Accountants Jam Sesh with Terrell Turner

Welcome to Accountants LawPod, where accounting professionals and law firms converge. Hosted by Lynda Artesani, Sarah Prevost, and Stephen Libhardt.

Welcome back to the podcast, everyone. And this week we have a special guest who's a good friend of ours, and I guess we can call this one the Accountants Jam Session because we've already been kind of jamming before we get on the recording. But we have Terrell Turner, and I'm going to let him give us a little bit of an intro about what you do, Terrell. And we actually kind of met at Scaling in New Heights for the first— was that the first time we met in person? But we were like, yes, I was told I was supposed to meet you, so here we are.

Oh, was that? Okay, I was trying to remember. I just remembered him coming in my life and I'm like, yay.

So, Terrell, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Yeah, so, um, I'm Terrell Turner. I am a CPA by, I guess you say, professional trade. Um, I run an accounting practice and similar to all of you, we focus on law firms and we focus primarily on bookkeeping and CFO work for law firms. And outside of that, we just create a ton of content, um, with different software companies and we do some ghostwriting for other accounting firms and helping them create content as well.

Nice.

That's awesome. I know you're always— I see you everywhere. I think last year you, like, traveled to— you were in a different place even sometimes twice a month out speaking, which is really cool.

Yes.

I can't ask you your favorite because then that would kind of make everything else sound like it wasn't good. But what was the highlights, I would say, that were the ones that you kind of— the most memorable for you that you were speaking?

I mean, of course it was meeting you two. I mean, it's—

That was actually really fun. I do remember it now. Because we were in— In the hotel lobby.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think you guys were headed to a baseball game. And I happened to be walking in at the time. And a mutual friend was like, hey, Terrell, you should meet so-and-so. And I was like, OK. And that's—

Was it Nayo? Nayo put us together? I can't remember who grabbed us and said, you guys need to talk.

I can't remember if it was Nayo or not. But if it was, I need to send her a gift.

Yeah, right. Yeah, I know. I don't remember. I feel bad. I don't remember. But it was so awesome because it was like the perfect meetup. And I feel like we had maybe intersected not before that, but we had known of each other or heard of each other mutually. Because I felt like as soon as we got introduced, it clicked with us.

We walked away.

We're like, isn't—

haven't we heard about—

like, it was that moment.

And— We had found your podcast, I think, by accident, because it was— It was by accident.

I think we found—

Before we started ours, and we had found— we were looking to see names, we were trying to name ours. And we found yours. And we're like, oh, we should meet this guy. Oh, he's right near, you know, he's in my coast. And it's like, we should meet him. And then it just all fell into place. It was meant to be.

It was meant to be for sure.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So I will say, I mean, there were a ton of great places. I think I did what, like 17 speaking engagements I think, what, 14 of them, I think, were on the road. The rest were virtual, but it was a lot of traveling last year. But it was great because, you know, with a lot of the traveling with the conferences, you mix some of it in with some of the clients that we work with in different cities and stuff like that. So, I mean, it was definitely a great year.

Yeah.

And also great to learn from so many different people that I met at all the conferences and events.

That's the best part is the brainstorming.

What's the 2024 look like as far as travel? 'Cause I'm hearing a mix of things from different colleagues in our profession. Some are not doing it, taking a year off. Some are selective, I think is what I'm hearing. So how does it look for you this year?

I will say it definitely will not be, the plan is not for it to be a year off. I know my wife and I have talked for a couple years and come to the conclusion like, hey, you know, thinking about starting a family this year or next year. So I was just like, all right, I need like, this has to be the travel year because when that happens, Terrell's going to be at home a whole lot more. So.

Yeah.

The plan is to do some more, do more traveling this year. And I think we're really kind of gearing up our staff and our team to get them a lot more independent so that I can, because I'm getting a lot more invites to speak at different conferences. And I think just as things that we've been, we struggled to learn, I think can help a lot more people. So I'm like, all right, since I have the availability to do it now, I'd rather get out, share the message, help as many other accounting firms as possible before I turn into Terrell, the dad that's at home a whole lot more.

Smart. I really admire you for that. That's, that's cool that you, you've got that all planned out for yourself. That's great. Um, what kind of staff do you have? How big is your staff and what do they do for you? And how does, how do they support you in traveling and, and, uh, all of the things that you do with the guest speaking?

Yeah. So, um, most of our staff is in the Philippines. So we have about 4, 4 bookkeepers and we have a senior accountant in the Philippines. We also have a senior accountant here that is US-based. And then, um, at the moment, my wife fills in as the accounting manager. Her background is very similar to mine. She's a CPA, corporate, um, Well, that's a good thing. So yeah, it helps out a lot. Um, and we're in the process now of hiring an accounting manager that's going to be based out of Mexico because we, um, what we realized, like, our clients spanned, you know, I guess pretty much all the US time zones. And so we wanted to be kind of unique about getting that coverage. So the Philippines team does the bulk of like the detailed bookkeeping transaction work. And one of the things that I was really big on when hiring the senior accountant in the Philippines and the US is like, hey, if you want to take your career to the next level, like I can teach you the CFO, the finance side. So really working with the two senior accountants of getting their, you know, their skill set as accountants and financial analysts, you know, taking it to the next level. So we get the bookkeeping done and then a lot of the background CFO analysis is what the team is doing.

That's awesome. So, um, when you are strategically looking at placement of different people too, like I imagine as you grow, I mean, you've got You've got your core team, it sounds like. You got your US one. But I mean, really, in this profession that we work in, we are diverse in our global teams. I mean, we have to be because, like you said, we're spanning so many different time zones. 8:00 for you is 5:00 for me.

Right.

We're still working. That's not fair to you. And so to have— to think strategically It's interesting to me that you said, I want somebody basically on the West Coast side to help meet your demand, I'm sure, to support you.

