Latest / Transforming: Tales of Business Evolution / TfP 019. Intentional Firm Growth That Actually Works

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TfP 019. Intentional Firm Growth That Actually Works · Transforming: Tales of Business Evolution

0:03
Jaimie Boyd: Welcome to
0:04
Transforming Tales of Business Evolution,
0:07
where we delve into the dynamic world
0:09
of business transformation.
0:11
Each episode is designed for firms of any size and scale,
0:15
exploring both innovative long
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term planning and day-to-day
0:18
operating practices that help
0:20
organizations adapt to a changing landscape.
0:23
Join us each month as we hear from leaders in
0:25
the public accounting profession
0:27
sharing their experiences
0:28
of reshaping their business models and inspiring
0:31
you to explore new ways to evolve your own organization.
0:35
Let's dive into this month's conversation now.
0:38
Hello, and welcome to
0:40
Transforming Tales of Business Evolution.
0:43
My name is Jamie Boyd,
0:45
and I'm a manager with
0:47
the firm Services team at the AICPA.
0:50
Today, I'm joined by Sarah Krom,
0:53
a CPA and the managing partner of SKC and Company CPAs.
0:59
We'll be discussing something that I believe will
1:01
resonate with many firm owners and leaders.
1:05
That's how do you grow without losing
1:07
the culture that your staff
1:08
and clients have become accustomed to.
1:11
Sarah, I'm really glad you're here,
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and I'm looking forward to this conversation.
1:16
Sarah Krom: Thank you, Jamie.
1:17
I'm excited to share with you today.
1:20
Jaimie Boyd: Before we dive in,
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I'd love if you can tell us
1:24
a little bit about your firm today,
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your location, your size, your services,
1:30
how your team is structured,
1:32
and where you're seeing the most momentum right now.
1:36
Sarah Krom: Okay. I'll start with
1:38
the facts because those are easy.
1:40
SKC has been around for 44 years.
1:44
We are successfully transitioned from
1:47
the first generation of
1:48
founding partners to the second generation.
1:52
The three partners, myself and
1:54
two others, 100% women owned.
1:56
We are average partner age of 42,
2:00
and we are headquartered in Boutin,
2:03
New Jersey, which is sort of Northwest New Jersey.
2:06
We have a satellite office in Temecula, California,
2:09
which is halfway between LA and San Diego,
2:13
if you just need to visualize it.
2:15
We have 30 team members,
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and we are predominantly, as I said,
2:20
in the New Jersey office,
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but we've got some people who
2:23
work remotely in a couple of states.
2:25
Then, of course,
2:26
we have our satellite office in California.
2:29
We work only with entrepreneur business owners,
2:32
and our mission our why we do
2:37
what we do is to make
2:39
business owners be the best version of themselves.
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That could mean many different things
2:45
to our team members and how they interpret that,
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but that's our driving mission.
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What it looks like from a service offering
2:52
is that at a minimum,
2:53
our clients meet with us on a quarterly basis.
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The majority of them request to meet more
2:59
often and move up to either
3:00
a bimonthly or a monthly model.
3:02
But the ground-level service is quarterly,
3:05
and it involves strategy, goal setting,
3:09
understanding what they want from the business,
3:12
whether it's going to be a lifestyle business,
3:13
whether it's going to grow to get acquired
3:16
or it's going to grow and acquire other companies.
3:19
We certainly do tax planning and tax strategy, as well,
3:23
and then we prepare tax returns
3:25
for the business owner and the business, as well.
3:29
We look at a lot of operational things.
3:31
Are they as profitable as they can be?
3:33
What is their culture like?
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Very often, what we do as partners running SKC
3:39
is very much how we strategize and advise our clients.
3:44
The momentum question.
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Where we're actually seeing a lot of momentum
3:48
as a firm is really through the client experience,
3:52
and what that means to us is giving that
3:56
five star service to anybody that
3:59
wants to join our team as a client,
4:02
and it's that above and beyond.
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It's not just delivering your tax return timely.
4:08
It's not just making sure that we follow up with
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you on making estimated payments timely.
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It's really those top line,
4:19
hospitable above and beyond service offerings.
4:23
Perhaps we're including you
4:26
in our mastermind group that we run.
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Perhaps we're inviting you to an event where you
4:32
can meet other business owners and
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other clients of ours that would be beneficial to you.
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Perhaps we're taking you to
4:38
a certain training that we
4:40
are taking or that we think that will benefit you.
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Perhaps we're going above and beyond and sending gifts
4:46
to your child who just had your first grandchild.
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For us, it's really what is that five star service?
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What does that look like for
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our clients who are coming to us?
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We're really capitalizing on that in
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2026 and beyond to really build
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out what that client experience looks
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like beyond just traditional tax and accounting services.
