Latest / The Accounting Leads Now Podcast / He Built a $1.5M Accounting Firm, Then Walked Away From Operations. Here's How | Scott Scarano

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He Built a $1.5M Accounting Firm, Then Walked Away From Operations. Here's How | Scott Scarano · The Accounting Leads Now Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to another episode of the Accounting Leads Now podcast.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're in for a real treat.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Today's guest is a rapper, an accountant, but an actual rapper.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I figured the only responsible thing to do was to introduce him properly.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is a story all about how attack firm's like to flip upside down, and I'd like to take a minute to sit right there.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you how it got became the Prince of the County with Flair.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: In Raleigh, North Carolina, born and raised in the bookkeeping teams where spent most of his days was going out, maxed in relaxed in all school, filing some taxadernes outside of the school within a couple of clients they were up to no good.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Neither buy their services like you knew they should.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: He made one little pivot, his team got scared, said you're moving away from the model that'll handle with care.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: He begged in, pleaded with his old clients he's saying.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: He packed up his process and sent them away.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: He put his systems in place and when it clicked right there, he thought I might just just be the first prince of a candy with flare.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: He pulled up two a million, five by year seven or eight, and yelled to the team, yo, home, smell you later.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Looked at his calendar, finally some heir to sit to his throne as the prince of a county with flair.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, do not mind my rapping.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna leave it to the man who can, Scott Scarano, Scotty OKR.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the show.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: Dope.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: I love that intro.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: I better uh change my name on here um on the title.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: So you're good, you're good.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Scott, welcome to the show.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so pumped to have you here.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really excited about this.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Let's uh let's get right into it.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_02: Like so, just on during the intro.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't know if I maintained and did both of these things at the same time.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: They were they are polar opposites.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: Both of these these alter egos, not really, because I did incorporate creative things into running the firm, but I wasn't a rapper running my firm.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: I was a rapper after after I felt like I achieved enough running the firm.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: And then it was like that's when I dove into that that newfound um like appreciate the clarification.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we'll uh I'll need to brush up on my research for the at this point now I've kind of balanced both of them together.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: I'll do I do them both and I could interchange between both, but it was like they existed in different planes at different times.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay, cool.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: Well we can get there, we'll get there through the conversations.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, absolutely.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I would love to know kind of right out of the gate, you built Page NC to one and a half mil and then stepped away from operations.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Walk me through what that actually looked like, what broke first, what was working well, how were you able to get out of operations?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: Hmm.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: I broke a lot of things to get there, and uh I don't know how much time we have for the answer to this one because it was a lot of different steps and a lot of different things that I went through to be able to get to the point where it was where it was running to where I felt safe that I could step away and let it go.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: So it's uh to get out of operations, it was EOS.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: EOS is the thing that we found that I was able to see myself at a point of like we saw this aspirational organizational chart, and there was just the visionary seat.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: At the point where we filled it out, I was sitting in almost every seat available.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: I was doing the marketing, I was doing sales, I was doing anything admin, HR, above, you know, whoever we had there too, and handling everything internally as well as still doing client work and still doing review.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: And but I saw this organizational chart and it was the visionary, the integrator, and then all these separate departments.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: And at that point, this was maybe 2017, at that point I was sitting in most of those roles, but it took a good three or four years to get myself out of those roles, and it wasn't until early COVID that I was able to really fully step away from everything but sales.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I and I stayed in sales until I trained two members of my team to basically handle everything I was doing with sales too.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: And now they're handling sales, and that's when I started, that's when I became a rapper after that.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: After they started doing sales and running the firm without me, that's when I was able to fully focus on building a podcast and and then doing the rap stuff too.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's so cool.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's so it's so aspirational hearing that.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: What like most firm owners can't let go, myself included.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard in certain roles.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: You've done it, I'm sure it wasn't easy and it wasn't a most firms think they fan owners think they can't.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: I thought I couldn't too.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: And and it wasn't until I really did let go of certain things that I you really realized that you didn't need to hang on to it as long as you did anyway, and you may have been able to let go sooner, but it's very hard for many different reasons, just because we want to maintain control over a lot of things too.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: So letting go of the review is very hard for most owners, and or letting go of sales because they feel like you need to have that you're selling your services through to that client and selling your business, so there's a lot of ownership to that.