Yeah, absolutely. Because I think early on when we started looking at hiring, well, I would say I probably waited too long to start hiring. I was probably doing way too much myself. And it really did slow—

None of us have ever heard that story before.

So what's wrong with you, bro? Delegating, it's hard.

Oh, because we went through that. Actually, I remember going through it with Sarah because we—

Yeah.

She would get so frustrated. I might as well just do it myself. And we just kind of had to keep looking at it. So we can't— Sarah and I started out the business, we just did it ourselves. And then as we started to add people, it's like we can't just keep doing that because we're not— we're stunting growth that way. And delegating is hard. It's hard. It's hard to say the word sometimes. It's hard to spit the word out because it's really hard. And I mentioned—

Can we practice that now? Delegation.

Delegation, right? But it's just so funny because we were— we might have been just talking with Seth and he said, and we mentioned this the other day, we were talking 85%. If you can get somebody to do 85% to the level of 85% as well as you would do it, because I think in our head we always think we're perfect. We're not.

We're not?

Yeah, we're not. But we like to think we are. And sometimes it's not getting the work done, it's the way it gets done. Sometimes that can be frustrating because they might do it a different way. I'm not saying the different way is the wrong way, but in our mind it might be. So those are kind of the things we have to work through to figure out how to make it, how to, how to get by that word delegate that we can't really submit out of. It's hard. I mean, it's hard and we, it, it's a work in process. Don't you think, Sarah?

Oh yes. I mean, it, it challenges you as a person, just like being a parent. Yeah. And, and any relationship.

Yeah.

It's, it's that give and take on, okay, I'm gonna watch you sink or swim on this, and I'm gonna have you come back to me. And I think Terrell and I had this great conversation once where it's like, how are you going to ask me the question? It's almost like I know the answers before you even ask, but I wanna hear how you ask this of me. And I felt like, oh my God, somebody understands how my brain works because I don't say that out loud to people. But when you were telling me, Terrell, you had this come up and you're like, I'm just waiting for her to ask me the questions. God, that is me. I feel like a little shark, like I'm just gonna chomp. Like, I gotta wait.

Now, are you finding that— I know this won't land in January, but, you know, we're recording in January— you're finding that it's super busy? And did you get slammed with the, uh, January 2nd question? My book's done. My books are done.

You know, I— we, we started getting those questions in December, and so And like around December 27th, people started asking those questions. And so at the time I was on vacation in Kenya, and so I had like an automatic out of office, but I would hop in and check my email periodically and tell them like, hey, your books are gonna be done by January the 31st. Here's the timeline. And so after responding to like 2 people that way, I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna send everybody an email.

That's smart.

Here is the email of when you're gonna get your financials. After that, No one reached out to us and started asking like, hey, it's January 3rd, are my books ready? It's just like, you already got the email, here's the timeline, here's what we're working towards. And I will say is I probably should have sent that email out in December. Um, cause after I did that, I was just like, oh, this was, this was actually a smart idea.

And do it every year. I mean, Thierry, are you taking a note on that for us? Cause it really is. We got, we got those calls like in, And it's been some of the tax people reaching out to us. When can I expect the records? Like, we haven't even reconciled December yet. They were reaching out the first week of January.

Then when can I expect it? Hold on. Wait, wait. When can you file with the IRS? I'm sorry.

What was— Right, exactly. What is this rush? And you know the worst part about it, Terrell? This is my biggest complaint, is that we'll bust our rear ends to get everybody's stuff out by February 10th, no later. Right. And then the tax person puts an extension and doesn't do the tax return until August. It's like, what was the fire? Why did you use all our resources and then not do the taxes?

Well, you know why? I mean, I'll tell you.

Because they have to—

They don't have the other side if you're doing both.

Yeah. Well, they need it for the personal, right? And they needed to do the extension, right? So you got to figure that stuff out. It's just the urgency of it. And then we've got a couple of people like, I've I've never filed an extension. Well, I used to be that. My husband used to be that. I never filed an extension. It's like, just file an extension. Give the tax person time to get the tax return done so that way they're not, they're not up against it because it's hard to do them all at before the, the deadline in March or April.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the things we tried to start doing this year, and we did it with a small group of our clients was around November to start reaching out to who their tax preparers were and just saying like, hey, so far, you know, year to date, you know, October year to date, here's what the financials look like. And just kind of letting them know, hey, you know, when do you need these to be done in 2024? And just kind of start that conversation because last year we had a lot of that where the— Yeah. Tax accountant reached out to us and was like, hey, when will these be done? When will these be done? And some of them were like new clients that we had just onboarded in December. And we're like, you, you need to file an extension because we just got this in December. So we were like, how do we start, you know, have starting that conversation with their tax preparer, like around November timeframe to try to avoid this January unrealistic expectations, let me put it that way.

That's a nice way to think.

So they didn't give you the magic wand when you were in accounting school, did they? You didn't get your magic wand.

Yeah, I must have skipped that class or something because it wasn't in my accounting package when I got mine.

Yeah, client—

Your firm focuses mostly on coaching, right? So you coach a lot of these. So we see a lot of coaching companies out there. Uh, you know, what if you're working with a client and you get— say they give you books that are messy, how do you handle that conversation with them?

So I will say is whenever a client has come to me and their books are messy, um, what we end up doing is we end up pivoting from the financial financial statements because I tell them, I was like, hey, let's, let me, let's ask a couple questions. And what I usually try to do is get them to like, hey, let's do a screen share, pull up your financials and kind of walk me through what you want, what you see, what you understand of what's going on. And what that does is it kind of helps me understand like how much or how little understanding they have of the financials.

Good point.

