Paul Shrimpling: 0:05

Welcome to the Humanize the Numbers podcast series Leaders, managers and owners of ambitious accounting firms sharing insights, successes and issues that will challenge you and connect you and your firm to the ways and means of transforming your firm's results.

Laura Taylor: 0:23

The final straw for me was when I was working for Asda and I stood up in front of the team and I told them that I was leaving and I'm going to be perfectly honest, they cheered and I think that came. That just showed the relationship and the tension and everything that was there. Now there was some really challenging individuals in that team. However, the way that I was dealing with it was actually the retail way it was. You know, you need to do that, you must do this and if you don't do that, you know I'll be seeing you for a written warning and that was the sort of the way that it worked.

Laura Taylor: 0:59

But now, like I say, when I look back at that, I'm horrified, I'm absolutely horrified at the way that it was and I'm nothing like that now. It doesn't mean I'm soft. You know I'm not a soft person and I will always manage performance and you know and deal with things. But if you can inspire the team and if they want to come and work with you and they want to do good work and you find out what motivates them and you can lean in on that so that it's a win-win situation, you're getting a win for your business but they're actually getting a win for them. That's where the magic happens.

Doug Aitken: 1:35

What's it like to start an accounting business with 200 pounds and then, five years later, sell it for over a million and then, five years later, sell it for over a million? In this podcast with Laura Taylor of Bright Flamingo, you'll hear how Laura did exactly that and you'll hear as well the journey that she went on and all the excitement and the drama and the tears that came with that. Let's go to that podcast now.

Laura Taylor: 2:00

Hiya, I'm Laura Taylor from Bright Flamingo. I grew my accounting firm. I started it in 2018 and I grew it for from £200 to over a million pound annual revenue within five years. I then sold it in 2024. It was quite a different type of accounting firm very much based on advisory, very much based on a virtual finance department and focused on the construction industry, so a very, very niche firm. So, yeah, there wasn't a lot of other people out there at the time doing that sort of stuff.

Speaker 4: 2:35

So we grew quite quickly and I have exited my business and I am now helping accountants to basically stop practicing and start business and start running practices like a business Very good.

Doug Aitken: 2:49

I like that phrase. Thank you, laura, and welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for joining us today. Bright Flamingo, I've got to ask why you arrived at that name.

Laura Taylor: 3:01

Oh, it's a long, long story, it's a long story yeah, yeah, we used to have um, we used to have silly animal names um in the firm that I, that I owned, and everybody when they started had to basically um, compare themselves to an animal um, and at the time I was looking to lose some weight, so I was comparing myself to hippo.

Laura Taylor: 3:19

So I was like you know, I'm, I'm the hippo of the team um, and it was just just a bit of a bit of a laughing joke. And then I wanted to be a giraffe. So that was my aspiration was to be a giraffe. And then somebody new started with us and they decided they wanted to be a giraffe. So I had to lose that and my next thing was actually quite like flamingos, so that sort of stuck, and then when I set up the business, it was it, just it carried with me and then it was a bright flamingo. So if you think about a flock of grey pigeons and then a bright flamingo that stands out, I want to help firms to be able to stand out in the flock of grey pigeons.

Doug Aitken: 3:59

Very good, fab. I didn't know the background to that story.

Laura Taylor: 4:02

I knew I should have asked you before now. Yeah, a long story. Okay. So this is the Humanize the Numbers podcast, laura, and that reflects our core purpose humanize the numbers. What does that phrase mean to you? I think it's everything to do with business. Business is a human game. Firms are all about people. They serve people, they have people within them and actually by humanizing the numbers, you can get people to really get on board with your journey, and that's from a client perspective. If you just send somebody a set of numbers without any perspective and any human aspect to it, you won't get results. And also, if you don't treat the people in your team like humans, again, you won't get great results as a firm.

Doug Aitken: 4:57

Yeah, yeah, fab, completely agree. So in your intro you told us a bit about the firm. I'm already getting a flavor for the pace at which you work which is good. How did you find the construction niche, laura? How did you actually you know how, and how challenging was that to start turning away different sorts of clients?

Laura Taylor: 5:27

yeah.