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Jaimie Boyd: Thank you for walking us through that,
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and I love what you said
5:14
about what is that five star service,
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because I feel like that is extremely
5:20
crucial to differentiate yourself, and like you said,
5:24
going above and beyond for
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your service offerings and making sure that
5:29
the clients have the best experience.
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So I love what you said about that.
5:34
Sarah Krom: If you're familiar with the book
5:36
Unreasonable Hospitality,
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which is based on basically a restaurant,
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so the hospitality industry,
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but it was written by a restaurateur.
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Several of us read that book a couple of years ago,
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and then we sent two people to a training
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last year all about
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unreasonable hospitality and what that looks like.
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They've brought that back now to the office.
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We've created a committee around creating
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the experience of unreasonable
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hospitality for our clients.
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We did a vision statement several years ago for
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a five year vision plan looking forward
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and actually expires at the end of 2026.
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In that five-year vision,
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we said we wanted to be the four-star
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Michelin ranked CPA firm to play on the hospitality,
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and so it's very interesting for us that
6:23
now almost at the end of our vision plan,
6:25
we're going through this unreasonable
6:27
hospitality exercise in
6:29
our firm to really systematize
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it and bring it to our clients.
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Jaimie Boyd: Yeah, because there's a lot of
6:35
crossover between what you do
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as a CPA and what
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is expected out of the hospitality industry.
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That's super cool, that's something that you guys
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have incorporated into your strategic vision plan.
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Sarah Krom: It's about service.
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We're all service industries,
6:53
and we can get into
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this as we go through the conversation,
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but how does technology
7:00
eliminate or minimize the humanity in
7:02
the relationship and how
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intentional we need to be in bringing it back
7:06
and bringing it back better
7:08
than it was when technology stripped it away.
7:11
Jaimie Boyd: I love that you touched
7:12
on the technology point
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because that is more relevant now than ever.
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When you think about growth for your firm,
7:20
what does that mean to you?
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Could it be revenue,
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headcount, expanding your service offerings,
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which I know you touched on a little bit already,
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deepening your client relationships or
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just something entirely different.
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What does that mean to you?
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Sarah Krom: As accountants, sometimes,
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we are given the label that we're numbers people.
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Listen, I love data more than the next person.
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Believe me, we look at a lot
7:46
of data for how we manage the firm.
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But I think there's some traditional KPIs, if you will.
7:53
Like you said, revenue growth, profitability,
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number of clients, headcount, service offerings,
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all those things are important and should be looked at.
8:05
When we look at what does growth mean for SKC
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and how do we make sure that we're growing successfully.
8:13
Because you could grow by acquisition, as an example,
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and perhaps all of those acquisitions
8:19
are not really in
8:21
alignment with your culture or your values,
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and so you grew based on revenue and headcount,
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but was that really a successful growth?
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We look at it as how is our team progressing.
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We built out our technical competencies,
8:36
our behavioral competencies that our team adheres to,
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and we built out a career map
8:42
for each individual team member.
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As they meet with me as the managing partner to
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go through where they want to go on the career map,
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what level they want to rise to
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in our technical competency framework,
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what education and
8:58
training they're going to need to get there,
9:00
what experiences they're going to have to get the skills
9:03
to get to those levels to ascend to
9:05
that rung of the ladder, if you will.
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That's really how we measure success
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is how successful is our team growing.
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If you've spent any time in the hiring space,
9:15
you'll hear people say,
9:17
so and so has five years of experience.
9:20
That may intellectually sound like what
9:22
you're looking for to add to your team,
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but that five years of experience
9:26
could be five years of doing the same thing.
9:28
Is that really just a really good entry-level,
9:31
or is that somebody that has five years of experience?
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So our measurement of
9:36
growth is if our people and our team is growing,
9:40
both technically, professionally, personally,
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that's going to bleed through for
9:45
our clients who will then
9:47
have success because of
9:48
the services that they're getting from us,
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and that's really a measurement that
9:52
we look at when we're looking at overall growth.
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Jaimie Boyd: That is such a key point
9:57
we make that someone having
10:00
five years experience isn't
10:02
the same across the board because, like you said,
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someone may have five years of experience,
10:07
but they've been doing the same thing
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where someone else may have
10:11
the same five years of experience
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doing work at above a level that they are currently at.
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I feel like it's super important to
10:21
just pause and define growth,
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and when did you decide to grow in a way,
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and what does it actually look like for
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your firm to integrate
10:33
and you practice or service or a new way of doing things?
10:38
Sarah Krom: I have two real-world
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examples I can pull from here.
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In 2019, we started
10:44
a data analytics service line internally at SKC,
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and I'll gloss over the details
10:49
because I know we have a limited time together,
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but we had a team member at
10:53
the time who was on the path to partner,
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and he passed a CPA.
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He had started as an intern with us,
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and he didn't love doing "CPA work" anymore.
