Welcome And The Power Of Questions

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'll challenge you and connect you and your firm to the ways and means of transforming your firm's results.

Martin Bissett 0:21

They were fond of asking the question, where do you want to be in five years' time? And I asked them to flip it and then ask the question, five years ago, did you think you'd be where you are now? Because what that elicits in the business owner is the response of, yeah, pretty much. Which would allow the accountant to go, and what happens next? If the business owner goes, no, actually, we thought we'd be a bit further on, well, there's an opportunity. If the business owner answers, actually further on than I thought we'd be, we're doing better. The accountant has the opportunity to ask, great, how do we keep it that way? So any answer was an opportunity. If you ask the question in that sense. But you're absolutely right. Those initial seeds of relationship development form, as you rightly say, the nature of the engagement, the nature of the relationship, the nature of the fees, the nature of the profitability, the nature of the cross-selling opportunities, and everything that goes with that.

Paul Shrimpling 1:19

Without crystal clarity about what your clients value from working with your firm, you're unable to communicate that value. And on this podcast with Martin Bissett, who's worked with the profession for 30 years, we dive deep into how do you, yes, deliver the accountancy service work and deliver the answers your client expect, but also how do you establish a trusted, a deeper trusted advisor role by asking the right questions. What questions? That's exactly what Martin and I are unpacking on this podcast. Let's get to Martin now.

Martin Bissett 2:01

Hi, I'm Martin Bissett, founder of Bissett Group Holdings, which serves the accounting profession in several different ways and in several different platforms and has done for the last 30 years. Prior to that, I was an author and speaker on the accounting circuit. And when not doing this kind of thing, I like to be out in the hills in the Rossendale Valley where I'm from.

Paul Shrimpling 2:23

Brilliant. So the um brand of walking boot, then, Martin. That's a strange place to start, isn't it? It's just I'm in the market for some new walking boots.

Martin Bissett 2:32

Brandon walking boot. Well, round here you do well to buy anything other than regattas. And that's sort of the brand of choice for all the local stockists. But I actually go with North Faces. Oh, right, okay, cool. That's what I like to use. However, if we're going to do brand associations, I will also big up sketches at the moment because they've moved out of the comfortable old man's shoes market. And I have tried a pair of their walk-in boots, and they're actually pretty good.

Paul Shrimpling 2:58

All right, okay. Well, well, that's there's something for the listeners, isn't it? So let's get deep into this, given that um how how you could possibly have been in the industry for 30 years looking the way you do strikes me as a bit strange. So started at 14, I guess, but let's pass on that one. Martin, I know you've worked with lots of accountants. You've been on stage a lot of times, but I'm really interested in the firms that you've worked deeply with.

From Facts To Better Lives

Paul Shrimpling 3:25

And when you consider the insights and lessons you've learned from those firms, what's your interpretation of the phrase humanize the numbers?

Martin Bissett 3:35

That's fantastic. The very first thing that comes to mind, Paul, is a quote from John Thompson. Now, your listeners at Stroke Watchers who are of a certain vintage will remember John, and I think the younger ones won't. But John blazed the trail for many, many years on what we might call the added value or advisory side of accountancy. And his phrase was always, yeah, but what does the client want? And over and over again, and I would say right up to the modern day, that is still the very last question to be uh considered by your run-of-the-mill accounting practice. We worry about what the depth of reports say, we worry about what the partner's gonna say, whether we're PE backed to worry about what the shareholders are gonna say and the KPIs that we've got to reach, and so on and so on and so on. But very rarely in practice over the years did I ever find anyone in leadership ever say, Yeah, but what's in the best interest of the client? So when it comes to humanizing the numbers, um, I take that to mean, in my own interpretation, I take that to mean how do we take the factual and turn it into the lifestyle? How do we make that client's life better? How do we keep the wolves from the door in the case of survival? Or how do we get them to reach their ultimate professional and personal aspirations in the case of thriving? Um, and I don't know too many in the Academy profession who chose to adopt that as their mantra. Of course there are some, but in the wider picture, not the majority.

Paul Shrimpling 5:08

Sure. Sure. So if a firm is to get the humanized, this is me trying to repeat back what you're saying, so I've got it, is if if firms are going to effectively humanize the numbers, they've got to move from facts to life improvement to use your words, in order to help them fight off the wolves and achieve their goals, personal ambitions, whatever they are.

Martin Bissett 5:34

Kind of, yeah. I'll expand it by um comparing it to a Richard Dawkins theory. Wherever uh yeah, I don't know how many times you guessed have done that. Um Richard Dawkins holds a very broad theory that if you were brought up in Middle England, it is very likely that if you have any religious affiliation, it's going to be Christian or Catholic. You know, if you were brought up in Israel, it is very likely that you're going to default to Orthodox Jewish religion or Judaism. If you were brought up in India and so on. Okay. Yeah. And if you're an accountant and you've been trained to get to trial balance level and that's it, and not to ever ask the client, but what are you trying to do? But what are you in business for? But what is this all about? But what happens if you don't? Okay, if you're not trained to ever think that way or ask those questions, you're not gonna. And so the training that brings you into practice in the first place avoids stuff like that, uh, or has done it historically, and as a result, you're not going to default to that way of thinking, you're gonna default to being technically accurate.

Paul Shrimpling 6:39

So I get that, I get that. Uh, there's um we're pre-conditioned ourselves, our training has also added to those conditionings, if I can use that phrase. And uh the environment in which we're working confirms those conditioning or that conditioning, and so we continue to be a trial balance report builder expert as opposed to a humans. Uh so we're a numbers expert, not a human expert.

Martin Bissett 7:08

Absolutely, and there's a mismatch from day one,

Why Clients And Accountants Misalign

Martin Bissett 7:11

right? Okay, because the accountant goes into the client meeting or the prospect meeting going, I'm here to make sure you're technically compliant and maybe take over from your existing accountant if you don't already have one.

unknown 7:21

Yeah.

Martin Bissett 7:22

And the business owner is going, I need help. Okay, and there's a fundamental mismatch, but neither of them voice the those that that's their starting point. And as such, we have a mismatch from moment one onwards because the accountant never corrects the position understanding of what an accountant can do. Yeah. And the business owner doesn't understand how to vocalize what it is they actually need.

unknown 7:46

Right.

Paul Shrimpling 7:46

Okay.

Martin Bissett 7:47

So from there onwards, we default to a compliance relationship.