Laura Taylor: 5:27

So, um, when I was employed in a practice role and it's actually a business services role in practice I naturally had a few construction clients and really enjoyed, enjoyed the sector, enjoyed working with the people, and so when I went out on my own, it was quite a natural progression to attract those sort of people and actually, you know a lot of accountants don't want to work in the construction sector because the the people can be challenging and also, um, you know, I enjoyed it, enjoy the people, enjoy the, the banter um that you get with the people in the construction industry.

Laura Taylor: 6:00

If you can, you can keep them within the boundaries, and so that was a it just became a natural progression. But we didn't go all in on trading construction for a number of years and it was actually around about 2020, just during lockdown they actually decided do you know what? I'm going to go all in on this, this isn't going to be a dabbling About just over half of the client base was already trading construction and related related companies. Um, so we decided to go all in on it, changed all the marketing um, really, really focused on it, and then started to actually turn away clients that were of any other industry, which that's the scary part, um, and it's the thing that when I'm working with firms now that if they do want to go all in on a niche, really, really struggle with turning people away because you think you know that's work. But to get the beauty of a niche you really need to really invest in it.

Doug Aitken: 7:01

Yeah, yeah, just expand on that a little bit more, if you. If you don't mind, laura, because you know the firms that paul and I deal with, it's exactly the same. Um, we're just getting rid of any client, almost no matter how bad the behavior or the values mismatch or whatever. They just don't want to do. They find those hugely challenging conversations what?

Laura Taylor: 7:24

do you think's going on?

Laura Taylor: 7:25

the mindset there I think it is scary because it's and it comes down to a scarcity mindset, of thinking that, well, you know, but that's work, I'm better to take the work than to have no work.

Laura Taylor: 7:35

But what happens is you, as you dilute your marketing, you dilute your service offering. If you're not able to um have a niche and a niche doesn't necessarily mean a sector, you know it can be around the mindset, it can be around the service that you're, that you're offering um, but you can attract clients that are um willing to pay more money and see you as a specialist if you're willing to go all in on it. But the mindset really has to to follow that. And it's scary, it is. And I remember, you know, when I was building my firm, it was like you know, is this the right thing to do? But the worst thing that that firms can do is almost take a couple of steps towards it and then go oh, I'm not sure that's the right path, and then go back down and then go down another path, because then that really just confuses the audience and people think well, what are these people doing?

Laura Taylor: 8:20

um, so yeah, if you're going to really niche, yes, there's a process that you can go through to get there, but you have to be really invested in it to see it through, to get the the upside at the other side of it yeah, yeah.

Doug Aitken: 8:35

So I'm now thinking about that investment, or being invested, rather, and I'm now I'm going to relate that to your linkedin um profile. You're prolific on linkedin, may I say so, um, we've, we've, we've um attended your events and whatnot, but I'm I'm guessing it's a similar type of thing linkedin that you know people might dabble for six months oh, it's not working and stop, whereas you've been consistent over a fair number of years, a long period of time, and I think it shows.

Laura Taylor: 9:09

And almost when I'm talking to people about LinkedIn, I always preempt it and say you're going to tell me in two months that LinkedIn doesn't work, because that's what people will say um, but you know, over the years I've won over three million pounds worth of fees directly linked to LinkedIn and that still comes through now. But it is very much about consistency. It's about showing up, it's about being known for something and showcasing who you are, what you believe in, your values and things like that. So that it's. I guess it's like a snowball that goes down the hill and picks up momentum as time goes on, and the good and bad thing is that the majority of firms so for me, when I was running my firm, it was a good thing because the majority of firms would stop, so they would never build up the momentum on social media. But actually the negative thing is that you know, for firms that are trying it, they're investing some time and then stopping. And the beauty is in the consistency and seeing it through, so that you build up that overall reputation.

Doug Aitken: 10:13

Yeah, how do you find that? Now you know working with firms as you are, how do you find their ability to change? Is it, is it a similar thing as linkedin sometimes, that they give something a go for a short period and then think it's not really working?

Laura Taylor: 10:32

and stop yeah, that's that's probably the most common thing is that the majority of people stop, and I say it normally gets to someone. Some people will stop after a couple of weeks because I guess what it's like when you first start out, it's like it's like talking into an empty room and then and you talk into the empty room again and you don't get anything back and you think I'm just, what's the point? You know it's this is pointless, but the results are. On the other side of that. It's by being consistent, so that, um, people expect you to show, they actually start to look out for your insights, and a lot of the time it's not the people that you would expect, it's the lurkers. It's the people that are in the background that are watching you and they're not engaging with your stuff, but actually they're taking it in and when the need comes up, you want to be the person that's front of mind.

