We recently had a terrific opportunity to spend some time with a chartered accountant who had spent 17 years with EY down in Australia before starting an owner-managed business buying accountancy services. Craig McKell is working in the profession again and is now the General Manager of Asia Pacific for our good friend, AdvanceTrack. He believes that an accountant does a brilliant job, a better job, with their owner-managed business clients when they’re 80% human, 20% accountant. He acknowledges the challenges faced by the profession from the talent-shortage perspective. And he shares a brilliant insight around the fact that you don't have to fall far from or step out of the corporate world of accountancy to make a real difference with real people when dealing with owner-managed businesses. It's worth checking out this podcast to understand what you can do, for example, with three names. What could you do with those three names so that you're more human than you are accountant (80% human, 20% accountant)? You’ll also find great value in our discussion of the 80/20 rule according to Craig McKell. I hope you enjoy this practical, passionate podcast. Please scroll down the podcast’s episode page for the contact information for Craig and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in this podcast. |
The Solution:
You can't know where you're going if you don't know where you've been. And this is just something that accountants learn along the way – that you can read a set of accounts and tell your client what is going on right now and what is going to happen.
And the key is – what do your clients want to talk about?
It's not that they don't value your ability to put together a coherent set of financials and a tax return that saves them money, or that at least doesn't put them at risk, but they want to know what those financials mean.
As their accountant, they want your view, opinion and advice. You are someone close enough to their business to be able to put these things into a language that they will understand. And they want to know where the skeletons are.
They want to know what you think the numbers mean and then they want you to share that with them and to be prepared to be wrong, because sometimes you will be.
SHOW NOTES
Connect with Craig
Connect with Paul
Resources relating to this podcast:
During the podcast, Paul and Craig talk about the importance of the relationship between you – the accountant – and your clients.
They discuss the importance of being human – being nice, kind and open. When you do this, it creates an honest and open relationship.
This is generally not comfortable territory for accountants, and Craig recognises that, in the past, accountants have often seen the 'relationship stuff' as something that someone else does. This can act as a barrier to accountants valuing the more human interactions with their clients.
Craig and Paul discuss the fact that these conversations require some vulnerability and that they may make both the accountant and the client feel a bit unsafe. Both parties are moving into uncharted waters and, perhaps, taking a risk when discussing matters for the first time.
But when you take that leap of faith and build a relationship of honesty, trust and respect, you create an environment where both parties feel safe, opening up a pathway for more fulfilling conversations.
If you want to know more about the difference that creating a psychologically safe environment can make to your firm and to the relationships you have with your clients, click the button to read the Business Breakthrough report, 'Build Psychological Safety'.