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: So letting go of that feels like you're letting go of ownership.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: There's also a lot of guilt in letting go of that too.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I felt a lot of guilty in having people do everything I was doing because then I felt like I I don't know.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't know.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: I it was hard to describe why I felt guilty about that.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um in hindsight now, I I understand like because I felt lazy.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: I felt like everybody was doing my job for me too.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: So I felt like in the past I used to step in and tinker with things and always change things.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so it took a lot of it, you know, it took me preoccupying myself with other things too, to be able to let go of some of that as well.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's there's two things I really want to touch on there, and this may be very selfish for me asking, and I I imagine the listeners will get a ton of value from this.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: But one, when you say you let when you let go, what what does that look like?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Are you full like you're fully stepping away from it?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Are you checking in and and providing training to the team or like define your version of letting go?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because maybe that's where a lot of people they they think they can't do it, and maybe they they go back into you know getting involved again.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: I know I know I'm guilty of that.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: So it was uh letting go of a lot of responding to certain emails too, or or feeling like I needed to step over and talk to clients.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I created that barrier where people didn't need to even get in touch with me anymore either, and they wouldn't get an answer from me, so then that would be from the team.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I let go just to the point where I have two main points of contact still included in the meetings, and I'm still included in major bigger decisions, but anything that isn't necessarily spending money or other things like that, they can handle.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I've got one team member that's all client-facing onboarding and and front-facing for early sales and and those you know, more client-facing, smooth everything over the clients.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: Another one that's team facing, operational facing, managing the team and managing that.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: So that's two parts of what my job was as the owner.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: I was all client-facing or front end handling early onboarding too when I was doing sales, um, but I was also managing the team.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: So it took separating those two because I had two people that were that were that fit both of those roles.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: They just each one of them didn't fit both of the roles.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: Like I I couldn't replace myself with one person, I had to replace it with two people, essentially.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: And and I'd love to hear a little bit more on the piece where you said you were almost feeling guilty where you you were able to replace yourself in all of these roles and you like you were able to get out of the business.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Walk me through that because again, I've certainly felt that at times where like, wow, I'm not I'm not doing the things I'm used to doing.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now what I do with my time, I almost feel guilty for not working when the team is, but that's that's building a team.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's like it's a generational thing growing up too, because I always felt like I needed to be working 24-7.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: I was always filling my time with more work, and that's what I was doing when I was growing the firm too.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: So finding that extra time, I felt guilty that I wasn't working and that I wasn't doing more, but I also in especially in the early phases of getting because I'm maybe four or five years removed from this now, but in the early phases, I was making more money when I was more removed from it because of the all everything that we had set up in our firm, which we should also talk about some of that too on this episode.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: But all of the systems and all of the money savings by by moving out of the office and not having an office, by having a team in the Philippines, and by cutting some of the major, major top line or you know, major costs that we had.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: I was my bottom line was bigger, I was making more money.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: I was you know able to afford all this extra free time too.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: So I had the time and the money, and I didn't know what to do with all of it.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: So that's why I started doing other things and still trying to fill the time too.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't really know how to chill or how to relax.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so that's why I felt guilty.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like, and and also the fact that like I don't know, I see other people struggling just the way like the way I was, and it's like I was getting in my own way to be able to feel okay with all of that too.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it was just like a lot of self-inflicted guilt, and I don't know how to describe all of that.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: That's a lot more deep-rooted.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: I had to work on that before I could get away from it.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: So I feel like I'm on the other side of that too.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, what a what a journey that must have been, and I'm guessing probably still is, but I like talk to me then about kind of that there that must have been almost, you know, for lack of better words, like a mind F where you're like, I'm not working as much, the business is making more money, it's probably like casseralized, it's healthier.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how did you tell me about how you even kind of got into that, how you were absorbing that, and what someone would do who's listening, who's like, I want to get to that point.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: So some of it, I look back on it now, some of it was probably just burnout and needing the rest, and my my body needing the rest because I spent years working 80 hours a week, like and pushing myself at both ends because I also have three kids, and at the time, you know, I had I would have I had two young kids at home, and I was working all night because I was with clients all day and the team all day and couldn't get any work done that I needed to do until everybody was gone at the office.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes I'd be at the office till 2 a.m.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: and then I'd come home.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, I wasn't out partying then.