Laura Taylor: 11:22

But, yeah, most firms in my experience will get to maybe two, three months and say it's not working and then and then stop. But um, I I know that it consistently works because I've been posting on linkedin every day since 2018. Um, and I've missed a few days here and there, but on the whole. I'm there every day, but only because you know, if I didn't win work from LinkedIn, you would never see me again. Right, that's you know. I show up because it does work and as a mechanism for being able to grow a firm and then grow a consultancy. It's a fantastic platform.

Doug Aitken: 12:04

Yeah, absolutely, and I do remember being on one of your webinars and listening to what's going on and we're actually seeing some things coming through after what? Five, six months. So, yeah, it's hugely encouraging. I often think about when accountants are, when we're encouraging accountants to change. It almost equated to a game of British Bulldogs. You might be too young to remember British Bulldogs, laura, but it was a brutal game where one person stood in the middle of the field and a dozen people ran towards that individual and he tried to catch one, and if you were lucky, lucky you might catch one on the first pass. On the second pass, though, you had two people able to catch and you might both catch one each, and on the third pass, there's four of you catching, and it just you know it, it's um. It reminds me that change metaphor that you won't change everyone straight away. You won't catch everyone at the first pass, but the moment you get one person and then the next, and then the next follows on. Are you finding that at all in your work?

Laura Taylor: 13:13

Yeah, absolutely Absolutely. There's hope of change, definitely. It's just it's not an overnight thing and I think that's one of the downfalls that people sometimes expect an overnight change or an overnight result and with a lot of these change programs whether it's profitability or whether it's culture and marketing, any of these things they're never an overnight thing. They need that, they need the momentum, the strategy, the accountability towards that and it's taken each step in that direction, rather than expecting this huge overnight shift.

Doug Aitken: 14:00

Yeah, You've always come over and I should disclose to listeners that we've met before and I am an avid follower of your LinkedIn stuff.

Laura Taylor: 14:10

And we actually live about seven miles away from each other, don't we?

Doug Aitken: 14:13

We do. I think people will have probably detected that from our distinctive brogues, but that's a good thing. We're scottifying the podcast. That's it. That's it. That's it Just in terms of how you are as a person, laura, and I can say this because I have met you and I know how you are from your posts as well you come over as very full of energy, but also very focused and determined. Is that something that you learned through experience good or bad when you set up the firm in 2018?

Laura Taylor: 14:50

I think it comes down to when I set up my firm. I was, it was almost a um. I had to make it work. It was, you know, I was a single parent. I um, I had two kids to feed and whatnot, so there wasn't the option of having a plan b and and that sort of relentless drive has just followed me. I don't think I'll ever lose it now. Um, it's just, it's just part of me and and having that focus, I had to be focused and, and when I'm working with firms, I think sometimes, if the financial situation is okay or there's not this real need, um, people can just coast, whereas when you have to focus, you know you, you really you do so.

Doug Aitken: 15:30

Yeah, I think that's um, that's where it's come from yeah, now you fit on a nerve here that I often think about as well. Sometimes in my discussions with others about firms that we might be choosing to work with or not, as the case may be I'll often use the phrase they're not in any pain, and I guess that comes. That echoes that financial reality that some firms they they know what they should do, but there's no real impetus, that the needle isn't stuck in far enough. If that's the right metaphor, yep to cause them enough pain.

Doug Aitken: 16:09

You find that too yeah, absolutely.

Laura Taylor: 16:11

I was just um, I was just talking to a firm owner this morning and and one of the. We were talking about marketing and, you know, increasing recurring revenue etc. And one of the questions I asked was if somebody was holding a gun to your head and they were going to pull that trigger in 31 days, what would you do to get that, to increase that recurring revenue? Well, I do this and I do this, and I do this and do this. Okay, well, why aren't you? And? And then that's that becomes the, the shift, that's that sometimes needed, because most of us can do more and most of us can be more focused, can be more strategic. But, like you say, if the pain is not bad enough or the um, there's no wolves at the door, then you can choose to be complacent and you can choose to do the bare minimum. Or you know, or even tell yourself in some cases, I'm doing, you know, I'm doing marketing or I'm doing this, where it's more about a tick in the box rather than actually moving the needle and moving things forward.