Paul Shrimpling 7:49

Cool. So that's so the the business owner doesn't know what they don't know, so they don't know how to winkle that out of the accountant. Yeah. Exactly. And the accountant hasn't connected the dots with what really matters to the client, so they're not posing questions and creating a conversation that then puts on the table the things that the client really values. Have I understood that?

Martin Bissett 8:09

Absolutely right. Yeah, and and not, I would also say not naturally disposed to being empathetic either. Disposed to being technically correct.

unknown 8:21

Yeah.

Martin Bissett 8:21

You know, as as as the old joke used to go, you know, people go into marketing to sorry, go into accounting to avoid a career of sales and marketing. You know, the worst joke is that, you know, the first entrance into the uh profession requires a charisma bypass operation. Now, of course, that's a bit cruel and harsh, but its stereotypes exist for a reason. You know, and it's why are people forming those opinions in the first place? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, because if it because if you are a sales and marketing type, hey Paul, how are you? Great to see you today, you're looking great, you lost some weight, and all that kind of stuff, which we might go, oh that's BS, but nevertheless, yeah, it is engaging, it is proactive, it is energetic. That's not the norm in a meeting with an accountant. Okay, all right.

Paul Shrimpling 9:09

So uh, and one could call that an asset in that accountants are good at cutting to the chase. But if cutting to the chase is only connected to the trial balance to the report, to the audit review report, whatever, then that's only part of the value equation because clearly clients are buying payroll, audit, management accounts, annual accounts, bookkeeping, etc. etc. They're buying the services, the products, but that's only part of the value equation that you're talking about, isn't it? From the client's perspective, and the level of fee, if we can go introduce that into the mix, the level of fees connected to the perception of value. And if all we're talking about is the trial balance, the audit report, the the bookkeeping outputs, and so on, we're missing a huge uh piece around delivering greater value to the client so that they stay loyal, recommend you more, and buy more from you, but we're also leaving money on the table, aren't we?

Martin Bissett 10:07

Yes, we are. So you've seen the end from the beginning there. So you've described you know the entire client relationship and what Alan Weiss refers to as thinking of the fourth sale first. Um and also um a rather now forgotten 80s and 90s comic called John Hedgely always talked about comedy and said, if you want to dissect comedy, remember that the first thing you've got to do is kill it. You know, and and as such, though, if you cut, if you just cut to the numbers, which is the first thing you said in that summary there, if you cut to the numbers, then we're ignoring all the reasons for the numbers. And why it's not, well, your profit was 28%. Well, yeah, and good or bad compared to getting to where I need to get to, you know, on track or behind or in in advance. And I remember years and years ago doing a session with an accounting firm, and they were fond of asking the question, where do you want to be in five years' time? Um, and I asked them to flip it and then ask the question, five years ago, did you think you'd be where you are now? Because what that elicits in the business owner is the response of yeah, pretty much, which would allow the accountant to go, and what happens next? If the business owner goes, no, actually, I thought we'd be a bit further on, well, there's an opportunity. If the business owner answers, actually further on than I thought we'd be, we're doing better. The accountant has the opportunity to ask, great, how do we keep it that way? So any answer was an opportunity, if you ask the question in that sense. But you're absolutely right. Those initial seeds of relationship development form, as you rightly say, the nature of the engagement, the nature of the relationship, the nature of the fees, the nature of the profitability, the nature of the cross-selling opportunities, and everything that goes with that.

Paul Shrimpling 11:53

Yeah, and and and like you said earlier, the you know, the the people get into accountancy not to sell. And so you and I are merrily having this conversation about all the merits of you know a value conversation so we can better help the client and help them buy more stuff from us, and everyone's listening to not everyone, but you know, people listening to goes, you know, yeah, but we're not very good at that, and we don't want to do that. Maybe, maybe, maybe, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, but uh you you said um it's the reasons for the numbers that really matter, um and and you if you can build this out, that would be great. But I when uh and I know you've work and continue to work with accountants in this space, um we're the same. Uh, in terms of how do we better connect the accountancy team, the client managers in particular, anyone who's got client management responsibility uh to what really matters to the client, that connection, that but building stronger connections in that space is better for the client, better for the client manager and their career, and better for the firm because the results will follow. Um, and so there's some simple things that a non-empathetic, to be if we've been brutal, or less empathetic is probably fairer. Less empathetic, yes. Less empathetic is fairer, a less empathetic, less desiring of having commercial conversations, but probably, and this I'm firmly of this opinion, I'd value your insights in this. There's a real determination to help the clients in their way, and it's just oh, can we influence their skills to help the clients? How do we best have a conversation now, Martin, about the key skills? Like, you know, driving a car is a skill, riding a bicycle is a skill that's learned over a number of lessons and time, and as you get better and better, you might advance to downhill than jumping and all the rest of it. Um, what are the fundamental get brilliant at the basic skills that anyone dropping into a client meeting, even though they've never done it before, could apply this skill which would elevate the client value perception?

Beliefs Behaviour Culture The BBC Model

Martin Bissett 14:10

Wonderful question. Back in the autumn of 2017, you and I were in San Jose, California, uh, for a QuickBooks Connect conference, as I recall. Yeah. Um during the uh speaking engagement that I did, I talked about controlling the BBC. And the BBC, in my case, referred to beliefs, behavior, culture, which outlined the supposition that the culture is a result of the behaviors that you find inside the organization. The behaviors that you find inside the organization is as a result of the beliefs. And therefore, does leadership start from top down, bottom up, or in the middle? It starts from top down. And so if leadership have a belief system as to what the practice will be, you better believe that the behaviors of the firm will be encouraged to be compliant to that. The culture of the firm, in its marketing, its communications, its client relationships, and so on, will follow suit as a result. Therefore, to change the culture, change the behavior, to change the behavior, change the beliefs. So, in order to do what you've just suggested, there, ultimately, the belief of what the accounting practice is there for has got to be clearly defined and get buy-in on. Because only when that happens do you see senior managers, client directors, and so on buying into anything other than a paycheck as a result as a reason for being at that firm. And when there's a vision, when there's a uh communique from the top as to how we run this place, then we see behaviors change, and you can't fake that. I've seen lots of firms trying to fake that and be different and be zany, and no one buys it. But what I do recall is a firm up in the Northeast. Um, only time I ever saw this, you went upstairs to get to them, and at the top of the stairs was almost like a Ten Commandments, it was a mantra as to what you know, you don't you don't have to be daft to work, everybody else type stuff. A outline of this is what makes a great employee of this organization, and what they did this it was only there, I mean it could be there for clients and prospects, I suppose, but it was there for recruits. And the idea was that you were to stand in the holding area looking at this thing, somebody came to see you and said, so-and-so be with you in five minutes to interview you for the role you're here for. Familiarize yourself with that in the meantime. If you feel that that's not you or you don't want it to be you, just let yourself out. No need to tell us. Let yourself go. When we come back and we see you're not here, we'll realize what happened. But if this is you, then you're gonna make a great start in this interview. I only ever saw one firm do that. But straight away, they were controlling the beliefs, behavior, and culture of that firm from the very first moment that a new recruit entered the building.

