Latest / Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast / Most Impactful Change I Made This Year
Transcript
- Attention: This is a machine-generated transcript. As such, there may be spelling, grammar, and accuracy errors throughout. Thank you for your understanding! Alicia Katz Pollock, MAT: [00:00:06] Hey everyone! In this week's edition of the unofficial QuickBooks accountants podcast, I'm going to continue the series of woman on the Street recordings that I made at my spring conference season. I went to Bdo's Evolve Conference Wave Seattle, a conference for women put on by Erin Pohan and Scaling New Heights in Orlando, Florida, put on by Woodard. And one of the questions that I asked attendees is, what is the most impactful change that you made to this year? And the reason why I ask that question is it's one thing to grow our businesses, but it's something else altogether to grow ourselves and make ourselves better workers, better leaders, so that we can lead our firms where they are going. So I'm always curious to, to know what people have been learning and putting into place. So in this episode, what we're going to do is go through some of the things, the changes that people made, and you're going to hear some definite themes. We'll hear a lot about staffing changes and technology changes and then also about goals. So let's go ahead and hear from some of our attendees. The first few focus on giving back to the community. Erin Pohan: [00:01:23] My name is Erin Pohan with Upkeeping, and the most impactful change I made this year was investing in other women who are also building their firms. Okay. My name is Remy Arenas. Um, my company is cube numbers. The most impactful change I made this year was to actually give back. Um, I am Latina, so I am starting to do more education within my community and explaining what is bookkeeping. Because fun fact, there is no translation of bookkeeping in Spanish, only accounting. So when I say accounting, I have to explain what is bookkeeping and say I don't do taxes. So yes. Alicia Katz Pollock, MAT: [00:02:07] The next batch were about people achieving goals. Liz Farr: [00:02:11] My name is Liz Farr with Farr Communications. The most impactful change I've made this year is saying no to the projects that I don't like that do not spark joy in me. Kirstie Gray: [00:02:29] Kirsty Gray with Beyond Numbers and the most impactful change I made this year was building quality over quantity. My name is Jackie Meyer and the most impactful thing that I've done this year is I signed the publisher for my second book, The Happiness Audit. Jaime Thompson: [00:02:47] My name is Jaime Thompson, with JLT advisors. The most impactful change I made this year was creating a business that is 100% my own and doesn't belong to anyone else. Tori Staub McKee: [00:02:59] Hi, my name is Tori McKee and I am the founder and owner of Best Practice Bookkeeping and payroll. And the most impactful change I made this year will actually have impact next year when I finish my certified ADHD coaching credential and start to incorporate that into my work. Alicia Katz Pollock, MAT: [00:03:21] Another theme was about personal growth. Lynnette Oss Connell: [00:03:24] Hey, my name is Lynette O'Connell. I'm your burnout bestie. My company is called Re-inspired Leadership Consulting, and the most impactful change I made this year is that I'm finally becoming a yoga instructor. Craig Connell: [00:03:36] My name is Craig Connell. I'm a partner with Sweeney Conrad. The most impactful change I made this year was I started a new hobby with old friends and really reconnected with those old friends. Uh, we're doing Warhammer tabletop wargaming. Yeah, it's super, super fun. Very challenging. Uh, and it uses a part of my brain that I just don't use my real life. Dan DeLong: [00:03:59] My name is Dan DeLong with School of Bookkeeping and the QB Power Hour. The most impactful change I made this year was, uh, focusing [crosstalk] not getting distracted by anything that might be there to vie for my attention. Just because it is shiny doesn't mean that it needs my attention. Uh, so that's a great example of those things. Shirley Koss: [00:04:29] My name is Shirley Kass with Woodard, and the most impactful change I made this year was learning to compartmentalize and take care of one pressing issue at a time and not let it overwhelm me. Alicia Katz Pollock, MAT: [00:04:46] For some people, their biggest changes that they made were in the services that they are offering to their clients. Daniel Barley: [00:04:53] My name is Daniel Bali. I'm with G Squared Partners outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where Cass practice with about 50 people. And, uh, most impactful change I've made this year, I think is probably helping a client get through get through their first series A and everything. Everything from getting their books cleaned up all the way up through helping them, helping them build a really amazing budget to help them get through the process. Cyndi Byars: [00:05:16] My name is Cindy Byers with Gray Blodget and Company in Norman, Oklahoma. Um, the most impactful change that I have made this year is that we are trying to branch out into some new services. We have accepted some new clients that are going to require, um, expanding past the traditional bookkeeping, sales tax, payroll role and getting into some budgeting, cash flow forecasting, um, assisting with planning projects and things like that. Marlon Wolfman, CPA: [00:05:49] My name is Marlon Wolfman. I'm with Marlon Wolfman, CPA, doing business as future