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We were grateful that instead
11:06
of just deciding he wanted to move on,
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he came to us and said, I'd really
11:10
love to explore something with data analytics.
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We built out and went
11:15
through a very systematized process.
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We built out a data analytics service line
11:19
internally at SKC,
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launched it formally in 2020.
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Then in 2023, we spun it off into its own company,
11:28
and that individual who came to us and wanted to
11:31
start this data analytics service line
11:33
is now the president of that,
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I'll call it a sister company of SKC.
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That's one example of
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something that we've done internally.
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As much as we, as partners now at SKC, can take credit for
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supporting and nurturing that idea,
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it was not one of our ideas.
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We had created a culture that
11:55
was very open to listening to our team,
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very welcoming of new ideas.
12:01
Again, this person felt
12:02
really comfortable coming to us and saying,
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I'm not loving tax returns.
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I'm not loving what we're doing in the CPA space,
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but this is what makes me tick. What's my option here?
12:14
The second more recent example for us is,
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again, we work with entrepreneurs from soup to nuts.
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If they need somebody to reconcile their QuickBooks,
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we do that in order to be able to make sure we have
12:27
good numbers for meeting with them on a regular cadence.
12:31
We've always done bookkeeping as,
12:34
if we can't have good data to meet with
12:36
you on and provide value,
12:38
we need to backtrack
12:40
and make sure we have good data first.
12:42
We've done bookkeeping services in that capacity.
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But what we've decided to do when we
12:46
started last year is really formally launch
12:49
a CAS practice or a bookkeeping arm of SKC.
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We call it the Concierge Accounting Service
12:56
instead of Client Accounting Services,
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which is what I think the traditional CAS acronym is.
13:01
We systematized how are we going to launch this.
13:05
This is a service we've always had,
13:06
but we've now got to tell the world.
13:08
The first thing we did is
13:10
we decided who we were going to serve.
13:11
This is essentially the same process we went through with
13:14
the Data Analytics Service line, later, its own company.
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Who are we going to serve?
13:18
What was that going to look like?
13:19
Because we needed to know
13:20
what audience we wanted to touch.
13:22
In the case of our cast practice,
13:24
we're choosing to focus right now,
13:25
at least on veterinarians and healthcare providers.
13:29
Doctors, dentists, those types of things.
13:33
Then we have to decide
13:35
how do we want to serve them?
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What's that going to look like?
13:37
We developed what the tech stack is.
13:40
We developed how we're going to price it.
13:42
We developed what the service is going to look like and
13:44
how the team is going to be
13:46
structured for each client that comes on.
13:48
All of this again is in the context of RY at SKC,
13:52
which again is to make sure
13:54
business owners are the best versions of themselves.
13:56
If their skill set isn't making sure that
14:00
their office manager or their bookkeeper
14:02
is overseeing and doing what they're supposed to do,
14:04
that's when we step in and say,
14:06
we're going to take this off your plate.
14:07
We're going to make sure everything is done properly.
14:09
You're protected, and that we
14:11
have good data that we can advise you on.
14:13
We built the process.
14:15
We built out the pricing of the service,
14:17
and then we developed our social media launch campaign
14:20
and are in the process this year
14:22
of launching it on social media and
14:24
formally making that service
14:25
offering available to our clients.
14:28
We try to make things,
14:30
and anytime we build something SKC,
14:32
we try to develop systems and processes
14:35
around it, and that it's
14:38
replicable when we want to
14:41
scale, and that anybody can pick up where
14:43
somebody else left off and run with it because things are
14:46
fairly aligned in strategy
14:50
and how we do and how we execute.
14:52
Jaimie Boyd: I feel like a lot of what you touched on is
14:56
great for talent recruiting and talent retention
15:01
because it shows that you don't have to
15:04
just stick with traditional techs and that
15:07
there are other opportunities to
15:10
learn and grow from within your firm.
15:14
I think that is super critical right now,
15:17
especially with the talent pipeline issues
15:20
that we've been seeing across the profession.
15:23
Sarah Krom: We want to let people create their own path.
15:26
My partners and I, we each had
15:28
our own path to get to where we are.
15:30
We want to be able to pay that forward with our team,
15:34
and not everything is going to fit and work,
15:37
and sometimes people have to get coached out,
15:40
and that ends up being a mutually beneficial situation.
15:43
But for the most part, when
15:44
our team members have passion and
15:47
ideas that make them really excited,
15:51
we really just want to help them
15:53
nurture them and accomplish
15:55
that journey and create that pathway for themselves,
15:59
even though nobody may have forged that path yet.
16:03
Jaimie Boyd: Do you have a mentorship program
16:07
set up within the firm,
16:09
allowing people to work their way
16:11
into other opportunities and
16:13
having the support to do that?