And, and once I kind of understand like where they are, I'm like, okay, all right. I see which direction we need to take this conversation. Like, um, because most of them have never looked at it before. And so even in that process, I kind of walk them through because, you know, what is very funny is the thing that tends to wow people is like, they're using QuickBooks. I'll say, okay, pull up your P&L, go here. What we're going to do is, you know, we're going to look at all 12 months side by side. When they see that, they're like, oh my gosh, I didn't know you could do this. And I'm like, okay, all right, we're, we're, we're on the basic level. That's where this conversation is going to start.

Yeah.

But I think once we, once we kind of get a view of that and I can kind of point out to them like, hey, here's where, why, where some of the issues are in your financials of why we can't look at it just yet. Like why it needs to be cleaned up. Because if they can see the mess, then they're not just having to take my word for it. And then what we can do is, hey, there's some other things we can talk about. Like, let's go into your law practice management system, and let's just kind of look at some of the metrics that we can pull based off that data. And then I kind of leave them at the end of the call and say, hey, here's what the next game plan is. You need to hire a bookkeeper. We do bookkeeping. There are other great bookkeepers out there. I can direct you to some if they're a better fit for you, but you need a bookkeeper who can clean this up because I'm like, we can only take this coaching call so far. Mm-hmm. Until you get your books cleaned up.

Mm-hmm. So true. Because then you're— then when you start to have that conversation, that meaningful conversation, and Steve, you've brought this up before, is then you start really analyzing where you wanna start tracking certain metrics for yourself or understand it better. More or less of tracking sometimes is how do I understand? What does it mean? How much revenue do I need to drive my business and serve myself and my staff. And I know, Steve, that you— this is one area that you enjoy doing once you get past all the junk.

That's a, that's a very, very critical statement right there. Once you get past the junk. But you know, sometimes—

Go ahead, Steve.

No, go ahead.

That's fine.

I was just going to say, sometimes we talk with attorneys, they're embarrassed that they don't understand financials, and that's not where they went to school or learning. And we have to have that ability to have that conversation to make them feel comfortable. A lot of times our conversation about the garbage in the file starts with Sarah and I. We have Ignition and we use Ignition and we actually will— it's really powerful to jump in and do a real quick high-level video, collapse down the trust account, show the trust balance, and sometimes it's all mixed in with other bank accounts and we explain that we like to pull it out and make headings to kind of sub it out and then show them that their trust is in balance. Yeah. And then we were talking the other day and we turned on the— you know, you can make it red if they're out of balance and they're red. So the red really, if you have a string of long, like hundreds of trust matters that are open, the red really stands out when you're going through it. And the red's been really powerful to some of the clients that they might not pay attention to, like it's a penny or 50 cents, but they're still out of compliance. So the red is powerful, right? That red number is like, oh, Why is this red? And you can go down that conversation with them about why it's red.

Yeah.

And I find that most lawyers that I have a conversation with are pretty open to learning what they don't know. And I often have to remind them, like, I don't expect you to, nor should you expect yourself to become an expert in every detail here. And what I often explain to them is the reason why I want you to see what your financials look like, that way you have a general idea of what's going on. So I'm like, whether you're working with a tax preparer, a different bookkeeper, a different CFO, this shouldn't look foreign to you and you'll be able to kind of, you know, give a good smell test to any advice that they give you. You'll have a good general understanding of it. And so one of the things that I do like to do with a lot of attorneys when we're looking at their firm is we start to compare things like some of the bigger metrics, like, you know, their revenue versus their people costs. And I usually tell them like a rule of thumb is your revenue should be about 3 times more than your people costs.

Mm-hmm.

And that becomes a, usually a really easy one to calculate. And when they can start to see where they fall, like what that ratio looks like, um, I think what it does is it starts helping them to start learning what types of questions they should ask next. And I think that can help us kind of go down that journey of, all right, now here's why we need the books to be clean to be able to answer your questions you just asked me, because the answers are in the numbers if the numbers are updated properly.

Mm-hmm. Well, you know, um, I'd like to talk about how you handle the psychology of working with attorneys. We all love working with attorneys. I can't imagine doing anything else. I mean, I love working with attorneys. But the psychology of working with them, they're, they're trained to ask questions, to challenge things, to, to cover a whole bunch of subjects all at once. And we're black and white. We're accounting and we've got to go, okay, one question at a time, one thing at a time. Let's get this cleaned up. Let's— then that's going to tie into this. Your people cost is going to change because of that and so on. How do you handle the psychology of that and give them the permission to slow down, take their attorney hat off, and really pay attention to what we're doing to help them have success in their business and trust us?

Good question.

Yeah.

I laughed at first because I was awful at that, um, when I first started.

Aren't we all?

All of us.

Yeah.

Because I did not make that switch from, you know, the black and white, hey, here's what the math and the numbers tell me. And I think—

They are what they are. Yes.

There's no gray area.

And so, and I would definitely say the trial attorneys were the more challenging, just because, I mean, they're used to arguing in court and it's just like, okay, all right, I gotta make sure that I can think about like, okay, if I were arguing this in court and I had to walk them through the evidence Like, how do I get us on the same page? And so I think for myself, one of the things that I would kind of start off with is really asking them, okay, when you started your firm, like, you know, what's your next goal? Or what do you want your firm to look like? And I think by starting off really asking them and getting them to talk about what they want, I can then tailor everything I say afterwards. In alignment with what they want. And so at times, like, they would veer off and, you know, go on tangents. And then I would stop and ask, I was like, okay, all right, do you think that is going to help you get what you want? And it brings them back to focus.

I like that.