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: I was out, I was working.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: That was that was you know, the lights were on, and I was I was still in my office.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I part of it was that.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: Part of it was I had to get away from that.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um and that was that was why it seemed so like unattainable at first and aspirational when I saw that whole visionary, like because that was I was at my lowest, or I was working the most.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it wasn't my lowest because I was growing the firm too.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: The only way I could grow it was burning the candle at both ends.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I did it up until I couldn't anymore, maybe.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: So part of it was was also just needing to get away from certain things and feeling that like like looking for that life raft and something to pull me back up, and it and I was I had to let go of something that was dragging me down.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: So that's really painting quite the visual.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um how how would someone and we had Randy Crabtree on um a couple episodes ago talking about mentality?
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: He suffered a stroke, he burnt himself out too.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: Crazy same thing.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I would love to hear your kind of your insight, or like for someone's listening who's like that could be me, or what are signs of I didn't have a stroke.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: Fortunately, I caught all this stuff before it got too bad, but it it all happened so fast.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I grew the firm very fast too, and it was through a lot of you know, new modern tech and and things like that.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: So everything moved fast, and I think I just yeah, so it was different for sure.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's that's crazy.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: So Paget is a franchise model.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: How did that structure help or hurt you when you were trying to grow and eventually step back?
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: I think it helped first, foremost, because there was a way to do things, but I always wanted to look for a different way.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: So when I went to a lot of the early marketing training um with the home office, especially early days, their foundation and everything that they set for the firm was was great for me, but I also got to try new things because there was there was a way to do things, and then there was what if I did this and what if I tried this?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of the things that I tried, if they didn't work, I didn't do it again.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: But if they worked, I did more and more of it, and and and and I started growing really fast and doing and finding things.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I just recently went to a new marketing training, and I agree with everything that they were teaching because a lot of it was stuff that I was doing at my firm early days that they just didn't weren't hip to yet, like getting on Google and getting Google reviews.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: The foundational stuff that I did early on, I didn't realize how important it was now until I see that that's part of the playbook now.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like, first, get your Google get your presence on Google right, get reviews and establish yourself locally because then you're gonna still get a lot of inbound leads.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: And we do to this day, most of our leads come from our Google presence.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we have maybe 61, 62 reviews uh through all the years, you know, now, and we still that's that's enough to be more than most in our local area, right?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: I I love that you're saying all this.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: I want everyone to hit hit rewind and listen to this a couple more times from what Scotty just said.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Getting on Google is so important.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: I I feel like a broken record sometimes bringing this up, but it it's awesome to hear how And nowadays it's easier.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have to wait for a postcard if you're like that's what we had we had to do back then, like at our old office, and then we moved, so we had to get the new postcard just to update that, and like you don't have to do that stuff anymore.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's easier.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: So um I got a uh kind of a trivia question for you here, Scotty.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: How many reviews do you think the average accounting firm in the US has on their on their Google business profile?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_02: Zero or five.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: Zero to five.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Ten.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: Around ten.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: That's better.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: That's better than I thought.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: See, when I first read that, I was like, that's a pathetic number.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's so low.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean it's awesome to hear you guys are at 60, 60 plus and growing.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: What's your secret for your firm getting reviews?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's not a lot that I come across who book calls us that are 60 plus.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: So it's in the beginning, it was my personal touch that I always had, and then whenever a client was happy, I'd always ask them straight away to put that into a review, and that was early on.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: Then I started to teach the team how to do that and bottle that up.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: If somebody's really happy with you, or say say something that makes that just tell them to pay that forward and leave a review, and occasionally that would work.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: Now we try to instill a system where everybody has to be asking for reviews, and and we need to like we went through a drought maybe a year or two without any reviews, and all of a sudden we stopped getting leads from Google.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: So now like it's established, but now I also go back and I read them, and it's certain team members or certain people from the team that clients are calling out, and I know those people, those are your all-stars, right?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: You're those are the people that clients really love working with and feel excited about, and they'll mention that person's name in the review, too.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: So I start to see you know who who our all-stars are and who's really shining.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, more reviews is more leads.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: So that was the first first and foremost thing was reviews, but there was things like the team page, right?