16:15
Sarah Krom: We do. I wouldn't necessarily call it
16:17
a formal mentorship program internally.
16:21
There's always the opportunity for you to select
16:24
an internal mentor if that is what speaks to you.
16:28
We also have opportunities that we've set up with
16:32
external coaches that will
16:34
step in and serve in mentorship roles.
16:36
Sometimes that's just a better personality
16:39
fit or there's just more synergy there.
16:42
We also have a mental health professional
16:44
that we keep on retainer,
16:46
not so much in a mentorship role,
16:48
but somebody who can assist in removing
16:51
obstacles or clearing the path for
16:54
people that may have
16:56
some roadblocks that they may not want to share
16:59
internally or just rise to the level of being
17:03
out of our internal realm of experience and expertise.
17:07
Jaimie Boyd: That's super critical,
17:08
especially during these busier times
17:11
that we're currently in,
17:13
now that it is currently tax season.
17:15
But just honestly, any time of the year,
17:18
I think that is critical to have
17:20
that support for your staff,
17:21
and I'm sure that is such a great way
17:24
that you can retain your talent,
17:26
touching on that as your firm
17:28
grows and roles start to shift,
17:32
how have you helped retain talent
17:36
and keep your people engaged
17:38
as you go through growth and changes?
17:42
Sarah Krom: That's a great question.
17:45
I am one, and this was a lesson that I learned.
17:48
I'm not gonna say early on in
17:50
my leadership journey that would probably not be true.
17:53
I actually may have learned it more
17:55
than once in my leadership journey.
17:56
That would probably be more factual is
17:58
that you cannot overcommunicate.
18:01
There's no such thing as overcommunication.
18:05
That may manifest itself in saying something seven
18:12
times in several different ways
18:16
to communicate your message.
18:21
I think that when I didn't know this as a leader,
18:26
I had not given grace to
18:29
the team who was hearing an idea for the first time where
18:33
maybe myself and the rest of
18:35
the partner team had been troubleshooting it for months
18:41
and living with it and modifying it and discussing it and
18:45
ruminating over it and had
18:48
finally gotten to the point of launch or of sharing,
18:51
and the team was hearing it once, where we had
18:53
again heard it and lived it for so much longer.
18:56
It took me a while to realize that and that the team,
19:01
in order to get on board with
19:03
whatever cultural shift or
19:06
growth improvement change was going to happen,
19:09
needed to hear all of that a lot more frequently.
19:14
What we started to do is be very
19:16
intentional about our communication.
19:18
If we were going to grow in a certain way,
19:22
and I can share this as a story,
19:25
we made a decision to focus on
19:27
a very specific type of client
19:29
and offer very specific services to that client.
19:33
In that process, we had to shed a lot
19:36
of legacy clients that we
19:38
had that may have just been
19:40
1040 clients or tax return only.
19:43
I talk to you once a year, and that's it.
19:45
When you approach your team and you say this to them,
19:49
they have a lot of questions.
19:50
They don't understand why we would
19:52
let go of perfectly good clients,
19:54
why we would give up that revenue.
19:56
What did that mean for their jobs?
19:58
Were we going to be making cuts because all of
20:00
this revenue was now going away?
20:03
We had to communicate
20:05
that this is where we're looking to go.
20:08
In order to get here and make room for
20:10
these very specific clients that we want to service,
20:14
we have to make that room.
20:16
If we chose not to do that,
20:18
then we would just bring in new clients and still
20:21
expect you to service
20:23
the legacy clients and the new clients,
20:25
and that's painfully unfair to you, our team members.
20:29
We had to really put together
20:31
focus groups and bring people on the team in
20:33
earlier in the process
20:34
so that they were understanding the
20:36
behind-the-scenes and why we were
20:38
doing these things and that there really was
20:41
a longer-term goal for it because
20:43
a lot of us are very much head down day-to-day.
20:46
Let me just get through what I can.
20:47
But when we brought them into the fold a
20:50
little bit earlier in the process in this example,
20:52
they were then able to go out
20:54
and share with the rest of the team members.
20:55
No, this is really a good thing.
20:57
This makes sense for us.
20:59
You just have to look beyond this tax season and
21:01
into the next 3-5 years; it's the long game.
21:05
Not everybody that's not at
21:07
the leadership table understands the long game.
21:10
We had to be very intentional about
21:11
the communication and getting that buy-in and
21:14
getting that understanding and tying it back to
21:17
our values and our why, so that people
21:19
weren't afraid of these changes, and people weren't scared
21:22
of losing their job or being displaced.
21:26
I was all part of a larger, more significant plan.
21:29
Jaimie Boyd: That is all so important,
21:31
everything that you said.
21:33
A lot of firms probably aren't in that spot of,
21:37
how do we change,
21:39
but how do we also keep our people?