Doug Aitken: 17:09

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'm a great admirer of your openness and LinkedIn and what you tell people, and one area in particular really stuck with me, which is about just being true to yourself, being authentic, acknowledging what you're great at and also what you're not so great at. So tell me how that manifested itself both in your firm and in your new incarnation, your new business. How does that actually play out in reality?

Laura Taylor: 17:43

It came from. So I'm not a fan of, you know, all the sort of snake oil marketing etc that's out there. I'm very much about being real, being realistic. That's not about, you know, trying to dampen anything or dampen anybody, um, anybody's spirits. It's more just about what you know. Let's be ambitious but, you know, at the same time, not not getting overhyped with different things.

Laura Taylor: 18:09

So part of my strategy has always been just being a person, just being a human being that just shows up. I work hard, I want to help people, but I don't just show the highlight reel, because I think in the UK we've got enough of that just now. We've got enough of people saying you know, this is the only way you can do things and you just need this five-step plan or this three-step process and then suddenly you're going to, you're going to nail it and actually none of those things are generally true. Sometimes you might get a five-step plan that that you know helps you a little bit or, you know, move something forward for you. It doesn't become the key to um, you know, changing, changing the world. So yeah, it's always just been about having that realistic voice that sometimes says do you know what?

Laura Taylor: 18:57

When I was running my firm. We had real difficulties at times. There were times where I had my head in my hands thinking, thinking I don't want to do this anymore. Right and and most of the time so I always say I 95 absolutely loved it. There was five percent of the time I hated it. You know there was there was tears.

Laura Taylor: 19:16

There was all all these things going on, um, but most people don't show that. So then everyone's comparing themselves to everyone else's highlight reel, which is actually quite I guess it's quite damaging, because, you know, there's this comparison going on and people are talking about, you know, this person's smashing it and that person seems like they're doing this great thing and then thinking, well, I'm not doing that. So I always just wanted to be the person that said you know what? I'm going to put my head up above the parapet. Um, we didn't nail it all the time. We had a good business but, uh, there were challenges.

Laura Taylor: 19:50

Just like every business, every single business, has challenges yeah, definitely, yep.

Doug Aitken: 19:55

Um, in terms of the growth of your firm, one of the things that struck out, stuck out to me was, um, when you talked about having the firm available to exit, and and what? At what point did you start to build the firm towards exit? Was it right from the start or was it I?

Laura Taylor: 20:16

would say that, no, no, um, it definitely wasn't as strategic as that. Um, to begin with it was. It was much more about, you know, keeping the lights on. You know, yeah, trying to win work, all this sort of thing. But my background I spent 10 years in retail management prior to retraining as an accountant. So in these larger organizations they were very process-driven structures, so you had a lot of that around about you. So I'm going to say I grew up in that type of environment.

Laura Taylor: 20:47

So it was quite straightforward to almost bring that into my business when I, when I started, and in terms of getting the business ready to exit, we were always doing things like having structured board meetings. We were already. We already had, you know, a rhythm in the business for everything. So you know, every week we would have a pipeline meeting to to discuss where everything was in the pipeline for everything. So every week we would have a pipeline meeting to discuss where everything was in the pipeline, how we could move it up. We'd have a strategic marketing meeting once a month, we'd have a board meeting once a month. So there was all this rhythm going through the business and then everything was documented. So a fantastic operations manager who's now working with me again, and she was very, very, very good at actually documenting everything. So everything that we, that we did, was documented. So I had years worth of board reports that documented the thinking, that documented the commentary, the highs, the lows and things like that.

Laura Taylor: 21:42

And then, because it was a firm that was built from scratch, it was being really quite focused on things like all of the clients were on direct debit, all of the the clients were, you know, set up on systems etc. They all use zero. So there was a lot of streamlined things within that. So when it was going through due diligence, I had everything available just at the click of a button. I didn't have to go and start scrambling about thinking, oh, I need to get some numbers, I need to look back and try and piece together what's happened. We had stuff that was done at that time and the reason that I'd actually got out of the sort of day-to-day working with clients et cetera.