That's a tangent. We don't need to go there. But I'm like, if you think answering that question is going to help you get what you want, hey, I'll go down that road with you. But if you don't, then let's go back to this area. And I think as I learned how to do that, it made the discussions a whole lot easier. And then depending on, like I said, my relationship with them, as we get closer to the end, I'm like, all right, now's the time to ask any tangent questions you have. Like, we can go anywhere with the conversation because we've addressed the main points. And I think a lot of times they either laugh or— Yeah. Some of them had told me, like, you know what, you probably should have been an attorney. It's like, I don't know if I would have been a good one.

Is that a compliment, though? That might be a compliment.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. But, but yeah, so that's kind of how I learned to, to really kind of find out what it is that they wanted, and then to help them ask that question to themselves, like, does this question align? Is it going to help you get closer to what you want? And if the answer is no, Oftentimes they end up bringing themselves back from that tangent and staying, staying on focus.

I feel like—

I like that.

I like it. I feel like— I mean, this is just my impression of just in general. Sometimes you're getting into this stuff with them, and I'm sure you see this through the coaching more and more. They don't really know. They just know it's not right. They don't know exactly what they want or maybe where they want the— lever or pressure to go, but it's just not whatever. It's just not working. I'm like, so it's interesting when you're like, okay, if you're gonna go down that road, I'll go down there with you. But ultimately, you've like helped redefine maybe what the goal is or restate the vision maybe for the company. Mm-hmm. It's probably just a key change. And it's just so, it's like getting out of your own way to see what you should be seeing versus you're in the middle of it. You can't even, you can't see it. You can't even feel it anymore because you're just so numb to the mundane work of, all right, I built this thing. Now what? What am I going to do with it?

And we've seen some coaching programs that our clients may be using, and they're built to be like a cookie cutter. So we're told we need every month, we have to give them, I don't know, 15 reports. And the client doesn't even know why they're asked for the reports.

Yeah.

And then we look at it and they're spending a lot of money on this coaching and there's, there's no change, there's no visible change in what they're doing. And in fact, most of the time we see them kind of drop back and they're in a worse position afterwards because they're spending all this money on coaching and it's not getting them anywhere. And it, they make them do a budget, they make them forecast, they do all that work with them, but it never seems to end up being a change at the end of the day. And it's frustrating for us to see the money going out the door to webinar— they'll pay money for webinars and all these pre-canned things, and then they don't seem to get any better. And I think that that's probably one of the things that it's frustrating for us because we know, we know by looking at it what they could do to fix it, but they don't ask us because they're in this program that they're set with. Mm-hmm. And then I've seen some other programs that have been very, very good, some of the smaller local ones. I think the smaller ones are just better because it's— they're not just— they're more tailored to the person and not just this one plan that they do that's, you know, I need this report, this report. And you, you'll ask them, why do you need this? And they'll say, I don't know, that's what they told me. It's like, wow, okay.

Yeah, you know, I've seen that. I've seen that a lot myself. Um, even when just working with different attorneys who have gone through so many different coaching programs. And, and I think that's where, you know, I guess for us is being able to see the numbers. And I think as we understand the numbers is we can, once we kind of know what their goals are, we can tell you what numbers are most related to you getting towards that goal. And so I, I remember having a conversation with an attorney and they were going through a coaching program and they pulled up this file of all the metrics that they had. I mean, they had a spreadsheet, a workbook that had like 5 different tabs of, you know, different metrics. And I mean, it looked pretty. And so they were talking me through it. And so we're having this conversation and they're, you know, they're like, yeah, well, the program, I mean, to tell me this, this, this, and this. I said, okay, all right, so what is your goal? That you want? And they told me what their goal was. I'm like, okay, all right, which one of these metrics are going to help you know if you're close or you're far away? And they were like, I really don't know. And I was like, okay, let's go through all of this. And we pulled out two metrics off the page. I'm like, these two metrics are going to tell me— I was like, if you think about it like you're taking a road trip, these are going to be the mile markers. Like whether—

Mm-hmm.

—where these metrics are going are going to tell you whether you're close or you're far from that, you know, that goal. And when they saw it that way, they were just like, so you mean to tell me I've been tracking all of this? And I was like, well, it's good you've been tracking.

Yeah.

I was like, those will probably be good for some of your secondary goals, but I'm like, when it comes down to like the, the real numbers you need to focus on, I was like, you probably should start with what is your goal? What are the metrics that are the closest related to that goal? Those should be the top metrics that you're paying attention to. And I'm like, that's going to be different for every firm depending on what your goal is and what your goal is today may not be the same goal next year. So you do want to keep an eye on that. And I think having that conversation with a lot of law firms, I think it pulls them out of the fear of I gotta, you know, match this exact metric template. I'm like, if it's not related to what you want, you're probably not going to pay attention to it anyway.

And part of that comes from focusing them early on with— and we've, we've discussed this before in some of our podcasts and amongst each other— is identifying what the 2 or 3 key metrics are right out of the starting gate and focus on those first. Get those under control, and then let's pull some more off the wish list and work on those and work on those. And part of that is just educating them that it can't all be done overnight. You know, so we've got to pick out the most important things. To your point, I love how you keep saying, but what do you want to do with this? Where do you want to go with this? What does this mean to you? I really like that a lot.

Steve gets very excited about KPIs.