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: When clients go to your website, they don't care about all that copy.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's straight to the team page that they go.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: They want to see who they're gonna be working with.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: So I made sure that we did something cool on the team page.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the early ideas, things I did was everybody's gonna take two pictures, and we got a professional photographer.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it was a client that came in and we did like a barter system.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: So we we did hair and makeup for everybody, and we took two photos of everybody.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: One was their serious, straight up, like a work photo, and the other one was like their fun, their hobby, and they got to dress up however they wanted.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: So when you scroll the mouse over, the serious photo, it should pops up their phone.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, clients would love that, or potential clients would love that because that's where they went.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: So if they found you online, they went to your website, they didn't care about the copy, they went straight to the team page.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_02: And that's and I always heard that.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like, that was like people like, oh, I want to work with this person.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: That look that person looks cool.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: So well, that was but that was fun.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that and that's a pattern interrupt in a really positive way.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like, most sites you go to don't have that for whether it's just the accounting space or any industry.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's getting better now, like you said, most firms only had zero to five back when I was looking at it.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: Now they're probably 10 at least, yeah.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: Hopefully, now more teams have a team page and they have pictures of their people up there.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of times they didn't before, they would have like maybe a picture of the owner and their families or something like that.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, so showing some more personality.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, what what else is the firm doing today when it comes to marketing, getting the name out there, making sure inbound leads are coming in and the sales team has as much opportunity as they could handle to keep growing the firm?
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: Great, great question because I still need to go back to the drawing board for some of this.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: I'm also thinking of doing an acquisition probably in the near future just to give us some more real growth.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: But the types of inbound leads that we used to get compared to today isn't quite what it used to be.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: We used to get a ton of leads from Zero's directory too.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: We still do get leads from there, but not quite as many as we used to, just because it's not as concentrated as like there's more advisors in their directory than there used to be.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um so more competition, less leads.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh same with Gusto's directory.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: We still do get a ton of leads from Gusto, but it's just the quality of leads that come in um aren't as good, maybe as like I don't know.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: We did we some get some decent ones from Gusto, but those were the main sources of our inbound leads.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_02: We weren't doing any real marketing.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: Like I think the like what I would do today, you know, what I'm seeing out there today is like I gotta pick our what we're best at, who's our ideal client, who's our niche.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: We don't really have one.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_02: We never really did.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: We just took everything that came in inbound.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: Most of it was small business and it fit a criteria because we kind of pigeonholed them in through our intake system.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: But uh otherwise, it's like you know, I did a list of our clients recently.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: I did a whole client inventory, went to this workshop, and I found we're across the board everywhere.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: And we we have concentrations, but our like our top five clients are all different.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: The top ten clients are like maybe some similarities in professional services, but you know, we got daycares, we've got retail, we've got e-commerce, we've got sports, we've got construction, we got SaaS, we've got restaurants.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_02: I could keep going on.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like, and those are just our top clients.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so if I were to pick, I'm scared of like losing all of that.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: And also like based on our leads, it's mostly local businesses, or it's people that were using Zero that found us through the directory.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the commonality between all the clients.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know how to mark how to continue marketing right now.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: We do also have Home Office, the franchise page, they help, they help with our brand, the branding, and they do a lot of online presence or things for the for the offices, especially a uh consistent website across all offices, which we didn't have before.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_02: So um, so yeah, so they've been doing stuff that's but that might be the extent of it.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, we're not doing anything cool like a podcast for potential clients.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_02: I'd like to do stuff like that, you know, social media.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like I was doing social media for accountants, but I wasn't doing it for potential clients.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: So how could I, you know, utilize those skills that I learned there and apply that to our firm and grow the firm too?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: I want to talk a little bit more about uh Scotty OKR.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I'm curious, has have the rap videos, the the rapping, has this brought in clients?