Paul Shrimpling 17:10

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I might maybe take issue with a control word, but certainly influencing.

Martin Bissett 17:16

Influencing. And so as a result, just like anybody in a typical compliance firm will behave in a typically compliant way, that organization or that particular practice, which was acquired for a lot of money, by the way, um developed its own unique culture of individuals who weren't trying to be different, they were trying to be true to the core beliefs of leadership. And the core beliefs of leadership was that the client was the only reason that they're in business in the first place.

Paul Shrimpling 17:48

Okay, so there's a there's a client focus piece, there's a behavioural standards piece in that list of Ten Commandments, there's beliefs showing up in those uh Ten Commandments. You know, we're in that values and behavioural standards space. Um the um I when you were talking about BBC, you know, beliefs first, behavior second results in the culture, which is the behaviour you see of every hour, of every person, of every day is is what culture is, is we're going to know. Um I just I'm just thinking of um when I first got behind the steering wheel of the first car I ever sat in. Um and I just wondered if the driving instructors, do you believe you can drive this car? And I go, Well, yeah, eventually. So I've got an eventual belief. Um, but there'll be many people if they really looked at it and went, man, do you believe you can drive this car? And I go, no, no, I don't really think I can, because I've never driven it. You know, they're in that fixed mindset. I haven't driven it, therefore I can't learn to. Um, but then they work not on their beliefs, they work on the behaviours, which builds the beliefs, don't they?

Martin Bissett 18:56

Oh, it strengthens them, I guess. But they've got the beliefs they've got to pre-exist. Interesting, you mentioned driving instructors. When I passed my test on the seventh attempt of doing so, right, okay, which was strictly speaking only six because one was abandoned. Um, that they the um the uh examiner said, I'm pleased to say, Martin, you've passed. And I said, Dennis, you've no idea how happy that makes me. He said, Martin, you've got no idea how happy that makes me. I never have to believe see you again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. And the fact that I can remember that 20 odd years on is a ring up. The belief was never ever have to come back and do this again. You can drive. Now go drive. Drive a lot, get practiced at it.

Paul Shrimpling 19:44

Learn to properly drive.

Martin Bissett 19:47

His own way of saying to me, okay, don't be in this position ever again. Okay, you took long enough to get here, you can now do it. Go do it. Believe to behaviour.

Paul Shrimpling 19:57

Um, I'm just arguing that it's it's a uh it's probably a circle. And I don't think it matters where it starts. You know, you can um, you know, try asking this question. Well, I don't believe I can ask this, well, just ask it because it's a behavior. Or you know, I can't balance on the bike, we'll have a go. I don't think I can balance on the bike, have a go. There's you know, oh I don't think I can ask a how question in a client, or you know, what's the what was the reasons you set the business up in the first place question? Well, can you say the words? Yeah, I can say the words. Well, just say the words a few times and then have a go, and then sit, and then afterwards your beliefs flipped into, oh yeah, I can ask that question. So I think it there's a um I think there's a circular piece going on here rather than a linear piece, maybe.

Incentives That Keep Compliance Dominant

Martin Bissett 20:40

Well, important distinction there as well, because if you're in a business where you have non-recurring work, then you have no question if you wish to pay the mortgage and pay the salaries, but to ask the how question. If you're in an accounting firm and you don't ask the how question, nothing changes. You go back to your desk and life continues on your gross recurring fee model. Sure. So until something takes over. Well, it ever will. Um but nevertheless, you know, we've we've lived 40 years with value pricing and it never ever took hold. You know, we've lived what 45 years with the paperless office, and we might start to get there in the next five. That's half a century's worth. You know, we've we've lived a hundred no 97 years with the there's no future in compliance message, which was first uh uttered at the Chicago Technical Institute um by McKinsey. Um, but here we are still doing it. Because it turns out that bureaucrats in Whites all like to come up with new laws all the time to keep the house busy. You know, so as a result of this, you know, there is no commercial imperative on the accountant to change belief or behavior. Because if they do nothing at all, which is the most comfortable way of doing things and the least path of resistance, they'll be fine. Recurring work, refresh. Girls, happy days, all is well. They will complain about pain in the backside clients. They will complain about low margins and price sensitivity, but ultimately they can still afford the Jag and the golf course and the holiday and the nice house, so all is great. And that's why I think private equity has been very good for this profession, not in the way that we perhaps might suggest in terms of independence of practice. That hasn't been good, but it's woken everyone up to a commercial reality, and a firm has gone and taken the devil's bargain of 60% up front, and all of a sudden found themselves reporting to a regional director who's got some sales figures to hit.

Paul Shrimpling 22:37

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And those imperatives are there, yeah.

Martin Bissett 22:40

Yeah. And now it's like, oh, this is how the clients feel. I hadn't realised for the last 45 years that was the case. But now I'm having to live the experience myself. So from that point of view, I think it's great.

Paul Shrimpling 22:51

Yeah, yeah. And I think you're right. I think if there's if the if the accountant leaders leader leadership team are ambitious enough to challenge the status quo, as opposed to no, we're happy with the status quo, then they're likely to have the imperative, the drivers, the motivation to do something different from the norm and establish a set of 10 commandments or whatever it is, that is this is how we do it here, to take a line from Michael Gerber, um, around the client meetings and the client calls and the team's calls with clients, in order to ensure that they see where the real value is, because we've done the work to understand the real value for the client.