Laura Taylor: 22:23

It wasn't at that stage because I wanted to sell the firm. It was because I wanted to focus fully on sales and marketing. We had worked on the basis of perhaps hiring a business development manager or hiring someone into a sales role, tried it didn't really get a great sort of result from it, and then it came down to actually the best person to market. The firm was me. I was the one that was bringing in all the leads etc. So I went through about a 12 to 18 month process to delegate everything, but also to delegate everything and ensure that it was properly delegated so that nothing became a boomerang and came back to me. Yeah, so, so there was that. There was that process over the 12 to 18 month time, with the view to me being in sales and marketing. So when it came to sell.

Laura Taylor: 23:12

Like I say, we had a good, profitable business with all the trail that you could see, yeah, which manifested itself in a sale that happened within how many days? 25 days. 25 days from initial contact to completion. Yeah, wow, there'll be loads of people listening.

Doug Aitken: 23:36

I'm quite sure we're thinking, oh my goodness, how on earth did that happen? But you've explained beautifully why. Please forgive this interruption to the podcast. You've heard Laura Taylor of Bright Flamingo talking about what it's like to build and sell your firm and exit, in her case, exceptionally quickly. You'll find a link in the show notes to a business breakthrough that will tell you more about that same subject. Let's get back to the podcast. I'm interested in that experience. Actually, laura, just again at the time of when you said streamlining clients and insisting they're on zero, for example, and making sure everyone pays monthly, I still get resistance to this day, as you must as well, from accountancy. My clients won't pay monthly or my clients don't like zero. How did you deal with that at the time? Was it just a flat?

Laura Taylor: 24:30

that's what we used At the time. It was a flat. I was only going to build the business and I was only going to grow the business based on profitability and based on growing the business that I wanted. I didn't want to grow the business that. I didn't want it to almost take me away in a wave and not have control of what happened. It was very much. You know, I didn't have, like I say, a plan B, I didn't have financial support or anything. So there was a lot of that necessity drove it to. You know, I'm not willing to take the risk of not having people on direct debit, allowing people to pay after the event and so on, about allowing people to pay after the event and so on. But clients actually respected that, because if they see you as an advisor and they see you as somebody that can help them to bring these things into their business, then why would they not expect you to do that for your business? Why would they expect you to not have a structured onboarding program and et cetera?

Laura Taylor: 25:27

So, yeah, that's… how we manage that yeah but I do find, with firms that I work with I I get a lot of the pushback on. My clients won't like that, or you know I've had a couple of times. Well, it's okay for you, because you set up a firm from scratch. I've got all these legacy clients and legacy issues and I'll always challenge that back because I absolutely think it's possible and it's. It's actually a benefit for clients. They don't want to have this sort of lumpy surprise bill at a point in the year where they're not expecting it and whatnot. Most people prefer to have a rhythm, even for their payments, and I was actually speaking to one firm owner that I'm working with just now and she said to me I don't have any debtors anymore and I said, well, that's fantastic, that's because we've been following the process for the last six months.

Doug Aitken: 26:16

Yep yep and all the cash is in the bank. So, yeah, I've had one or two similar stories over the years. I mean, in one firm in particular, they spent one and a half, two days out of five worrying about cash, spending time looking at the bank accounts and checking what's coming in, and that simple change just freed up all that time um, it also allows you to actually plan your workload based on it being the right thing to do, not based on who's got what the biggest fee is and chasing it and, yeah, this end up being really reactive.

Doug Aitken: 26:52

Yeah, definitely. You said an interesting thing there too, about delegating. How did you find that delegation process when you started to let go of control, can we say? Or what did you put in place to make sure that you still controlled but didn't do?

Laura Taylor: 27:11

Yeah. So I think it comes down to getting people to deliver information to you and setting up that rhythm, structure and almost taking. So at one point in the firm I felt like I was chasing people for things. But then, when you flip that on its head and give people the responsibility, the ownership of key, key things, I would get, you know, a operations paper in for the board, I would get a marketing paper in for the board. I mean, you know we would pull all of that together because those things had been delegated.

Laura Taylor: 27:43

But ultimately, you know, when I started the firm, it was just me, so I did everything. So I remember sitting doing people's payroll and you know all this sort of stuff. And over time, time, each role became a part of my role. I had to almost take a piece off, create a role, create a job description and pass ownership over.

