less about like not wanting to do it and more a case of like prioritizing it against everything else that's happening in the firm and client demands, client work, team members, etc.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but in terms of pushback, we we don't actually see or hear all that much.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think a few common uh things that may come up time to time are just concerns around whether or not clients want to be recorded and how you handle those conversations with those clients.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think naturally firm owners want to put their clients' best interests at heart and go, well, if they don't feel comfortable recording the meeting, we won't do it.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess that's just your own internal policy to decide, right?
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like, do you want to mandate and say, as a firm, we record all client meetings and we'll build that into our engagement letters and make it part of our terms of service to say, if you're a client of this firm, we're gonna record all in-person and online meetings.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason we do that is to, you know, document the advice we give you, make sure we give you the best service, et cetera.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you just say, actually, if you're not comfortable being recorded, then we won't do it?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's completely your choice.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd say that would be the main one.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we get the kind of usual questions about security and privacy and where all the data's stored and stuff, but as a business type, that's something that we take incredibly seriously, and we have all the relevant uh procedures and policies in place for that.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, cool.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: That's fair enough.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so you've been deep in accounting tech for over a decade now.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: What led you to start vinyl and what problems were you really trying to solve?
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so um I've been working in the space for a long time and um for the last three or so yeah, I've been a director in an agency called Journey alongside uh one of my co-founders in Vinyl now, Trent McLaren.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And Journey is a go-to-market agency working with software companies in the accounting space.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's kind of been our background for the last 12 or so years.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we were finding in the agency that we would have a ton of meetings with clients, and every time we had a meeting, that meeting led to work.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then we had to finish the meeting, go through the notes, add tasks in various systems, brief out team members, and spend a whole amount of admin time like doing post-meeting tasks.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that was really eating into our day and week.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And we started trialing tools like Fireflies maybe two or three years ago.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'd say that we were pretty heavily uh like early adopters of that technology uh when it first came to market.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it was working well for the most part.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like it recorded the meetings for us, it gave us all the notes, but it seemed to be missing stuff in terms of like how it then integrated into the rest of our tech stack and did some of the automated work for us.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that kind of led us down this path where we thought, well, if this is a challenge for us in our agency, I wonder if this is a challenge for the accountants and bookkeepers in our community.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: So we we created a survey back in, I think it was October, November of last year, and just over 250 firms globally completed that.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And like overwhelmingly, the the research told us that yes, this is an issue, right?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, not only is there a huge amount of time being wasted taking manual meeting notes and having to share those with a team, but there's also a huge amount of post meeting admin time that's been taken up, sending emails, adding tasks and notes to practice management systems, sharing notes with team members so they know what they're doing.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: And vinyl was really born out of that, where we identify this problem and need within the accounting community that we were facing in our business, and then just built vinyl kind of off the back of it.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: So interesting.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: So you almost built it to just solve your own problem in another business, and yeah, that became another business of its own.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: And um, like the accounting space is one that we know pretty well.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: We've been working in it for a long time.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: We have we're fortunate to have a very good network here, you know, people that we would call close friends and colleagues that we've worked with for a number of years.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: And because of that, we were able to very quickly kind of tap into like what the profession was feeling and whether or not this was an actual pain they were experiencing.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's kind of testament to then how vinyl has grown off the back of that, right?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because we've had a really impressive year in terms of the first 12 months in terms of just overall uptake and adoption.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think that comes from actually caring and understanding about the problem enough deeply up front to then build a product to solve it.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: So cool.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: Is this something that you imagined as you were growing up?
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like I'm gonna be I'm gonna be in the accounting tech space building building software?
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what were you envisioning as as a you know, as a young boy in the UK when you were all growing up?
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: What do you think you were gonna be doing?
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like you kind of go through school and you have all different ideas about various careers you might want to do, and none of them really make all that much sense at a young age.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that when I went to university and I was studying business management, I was kind of getting pushed down um the route of working for the big four.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I actually I did an internship with Deloitte.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: I got offered a job as an indirect tax consultant.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that was going to be the route that I was meant to go down working in tax, but it just sounded like way too much fun.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought I'll dumb that down and do something that sounds a little bit more boring, like uh marketing.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: And actually fell into a marketing role with somebody who was working with and coaching accounting firms at the time.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, just I've been in the space ever since then, like worked with him for a number of years, then fell into the software space in accounting.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, that's where I actually met uh Trent, my co-founder.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now he moved to the UK from Australia to help launch a product called Praxis Ignition.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we worked really closely together there for a couple of years, did some great work, got on really well, and yeah, I guess the rest is history, as they say, we've just been uh in this space ever since.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: That's so cool.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: So tell me a little bit about the marketing side of things then.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: What have you guys tested as far as growing the firm that was a complete flop and the marketing on the marketing side of things?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: In terms of growing vinyl?