Martin Bissett 24:32

Yes, and for balance and perspective as well, I would also throw in that while we do all these complaints, it's also worth noting that ICAW did not relax guidelines on what you could and couldn't market on the basis of till November 2001. So practisers were never free to extol their virtues until that point, anyway, if they were members of the ICAW. ACCA were a little bit faster, I think, as I recall. But nevertheless, um, the vast majority of practicing accountants in the UK would be ICAW members and therefore not free to do so. So the the seatbelt only came off in November 2001. So we're only 25 years on from that.

Paul Shrimpling 25:14

Yeah, only 25 years on the only 25 years on.

Martin Bissett 25:19

Come on. In the perspective of the evolution of the profession that is several hundred years old and haven't come very far in that time.

Paul Shrimpling 25:25

Glacial movement. That glacial movement, do you think that's getting quicker?

Martin Bissett 25:30

Yeah, it is getting quicker. And and I'm and because I'm about to contradict myself, I have to point this out. I came into the profession at a time when speakers would stand up in conferences and they would do something like this. In today's fast-paced, ever-changing, hyper-connected world, everyone's going to use the fax machine. You know, and that same garbage of fast-paced, ever-changing, hyper-connected, it's not the same as it was at nine o'clock this morning. That message is used to create urgency and fear from a marketeer to a professional. Yeah. And I'm against that. So I hate that. However, now the contradiction comes. In terms of what has gone before, yes, we are now in a relatively speaking, fast-paced, hyper-connected, ever-changing environment. Because every week, literally, every week, and that is not an overstatement, that is an actual statement of fact. Literally, every week, there is a new consolidator that arrives that has got some form of backing from somewhere, whether it's angel investors or private equity or something, some fund from somewhere, and they want to buy some practices, please. Who's for sale? That is happening every single week, and that was never the case in the past. The rate at which automation can do basic compliance tasks is faster than it used to be. Has it taken over? No. Will it? Dunno, jury's out. However, it is faster. Has the demographic of who is an accountant changed? Yes, massively. I don't know the stats on average age, but I'd be very interested to know what they are these days. Um, at what point do you make partner now? I think that's probably changed as well. So, yes, things are changing faster than they ever have before. I concede that, but I stopped short of jumping on the interest have connected, every changing fast pace. Uh yeah, all right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's you can still get away with being a compliance provider even now. So it's not that fast-paced.

Paul Shrimpling 27:31

Yeah, no, and I think you know, I'm in a we're in a a similar space. Uh over time, the the the rate of change is increasing. Is but are we at that part? Yeah, it's speeding up part of it curve.

Martin Bissett 27:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Paul Shrimpling 27:44

That's moving. Um, but I like that. I like the Jeff Bezos um phrase in an interview, I think it was 2017, where Germanists says, Go on then,

The Business Owner Value Equation

Paul Shrimpling 27:51

Jeff, you're in you're leading the most technology savvy uh business on the planet with more cash than you can shake a stick at. Um, you know, what's gonna what do we all need to be aware of that's gonna change over the next five, ten years? And Jeff went, Well, that's interesting. You asked that question. But at Amazon, we design our strategy around the three things stable in time that really matter to our customers, not what's changing, it's what really matters to our customers. So, my question to to you, Martin, is because this has been very much a what's the the the humanize the numbers piece is let's get better connected to our clients as human beings and clients as business owners leaders? Um, what do you, given that you almost certainly have bought accounting services, as given that you're running a business, um and you've been exposed to more accountants than most in a deep way and in a big broadcast way on stage and so on. What do you think makes up the value equation in a business leader's mind when it comes to looking at an accountancy firm? What are the elements of value that really matter to you, to me, to most business leaders when it comes to working with the accountant?

Martin Bissett 28:58

Well, let's do the boring stuff first of all, and then we'll get to the interesting stuff second. Okay. So the boring stuff is that there's certain things that haven't changed. So, from a business leader perspective, how do I minimize my tax liability? Will always be in your top three somewhere. Depending on the evolution and life cycle of the business that we're discussing, it may well be how do I ensure that I can afford my tax bill when it comes and withdraw what I need and pay the salaries and meet my obligations. So I think there's a layer of Maslow in there, hierarchy of needs, you know, security first. Yeah, yeah. Security first. Okay. But then the most common question of a business owner to an accountant that I ever heard in my time was what am I missing? And it was always that that they were going to evaluate whether they changed accountants or not. Not how much are you, or what is your full extent of service provision, please? But what I feel like I'm missing a trick. I don't know from my accountant often.

Paul Shrimpling 30:09

This is a question from the business leader to the account.

Martin Bissett 30:11

Business owner to the accountants.

Paul Shrimpling 30:12

Right, okay, okay. What am I missing?

Martin Bissett 30:14

Yeah, and it was always, I don't speak to my accountant often. You know, there must be something else with no evidence for it. Or I see other organizations making faster progress than me. What is it I'm not doing? And they were always looking for, I wouldn't say the magic wand necessarily. I'd probably go stop short of saying that. But basically they're asking, what is it I don't know? Yeah. You know, and that was generally where an accountant would shine or fail in that moment in the eyes of the business leader as to whether they actually evaluated them as being worth breaking the loyalty barrier to the existing accountant and coming to them. It wasn't about price, as I'm often told it is. No, it's not. It's about what insight to get me to where I want to be do you bring that they don't? Because there's not a lot of incentive for me to change otherwise. Okay. You know? And that was always the main question. You know, what am I missing? Was the business owner's question. And so I can't see that changing anytime soon. Because you still you still to this day go into business in order to achieve certain lifestyle goals, even if it is keeping the walls from the door. That's still what you do. You hate your boss, you want to go alone, great, you go alone, but you still got to keep the walls from the door, even at that level. So an accountant then remains with all the cliches that we've heard about all these years, most trusted advisor. Yeah, still, even now. Yeah. Chat GPT might be catching up, but right now it's still the accountant for the time being. You know, are they most intimate with the numbers? Yeah. And also, COVID, I never forget this in COVID. You know, I remember, I will not I will spare the the blushes of the guilty, I will not name who it was. But I still remember a practitioner that said, This has been great, this COVID thing. I've had to get close to my clients, and now I really understand what they're trying to do. Yeah. Which, if you say the bit they didn't say, is had there not have been a global pandemic, I would never have asked the question in the first place. Yeah, yeah. You know?

Paul Shrimpling 32:34

The drivers have changed on really. The drivers have changed, indeed. Where's the imperative? Yeah, where's the imperative? Yeah, yeah.