tax and accounting solutions. It's a long one. And the most impactful change I made this year was really focusing on my ideal client and making sure not to take on any new clients who were not in my ideal, my ideal type. And to slowly reduce my existing clients who don't match my ideal profile. Alicia Katz Pollock, MAT: [00:06:19] One of the next major themes was about staffing changes. In particular, delegating and hiring more people. Katrina Torres: [00:06:26] My name is Katrina Torres. With KDC bookkeeping, and the most impactful change I made this year was hiring staff. Isaac Smith: [00:06:34] My name is Isaac Smith with Team up. The most impactful change I made this year was hiring an executive assistant. Oh my gosh, she changed my life. And that sounds hyperbolic, but it's true. Hope Brown: [00:06:51] My name is Hope Brown. I'm with the tax minded bookkeeper. The most impactful change that I made this year was hiring an operations manager so I could get out of, like, the weeds of doing stuff and bring somebody in my firm to help me and work that part of the business. Happy with that decision? Felica Tanzi: [00:07:10] My name is Felicia and I am the CEO at Clean Bee Consulting. And the most impactful thing that I did for my business this year was hiring my second employee. Jen Posner: [00:07:19] My name is Jen Posner with JD Posner Business Solutions. And the most impactful change I made this year was deciding to hire a second person. Michelle Vilms: [00:07:29] Hi, my name is Michelle Films and I work with Films Consulting in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. And the most impactful change that I made this year was to realize, as a leader, I need to delegate to my team and really empower them to do the job that they were destined to do. Dena Martin: [00:07:46] My name is Dena with Smooth Sailing Business Solutions, and the most impactful change I made this year was giving my employee permission and authority to create engagement agreements and negotiate pricing because she's established, she's, um, shown me that she's trustworthy and she's got the business's best interests in mind, and I'm grateful to have that off my plate. Joe Woodard: [00:08:13] Joe Woodard, I'm the host of Scaling New Heights, and the most impactful change I made this year was increasing the strength of what we call our support team. A lot of people call it the admin team. Um, our folks were carrying a tremendous amount of pressure that they were suffering quietly through. And when I began to see what was happening and I began to see some evidence of burnout, I said, we've got to get some folks some support in here. Made all the difference in the world. Alicia Katz Pollock, MAT: [00:08:43] And last, in this tech forward world that we live in, here are some of the changes that people made with the technology that they're using in their firm. Nancy McClelland: [00:08:53] Hey there. My name is Nancy McClelland of the Dancing Accountant. And the most impactful change I made this year was actually not a happy one. It is going to be something that future Nancy is going to be really happy about, but I switched tax software after over 20 years and man, did it suck. I mean, it was a really horrible experience. It was a bad migration. The learning curve was really, really horrible. I have 22 pages of notes for the tax software to be like, you better fix this in the future. But I know that making this switch was the right move. Melissa Miller Ferguson: [00:09:32] My name is Melissa Miller Ferguson, and I'm with bookkeeping for good. The most impactful change I've made this year was adopting ping assistant for A AI note taking. Sam Cates, CPA: [00:09:45] My name is Sam Kates with JRT and the most impactful change I've made this year is a move to Carbon Workflow Systems. Diana Cetares: [00:09:54] My name is Diana. I am with, uh hmm. Uh, which is a firm under spring line. Uh, we're located in, uh, Dallas, Texas. The most impactful change I made this year for my cast team was the implementation of a basis. Um, so yeah, we're excited about that. We start implementing basis last year, uh, last week actually. Rebeccah Johnson: [00:10:24] My name is Rebecca Johnson. I'm with Black Diamond bookkeeping. The most impactful change I made this year is implementing a proposal software. Anchor. Ken Bostrom: [00:10:35] My name is Ken Bostrom. I'm with Universal Accounting Center. The most impactful thing that I've done this year is started using AI to create and edit new videos and new classes for my students. Alicia Katz Pollock, MAT: [00:10:51] So you can see that this was a big year of growth for a lot of people, whether you're a cast practice at a BDO firm, an individual bookkeeper at scaling new heights, or an accounting professional who really wants to make a difference, like the attendees at Wave. We'll continue this series again in the fall, but it's a great way of keeping tabs on what's happening for people in the industry. Thank you all for participating. All right. Now it's time for what's going on in your world. And I think a lot of my listeners already know what's happening in my world is that I am getting very, very close to being ready for our hands on training class. This is my college style, 12 week, three hours, twice a week, 72 CPE class that earns you a realized certificate where you actually build QuickBooks companies from scratch. Using all my tips and tricks and all my best practices. The link is in the show notes, and you can find out more about the course@royal.com. So that's it for this week and we will see you in the next one.