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, in terms of growing vinyl, like how you maybe you ran a Facebook campaign or you did outreach or you you tried something completely different or out of the box.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: Is there something that you guys have tried where like this is gonna work so well and then it didn't?
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's gonna sound like a really shitty answer, but honestly, no, not yet.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um because I feel like everything everything that we've done for vinyl so far today has been has been working pretty well for us.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: I've got different examples I can share through uh the work we've done at Journey.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: So Journey is a kind of growth marketing agency working with other software companies in the space.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: And like naturally, when you're working in marketing, you have to understand that not every campaign is gonna be successful.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is a mindset that you have to adopt, which is we're gonna try something, we're gonna kind of do our research, we're gonna hedge our bets, we're gonna build a campaign that we think is gonna be successful, and we're gonna try and run that and optimize it and see where it goes.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: And you have to accept that it won't always go the way you expect it to.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, there's been a number of cases where we've run maybe content campaigns that haven't got the engagement that we were expecting, or we've run event campaigns where we haven't got the registration numbers that we were expecting.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, sometimes there's obvious causes why that was the case.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, maybe it was just like I don't know, poor execution, or maybe it was just the time of year, or maybe it was just the content didn't quite hit the mark.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: And like often when marketing campaigns don't go to plan, one of the things that I always try to do is just go back to first principles thinking, which is like strip all of that aside and just go back to like who are we trying to target with this?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: And do we understand the pains and problems that we're trying to target specifically enough?
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: And like, if you if you get that bit right, the rest of it tends to happen quite easily and be more effective.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: But I feel like when you skip over those fundamental parts and just jump straight into like, oh, hey, I've got this crazy idea for a piece of content or an event and run that without first figuring out the foundational things, that's when there's more chance of it going wrong.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's so that's so important.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: What about the stuff that is going right then for vinyl on the marketing front?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I've had the pleasure of attending a couple of the events you guys have sponsored.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: That was all new to me.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: I thought that was so cool and and obviously it was so much fun having a Halloween party in Vegas, um, overlooking was it the fans at the Bellagio?
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: Really sick.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: So, like, what what other things from like the marketing creative side that you guys have run with that have worked really well?
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: And you're like, yeah, we're definitely gonna keep doing that?
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, well, I think the events are one of them, right?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, as well as exhibiting at conferences, something that we try to do is help sponsor and organize social events around conferences.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason why we do this is that there's actually a huge community within the accounting and bookkeeping profession.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: And these folks want to spend time networking, hanging out with each other, sharing stories, sharing ideas and mistakes.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: And the best way to do that is actually outside of the conference in a suite at a hotel or around the pool or in a bar.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I think being able to organize these events is not only a great way of bringing the community together, but I guess from our perspective, it's a way of just growing some awareness of the brand, building a bit of trust, getting to know people in the community.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that's been working really well for us so far, especially kind of in the US market.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but then I guess the other thing that's worked really well for us is just like founder led content on LinkedIn.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: So both myself and Trent try to be reasonably active on LinkedIn and almost like have this building in public um approach to how we how we do content, where throughout the whole build of vinyl, pretty much from the start of the year through to when we launched and started charging people in August, we were documenting that every step of the way.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, here's the first screenshots of what it looks like, here are the first users, oh, here's the first bit of feedback we've had, um, here is the the first time we crossed a hundred hours of meetings recorded or 300 hours of meetings recorded.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, here's the the kind of uh the first pain customers and what they say.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: So we just kind of try to document and share that story as much as possible.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: And we actually found that that works really well for just building trust, bringing people along uh for the journey, no pun intended, uh, and actually just growing some awareness and interest in what we were doing.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it was because of that that we were actually able to build a wait list of people interested in starting with vinyl.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: So um, when we launched our beta in it was April of this year, between then and August, we had just over 400 firms globally sign up for that, which is actually like a pretty incredible um feat to do.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I guess it was just off the back of us being out there, building in public, building our brands in our community and kind of bringing people along for the ride.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's so cool.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: I yeah, I just saw a post yesterday.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if Trent posted it yesterday or if it was from a couple days ago, but there was a record.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: What was the record you guys set for was it hours recorded in a day or in twenty-five?