Martin Bissett 32:41

Where's the imperative? So I think from a business owner perspective, you know, on the Jeff Bears us, what do our we plan our shot on what do our customers want? Our customers want security layer first, arm around the shoulder that we're doing the right thing second. And what is it? I don't know, progress third.

Paul Shrimpling 32:57

Oh, reassurance, the magic word. So clients, clients want reassurance about something they're not intimate with, which you are intimate with, which is their numbers. But you say also that um the good ones, the ones that are going to value what you do, want insight. They don't want insight for the sake of insight, they want insight so that they can make better decisions. Is that what you're inferring here? Oh, probably not better insight.

Martin Bissett 33:25

Well, well, I I put a I put a LinkedIn post out at the time of recording here last week that said um what I've been asked is changed. I used to get asked, how do I do this? How do I increase my fees, Martin? How do I get more clients, Martin? How do I get more leads, Martin? You know, that used to be the question I got asked, and it's not anymore. The question I get asked now is, what would you do in the case of an I'm asked to provide an independent perspective? I would tell you the exact same is true of the business owner to the accountant. You know, if this was your business, Mrs. Accountant, what would you do here? Okay, not how do I increase my sales by 15%? Put your prices up. Oh, genius, thanks. You know, not that, but what would you do in this situation? How do I how do I you know shore up my bank account? What how do I build a cash reserve and not throttle my own chances of progress and growth and leverage at this time? Asking commercial questions to a non-commercial person. Therefore, I would tell you that the imperative is upon the accountant to become more commercially minded in order to be of more value to the client.

Paul Shrimpling 34:31

Okay, so it's it's been connected to yes, the numbers that show up in the PL and balance sheet, but also the numbers that show up in the sales report and the marketing report and the HR report and the operational operational report. Yeah, yeah, which is that's uh connected PL and balance sheet, isn't it? But um okay. So um they want clients value, want trusted advisor, want someone who's intimate with the numbers because they they are too busy doing everything else. They want someone who's going to be their um their reference point for all the key numbers in the business. Um that delivers insight, which in itself is reassurance, reassuring, uh, but also then drives towards better decision making so that they've got a better business in the future, which makes them even further reassured that they're with the right truffing accountant.

Martin Bissett 35:18

Yeah, yeah. I mean, in in the olden days, when I was young and you look exactly the same as you do now.

Paul Shrimpling 35:24

In in the olden days, ITS until I was 22, so that doesn't really matter, does it?

Martin Bissett 35:32

We used to call that the accountant being the part-time financial director for the business. That's what we used to call it. And these days we probably call it a Ned.

unknown 35:39

Yeah.

Martin Bissett 35:40

You know, playing the role of a fractional, which means part-time, yeah, CFO, which means financial director. You know, just changing the words around to get the marketing fresh. That's all still the same stuff, though. Yeah. Um that that's I don't know what that has changed over the years. It's that, it's give me some reassurance. I'm very good at being a manufacturer, but I'm crap at running a business in manufacturing. Help.

Paul Shrimpling 36:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Martin Bissett 36:03

You know, I'm the best software technician there is, but I'm crap at running a business being a software company. Help.

Paul Shrimpling 36:09

Yeah, yeah.

Martin Bissett 36:10

You know, it's the part-time CFO or the fractional CFO.

Paul Shrimpling 36:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we've got the, you know, like you know, I like the Maslow hierarchy of needs a connection, uh, you know, minimize tax until I can pay the tax and all the other obligations about running the business. Uh, and then in the what am I missing space, um it's uh

Answer Versus Adviser Mindset

Paul Shrimpling 36:32

posing questions, it's as simple as that.

Martin Bissett 36:35

And well, so long as John Thompson doesn't sue me for this, going back to John Thompson, where I started here, um, he would say that the accountant has to have all the answers, and the advisor has to have all the questions, right? And he would distinguish it because on a compliance technically exact basis, what is my tax liability for the next uh period? That needs to be an exact figure. You need to have the answer to that. Yeah, but where are you going in the next three years and what happens if you don't get there? What's the what's the big consequence of not getting there? Is an inexact question.

Paul Shrimpling 37:17

Yeah. Well, you can't.

Martin Bissett 37:19

And so John was put it up in those two in those two brackets, which I fully agree with. But we've always mastered the first, and we've never mastered the second. Uh but what a what an opportunity. Well, as it of what as it ever was. It was a great opportunity back then as well. It was a great opportunity back then, and no one's taking the place, and it's still an opportunity, yes.

Paul Shrimpling 37:39

Yeah, yeah. So what do you think the uh commercial differences between be uh if we're predominantly providing answers with the accountant, we're predominantly or a substantial part of what we do is the advisor we're posing the questions, and therefore we're into trust advisor, intimate with the numbers, providing insight, reassurance, and and better decision making. What do you think the commercial difference is between those two types of firms, Martin, in your experience? Just trying to put some numbers into the mix here in terms of financial merit of this.

Pricing Outcomes The 13k To 95k Shift

Martin Bissett 38:13

The commercial difference is in the profitability because and let me give a specific rather than giving a hypothesis. Um the last accounting firm that I worked with had a huge opportunity with an existing client. I won't go into details because it was a fairly technical spec, but the existing client was paying at the time, as I recall, circa 13 grand a year. And the practice costed it up and got all excited and got on the phone to me because they thought there was another about 70,000 of opportunity here, and they went, This is great, help us craft this into a proposal, will you miss it? And I took a look at it and I thought it was more like 120. Okay, and then we got the same old, same old of, I can't possibly charge that. I've never charged that before in my life. They'll say no to that straight away. I've put objections in my way before I even gone near them, etc. Usual scarcity mindset does. And so we we looked at it, and I had to make the point many, many times, not just to the particular partner that I worked with, but with the people who were going to be delivering the job, that we weren't delivering the technical specification that was in this proposal. We were delivering avoidance from consequence of that organization, that client, not doing what they needed to do. We were avoiding investigations, we were providing peace of mind, we were creating significantly increased productivity, many, many multiples of the fee we were charging. And I asked them to lead with that third one, and I said, please demonstrate what predict productivity capacity now exists in that business post your intervention that didn't exist previously, and have them compare that to the fee that we're charging as a result. So, to cut that story short, ultimately they couldn't bring themselves to go with my number. Okay, but they were prepared to raise their number. So we met kind of in the middle, and they went in at 95, and lo and behold, they got it. And they got it without a whimper or an objection or a pushback or a sharp intake of breath.