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: Do clients ask you about uh what you do outside of office hours?
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: Because I'm so far removed, I know I get I get word from it from my Team that you know, potential leads or people came in and mentioned it.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I had once or twice people say they listened to the podcast just just because they saw it when they saw the firm.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: But it was never direct, no, like it was almost like two different entire um worlds.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I created that whole persona because I left this other persona.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: So when I changed my name on here, it's like Scott or Scotty, those were two, like, you know, now like I said, I can I can weave in and out of that, um, but I haven't applied everything I learned to that to for face like potential clients too.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know if I wanted to do that.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: I think I I did this separately because I needed an outlet for something else.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: I was real I was real creative with the stuff I was doing with the firm, but it wasn't really like what I wanted to do and and like say anything I wanted and do the and then become a rapper.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: So it was all it all turned into that.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_02: Now I think I I can apply it to this, but they haven't really crossed necessarily crossed the streams yet, and like I haven't done a rap for potential clients, maybe or things like that.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: And rapping for lead gen.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's worth a shot.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Marketing is all about testing.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think you rap for some lead gen.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and and I'm I'm like, I also like you know, I I also took a full break from that accounting stuff, and I did it with my kids too.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: So there was like a period where I was doing raps with my kids, we were doing Dr.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: Seuss books, just so I can pull that creativity out of them and have that experience with them in like a time capsule because they're only kids for a short, short period of time.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I could capture that and then we had that, and now it's like I took a break from that and I'm getting a little bit of a bug.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_02: So we'll see if uh I pull it in and try to fuse it all together.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: I love it in the future.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_02: I just did recently did a video with the other accountant who raps because there is another one.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_02: I saw this.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_02: You saw it, all right.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so me and Drew Carrick, the rapping CPA, who was doing it before I was, I saw his, and that was partly the spark that was like, I could do this, like seeing that, that was like giving me permission to do it too.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because I had always thought of doing something like that, and then finally seeing somebody that took the effort to make do it, him and John Garrett.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_02: John Garrett had some funny ones too.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um gave me the uh the push to like finally make my first video and and do that.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: So shout out to Drew.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: We did the um so he's rapping CPA, we did, or he's petty cash in the video.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, so we just released the video for that.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: We've been working on it since like 2024, I think.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um texting back and forth, writing it, and then recording it, and then me saying we got to have a video first before we release it.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so we filmed the video in Florida earlier this year.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so good.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and Scotty, what does OKR stand for?
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: Does it stand for anything okay rapper?
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_02: Well, objectives and key results is what OKRs are.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_02: And in our world, I was in a carbon um webinar, and Ian's all talking about OKRs, and it was like that acronym stuck in my head, and then it was like um my early rap name was Lil Toddler.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: It was just a fun that was like there's little baby out there and little Dickie and all these other Lil's, so I was Lil Toddler, but it wasn't it didn't really fit everything that I was doing.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I was on a call with Blake one day and um Blake Oliver, and and and I'll never forget this because I said I think I got a new rap name.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna be I'm gonna be OKR because there's DMX and I was working on the tax accountant's anthem at the time.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and um and he was like OKR, awesome.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: I love OKRs.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: What does it mean?