I really do feel that though, just fundamentally, just the basics is you started this business. How did you start it? Did you have the destiny to look at a spreadsheet that's going to give you 7 different metrics and then you're going to drive like I, I love it because it's a very simple analogy of just simplistic. Okay, I started this business. I wanted to do X. Great. Okay, let's do that and get— refine that and make that better. We just talked to a, earlier this week, we just talked to a guest that will be on the podcast and talking about a different style of coaching that has to do with time metrics, balancing different things, delegation, all of these things that we were kind of joking about before and talking about. It was key fundamentals to this balance that you need because some people are built to work a lot. It just validates who they are. Okay, no judgment. That's just how you work. But to have an expectation of your team to work in the same vein or to have, you know, your coach to work in that same vein and you're going to have these drivers and you're going to meet these goals. And that you just almost like you just set yourself up to fail without even trying. Like, you gotta make it attainable and reach it. And, and I think the other part too, and you've said this earlier, every firm practice area might be the same, but it is not the same in how you engage in that clientele. And it's hard for me when I'm seeing cookie-cutter style things And I'm like, but that's not who they are. They have a different front office person, a different paralegal supporting them. There's like a multitude of reasons why they need different type of practice. Yeah. They might do one side similar to somebody else, but slightly different because they're going to do it this way because of their clientele. So it's the authentic piece of what they are and tailoring these conversations to them to support them because Ideally, we're people pleaser in the accounting world. We just want to help you. You ask the question, we're here to help. We're not going to tell you no all the time. We might.

And that's why it hurts our heart when we see somebody who's paying all this money for a coach and then is literally borrowing money from their line of credit to pay for things that they can't afford because they spent $30,000 or $40,000 on a coach and they're not actually doing well with their, you know, their cash flow is really bad. And if they just took that $30,000 or $40,000 back in their checkbook, they would be in a much better place. They wouldn't be, you know, poor in their business. And, and, you know, they work hard. I mean, in some practice areas it is harder, like personal injury for sure. It's a harder practice area for cash flow. I think it's hard to track.

Mm-hmm.

Um, some of them require more staff. Some of the practice areas, family law requires more staff, uh, more working parts. So it really is, you see a different demeanor in the people as the practice area goes. You see a whole different, it's different working with people just by the practice here, but everybody's different. And I think that's what's nice about what you do because you're really, you have a little bit of a small town feel to the way you talk to them. Just by your conversations here today, you have a better way to can relate to people where they get it. Cause they are really intimidated by the fact that they don't understand what we know. I really feel that sometimes. It's like as soon as you pull out a balance sheet, why is that figure so big in my equity account? Well, it's for, you know, you have to explain that it's over time and I didn't take that much money out. And we have all these talks with our client and it's interesting because you have to educate them. And some of them come in right in and they look like, look, I had this bookkeeper, they never responded to me. I want to change and I want somebody I can talk to. I want to have someone that will help me understand this. And I can appreciate that. I think when you get these kind of clients, that, that kind of makes— that sings to us better than one that you never talk to. They, they don't come to any meeting that you schedule, you know, when we're doing a Loom video because they're not, you know, we're showing them on a Loom video what's going on. Yeah, it's not the same. You want that client that's excited about what they're doing, but you gotta know their goals. And sometimes they don't know their own goals and that's hard to fish out of them. I think I, I would imagine for you that's like the first question and How do you pull that detail out of them?

Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, I do think that's ideally the very first thing, or one of the very first things you wanna know is what is their goal? And a lot of times they may not necessarily have a, you know, have a clarity about what their goal is. And so, you know, some of the, I think back to, you know, just what the way I learned to interact and deal with people and some of it is just asking them questions like, okay, all right, I'm like, you know what, if you did X, you would be happy. Like, what would make you, what would make this feel like a good business to you? And as they kind of describe that, then I'll say, all right, this may not necessarily be your goal, but maybe this is like the next, you know, midpoint that we're gonna aim for, or next milestone that we're gonna aim for. And after you get to that milestone, we can figure out what your ultimate goal is. I'm like, the first step is let's get you feeling good about the business that you have. And I think, you know, by taking that approach, even though they don't have a clear goal, it still gives them something to, you know, be motivated to move towards because they know that, hey, if I can do this, then I'm going to feel a lot better about my business. And so we often try to find those goals. And sometimes some of those goals may be is like, hey, I will feel better if I'm not working 80 hours a week. Okay. All right. Let's figure out what that needs to, you know, what needs to happen for that to take place. Like, and, and I think also setting their expectations on like, hey, if you wanna work less hours, set your expectations on profitability. You won't, you may not be as profitable, but you'll get the thing you want, which is more free time. And we'll be strategic about that. Or you, some say, hey, I just want to make a lot more money. Okay. All right. What would a strategy like that look like? And I think helping them see how, hey, based on what you want or your next milestone, here's what the financials will kind of look like as you're moving towards that. And then the rest of our conversation is about helping you stay on track to get to that milestone until we set a new one or we set a new goal.

Yeah. Wow.

Ever get anybody that says, I want to make $5 million next year and they're sitting with like $600,000?

You know, you know, surprisingly, I've had a couple of people that have said that. And, you know, and I guess they thought that I was going to be shocked. And what I, what I tell every guest is, I tell every person that I work with is that, you know what, I don't believe any goal is unrealistic. As long as we have the right strategy and you're willing to do the work.

Um, and so, and they were like, that's it. Yeah. Look at Sarah and I are both, that's it. That's it.

You gotta do the work, right?

You can have $5 million in revenue but not have any money at the end of the day too. I mean, that's another problem, right? You can make—

Well, look at this lift. You get a coach, you do a lift, right? You gotta lift there. That's great. You've, you've, you've got built one section of your financial team. Then you hire somebody that doesn't have the same in the accounting aspect, they don't have the same breadth of knowledge that you should for that style of company that you are. And you're wondering why this is not working out. And yet you can't drive. So, and then you're not putting in the work. You're getting assignments, you're slamming the accounting person at the last hour to give you the metrics to be able to support the conversation. So it's— To what you're saying, Terrell, It's— you have— there's a balance to it. No goal is too high, except that it might not happen this year.

It might take a little more time than, you know, less than 12 months.