Paul Shrimpling 40:35

Never a good sound, is it?

Martin Bissett 40:37

Because the business had already worked out the thing that I was pointing out to the accountant, they already knew that, you know, and so I apologize, Paul, for bringing this down to a mere features versus benefits conversation, but it doesn't get much more complex than that, I'm afraid. It's not very difficult, it's just hard to do, it's not difficult to understand. But ultimately, as usual, the practice was focused on the time-bound mentality of the delivery of various um services, and the business didn't give a stuff about any of that and just wanted the outcome as quickly as humanly possible. Yeah, and they were gonna pay for a quick outcome, they were not gonna pay for the 2.5 hours we have spent on an internal audit. Don't care, don't care, don't care, don't care, don't care. Okay, means nothing to us. We don't understand it, we're not gonna pay on that basis. But tell us that we're gonna be safe and tell us that we're gonna be infinitely more productive in the next six months and take my money off me. Accountants to this day, I've been beating that drum, you've been beating that drum, several of our professional colleagues have been beating that drum for a very long time. The message is yet to fully land in the profession.

Paul Shrimpling 41:53

Please forgive this brief interruption. Martin and I are discussing how you and your firm can create greater clarity around the value you deliver for clients and how you better communicate that value so that you can earn better prices and do a greater job. If you want to dive deeper into this topic, please check out the business breakthrough report in the show notes. It's called Build Your Value Equation in Your Firm, and it adds to the value that you're getting from Martin's insights on this podcast. Let's get back to Martin now. And there's there's always room for improvement, isn't there? But yes, there's there's still that. And it revolves around again with that specific client that was paying 13k, could have paid 120k, ended up paying 95. Um it's connecting, they don't know what they don't know. Um, they know some stuff they're not necessarily sharing with you because you've not asked the right questions yet. Um but that aside, the QA diagnostic to understand what pain they want to avoid and what gains they want to get for the business is delivers a completely different uh proposal conversation than a time-based, which is nonsensical in the world we now live in, but uh, you know, time-based uh billing piece.

Martin Bissett 43:13

It's it's an internal measure. Yeah, it's just not an external basis for for pricing, yeah. That's all yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Use it, use it internally all you want to track costs and operational overheads golfing of your life. If that's yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but don't base it as to what the cut price is going to be to the client because that's not what they're evaluating on the basis of. You know, but you know, you you asked the question there about what's the commercial upside to doing all these things we're suggesting an accountant does. Well, in that case, a 25 grand uplift. Yeah, yeah. That should have been a 35 grand uplift. Yeah, yeah. You know, um, or even higher than that. Um, but that's what that's what it should have been. Um, but even if it wasn't, even in their scared state, still a large uplift. And can that be repeated? Of course it can.

Paul Shrimpling 44:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Martin Bissett 44:02

Of course it can. Because all we do is so go on, go ahead.

Paul Shrimpling 44:06

No, go on, go on.

Martin Bissett 44:07

I'm I'm I'm busy monologuing now. You've got me monologuing. Okay, okay, that's just like the same.

Paul Shrimpling 44:11

Come on, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Martin Bissett 44:12

Yeah, yeah. Come on in.

Paul Shrimpling 44:13

Uh so I'm looking at just looking for the practical how-tos in this space. So you go, if we're

Practical Diagnostics What They Don’t Want

Paul Shrimpling 44:18

we step out of accountant equals answers, advisor equals questions, so out of the accountants answers into advisor questions space, uh, we're then going to be able to run a better diagnostic with every client we've currently got. If we were just to work smarter, harder, better on a better QA around what really matters to the client, and you've created that framework around what that might look like. You know, yes, questions around tax, questions around other obligations, um, and then. Prompting them to consider what they're missing if they don't ask you. Some will ask, some won't.

Martin Bissett 45:00

Yes. And let's put reality into this mix. So your structure there is absolutely right. I agree with it 100%. The reality is that some businesses aren't going to know what they want.

Speaker 45:11

Okay.

Martin Bissett 45:12

And that generally leads to an impasse where the accountant goes, Oh, I haven't been trained for the scenario for where they don't know what they want. So I don't know what to say here, so I'll just retreat. Okay. The accountant's job in that scenario is to say, let's take a look at what you don't want. Yeah. And we'll work it backwards from there. But again, without that commercial sensibility, and without that real care or empathy about what the client wants in the first place, those questions will never leave the accountant's mouth.

Paul Shrimpling 45:39

Yeah, yeah. Excuse me, sorry. I like that a lot. So yeah. Be the questioner, the advisor about what they want. If that's not playing out so well, ask what they don't want, which is in the what do you all want to avoid space, as much as any.

Martin Bissett 45:56

We will avoid, yeah.

Paul Shrimpling 45:57

Yeah, yeah. I just do what do what are what are your views on, but let's look at what others in your industry are doing achieving and see how that compares and contrasts, and then let's have a conversation about what you want, don't want. Are you in that? Would you play that game?

Martin Bissett 46:08

Yeah, I mean, I mean, we're talking about benchmarking there. I'm no fan of the one size fits all. For example, I would never subscribe to the idea that you are both in engineering and therefore you are the same. You know, uh no, that's not true. That's not true at all. But if there was, for example, a geographic benchmark, businesses in your area typically are seeing 28% retained profit. You know, right. Well, that's a relevance. That's a relevance there. Everybody else all around me can do it and I can't. What's going on there? I can relate to that. Yeah, but you say that one engineering is the same. Yeah, one engineering company is the same as the other, one manufacturing is the same as the other. We know that's not true. We know that margins aren't the same if you manufacture bottles and if you manufacture, I don't know, um office equipment, you know, whatever. It's very it those are very different markets. So benchmarking those, I think, is uh red herring. I wouldn't benchmark those.

Paul Shrimpling 47:07

But the same applies to the geography though, Marty, doesn't it? You know, I've got I've got retailers over here in the same geography, and I'm an engineering company. I'm gonna dismiss that out of hand.

Martin Bissett 47:15

No, but you put social uh imperative into it. Okay, so I don't want to be behind my peers in the community, I don't want to be behind my mates down the club, you know? So you're absolutely right. You could point the exact same fallacy out about, well, they're not my kind of business over there anyway. No, you're quite right, they're not. And on that basis, the comparison is wrong. I agree. But the reason why the business owner will care about a geographical specific is because it plays into who drives what car around town. Okay.