21:42
What's the best way of going
21:43
about that and overcommunicate?
21:46
I think that is the keyword
21:48
because growth can be exciting,
21:50
change can be exciting,
21:52
but it can also create uncertainty, and like you said,
21:56
people may be scared about their jobs,
21:58
especially now on current times and just hearing
22:02
from leadership and having that constant communication,
22:06
I think it is so critical,
22:08
and where the firm is
22:09
going and then also hearing from leadership,
22:11
how your people can fit into that change
22:14
and what impact that
22:17
they can have so that they feel a part of it.
22:19
Sarah Krom: Listen, as accountants,
22:20
we're historically not known to be lovers of change.
22:24
We have to be aware of our audience and get to
22:27
know who our team members are and how they
22:29
react to those things and
22:31
do a little intentional communicating in
22:34
smaller pockets to address what
22:36
you may already know will be concerns raised.
22:40
But again, change is thrust upon us
22:42
so much in not just our industry,
22:45
but in life right now.
22:47
Coping mechanisms and support and
22:50
feeling psychologically safe in your environment
22:53
is probably the most important motivators
22:58
to at least our team and the members of our team.
23:02
That's a very intentional culture
23:05
to build and have that support.
23:08
That builds a foundation that is a little bit stronger
23:12
when there is so much either
23:14
intentional or unintentional change,
23:17
adding pressure to that.
23:19
Jaimie Boyd: Yeah, and psychologically safe.
23:22
That is super relevant and
23:24
an important thing to think about and consider.
23:27
I know you touched on having
23:29
mental health professionals assist your team members.
23:32
But what other ways are you also creating space
23:36
for your team members to have
23:38
well-being and a work-life balance?
23:40
Sarah Krom: That mental health professional was
23:43
the best thing that we could have done
23:46
in a really long time for our team.
23:49
Even bringing her on board,
23:52
and we're now in our second tax season
23:54
of having her with us,
23:55
we keep her all year round,
23:56
but I measure life in tax season,
23:59
so it's our second tax season having her with us.
24:02
There is hesitation from the team in the beginning,
24:05
and I don't want to guess why there was hesitation,
24:08
but I actually made the choice of sharing with the team.
24:13
I'm going to be the first to set up
24:14
an appointment with her because I want
24:17
to make sure that
24:18
my world is as balanced as it needs to be,
24:21
so that I can set a good example,
24:23
not only for the team,
24:24
but I can't be a good leader if I myself am unbalanced.
24:29
I think I did,
24:31
I don't know if it was three or four or
24:32
five sessions with her myself,
24:34
and I shared some of that with the team,
24:36
just normalizing it and
24:38
making them feel like it was okay.
24:40
Slowly, but surely,
24:41
they then started to take
24:42
advantage of that offering, as well.
24:45
I think giving them the space to do that,
24:49
not only covering the cost of it,
24:51
but during work hours as well,
24:53
is super important because again,
24:57
you normalize it, but you
24:58
just make it part of their everyday.
25:00
This is what I do for the benefit of
25:03
me and the betterment of the team and so on and so forth.
25:06
Quite honestly, the betterment
25:08
of relationships, I'm sure,
25:09
outside of SKC as well,
25:10
they were told you don't have to talk about work.
25:13
You can talk about work.
25:14
If that's a stressor for you,
25:15
you can bring in family members if there's issues that
25:17
you need to work on and make it a joint session.
25:20
It is not something that's just restricted
25:22
to talking about work issues.
25:25
I personally do a lot of check-ins with team members,
25:28
as do my other two partners,
25:29
individual one-on-one weekly check-ins.
25:31
They could be as long as 15 minutes.
25:33
They can be as long as an hour
25:35
plus because on any given week,
25:37
you don't know what you're walking into
25:39
necessarily with a team member,
25:41
but some are very stringent.
25:43
How are these clients going? What's the update?
25:45
But they always all have
25:47
a component of what's on your mind?
25:49
What obstacles are you experiencing?
25:52
Is anything keeping you up at night
25:54
and just doing those routine checks with people?
25:57
Because if you ask the question,
26:00
what's on your mind, three
26:01
times in a conversation with somebody,
26:03
you will get three different answers.
26:06
Again, it goes back to you.
26:08
You have to overcommunicate with
26:10
people and create that space where they
26:12
feel safe so that they can let their
26:14
guard down and share with you what they really need.
26:17
We spend a lot of time getting
26:18
to really know our team members,
26:20
whether it's through various
26:21
different assessments that we
26:23
take and share amongst the team
26:25
because we want to know what motivates them.
26:27
We want to know what makes them tick.
26:29
We want to know as much as we can about them so
26:32
that we know how to meet them where they are.