Yeah, you know, I think— but that becomes the fun part of, like, you know, if they come with a very outrageous goal, it's like, okay, all right, let's talk a little bit about your business. Let's look at how you, how you make money. And, and sometimes, like, If they give a ridiculously large revenue number, I'm like, okay, all right, let's, let's just, let's address this right now. So let's go into your practice management and, you know, within, within 20 minutes, I can pull enough data to analyze what your average revenue per client per case is. And then it's really a multiplication thing of just, all right, here's what a $5 million business would look like. Here's how many people you need to hire. Here's how much work you need to do. Do you still want that goal? And a lot of times they're like, oh no, I really don't know if I'm ready for that yet. I'm like, okay, all right. So now let's talk about your real goal.

Yeah, yeah. But you might, you might evolve into it at some point in your career. You, or life might change on you and you have to go a different direction. Like you said, like you have to be open. It's such a living, breathing thing. And sometimes I feel like people want it to be so rigid. It's got to do this. I'm like, okay, well, if it doesn't do this, then what?

It's that. And I often find that, you know, people who go through coaching programs tend to be the ones who have more of that rigid focus. And one of the things that I try to help, you know, different law firms or just businesses in general is understand is like, if you're trying to take specific business advice from something you heard on a big stage, you're going to have a problem because I'm like, that person is speaking in general, not specifically about your situation. I'm like, this is why you work with the CFO. You work with your bookkeeper who understands your numbers, who understands your situation, because those are the people who are going to help you develop the specific strategy for your business. Because I was like, even myself, when I'm speaking at different conferences, I hope no one takes what I say on stage as a very specific strategy for them because I'm like, it wasn't designed for their specific business. Now it can give you some general direction, but I do find that a lot of people who go to these coaching programs or workshops, they heard something from stage and now they have this very rigid focus. And I'm like, all right, we need to work on this because that's probably not going to work how you think it's going to work.

Well, that makes me think of software challenges with, you know, an attorney who uses QuickBooks to do all of their billing and everything. They don't have any outside billing program whatsoever, and they're expecting it to appeal to them and make their business work. But QuickBooks is designed to work with many kinds of businesses on a very generic, if you will, level. And I like those kind of clients when they come to us because we can teach them, all right, you need this billing software because And so you want to get to that $5 million level, keep using QuickBooks, but let's marry this into it, you know, into the process. And it ties in. You just totally reminded me of that because we run into that all of the time.

We do.

You're right. There is no one size that fits all. Or how about the attorney who says, well, I called my friend down the street and he uses this software, and so that's what we're going to do. Oh my God. And it's like, oh, please don't do that. Let's really explore what's going to work for you, you know, because the immigration law firm is going to be completely different than the PI law firm, you know.

So what about the advice that you get on TikTok?

Oh, if it's Terrell on TikTok, it's okay. Yeah, it depends on the credibility.

But that is—

I'm like, people do that though. I saw this on TikTok. I have this great idea. And it's like, What idea did you hear on TikTok?

Terrified. I love it though. You have to put it in context. And also, are you that type of person to do that, that heavy lifting in that same vein? Because I, I feel so much like you, Terrell. When I'm speaking on stage, I try so hard to be authentic about like, look, I may not have it all right. This is an ideal, or this is a thing that is designed to wait to work this way. I'm not sure I do it all right that way because I don't know if everyone in my client base is doing it in the same way that I want them to. Or it's— I just, I kind of like, ah, I want to speak, give you the knowledge, but you have to take that and do your homework and then define it for you.

Well, the three of us just did that at QuickBooks Connect when we were on stage. We presented to them, here's Lynda and Sarah at this level and using this tech stack this way. And then here's Steve over here at this level, using this tech stack this way. And we were very sensitive to telling people, this is not the end-all here. This is just what's working for us. And you really need to find what's going to work for you in this whole mix of things with where you're at right now. And, you know, I mean, you probably have seen this, Terrell, where you'll get somebody into a certain type of software or a certain way of doing things, and then their business grows and you have to change and reinvent again because what worked yesterday may not work tomorrow. Mm-hmm.

No.

Absolutely. Yeah. And I think that's something that, you know, I try to, even for myself, like the way we run our accounting practice, you know, a year ago, like we're making some massive changes now just because of, you know, the way we're growing. And then also just the, you know, the reality of my wife and I having that honest conversation about wanting to start a family to where I'm like, all right, Yeah, I'm not going to be able to run the business the way that I did last year. So we got to start making changes now. So because we adjusted based on the reality of what's going on with our goals, with our life, and how we want to show up for our clients. And I think that people just have to be comfortable that, hey, your goals might change and your strategy will have to reroute based on your goals. And that doesn't mean you failed. It just means that, hey, you're just realigning to where, where you want to go next.

So well, to your point with the milestones, you guys, it sounds like, have worked along each one of your milestones to get to where you are now, to feel that safety in planning for a family.

Yeah, for you, I would say we've definitely, we've definitely hit some of those milestones. I know, like, And part of it, I think, is some of it's business, some of it's personal life. My wife wanted to hit, you know, she wanted to travel a lot. So, I mean, I would say over the past, what, 5 years, we have traveled a lot, sometimes a little bit more than I wanted to. But I'm like, you know what, that was a milestone for her. So I was like, hey, we'll get it done.

Yeah. Well, and you just did your big trip. Do you have family in Kenya too that you got to visit as well?

Yeah, so, so my wife is half Kenyan, half Nigerian. So her mom's side of the family all lives in Kenya. So got to meet the extended family in Kenya. Oh, cool. So that, that was really cool. I mean, we, I would say it was a ton of family time, great to meet everyone, different get-togethers, and, and then it being the holidays was great because my wife has been wanting to spend a Christmas and New Year's back in Kenya for a while. So So we were able to get that done this year.

That's so nice.

That's so cool.

Nice.

Congratulations. Another check off your list. That's awesome. But in such a nice way to meet family, to be with family over a great time. And what an amazing place, I'm sure. I saw some of your photos. They were incredible.