Laura Taylor: 28:04

But the process that I went through to be able to delegate was put in a routine and so every Friday I would look at my to-do list and I would put the role that should be able to take this off me, even if it didn't exist at that point in time. So it'd be a case of here's all the tasks which role should should take this over? And in the next column, which was the harder bit, was and how do we stop it being a boomerang? And that often required putting in place processes, putting in place um and rhythms, etc. So that it would never come back to me, and a lot of it was putting non-client tasks into practice management software and into to-do lists so that they didn't drop off somewhere.

Doug Aitken: 28:52

Yeah, uh-huh, yeah. Okay, when you first started our conversation, laurie, you'd said about doing a lot of advisory work within the firm. What's your definition of advisory? Because everyone has their own definition.

Laura Taylor: 29:09

Yeah, there's always a lot of conversation on what is advisory. So for me, advisory is everything that you don't have to do. So I would say that your year-end accounts, tax returns, payroll, they're all compliance work Bookkeeping for a basic VAT return, compliance work, anything a bit more strategic, running a finance department, management accounts, cash flow, budgets and finance director support etc. I would class as advisory also anything to do with systems. And so, yeah, when when I first started um, I focused mainly on systems advisory, it was really in the thick of mtd um coming out and you know everybody going through that process of moving from paper records onto zero, QuickBooks et cetera. So that was my focus. But later on moved into the virtual finance department but running it like a finance department in industry rather than just sort of bookkeeping rebranded.

Laura Taylor: 30:14

Yeah, department in industry, rather than just sort of bookkeeping rebranded yeah, um, and in that process, um, there would be the strategic advice as well. So I would act as sort of finance director for various um companies, and that would be attending their virtual board meetings every every month, going through their management reports but also looking at the strategy for the business and where they wanted to get to and how they were going to get there.

Doug Aitken: 30:40

Yeah, what type of work do you get the biggest kick out of now? Generally, like you said, you got rid of everything in the firm so that you could focus on business development and sales. Is that what still gives you the biggest kick, or is it what you're doing right now? Or do you still hanker back to things that you did in the in the fd capacity, for example?

Laura Taylor: 31:04

no, I think actually there's a lot of similarity to what I did before, only with construction business owners, to what I do with accountants. Now it was all I. I didn't sit and prepare accounts, it was always advising businesses and looking at it from right. This is where they are just now what can improve, how can you get, how can those changes be made, and then what's the process to get there. So there was always a lot of that, so it's actually very, very similar. What I really love now is seeing the changes. I think you know when somebody is either in a low profit margin business or you know they're having people problems or struggling with sales and marketing. Actually seeing that change is hugely satisfying. And that doesn't always happen. You know there's no getting away from. It just depends on the action that's taken and you know a full set of circumstances. But it's really nice when, uh when, you start to see these results kicking in yeah, absolutely yeah.

Doug Aitken: 32:06

Um, forgive me, I I can't remember what you said earlier. I was trying to write it down furiously fast and I missed it. It was stop something, start businessing.

Laura Taylor: 32:17

Stop practicing and start businessing and that's sort of my tagline and it's very much around.

Laura Taylor: 32:26

You know, as accountants, where if you go through the process of university, professional qualify etc. If you go through that process, actually there's nothing along that way that really equips people to run a firm. Um, so people become practitioners, like going to the doctor you go along and see that person and that's the person that that works with you, and a lot of firm owners are still in that capacity, whereas when you think about other types of businesses, other types of businesses, they have a C-suite, they have all of the different roles covered. You have a marketing expert, you have an IT expert, etc. And if accounting firms were run more that way, rather than having a practitioner who essentially lets the business run itself around about their practice, um, I think there would be a huge shift. And ultimately I think that's what's happening with some of the private equity investment etc. They're, you know, changing some businesses into running more like a business. But there's a real opportunity for independent firm owners to make that change themselves without having to go down that route.

Doug Aitken: 33:38

Yeah, absolutely yeah. I'm a big fan of the corporate structure, not from the perspective of just having a corporate structure, but the division of roles. You know they're sticking to strengths If you're great at BD, and I often have that discussion with firms where they'll say, oh, he or she's partner material and what they mean is they're brilliant at BD, they're brilliant at client care, they're brilliant at marketing, brilliant at ops, brilliant at technician as well, and they just so happen to be brilliant at all these things. How many of them grow on trees? No, not very many.

Doug Aitken: 34:15

It's a bit tricky, whereas just having the bd person focus on bd and the technician focus on doing the technical parts seems just so logical to me. Um, I often wonder if that is holding the profession back a little bit. What's your view in terms of what? How see the profession going, actually, laura, and just you know, over the next five years or so?