26:35
I think ultimately that's
26:38
the most important thing to creating that space,
26:41
again, to go back to the psychological safety,
26:44
people can come to us,
26:45
and even though right now we have some
26:47
in-office requirements because of busy season,
26:50
they can come to us and say, listen,
26:52
I have this circumstance or I have that circumstance.
26:54
Is it okay to flex the schedule a little bit
26:57
more this week or will there be some understanding there?
27:01
That's, again, that safe space
27:03
where people feel like they can
27:04
come and get an answer to an issue that they have,
27:08
and they don't have to just try to solve
27:10
a problem on their own and stress about it.
27:12
It's like, just come to us and we'll fix it.
27:15
I've actually had people say to me on my team.
27:17
Listen, this happened a couple of weeks ago,
27:20
and I didn't tell you about it right away,
27:21
because I didn't want you to try to fix it.
27:23
I just wanted you to know that it happened.
27:25
Everything's okay now,
27:27
but I didn't want you to try to fix it.
27:28
I mean, at first, I was a little offended,
27:30
but ultimately, I thought back to it,
27:32
and I was like, so at least they know I'm fixing things,
27:35
and I'll take that as a win.
27:36
Jaimie Boyd: They look at you as the fixer.
27:38
Sarah Krom: Yeah.
27:38
Jaimie Boyd: I probably be overwhelming at times,
27:40
but still a good hat to have,
27:43
and it shows that you're a safe space and
27:46
that your people feel comfortable coming to you,
27:49
and it's great that you're
27:52
constantly checking on your people
27:54
and saying, How are you?
27:56
Where are you at? It's not just, like,
27:59
a check-the-box checklist thing,
28:01
like I just have to do it just because I need to,
28:04
but it's something that you're
28:05
consistently and intentionally doing.
28:08
I think that probably pays off in dividends and really
28:12
has a great effect on
28:14
how your people feel about working for you.
28:17
Sarah Krom: The strength of our team is in
28:19
everybody's individual strengths and skill sets.
28:22
Not everybody fits in the same box.
28:24
Actually, if we looked at us,
28:26
hardly any two people here would fit in the same box.
28:29
We have to be able to look at
28:31
everyone as individuals and treat them that way.
28:34
We're a manageable 30-plus
28:36
or minus size firm that we can do that.
28:39
I'm pretty committed, no matter
28:42
how significant our team becomes in numbers,
28:44
that we maintain that level of individuality.
28:48
Jaimie Boyd: I feel like I want to
28:49
have check-ins with you now.
28:51
Well, no, that is great and shows that
28:55
leadership is super crucial during times of change.
29:01
Just thinking about leadership for a moment,
29:04
what internal conversations do you need to have?
29:09
Sometimes, maybe even difficult to get your team or
29:13
your leadership team aligned
29:15
with changing growth and keeping your culture.
29:20
Sarah Krom: I've had a lot
29:21
of difficult conversations, Jamie.
29:23
This whole question could be
29:25
one podcast episode that we do.
29:27
Jaimie Boyd: We'll have you come back.
29:29
Sarah Krom: I made partner here at SKC in 2015,
29:35
and since 2015, I
29:38
have exited five partners from the firm.
29:44
Again, I had mentioned earlier on,
29:46
it was the founding generation of partners.
29:49
There were a lot of difficult conversations that
29:52
occurred over those five partner exits.
29:56
Most of them were partner-on-partner,
29:59
difficult conversations, which is a
30:01
little bit different than communicating with your team.
30:04
But significant ones were news that I had to
30:08
share with the team, very difficult conversations.
30:13
You have to look at it as you are the leader,
30:19
and if the leader starts to falter,
30:24
then the whole team will begin to crumble.
30:29
I don't mean that in a way that we're the most important,
30:32
and we shoulder everything,
30:34
but we're in these leadership roles and
30:37
these partner positions for a reason,
30:40
because if we were a firm of leaders,
30:43
we would probably all fight constantly
30:46
and not have as much harmony as
30:47
we like to have and productivity.
30:50
But it really was evident to me
30:52
that no matter what the conversation was,
30:56
whether it was about an exiting partner that came as
30:59
a surprise to many people or sharing
31:02
an illness with someone on the team or letting
31:05
people go that no longer fit what we're about,
31:09
treating it with the utmost respect
31:12
and making sure that, again,
31:15
the team understands that there our primary focus
31:20
and that although this is,
31:21
again, the long game,
31:23
although this is a bump on the road
31:25
to where we are continuing our journey,
31:28
it is not the end of the road, and for some people, again,
31:31
who look at things more of the day-to-day,
31:34
and this is my world,
31:36
miss the big picture so
31:38
getting them to understand that we're here to
31:41
support them through whatever is
31:43
happening I think is really important.
31:46
I'm fortunate now because
31:48
my two partners are very much aligned with the values and
31:51
the direction and the vision of where we want to take
31:54
the firm and the legacy that we want to build,
31:57
even after I retire and they retire.