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hours in a day.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: I I can't even remember the number now.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm I'm I'm slowly losing track of these metrics because they change so fast.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: But um, yeah, like it's it's crazy like to think that this time last year there was no product, right?
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was an idea, and I don't even think we'd started the uh the kind of development work at this point.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then I think as of today, it's something crazy, like several thousand hours of meetings being recorded every single day, which is um yeah, it's kind of insane to hear.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: But that's the kind of stuff we want to show because we want to document how things are going and also document where things aren't working so well and just be honest and open uh with people about those aspects as well.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that's a really important point that can be translated to the firm owner growing their own firm.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'm I'm maybe I'm guessing you guys have there was a little bit of imposter syndrome there of like, oh my god, we're we're gonna show like because social media is a highlight reel, typically.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's all the amazing things, right?
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: How did you guys get over that hurdle of like, or we're gonna show stuff that like it's not perfect, and maybe this is the broken thing, and actually this this isn't working.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: How did you guys get over that hump?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: Because hearing that, it's very inspiring for me.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, yeah, I should do more of that, but you guys are doing it a ton now.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: So it was that always normal for you, or was that something you had to exercise and like now it's more normal?
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I'd say it's definitely not normal for me.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm naturally more of an introverted person.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: So whenever it comes to sharing anything online, I I actually struggle with that and have to go through like a lot of thinking and trying to figure out what I want to say.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually Trent who like pushes me more because this guy will will write a post in 30 seconds and hit post without thinking twice about it.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like he has, I don't think he has any imposter syndrome.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: He just kind of hits post and he's he's all good with that.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: He he doesn't care like how it performs or who reads it.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a case of like this is what I want to say, and I'm gonna put it out there.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's quite inspiring to me, like that kind of mindset and approach.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I try to take some of that in what I do and just think, actually, you've just got to do it, right?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: You've just got to post it.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you've just got to be honest with the audience and share how you're feeling and share what your experience is.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, they'll they'll take it or leave it.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: That's I I love that.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I hope I hope all the listeners who are growing their firm who are maybe not as comfortable getting in front of the camera and making those posts, like just do it.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, nothing bad's gonna happen.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: And just share, share the journey.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's like a muscle as well, right?
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's you it's like the first time you uh like.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: What are some of the best?
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, mate, I didn't mean to speak over you there.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think there might be a bit of a delay.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, you're good.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: You're good.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh carry on with your train of thought there.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was just gonna say, um, I guess like anything, it's a bit like building a muscle in the gym.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like the first few times you go, you suck at it and it hurts, and you're kind of questioning whether or not it's the right thing to do or if it's worth doing at all.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then over time you start to build that muscle up and start to build the muscle memory, and you get stronger and you could do more and you can lift more.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like it's the kind of same approach with anything in marketing or anything in life, right?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like the more you do it and the more you break through that initial kind of hard period of like, oh, I don't like this, it feels too difficult, the easier it becomes and the more natural it becomes.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I used to absolutely hate speaking on camera and doing things like this.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: I found it the most uncomfortable thing in the world.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I just threw myself into that.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I put myself through public speaker training, I started throwing myself into as many webinars and events as possible.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then over time, you just build up that muscle more and more and start to get more comfortable with how it feels.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I still feel uncomfortable to a certain extent when I do it, but I feel a lot more comfortable doing it than what I did maybe three, four years ago.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you you have to suck at the thing first before you can be the expert at it.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: So uh I love that.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: So tell me a little bit about like vinyl.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, you guys are doing meeting uh recording meetings.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of applications behind that.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: So if someone's getting started, what's the easiest or like the the best use case you would share with a new customer joining to be like, okay, you don't have to worry about going insane.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of levels to this, but just getting started, what would be your advice on the best application to make the use of vinyl, but more so like make the use of the content that is happening in those meetings?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I think um like the easiest thing to do is just start recording your meetings today.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter what platform you use, vinyl is one of them, others are available.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: I would just encourage everybody to start recording every single meeting you have.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's no reason you shouldn't do it.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: And the upside and the downstream potential of all of that meeting insight is huge.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of step number one.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um step number two is then figure out like where do we want these meeting notes and actions to live.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: So for vinyl, the focus is on practice management integrations with tools like carbon, because for an accounting firm, a platform like carbon is where their team go to do the work.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: So naturally, having the meeting notes and the meeting context on the timeline there makes sense because that way people know what they actually need to do and they have the context behind why they're doing it.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then I guess step number three in terms of like what you can start to use the meetings for, there's there's so so many examples, and it really varies based on what you're trying to do.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like I know, you know, if if you're having prospect meetings, for example, like you're the one that's running these discovery calls with prospective clients, just being able to pull out things like frequently asked questions or typical concerns they have, or um even just analysing the transcript for feedback on how well you ran the meeting and the questions that you asked, that kind of stuff can really help to improve your performance and your ability to convert in those meetings.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like something that I have a habit of doing now with all of my vinyl demos is once a week I analyze every single transcript and I pull out all of the questions that I'm getting asked by people when I do those demos.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm then using that to help enhance the content on our website or almost like preempt the questions being asked in the demo and build it into my demo script so that I can share the answer before they ask me.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And those things all work really, really well.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess another really simple application is um like using meeting transcripts to create content for marketing because like you all know this as well, right?
