Episode 39: Measuring Success in Our Industry: The 3 Main Blocks

In Episode 39, Sam discusses how we measure success in the Accounting Industry and the three main blocks that are keeping us stuck, individually and collectively.

This is really the follow up to Sam’s interview with Robyn Jacobson from The Tax Institute that was on the podcast in Episodes 37 and 38, so if you haven't listened to those episodes yet, go back and do so because it's a brilliant conversation and so timely for our industry right now.

In this episode, Sam covers the problem with measuring only productivity and efficiency, as well as why we should be focusing on growing existing clients rather than always getting new clients.

Sam discusses some of the challenges in how we measure career success as an industry, and some of the fundamental blocks in our business model that are preventing us from moving to being the central advisor to clients.

Plus, Sam shares some of the small steps you can make to create the business model shifts that are needed while still working within the system that we have.

Listen to an excerpt

What we cover

• The communication gap with the way our industry and our clients value the work we do

• Sam’s story around leaving the profession in 2002 and why we’re still losing good people to other industries

• The problem with measuring productivity and efficiency

• Why we should be focusing on growing existing clients rather than getting new clients

• The challenges in how our industry measures success in terms of career path

• The mistakes we’re making in not allowing part-time partners

• The fundamental problem with our business model that is preventing us from moving into advisory work

• Why our clients really do need us as central advisors (they just don’t know what they need)

• The business model shifts that we need to make within the systems that we currently have

• The power of becoming problem aware in our own businesses and as an industry as a whole

• Understanding your blocks that are getting in the way of creating change

• Small steps to creating change so it’s not overwhelming

Quotes

“We're not being valued in the marketplace for what we do every day. And because of that, we are unsure that if they're not paying us for what we do every day, why would they then go and pay us for something else, such as advisory?”

“Our basic products, which is still about 85% of our turnover—income tax returns, BAS, etc.— have been around since 1911, so we’ve never actually had to build process [of] researching if the clients actually wanted it. We don't have that mindset at all. We don't have [those] areas within our business that gets rewarded.”

“Obviously, the easiest to measure is productivity, or recoverability, or any kind of efficiency piece around that… [But] if we're wanting out our staff to have more soft skills, and we're even spending money as some progressive firms do on developing better communication, better conversation, and then staff come back to their work and they still need to do 70% productive time…[it’s a] measurement for the production side of things, not for expanding and growing.”

“We reward our staff for having new clients. But most of our gold actually sits in developing our existing clients. So we need to actually measure that.”

“Normally the problem that we're faced with [by the client] is actually not the problem that we're trying to solve. It takes a couple of layers to get down to it, to really start thinking and asking the question around what is the actual problem [the client has]?”

“[Accountants] have internal things that we've learned, and we've been taught, that make us very effective in that old structure, but we have to undo some of that stuff. One of the biggest internal things we have to look at is fatigue and stress, which is very big in our industry, and we need to look at that.”

“The cool thing about what we do, particularly Tax Accountants, is that because the businesses already have this constant flow of revenue and good clients, we need to do small amounts of changes over time and work within that. We’re not starting from scratch. So there's no significant changes, but we do need to progressively get change in our behaviour, in our business models, in what we do every day. And then work within the system that we already have.”

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