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Okay rapper, and he burst out laughing, and he was like, That's it.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: And uh yeah, so that was that was the origin story of that.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: Nice, nice.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: I only feel mildly silly now, not uh picking up on the OKR acronym on the accounting side of things, but I love how you're sorry.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: I I yeah, I mean it's it's gotta be a double on Tandra in some ways, you know.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's what accounting high was, technically, you know.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: Nice.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I say was because I feel like we graduated accounting high, but it that still does always exist.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um if if I uh and feel free to say no on this, if I put you on the spot for a little uh freestyle about the accounting leads now podcast or about um Scott's Dazzle, could we get a little little freestyle from you?
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: Oh no freestyles.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's a no.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_02: I I I gotta give me some time to write.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_02: I would have written I would have written it before.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um I can we can we can out ride it out with the recent one that I released.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: I can probably share my screen and we can play accounting buddies.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_02: That'll be that'll be a better way to ride it out than listening to me try to come up with something on the spot.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_02: You don't want to hear that.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, cool.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Pull it up, pull it up, let's do it.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: Let's do that.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh yeah, we'll we'll close out the episode with that.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: But so I have another question just while you're pulling that up.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for sure.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um for the firm owners who are listening right now and they're stuck in the same revenue number for the third year in a row.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: What's the first thing you'd tell them to do Monday morning or even when this episode is done playing?
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: Same revenue, third year in a row.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: What revenue range?
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, we'll call it maybe 300 to 500k.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: So are they happy with how much they're making with that?
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: Because do they want to enter the next phase of this?
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_02: The next phase is gonna be making less money as they grow.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: Potentially.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_02: If they're running it very efficiently and they've been doing it for three years and they're making good money and they want to grow, are they okay with making less for a little while?
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: Because that's what's gonna happen.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um before they can make more than they're making now or or get to that point, they have to go through a phase of hiring people, finding you know, so the first thing they can do is decide what they want before they make any steps into the next no man's land, because that's that's the ne that's the next place they go.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um to get from three to five hundred up to over a million, let's say one point two million is usually that next break point that people get to.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: To get there, it's gonna require replacing themselves with a lot of the things that they do so then they can do more things to help navigate the next wave where the firm goes.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: So to get from three to five up to one to one point two, one point three million, it takes a lot of changing structurally and planning for that and hiring the right people and getting the right people in the right places so you're not in all the places, too.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: Because I I would imagine three to five hundred you're doing a lot, but you're also being paid fairly for that.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you're fairly compensated, you're making good money, but you're required for everything, and you can't step away from that, and you have a client list that you can sell in most cases that you can sell, and it's not necessarily a business that could run without you until you get to the point where you hire people and you can get that.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you could find all the efficiencies in the world, but that's going to make you more money, and you're gonna fill that extra time with more work too.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I did.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: Huge, super insightful.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then where where do people um like where where is the best spot for people to find you?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: How can we push them more to Scotty OKR online?
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: I wanna if you're cool with it, start start blending these two uh a little bit more.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I I want to hear an upcoming rap rap uh about lead gen for the first.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, we'll see.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you might get one because that's where my head's at right now.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_02: I went to this growth seminar, I'm going to carbon next.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_02: Next, you can see me in person at a lot of these events because that's where I am.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_02: I'm in the middle of that.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um not necessarily on stage anymore, rapping because I was like, you know, I feel like I'm better in the back of the room watching too, standing up watching.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_02: I have more fun doing that.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's very stressful.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: Preparing for performance and getting up there and doing all that.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_02: The lead up to that is nothing but stress up until I get up until I finish.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: And then I have a great time.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: But lately I've been going to conferences and actually just listening and paying attention and hanging out with people and talking, and that's been a lot of fun.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_02: So you can find me.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to engage this year.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to well, this will be out probably after both of those, but you know, just at the next events coming up here and there, the bigger ones I usually go to, Intuit Connect.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_02: I'll probably be there.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm online on LinkedIn, so you can find me there.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh all right, cool.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: We'll have we'll have all the links in there.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: Are you gonna be at scaling in a couple weeks?