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like one of the biggest challenges firm owners or any business owner has is like, shit, what do I actually write about online?
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: What do I talk about?
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the reality is that you don't need to think about that because you're already.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: Talking about it.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you think about every single meeting you have with a client and the advice that you're giving in those meetings and how you're talking to them about a certain topic or a certain thing they need to do, like that's great content.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like other business owners, other prospective clients will be interested in that.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: So if you can take your meeting transcripts and use that to generate LinkedIn content or case study content, whatever it might be, that's going to save you a ton of time and actually generate some really valuable, uh useful content as well.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, like there's there's hundreds, if not thousands, of these kinds of applications, but I guess as a starting point, there's one or two that people can take away.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_02: That's amazing.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: They they ask you answer.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's like you said, all the all the all that content is already you're already speaking as an expert to that stuff.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: So you don't have to be how do I how do we become an influencer in the space?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: No, you're already doing the thing.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: You just need a way to capture it.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: So you're you're mentioning like you can you can skim through transcripts, you can analyze everything.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: Is that happening inside of vinyl, or are you taking that and you're plugging it into say chat GPT and you're using other tools?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: Or it's all it's all built in?
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: All within vinyl.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: So we have something called Ask Vinyl, which is our own built-in AI chat.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um we use Anthropic, which is Claude, the model, um, to analyze all of our transcripts.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you have the ability to analyze individual meetings, so just like one meeting between you and somebody else, or to collate multiple meetings together and analyze them at once.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, like the vinyl demo example I shared a minute ago, like I'll pull all of my vinyl demos from that week and analyze them in one go.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: So you do that from directly within vinyl.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that just means that you don't need to worry about copy-pasting transcripts, you don't need to worry about additional subscriptions, you don't need to worry about the security implications of copying transcripts from one application into another and whether or not that data is then used to train models or anything like that.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like everything happens securely in one environment with as few clicks as possible.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, it's it's pretty slick and pretty effective.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's awesome.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: So I I need to ask though, like we have a lot of listeners who are outside the accounting space.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they're growing, growing different businesses, they're growing marketing companies.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: You mentioned vinyl integrates well with carbon, obviously being in the accounting, um, in the accounting industry.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: Do you integrate with other project management tools like Asana, Monday.com, or is it for right now it's it's integrated with carbon?
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so we integrate with other practice management tools within the accounting space, uh, but we don't integrate with project management tools outside of it.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason why is that like our our big vision behind vinyl is that we're trying to build like a vertical product just for accountants.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of upside around why we're doing that.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: So for any listeners that are curious about note-taking solutions, yes, you could try vinyl.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, interestingly, we have a few clients of accounting firms uh that are using vinyl.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: I know one of the customers is a Pearl Farm, uh, randomly, uh, that are using it as their meeting Pearl, like uh C Pearls.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay, okay, yeah, um, which is like so random.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: But what I would actually say is um go and see if there is a note-taking solution that has been built for your industry.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because like when you use a tool that's been built specifically for your vertical, you're gonna find a lot more upside in that because the the way they're gonna build it, the integrations they build, all of the stuff that they're gonna add to the product later is gonna be very much built around your type of business and the way that you work.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: So, like if you're in a sales team, you probably want to use a tool like Gong.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I know that there's a number of uh AI note-takers in the healthcare space, things like Heidi Health, for example.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: So it's worth doing a bit of research and just trying to understand like what note-taking solutions exist for your specific industry and kind of start there.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: Well, just as you mentioned, like the problem you guys solved where vinyl came from, as you were saying that, I'm like, I feel like that's us.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like, we we finish meetings with prospects, we finish meetings with clients, and then there's just so much admin after.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's like sometimes that could take longer than the meeting itself.