32:01
We're very intentional about our strategic plan.
32:04
As I said earlier,
32:05
our vision statement is coming to
32:07
an end at the end of 2026,
32:09
so we are starting the process of
32:11
rewriting the next five years, which is exciting.
32:14
We're very intentional about having
32:16
retreats twice a year so that we can
32:18
develop the strategic plan and make sure that
32:21
the culture is where we want it to be,
32:25
our values are still aligned
32:26
with the direction that we're going.
32:28
We have a firm first motto
32:31
in all of our partnership discussions,
32:34
which means if we're faced with
32:36
a challenge or a decision that's difficult to make,
32:39
we overlay firm first on
32:42
our decision and our challenge to make sure that we're
32:45
aligned with making a choice and moving
32:48
in a direction that is in the best interest
32:51
of the firm and not in the best interest of
32:53
one or more of us individually as partners.
32:57
I think that the team very
32:59
much feels that tone at the top, if you will.
33:03
I think it's important for them to know that we are very
33:08
intentional about the legacy of where
33:11
we want the firm to go and what
33:13
we want that to be for them,
33:14
so that they feel that again,
33:16
they have the safety of,
33:18
I'm not going to show up to the office
33:20
one day and everything's going
33:21
to be different and changed.
33:22
We're very much aware
33:23
of the direction we're going in as a team.
33:28
Jaimie Boyd: Having a shared by
33:31
all plan when you're doing
33:33
those strategic planning initiatives
33:36
with our PCPS strategic planning toolkit,
33:39
that's the motto, making sure that
33:42
your process is something
33:45
that is shared by all across the firm.
33:47
I feel like that's something that
33:48
you embody in your firm,
33:49
especially with the firm's first motto,
33:52
same thought wavelength of making sure that
33:57
your people are first and involved and included.
34:02
I'd love to hear more about
34:04
what process are you currently
34:08
within or planning to start to
34:11
develop your next strategic plan for,
34:15
are you going another five years,
34:16
or are you going to extend it out even further?
34:19
Sarah Krom: We're definitely locked
34:21
into that five-year window.
34:23
It's funny because I talked with someone recently,
34:26
a managing partner of another firm,
34:28
and they really said that five years is too
34:30
long at this point with
34:32
how quickly technology changes and
34:34
how much change is
34:37
thrust upon us in our profession and in our day-to-day.
34:41
But I look at it as we set annual budgets every year,
34:44
and things change within a year,
34:46
and we make different decisions that
34:47
take us in different directions.
34:49
But I believe that if you're continuing on in a journey,
34:52
you need to have a map,
34:55
and you may choose to get off at an exit or
34:58
detour or stop for a snack,
35:02
whatever it might be,
35:03
but you still have to know where you want to go
35:06
and what you want that to be.
35:08
It's okay if that changes
35:10
along the course of the journey.
35:12
But I think we need to start with
35:13
a guiding light as opposed to
35:15
just not knowing really where we're going to end up.
35:19
I think if you're not intentional,
35:21
then things just take over you,
35:23
and that's not a role that I would be comfortable in.
35:27
We are going to do the five-year vision again.
35:29
We put together a survey to conduct with our team
35:33
of what were your thoughts on
35:34
the previous five-year vision that we did?
35:36
How successful do you think we were in
35:39
achieving all of the pillars that we set out to achieve?
35:42
What are your thoughts on the next five years,
35:45
which is a different process
35:46
than we went through the first time,
35:48
the first vision that we'd
35:49
ever we just did at the partner level,
35:51
and then we rolled it out to the team.
35:54
This one, we're actually now embracing the team,
35:56
and we're going to put together a task
35:58
force or a committee
35:59
to help us develop what
36:01
that next five year vision is going to be,
36:04
because my goal is that at some point
36:07
I'm less involved in that after this chunk of five years,
36:11
and then the next generation starts to build out what
36:15
their five year vision is with
36:17
whatever support they choose to ask of me.
36:19
But we're going to go through surveying the firm on
36:22
the first vision on
36:23
what they think of for the second vision,
36:25
and then those that are passionate about
36:27
the firm and what they want their legacy here
36:30
to be will be part of that task force or
36:32
committee to help us draft the next five years.
36:36
Jaimie Boyd: The task force and committee,
36:38
will that include staff
36:40
at all levels or a variety of levels?
36:43
Sarah Krom: Yeah, it's open to anybody
36:45
that wants to be on it.
36:46
If it's anybody from
36:48
our admin team to our part-time bookkeeper,
36:51
to our senior managers,
36:53
whoever wants to be on it,
36:55
I'm not one for saying you should be on this committee.
36:57
If you don't have a passion for it,
36:59
I don't want to put you in
37:00
a seat you don't want to be in.