Laura Taylor: 34:36

I think that, obviously, private equity has seen an opportunity and I think the opportunity comes in because they see, in some cases, how firms are run and see that they can streamline things and that there's an opportunity. They wouldn't be getting involved if they didn't think there was an opportunity there. So I think there is going to be more of that. But I think there's going to be the rise of the small, independent firm with a handful of employees that is optimised by AI and is able to offer fantastic service to clients and, given the option of the various different sizes of firms, I think some SMEs will gravitate towards that. So I think there's a huge opportunity, but I think the landscape is certainly going to change.

Doug Aitken: 35:26

Yeah, to what extent do you feel it'll be shaken up in terms of firms that maybe don't get AI and maybe don't adopt the technology sooner? Will there still be a space?

Laura Taylor: 35:40

I think it comes down to, it's not going to happen as fast as anybody predicts. I think it will take a bit more time, just because it's not just about the firms keeping up and being at the forefront, but it's actually the clients having the expectation of that and there's varying different levels of client expectation and tech savvy and so on. So I think it's a process that will take some time to wash through. But if I think back to so many years ago, I was a shop manager for Ladbrokes and at that point in time I used to sit through the back and manually settle bets and you used to be able to actually. You know, you'd sit with a calculator and a pen and you would mark up the bets and give them back to people.

Laura Taylor: 36:24

But computers were coming in and it was starting to you could I don't know if you've been a betting shop, but you basically take the bet, it goes through the system and the computer reads it, and the next role was for you to actually sit and manually capture the bet, so you'd click on the screen. This is what this person wants. Then they started to bring in almost auto-capture, so the machine would read it for you and the old school bookies were like you know, this isn't.

Laura Taylor: 36:52

You know, it's never going to be the way. We're going to still sit here with our calculator and pen and so on and so forth, but what's happened is there's a lot more online betting, there's a lot less people in the shops, Shops have started to close and I think, again, it's not happened as quick as even I, because that's the reason I left. I left because I thought I can see the future here and I I can see the future here and I don't think it's got lots of growth in shops, and that's where I was. So I think it will happen. I think firms absolutely need to have an AI strategy. They need to see it as a risk and an opportunity and be focusing in on it on the board meetings, making sure that they're working towards a plan to stay at the forefront, because I don't think it's one of these things that you want to be.

Doug Aitken: 37:36

You're kind of caught sleeping yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, when you were growing. I want to go back to when you were growing the farm, laura. I've seen a lot of your um content about people and I'm curious about where your people experience came from. You've hinted at the retail management part of it, for example, but you know, tell me about that people background and what lessons you've learned over the piece dealing with people.

Laura Taylor: 38:06

Yeah, well, I started as a. I got my first management role when I was 18. And I got put into a shop to be deputy manager and for ladbrokes and it was really challenging. You know an 18 year old and you're you're managing people in their 50s and 60s and there's all this lack of respect and and whatnot.

Laura Taylor: 38:26

So, as a young person, um, I went I'm going to say probably along the lines of um, you know, if you, if you can manage with a carrot or a stick, I definitely went down the stick route and that was because I didn't have enough influence at that stage, I think, to use the carrot. So I then moved on to ASDA and was running really big teams for my age I was, you know, early 20s and running a team of 50 people and having all the challenges that went with that. And I'm going to be honest and say I managed by disciplinary. A lot of the time it was a case of the threat of what would happen if you stepped out of line and I had a very disjointed, disengaged team and part of that was legacy. Part of that, if I'm really truly honest, was me.

Laura Taylor: 39:15

When you look back now as a 40 year old, if I look back on myself at that age, part of it was that and it came to a point where I just thought I can't continue on like this. I'm going to try a different way. So I moved from Asda into Sainsbury's and set up a new department there. There was a shop refit and I set up the new department. Now, at that point I got to recruit my own team from scratch and it was really, really nice. I completely changed. I went down the route of trying to inspire people, praise people, help them to see what was possible and really support them in their roles, just you know, really being that a completely different person to the one I was before.

Doug Aitken: 40:03

And I had such a nicer time. What caused that change, Laura? Sorry, yeah. What caused the change? What caused you to change that?