• 24:27
  unknown: Yeah.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: And exactly.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: Why are we why are we relying on, and I'm not even really using, I mean, Zoom will pump out their like meeting summary.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I think to the conversation that we had either in Vegas or in Mesa, it was uh picks up a lot of that stuff at the start of like, oh, Jordan had fun on the weekend, and James went, you know, down to the shop.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's like that's not the stuff that we really want to be capturing.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: So no, um yeah, I'm you got me motivated to go and like I don't know if I have to go and build a whole new solution because I'm sure it exists in the marketing world, but very much like why are we still doing this and why are we adding all this extra admin work when there's solutions that can fix this?
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: So to the accounting firm owners listening, 100% hop on vinyl because just how much time you're buying back.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_02: Wait, what could you can you guys do you guys have metrics where you can to a certain degree be like this is how much time we're saving firms post-meeting?
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we actually have some solid research on this.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: So um, what we found is that for the average 60-minute meeting, vinyl will save anywhere from 30 to 40 minutes of post-meeting admin.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: So that's admin spent on writing up meeting notes, typing them into a practice management system, briefing team members, sending follow-up emails, adding notes in all the various different places that they need to exist.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and vinyl saves that time automatically.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: So if you think for every 60-minute meeting, vinyl's gonna save you 30 to 40 minutes of admin afterwards, over like a week or a month in terms of the number of meetings you're having, like the time savings just start to stack considerably.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's crazy.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_02: So, what's what's next for vinyl then?
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: You guys, you're you you're and when was the one year anniversary?
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it depends when you class the anniversary of.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we we kind of conceptualized vinyl November of um November of last year, so 2024.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um we launched our beta in March, April of this year, 2025.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: We moved to general availability and started charging people in August.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess yeah, the anniversary of like the idea has just passed.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: The idea of when we started building it is early next year.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but in terms of what's what's next, like there's a few things that we're trying to solve for.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: So one of them is the post-meeting automation piece.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: So like going deeper down that specific path there, like having uh follow-up emails pre-drafted and ready to go once the meeting is finished, uh, building some deeper integrations with some of the practice management solutions where we're not just posting meeting notes, but we're also creating tasks or creating jobs and tagging people and saying someone just had a meeting with a client and this is what you need to do off the back of it.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: But then also looking at how do we start to create almost like a higher level uh dashboard for a firm whereby we can surface opportunities for them automatically.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, like imagine logging in if you're an accountant, you log into vinyl, and there's a dashboard which says, last week we identified three potential sales opportunities and conversations people in your team had with clients, where maybe they mentioned keywords like cash flow forecasting or funding support.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh or what if there was a widget where it highlighted um opportunities where the client service needs to be improved?
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because clients have said, Oh, I'm I'm not too happy with James and how he's performing and his communication sucks, for example.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure they won't say that about you, mate.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, imagine if all of this stuff can be surfaced automatically.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: So you as the practice owner don't need to worry about thinking about these things.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: Vinyl is almost just capturing and flagging it all for you automatically.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: That's so cool.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's my mind's just racing with how much could happen there.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_02: Tell me a little bit about from the sales side of things.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_02: Then I mean it sounds like that's the direction you guys are going in, where and I kind of even, yeah, like the cash flow forecasting, or someone's mentioning they overpaid in taxes.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_02: So that's like, all right, tax planning opportunity there.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um could you use it as almost like your sales, a sales coach to a certain degree?
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like right now, what you guys currently have, because you can analyze everything that's going on, can you be like, where did I mess up on this call, or what opportunities did I miss?
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: Or is that is that a function?