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh might not.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_02: That's probably a no.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, no worries.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, all right, Scott, do you have uh do you have the clip ready on your end?
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll uh we'll kind of we'll roll off into the sunset with this.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate you coming on the show.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: This has been a blast, and let's uh let's ride out with your with your song here.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, like I said, we we worked on this for a little while.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, let me see if I could get this to do.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_02: Here we go.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_02: All right, this is accounting buddies, and uh should be playing.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_02: Let me tell me if it's audio's playing.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, me and my buddy, buddy, we kinda know that it's money.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're not just trying to count it, but we had to climb in that mountain.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: Me and my buddy, we not just mama we find.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: Whoa, that it just went to the tapin.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: Moving the hands like lap lap and shock.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: We got a system just like a stock.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: Won't go down like marking around.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: Just top in the knock.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: Y'all know me, I'm here for the shock.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: No, don't roll those black and look at the body like price.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: And you wanna get this big three pmg that daddy county like we're controlling.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go on the tree as we look in our clock.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: They get the future my bracket exhaust, just like a boss with a front of the lobby.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's got the petty, don't forget it, must forget it.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: Fucking definitely credit.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: Me and my buddy, we kind of know that it's money.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we let this climb in the country, but we never climb in the mountain.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: Me and my buddy, we that just move away.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: Whoa, did I just watch it crafting?
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: Moving the hands like that.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: We're all time partners.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm talking to Lloyd and dudes.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: Every room that I'm walking to with like all the heroes that's doing it.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: I don't sleep with just those off slow a ton of money on the cash flow, show a ton of money that's pro bone of a fixed asset, just fit next to like the castle, Christmas.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: Feel like we'll tell you if you rap you always have to just live if you come to the money.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: We can anonymous money.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're not just an account, but we have to come in the mountain, be my buddy.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: We're not just my bump with money.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: Whoa, never just want to happen.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: We don't ever need to say it's over the dinner but the number thick and pick us with a number of everybody else.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: We can make a proper now we can look over chicken pickets.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the greatest offer.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: Who the greatest mother like Orwell Steve Jobs?
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: Come into the ending like these box, please stop.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: Coming hip hop like Goostee meat scope.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: Wind it to the top, you're gonna need a new beat drop.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: Unreal.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: Unreal.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: So good, Scotty.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for coming by, dude.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is incredible.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone, come back for the next uh next episode of the Accounting Leads Now podcast.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thanks for having me on, man.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_02: Appreciate it.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's a wrap on another episode of the Accounting Leads Now podcast.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: If you got something out of today's conversation, do me a favor.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: Hit subscribe so you never miss an episode and leave us a review wherever you're listening.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: It genuinely helps this show grow.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: And the bigger this community gets, the better the conversations we can bring you.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's the part I actually care about most.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you're running a firm and you're still relying on word of mouth to bring in new clients, I want you to hear this.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: Referrals aren't a growth strategy.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'll say that again.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: Referrals are not a growth strategy.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: They're a hope strategy.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you're ready to stop hoping and start building a system that brings qualified prospects to you consistently, go to accountingleadsnow.com and book a call with my team.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: We work exclusively with accounting, bookkeeping, and tax firms.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: We'll look at your situation specifically and tell you what we would do if it was our firm on the line for bringing in new clients.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to go deeper on your own first, I wrote a book called Book Solid Digital Marketing Strategies that actually work for accounting firms.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's the digital marketing playbook built specifically for accounting, bookkeeping, and tax firms.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: Link to grab a copy is in the show notes.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks again for listening, and we'll catch you on the next one.