Oh, me too. I was like, oh my God, this place looks amazing.

So we lived in— Yeah, it definitely— No, go ahead.

I was gonna say, yeah, it was definitely a great time. And I will say my wife really enjoyed it Um, I think a couple of the days we were, I had planned on just, I was like, oh, today I'm going to relax and watch some TV and just hang out. And she was like, hey, my cousin's coming over in about, you know, a couple hours and he's going to take us to look at some apartments. And I'm like, why are we looking at apartments? Um, and when we got there, I started realizing like, oh. She wants to buy one here. I'm like, oh, we'll buy one.

Us women are always ahead of the game. My husband was like, what are we doing now? We're doing that? I feel so bad for him.

He's like, oh. Oh, did you buy an apartment? We have to know.

We narrowed it down to a couple and we were having a conversation about it. And I was like, you know what? I'm like, if this is what you want to do, go ahead. Just, I just kind of want to understand. You know, how much money will come out of our pocket for like ongoing maintenance? And then she started talking to her cousin about, well, you know what, there's actually some expats who we could rent it out to where I'm like, okay, now I'm all over the idea. Cause I'm like, this is going to be income coming in. So I'm like, I'm all over the idea. I'm behind you 100%.

I love it. I love it.

I love that.

I wanted to refocus and go back to the Philippine team. How do you motivate through your manager there and get the information through so that they're really understanding the importance of what they're doing and what it means to you and your company for your clients?

Yeah, so I will say I may be a little bit more direct than most. Um, I grew up in a military environment, so my, my father, 21 years in the military, my godfather was a drill sergeant.

Ah, mm-hmm.

So I am a lot more direct. And so when I started working with the outsourcing company, um, one of the early things that I said is like, hey, I, I heard great things about the talent that you guys have. Here's how I wanted to work. I don't really need you to manage anything. I'll manage my team directly. Um, and I need you to do as little as possible. I will still pay your fee. I just don't need you to get in my way. And I was like, and I'm not trying to sound rude, but I'm like, but I don't want the friction of our culture being interrupted because you're trying to embed your culture. I will pay your fees. I just need to be able to manage my team directly. And so when we had that conversation early on, I think, you know, the, I guess whoever the client, my client relationship manager is, They absolutely love me because I'm like, oh, sure, I don't necessarily need you to do anything. And so I think we really treated it as, and really emphasizing with the team, like, hey, you work for our firm, you just happen to sit in their office. And I think really having that direct relationship with them and like, you know, early on it took a lot of meeting with them on a regular basis so that they kind of connected the dots. Sure. And then I think also just getting to the point of some of the meetings that I was having with clients is I would come back to the team and say, hey, here's what we need to achieve tomorrow when we meet. I want to hear your ideas on how we're going to achieve this. And so then we would meet— Oh, I like that. —is I would sit and I was like, okay, all right. And they would, you know, stare at me on Zoom and I'm like, well, this is you guys' time. To share your ideas. How do you think this is going to work? And so they would put out their ideas. I would ask some questions. How do we tweak this? And I would say is some of the ideas that they came up with, I knew they weren't going to work, but I'm like, if I, if I stop us from using your idea, it's going to kill your expectation. Right. And so I'm like, you know what? I know this isn't going to work, but this is a small enough thing and we're early enough in the process that we'll just try it your way and I'll let you learn from this. And they try it, it didn't work. So they came back, they asked some questions and we started tweaking things. And I think taking that approach allowed them to really feel like, you know, they had some stake in the game.

They're involved in the process. I like that. Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

And then I think it— Absolutely. Absolutely. And it, and it really helped when I told them like, all right, here's our goal. If we hit this goal by March, then I'll come to the Philippines and there's a private island that they wanted to go to. I'm like, well, we'll— that'll be the team outing if we hit this goal. From that point on, they were just like, oh yeah, we really— we got this. And so I think it really helped them feel, you know, really engaged because they were part of the decision-making process. And then I had to make sure that after we delivered something to the client, the client would give me feedback. I had to make sure that I brought that back to them to say, hey, the client really liked such and such. Good move, yeah. And help them kind of close the gap on like, yeah, we really are adding value. And then again, I brought it back to like, hey, by us doing this, this is helping us get, you know, one step closer to, you know, our goal, our ultimate goal. Or if there was something that they dropped the ball on, I would come back and say, hey, this moves us a step away from our goal that you guys want for this Boracay trip. And I think it, for me, it just became that managing, helping them connect the dots between what they're doing and what they want.

That is so cool. And I'll bet you in the Philippines, they probably have a line of people that want to work for you instead of other companies.

Yeah.

They're like, I want to be on Terrell's team.

Did you go to the island? Did you get to do the trip?

No. So, so the deadline is March. So they hit the goal. So, so this year, in which, you know, the timing I had, like my wife and I, we talked about it and I was like, yeah, we got to make that. I'm going to have to make that trip this year because I'm like, if we're starting the family, making a trip to the Philippines is going to be much harder. So this year is the— March is the deadline. So if they hit their goal, then I will be in the Philippines, um, later this year.

That's awesome.

That's cool.

I love that you said you're direct.

I'm not—

I knew Sarah was gonna— because Sarah is very direct. We tease her about it, but she's very direct. You know where you stand. She just tells it like it is. It's very easy.

You know, I, I love that. I, I love that. And well, I will say for me is I'm used to it because, you know, I'm the youngest of 4 boys. I have no sisters, only older brothers, and like I said, military family. So for me, it's just like, I, it's my way of life of how I learn to be very direct, to take on challenges head on, which I guess my team loves because one of the things that I tell them is like, hey, if you ever have an issue with a client, let me know because I'm going to have a direct conversation with the client of like, hey, if we made a mistake, I will own it. Yes. But I'm like, if this is the client, you know, trying to take advantage or abuse one of our team members, like, I'm not going to stand for that. So I think it's just me learning how to use that directness in a way that really adds value to, you know, my team as well as to our relationship with the client as well.