Paul Shrimpling 47:49

And my my overriding interpretation is that it's relevant to them. The geography element is relevant to them. If you can get the industry piece, that's really relevant to sort of one upholstery company versus another upholstery company. That's relevant. So if you can get to that place, it's just I'm just uh seeking Yeah, the the geographical one plays to the ego component. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Martin Bissett 48:11

Which I kind of called the social component a minute ago.

Paul Shrimpling 48:14

But it's really the ego component. Functional, functional, practical component, which would be the industry piece. But uh yeah, I I guess we're having a one of those um pedantic semantic conversations a little bit, but it's it's that what questions do we ask the client about what they want, what questions do we ask the client that they don't want, and what questions do we ask the client about what else is going on in their industry that then raises a level of conversation and insight that may well enable you to put a proposal together around ways of working together that moves you from 13k to 95k or maybe even 120k to use your numbers. But ultimately it's the diagnostic that leads to the proposal and the conversation with the client around the proposal that results in that client paying more.

Martin Bissett 48:59

I agreed, and the other thing I want to point out there, Paul, is that I gave a deliberately stark example there of how much uplift was doable, but not as a one-off. You know, 29 years now in this game, and I can point to as many as you'd like me to point to. Yeah, yeah. You know, examples of that. And I used to I used to do a keynote called Martin, you don't understand. Okay, because it was always it was repeating back to me what was uh, or me repeating back to the audience what they said to me. Ah, Martin, all very nice and well what you say, but you don't understand, it would never happen with, and then you fill in the sentence. It would never happen in this geography, it would never happen in with our with our managing partner, it would never happen in the audit market, it would never happen, and all of that, and I'm gonna be careful to use my language correctly here, was nonsensical, non-evidenced uh statements. Yeah, yeah. Um, and I and I used to come back with this over and over again, you know. And I'm saying, give me a country, give me a size of firm, give me a profile partner, and I'll give you the example of where it's worked, yeah, principally. And I and I and I became more and more obstinate about that because it was untrue. Yeah, yeah. It does work if you wanted to. If you decide it's not going to before you start, then stop fulfilling prophecy, of course.

Paul Shrimpling 50:16

Yeah, yeah. So to use your um just because we're in that benchmarking space, I just want to maybe shake the tree uh uh a little bit. Um I've I've been with two firms this week who've done a really, really good job, the heroic job of proper understanding the value equation in the client's mind and creating a in creating a diagnostic that whether they're an existing client or a prospect, have a diagnostic set of questions process, not too scripted because that can look a little bit you know paint by numbers, but a diagnostic that then enables them to put a uh proposal together that um enables them to convert and win work. And the firm I was with on on Wednesday, they've got a team of people who are working a 34-hour week, some of it's working from home, some of it's in the office. The owners are doing likewise, well, they're not actually because they only work a four-day week within that 34-hour process. They take 10 weeks holiday and they've got fees per FTE of 155k. Okay, and I think there's a connection between the client appreciates the value and the fees per FTE number. And I'm just fighting, and then the the the other one, they're they're in an even different space because they've got it up to 170k. And again, it's because they understand the value equation. Now, that these two are um sort of uh niche firms for want of a better label, you know, that the uh very specific services to a specific um market niches. Um, but I don't think that's relevant in the fact that they've just done the hard work of identifying what really matters to the clients, even if they don't know it matters, um, and create the diagnostic that then enables them to put a proposal together, and the conversation around the proposal means that they're actually converting work at a much higher level so that they don't have to work so tough in hard.

Martin Bissett 52:06

Yeah. Well, I'm actually delighted that you're using the term proposal, because if you speak to again many firms, you'll get the word quote instead. And even

Proposals Future Proofing And Next Steps

Martin Bissett 52:14

that from a um perception point of view, a quote is for a commoditized process. Give me a quote for the gardens, give me a quote for the windows, give me a quote to do me drive.

Paul Shrimpling 52:27

It's a transactional piece, isn't it? Not a relational piece. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Martin Bissett 52:30

Absolutely. A proposal, which if we expand that phrase out, is proposal of support or proposal of assistance, yeah, suggests something much deeper, yeah, much more impactful. Yeah, yeah. But I couldn't even get the profession to change the word.

Paul Shrimpling 52:44

Yeah, yeah. Well, and I and I've I've very deliberately, every time I've used it, talked about a proposal conversation rather than sending it by email because that's a completely different value demonstration piece as well. Yes. Um, okay, so we're we're we're we're heading towards uh the the uh uh end game of this conversation, uh Martin. What do you think? Um uh sort of double barrel question. Uh what's the biggest opportunity, what's the biggest challenge that the accountancy has to deal with now if it's going to be relevant to their clients next year and in 2030?

Martin Bissett 53:18

Right. So I'm just gonna I'm just contemplating answering a question you did not ask there.

Paul Shrimpling 53:26

Um well that would only be you, Martin.

Martin Bissett 53:30

You go for it, mate.

Paul Shrimpling 53:31

You go for it.

Martin Bissett 53:33

So, you what you asked me, what's the what was gonna be the biggest challenge and opportunity for an accountant with regard to their clients going forward? Um, and I always started thinking, what are they actually gonna care about? Because I'm not gonna care about that. What are they actually gonna care about? So I'll answer it in two ways. The biggest thing that an accountant should care about selflessly is the saleability of their practice.

Paul Shrimpling 53:54

Okay.

Martin Bissett 53:55

Um that's the thing they need to care about internally, externally or selflessly, they need to care about making sure that their relationships with their clients over a certain fee level are of such significant depth that they're not vulnerable to competitor nor technological attack. Right, okay. That's what you need to worry about. So ultimately, you know, when do you ever see an accountant get urgent? One, when there's a deadline, two, there's a big client loss. That's when you see urgency. You know, other than that, you don't see urgency. They'll tell you they're maxed out all the time, but you don't actually see it. When you go and look at the actual um, you know, offices, no one's running around anywhere, no one's in a rush, two people in the chat over there by the water machine. You know, um, you know, nobody's maxed out, it's garbage. But you do see urgency when there's a deadline or when there's a massive fee loss. So I think in order to provide an insurance policy for themselves to future proof against the raging AI machine, I would make sure that their relationships are of significant debt, that compliance being taken away by AI, should that ever happen, is not going to erode their business model. And also that when there is increased competition, be it from humans or non-humans, that business owners are choosing them for very specific reasons related to the well-being of the business owner's future.