37:01
It's definitely open to whomever on the team is
37:05
moved by being part of that exercise and that process.
37:09
Jaimie Boyd: It helps, like you said,
37:11
build up the next generation of
37:13
leaders and helps them get in that role
37:17
or develop the skills to get in
37:20
the role of stepping up into leadership.
37:24
I look forward to hearing how
37:28
the next five years pans out
37:30
and just learning more about the process
37:33
of implementing your new strategic plan.
37:36
Sarah Krom: It's really a remarkable document for us.
37:39
It's not that we create it and it sits on
37:40
a shelf or sits on a drive somewhere.
37:42
I actually show it to all potential new hires on
37:46
the team because I want them to
37:48
know this is the intention,
37:50
and this is the firm that you could be joining,
37:54
and some people may want to self-select out of that.
37:58
If what we proclaim is our vision plan,
38:02
doesn't align with what they believe in,
38:05
what their values are,
38:06
and who they want to be as team members,
38:08
they may recognize through
38:09
that document that they're not a fit and that's
38:13
a much better outcome than us bringing them
38:16
on because they check the technical boxes,
38:18
but they don't believe in what our vision is.
38:21
It's been very good
38:23
looking at who should be on the team,
38:25
and quite honestly, when we first launched it, as well,
38:27
it was something that existing team members read,
38:30
and some chose to self-select out and
38:34
felt that this wasn't the path they wanted to go on.
38:37
Because we were so
38:39
passionate about it as a leadership team,
38:42
they recognized that we were all
38:44
going to be rowing the boat in one direction,
38:46
and they were going to either be rowing in
38:48
the opposite direction or not rowing at all,
38:51
and that wasn't a good fit.
38:54
And so some people who were already on
38:56
our team chose to select out of
38:58
the team and leave just based on when we did that launch.
39:03
Jaimie Boyd: That's also a great way
39:06
of going back to how do you change,
39:09
but also keep your culture intact
39:12
because you also have people staying and
39:15
going along with the changes
39:18
or new strategic journey that are
39:20
also looking to keep
39:22
that culture that is already in place.
39:25
If there are staff members or team members
39:28
that maybe don't feel like they fit in,
39:31
then that is, like you said,
39:32
a great way to kind of weed that out and
39:34
see who is a great fit to remain within
39:38
that culture or potentially see if
39:41
they can find somewhere else that
39:43
may be a better culture fit for them.
39:46
Sarah Krom: Exactly.
39:48
Jaimie Boyd: Do you have anything else exciting
39:50
coming up for the firm that you are preparing for?
39:53
Sarah Krom: We're bringing a new partner
39:55
on the beginning of 2027.
39:57
She's gone through a couple of years
39:59
of training and development
40:02
and is officially being promoted to
40:03
partner January 1st of 2027,
40:06
so that's very exciting.
40:08
Really, for us, we talked about
40:10
unreasonable hospitality and creating
40:12
that really amazing client experience.
40:15
The second step of that,
40:17
which is probably going to
40:18
be the fourth quarter of '26 into
40:20
'27 is creating the team member experience.
40:25
First, externally for the clients and then
40:27
internally for the team and our people,
40:29
and that's on the horizon for us as well.
40:32
We look at it as little tweaks and
40:34
small adjustments and shining the penny and making
40:37
sure that we're just really tight and we're
40:41
coherent, and we're making
40:43
improvements where improvements need to be made,
40:46
not just for the sake of change and making adjustments.
40:52
We try to be very intentional about that as we
40:54
do with implementing new software.
40:57
That was all the craze for a couple of years,
41:00
and everybody wanted, what's the newest software?
41:03
What's out on the market, what's
41:04
changing everybody's lives?
41:06
We made a decision to say,
41:08
we'll evaluate a lot of new software that's coming out.
41:11
We'll do demos and all of that.
41:13
But if we cannot
41:16
pinpoint a problem that said software is going to solve.
41:21
We're not going to implement new software
41:24
just for the sake of new software being
41:26
on the market and everyone
41:28
blogging about it or tweeting about it or whatever.
41:32
Making these incremental tweaks
41:35
that align with our long-term vision and
41:37
align with our values is
41:39
really what we have on the horizon for us at SKC.
41:43
Jaimie Boyd: I feel like the keyword out
41:45
of that is intentional,
41:46
and it ties back to everything that
41:48
we've talked about on this episode.
41:51
Sarah, thank you so much for joining me
41:55
and sharing all about
41:57
your firm and everything that you were doing.
42:00
It's all wonderful, and I look forward to hearing more.
42:04
We'd love to have you back.
42:05
I feel like we have so much
42:07
more that we could talk about with you,
42:08
and I really appreciate
42:10
you being a part of the podcast today.
42:12
Sarah Krom: Thank you, Jamie. I'll come back anytime.
42:15
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