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: Because I I feel like that is a a hurdle that a lot of firms run into.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like a lot of firm owners get into the space because they're really good at what they do, not necessarily because they love the market and sales aspect of growing a firm.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_02: But it I mean, using a tool like yours, I feel like that could really help help in that area.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: It definitely can.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: And we actually already have a prompt built into vinyl right now in the Ask Vinyl uh part of the product, which is analyze this sales meeting and provide feedback on how well I run it.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um so you could you can do that today.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: You could pull in your latest uh sales meeting recording and ask for feedback on how well you how well you conducted the call.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: And let's just say that you're a larger firm and you've got different team members, let's say more junior team members that are now doing sales conversations with clients.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: You can then analyze how they're performing and analyze that against maybe like a process or a framework or a script that you have internally for these meetings and use that to provide feedback to them.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, there's there's all of these kinds of opportunities.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then I think something else you mentioned was around identifying sales opportunities.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like out-of-scope work is one of the biggest profit killers in accounting firms globally, where they just end up doing work for clients that's not within scope, but they're doing it because the client asked them to do it and they agree to do it.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: There is 100% a world in the very near future where vinyl can identify and flag out-of-scope work opportunities before they happen based on things clients are saying.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: So let's say, for example, you're having a meeting with a client or somebody in your team is having a meeting, and the client just casually mentions, oh, by the way, like it'd be great if you could just um support me with this funding application or this cash flow forecast.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the team member goes, Yeah, sure, I can help with that, no problem.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: But then in the background, Viner looks at that client record and says, these are the services the client has subscribed to.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we pull them through from something like Anchor or Ignition or even from Carbon.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: We then cross-reference that and say, This doesn't stack up, like this thing you've agreed to do here doesn't correspond with the service list you've agreed to deliver here.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, this is an out-of-scope opportunity that we then need to go and build a proposal for or create an invoice for.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, like those kinds of things are absolutely what we're thinking about so that we can capture that revenue for firms and they're not losing money doing work they're not getting paid to do.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: I I I love it.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_02: This I'm I'm so happy we were able to have the chance to meet.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_02: I just love what you guys are doing.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_02: It it's such a cool tool, and I'm so excited to see what you know what this looks like next year when we're sitting sitting in Vegas again and just hearing and watching you guys grow.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_02: I love seeing the posts on LinkedIn, so keep that stuff up.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um last question for you.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_02: What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: Personal or business?
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: Best piece of advice.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, God, that is a hard question.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: That wasn't on the uh on the pret form, was it?
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um we're gonna put you on the spot here.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm not so good on the spot.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: Let me think.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, best piece of advice I ever received.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um interestingly, something somebody told me more recently.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: So um, you can't control what happened yesterday.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: You can't really control what's gonna happen tomorrow.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: The only thing you can control is what happens today.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of a bit more of a mindset like focus on what you can control today.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Anything can happen tomorrow.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: You can put your best foot forward and plan to the best of your ability, but then something could come along and completely derail that plan.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you have no control over that.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: So just focus on what you can do and control today and yeah, try not to worry about anything else.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_02: I love it.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's such a powerful mindset.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_02: Jordan, thank you so much for coming on and taking the time to share a little bit about your story, share a lot about vinyl.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_02: How can people get in touch with you?
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: How can they follow along with your journey?
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_02: Where's the best uh where's the best spot to continue that conversation with you?
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you search for me on LinkedIn, uh Jordan Vickery, you should hopefully find me there.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you want to learn more about vinyl, it's use vinyl.com.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's used, not used.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: If you go to used, it's just gonna be secondhand vinyls you can buy.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's not gonna be much use to you.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and then yeah, look, if you have any other questions or you want to riff on some ideas about meeting transcripts, I'm pretty boring.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is all I talk about now.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty passionate about it as well.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: So more than happy to have that conversation and yeah, see where it goes.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: We'll put the links in the uh show notes.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: Jordan, again, thank you so much for coming on, man.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_02: This has been a pleasure, and I can't wait to see you at the next event.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I appreciate it.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, mate.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of CFO Chronicles, The Secrets Behind Success.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_02: I hope you found value in today's conversation.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_02: As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things.
• 32:47
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• 32:52
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• 32:55
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• 32:58
  SPEAKER_02: Second, if you're ready to take your business to the next level and attract the high-end clients you deserve, head over to accountingleadsnow.com or click the link in the show notes to book your strategy call.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's time to position yourself as the advisor your clients need.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_02: And don't forget, you can connect with me on LinkedIn to stay up to date on what's happening in the world of accounting and financial growth.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_02: We've got exciting topics coming up, so stay tuned for the next episode of CFO Chronicles.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_02: Until then, keep pushing forward.
• 33:25
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• 33:29
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• 33:34
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• 33:40
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• 33:53
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