Paul Shrimpling 55:19

Could be. Um, build deeper relationships with your clients because there is the future security and sustainability of your existing business. Um growth as well, Martin? More better relationships with clients.

Martin Bissett 55:37

Whether we're talking about sustainability, longevity, or profitability, the future belongs to the best relationship orders.

Paul Shrimpling 55:42

Yeah, yeah. 100%, 100% agree with that. And therefore, a relationship is yes, let's have a relationship, but also you've got to deliver value. So that's the rest of the conversation that we've talked about. So if we've got a good personal relationship and we deliver value consistently, that matches or is beyond their expectations, we're on a win, aren't we?

Martin Bissett 56:02

Yeah, let's go back into the pedantic semantics. So for me, value is an overused term in accountancy. Yeah. Okay. And I have had occasionally firms going, what do you mean, what do you mean, what you mean, what do you mean when you say value? What do you mean?

unknown 56:14

Yeah.

Martin Bissett 56:14

And then I got it down to one word, improvement. Okay, delivering value can be interpreted as delivering improvement on their current condition, on their current situation. If an accountant is delivering measurable improvement as defined by the client, they're going to be fine.

Paul Shrimpling 56:34

And every client's going to be slightly different. So with one client, it might be cash improvement because they're desperate or that that they're obsessed with that. Another one, the improvement might be the speed with which get their annual accounts because they need to make some decisions before they go on holiday. Absolutely.

Martin Bissett 56:48

It could be the three-day week for the owner, it could be the it could be the ability to afford better capital equipment. It could be anything. Yeah.

Paul Shrimpling 56:58

Yeah, yeah. Cool. Cool. Um it's uh after this podcast, this afternoon, we're doing this in on a Friday in the morning. I'm interviewing um uh Ryan Tierney, who is arguably the UK's most impactful geezer in the um lean improvement space. So it's interesting segue for this conversation into that. Um so uh and and and and lean ultimately obsess about customer value. Is how do how do we improve the speed, the quality, the depth of the relationship? Because I've been talking about that for 25 years, is the speed, the work, and the response times, the quality of the work and the depth of the relationship, and the cadence and repetition of that, you know, because relationships are um maintained but built um over dinner. Um that's my view. Yeah, I mean, and response times, Paul, still a bugbearing business illness to this day. Yeah, yeah. Amazing, isn't it? Amazing. Uh, but I do like the way we've wrapped this up in terms of the client's definition of improvement for their business, is why you're in the room, is why you charge two and a half grand, but could charge 25 grand or could charge 200 grand.

Martin Bissett 58:15

Absolutely. So it ultimately it comes down to the client's position where you found them, your intervention and the improvement it created, the end result. That's the value.

Paul Shrimpling 58:25

Yeah, and that compared with the price, if there's a big difference, they'll buy from you. Even if it's 95 grand or 120 grand or more, yeah, it's colleagues.

Martin Bissett 58:32

So if the if the return is if the return in its time scale is demonstrably multiples more than the fee that you're charging, it's called they will more often than not find it.

Paul Shrimpling 58:41

No brainer. You're in no-brainer territory, aren't you? Uh, which is again an overuse phrase. So, of everything we've talked about today, Martin, on this uh 60-ish minute uh conversation, um, what one thing uh has made you think deeper or is the is the key that uh not the magic one, but the key that if uh the firms took it seriously, they transformed the results of their business, their firm and the capital values.

Martin Bissett 59:10

I think if the profession, so not the individual accountants in practice, but the people who certify ever got round to putting a commercial component into the curriculum, we would see demonstrable improvements, not overnight, but within a year. When's that gonna happen, Martin? When's that gonna happen? Uh when there's a when there's enough parliamentary pressure on them to do so. And when's that gonna happen? Oh, well, give me about 10 years.

Paul Shrimpling 59:40

Okay, in the meantime, then, because this is about practical what could people do now of everything we've talked about in this conversation today? What one thing is of most value to practically help the firm leader listening to this podcast improve their firm, improve whatever aspect they want to improve?

Martin Bissett 1:00:01

I would get them to sit down and define what their BBC actually is.

Paul Shrimpling 1:00:06

The beliefs are.

Martin Bissett 1:00:06

And then say, is that what you is that what you thought it was going to be? You know, what is the culture of the firm? Not what you want it to be, not what you think the website says, what is the actual, demonstrable, evidenced, observed culture of this firm? Why has it got to that point? What are the behaviours that have influenced it, and what are the beliefs that started it in the first place? Is that what you thought you had? Because I bet it's not. And then get them to work from there.

Paul Shrimpling 1:00:30

Okay, and I would um want them to narrow the focus around how that impacts the interaction with their clients. So the specific beliefs, behaviors, and uh and and cultural pieces of the city. The BBC that affects the client relationship, because ultimately that's where the value equation lies, which means that you can earn the prices, which means you've got revenue coming in in cash and you've got what you want. Okay, cool. Very good.

Martin Bissett 1:00:54

As Drucker used to say, the objective of a business is to have a customer.

Paul Shrimpling 1:00:58

And keep, have and keep. Have and keep. Yes. Well, have first of all, thank you. Get and keep. Yeah, yeah. Genius, man. Genius, man. Uh, very good. Martin, it's um as I as fully expected, this is flown by. Um, uh, loved every minute of it. Thank you very much. Uh always gratitude for that. Um, but more importantly, uh, really appreciate you just like you know, opening Pandora's box to all of your experience around working with firms and leaders over the years. Uh, I can't believe it's 30 years. I can't believe I've been doing it for 25 years, so it's um but it is what it is, isn't it? Um and it's good that we've still got the energy to um to hopefully help ambitious accountants in the uh in the UK and beyond uh humanise the numbers so that we all have a better world as a consequence. So thank you very much.

Speaker 2 1:01:42

Thank you very much.

Paul Shrimpling 1:01:49

In the just short of 60 minutes on this podcast, Martin and I have unpacked and shared deep insights that we've learned from many accounting firms on getting clear on value and delivering and communicating that value to clients in a better, stronger way so that you have a more successful firm. If you like to investigate how you get more insight in and around those topics, you might want to consider the Accountants Growth Academy. You can find out more in the show notes. You'll find more valuable discussions with the leaders of ambitious accounting firms at humanize the numbers.online. You can also sign up to be notified each time a new podcast is made available.