Laura Taylor: 40:09

The final straw for me was when I was working for ASDA and I stood up in front of the team and I told them that I was leaving and they cheered and I'm going to be perfectly honest, they cheered and I think that came. It just showed the relationship and the tension and everything that was there. Now, there was some really challenging individuals in that team. However, the way that I was dealing with it was actually the the retail way it was. You know, you need to do that, you must do this and if you don't do that, you know I'll be seeing you for a written warning, and that was the sort of the way that it worked.

Laura Taylor: 40:48

But now, like I say, when I look back at that, I'm horrified. I'm absolutely horrified at the way that it was and I'm nothing like that. Now, it doesn't mean I'm soft. You know I've I'm not a soft person and I will always manage performance and and and you know and deal with things. But I'm absolutely obsessed with people and it's one of the things I say regularly. If you can inspire the team and if they want to come and work with you and they want to do good work, and you find out what motivates them and you can lean in on that so that it's a win-win situation. You're getting a win for your business, but they're actually getting a win for them. That's where the magic happens.

Doug Aitken: 41:30

Yeah, absolutely yeah. I do find a lot of leaders we have similar conversations where I often challenge them by saying do you seriously think that the majority of your team come in here to do bad work every day? And it tends to stop them in their tracks a little bit and make them think, and so so you know, if they do come in to do good work, what's stopping them, what's getting in the way, and sometimes these can be really interesting discussions. Um, yeah, okay, in terms of the future, laura, what does the future hold for laura taylor? And? Um, where will, might, your impatience and energy take you?

Laura Taylor: 42:16

So at the moment I work with firms mainly one-to-one. I've got a small group programme for really small firms and I'm just starting a programme on how to launch a virtual finance department. I mean that's a bit more sort of leverage, it's a bit more one-to-many with a one-to-one element to really help firms be able to launch this um virtual finance department offering become more of an advisory capacity etc. Yeah, so I'll do some more of that um side of things. That my personality is. I'll always be working on something. You know it's, it's, it's not, it's not going to stop.

Laura Taylor: 42:54

Um, when I sold the business, had a few months off and I ended up, uh, you know, just just trying to have some downtime. You know, you know thinking I just need some, need some downtime. There's only so many times you can go for a coffee and a cake and there's only so many times that you can just sit there and think what actually would you be doing? But when you love what, when you love what you do, actually I'm going to be really sad and say it's my business, is my hobby, I enjoy it. You know, I get up in the morning and think, right, who can I help, what can I do?

Doug Aitken: 43:21

and um, and so on. No, I, I totally get that. I totally agree as well. I feel exactly the same. I was forced to have some time out at the end of last year.

Doug Aitken: 43:31

I haven't had an operation and um quickly discovered that daytime tv was certainly not for me. So I I feel exactly the same. Yeah, um. I just want to finish by reflecting on the sale of the business. Laura, and you've kind of hinted at things there. How did you actually feel? Because the whole process took 25 days, as you've said already, from start to finish. Um, so very, very quick um process and suddenly you're um, I want to phrase, use the phrase out on your ear. I don't mean it that way, but um, you literally have nothing.

Doug Aitken: 44:10

Um yeah one day later. How did all that feel?

Laura Taylor: 44:15

Well, obviously it was what I wanted to happen in the circumstances. So it was personal circumstances that drove the sale. So it was what I wanted and actually being able to sell the business as quickly as I did. Now there was other opportunities out there. I could have stayed longer. I could have done an earn out. I could have sold it for more money. There was other offers out there. I could have stayed longer, I could have done an earn out. You know I could have sold it for more money. There was other offers on the table but actually, given the circumstances, I wanted to exit quickly and there was.

Laura Taylor: 44:46

It's never been a regret, it's always been. It was the right thing to do, you know so. And I'm happy now that I'm able to. You know I realised some. Now that I'm able to, I realise some value. I was able to change my life in that respect. But also I'm able to help people and I still enjoy what I do. Do I miss the growing the business part? I miss the buzz of hiring people and miss the buzz of taking on more new clients? Always, always loved that aspect. But yeah, it's the right thing and really happy with where I'm at and where I'm going.

Doug Aitken: 45:21

So good, fab good for you, Laura. It's been a real pleasure having you on the podcast. Thanks so much for your honesty and your authenticity. Didn't expect anything else, but you delivered.

Laura Taylor: 45:36

Thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it.