Mm-hmm. No, yeah, I do feel that I— there's so many things that you just said, I'm like, oh my God, this is this is, okay, my identity, the way I see myself. But I also see myself as if this were me, I, and I needed this piece of advice, or I needed this, you know, like, defined road path to be like, hey, this is the way I see it, is this way. If you want to do it that way, great. If you don't, this is the cost that it's going to be for us not doing it the way that I'm giving it to you. Like, and I just It's just the, just the human being piece of it. It's— I understand it way differently. I'm not gonna walk into court and understand it the way you do, but I understand the business side of it and the way I need to bite-size it down quick. And I pretty much assess things pretty quickly and I'll say, I'm not trying to be intrusive, but I'm, I'm in your business because I need to help maybe redefine how we're gonna work with you or customize a workflow. Not cuz I'm asking you to give me everybody's your resume. I have to figure out what they're doing in your— I don't— that's not the point. The point is, is I want to help you drive this, and I would be your partner in it. And I feel like oftentimes we're in— because of the way that we are as professionals, I'm presuming we're all the same. We're very, we're very much a team partnership relationship. And when you get into those transactional moments, and it diffuses everything you've just done. Because you've worked so hard to help them build this. You feel like it's a part of you inside this business. And then, so that's why I'm kind of like, course correct, course correct. And I feel like honestly, I met with a client that really doesn't, you know, he gave us a notice and said he, I could see why financially he wants to probably do it differently. And I think he was a little surprised that I wasn't like, oh, okay. I was like, all right, this business, you made a decision, you moved on from us. No problem. This is just business.

It happens. It is part of business.

Yeah, it's just part of it.

And take it personally.

Yeah. And I think that's where I do it in my brain is it's just very compartmentalized in a way that I'm pretty quick to— and you move on and I'm sure you have to be as the youngest of 4. I'm the oldest of all girls. And you're like, no, we've got to rein in everything. That's going on here.

Oh, that's— when, when you were saying that, Terrell, it reminded me of my little brother, because by the time the little brother comes along, they, they already know how to work the system.

Oh yeah, he's smart. You can tell just by the intro of us talking, I'm like, he's got things figured out way quicker.

Oh yeah, oh yeah, he doesn't have to make the same mistakes that we suffered through, you know. So that's right, that's right.

Yeah, and by the time you get I was gonna say, Steve, it does feel sometimes when you, you're like, and I heard Terrell say this, it's like, you're so direct. It's like, ooh, did that sting? Like, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. Like, you're like finessing how you're gonna be as direct as possible. You're like, no, I, I can't. I just gotta say it.

I love it. It's a good quality to have when you work with lawyers. It really is.

Oh yeah.

It's a very good quality to have.

You know what's very funny is some of the attorneys like that we do some CFO, ongoing CFO work with, as we're kind of analyzing like productivity and we're like, okay, all right, these attorneys, their billable hours need to come up. And so what some of our, some of our clients are like, Terrell, you're really good at giving direct advice. Can you actually reach out to them directly?

Really?

I'm like, so I was like, I'm like, well, I'm like, if it's going to help your business, I'll do it.

Yeah.

Here's what I'm thinking about saying. And we've had some clients that are like, you know what, I trust you. You know, you, you know, you have our best interests at heart. You have a direct conversation with them. And so like, I had like one firm there, one of their staff members called me and was like in disagreement about like with their payroll. And I was like, well, based on your employer agreement, like you don't get this many days paid off. And we talked through it. And then the client came back to me and was like, I don't know what you said to them, but they got their act together.

Wow. Wow. Good on you.

Right? Just, that's what it is. Right back to the facts. Back to the facts.

I've done the same thing that Terrell's talking about, and it is, it's like, it's like you're this intermediary person in a way that's like owner representation, but not like you're like, I'm a safe space. Let's have the conversation.

We're amazed at what people say to us. To us sometimes. We're like, oh, they really say that? They do. They know who pays us, you know, when they have the conversations with us on the side. It's like, pull it off. I'll go, wow, I can't believe they said that. Like, it's amazing. And, oh, we have to keep it, you know.

You can't say— you're not gonna— unless it's harmful or something, of course, then yeah.

But it's amazing, like, they feel open enough to say something. It's like, okay.

I love it when you reach the point where you reach the point kind of probably where you're at, Terrell, when when the client will say to their team member, they'll say, well, if Steve wants this, there's a reason. So you've got to give it to him.

Oh, you've got to love that. Yeah, that's awesome.

Give him the document, please.

Jabrel said so, so I need to do this right now. Like, wait, who do you work for? I work for Jabrel now.

I love it. This is a great conversation. And—

Oh my gosh.

I think, yes, I think anybody who listens in here will come up with a name, I'm sure. But I think we'll have to have you on again because this is really, really, really fun. And we thank you for coming. And tia—

Yes. Please take a moment to like, share, and review this episode, and be sure to subscribe to this podcast on YouTube and wherever you find your favorite podcasts. If you have questions, topic requests, or guest suggestions, you can email us at info@accountantslawpod.com or send us a message through our website, accountantslawpod.com. To join us in the Accountants Law Lab, which meets every Friday, visit our website at accountantslawlab.com to sign up. And to subscribe to Terrell's podcasts and to learn more about his company, check out the show notes below. Awesome.

So if you need a coach, now you have one.

Yeah, like one that we like. One that we like. One that we like. Proper trusted Steve approved. Accountants Law pod approved.

Well, thank you.

Love, honor, praise.

Rael, thank you. Thank you.

Wonderful.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you guys for having me. It's definitely been a pleasure. Awesome.

Bye-bye.