023 The Best Personal Growth Hack For Firm-Runners

All right, today we're running through what I used to make. Pretty much every big decision I made in firm running was like the single biggest mindset shift I had. How's that for clickbait? And Roman Villard just put this, like, phrased this perfectly on LinkedIn today. He said he figured out the crowd he wanted to run with, figured out the people like him who he knew he could grow and learn with. This was the biggest thing I ever figured out in firm running. We're going to run through it today, talking about how to. How to find. How to find that crowd, rather than doing everything yourself from scratch. Right, let's do it today on Jason Daly. So a bit of background about how I kind of how I came around to this. This is sort of, kind of about communities, but really more about, like, finding people and making friends who do what you do and the value of that. And honestly, I don't talk about this very much. Probably not enough because I have a community, and when I talk about it, it feels like shilling. Please don't hear this as that. I'm actually going to talk about a whole ton of different communities. But it is fundamentally like the biggest mindset shift I ever had. So in the past, I did what I think 99% of accountants still did. As you turn up for work every day and you take your lumps and you figure stuff out and you get some stuff right, you get some stuff wrong, maybe, maybe you go to like, a couple of conferences a year, but even that's a really small subset of people. But you don't approach firm running with, like, a collaborative mindset. And the result is, in your life, there really isn't anyone that has a deep understanding of what it is that you do. So you come home, you know, I've got a super supportive wife, and I joke, she tells me I'm doing a great job. But ultimately, like, the people in your life really don't understand what it looks like to run a firm, the ups and downs of that, which in many ways is a good thing. Like, you need a disconnect from that. You can't always be in firm brain. But the downside is that can be a really isolating thing if you're the only one. Like, if you don't have those people to talk to that have a deep understanding of man, the things that you think about all day long. And ultimately, I really felt like I was on an island. Even though I was in a, you know, part of a firm of at the time, maybe 30 people, it wasn't that didn't really feel like community. We were all kind of working on the same problems, and it was a great team and all that. But when you're a manager or when you're an owner and you're managing a team, the relationship you have with that team is not one of total transparency, obviously. Right. And so when it comes to making hard decisions, stuff that only you can pull the trigger on, that was just a really, really isolating thing for me. And it was. I don't. I mean, I don't think it was even four years ago. I had never posted online. And at that point, I wasn't even lurking. Really. I wasn't. I wasn't poking around elsewhere to find other people that talk about what I do. And I don't know why. And the people, like, the people who are here and listening to this and all that, like, you're a. You're a very small subset of the profession, I think, because even as I started investing in this and got really into these things that were outside of my own firm and encouraged my colleagues to engage with the same things, when I saw how they were helping me grow, virtually none of them did. And so for whatever reason, most accountants are wired in a way, even firm leaders are wired in a way to where they're just gonna kinda turn up and do their job and figure things out themselves. And had I not really struggled with that being an isolating thing and just like, not really having any friends and people to talk to that understood what I did all day, I probably never would've, like, reached out. I probably never would have started poking around online to see like, hey, where are the spaces where people who do what I do hang out? At the time, I don't think it was even. I don't think it was even with the end goal of improving how I run my firm or to learn things and all of that. Initially it was just like, geez, Louise. Like, I know there's other people out here that do this stuff, and I just need to make some friends that do what I do. So I started lurking on. I think it was actually Laurelin Wilson that got me started lurking on Twitter. Cause we had hung out a couple of times. She's in Portland about a half hour from me. So I started lurking on Twitter and then I just started posting. Like, not with the goal of helping anybody necessarily, but just with the goal of, like, I'm just gonna share what I'm doing every day, and inevitably that's gonna attract some of the people that do similar things to me. And so at the time I was really into automation stuff. I was using some different tools than I had seen other accountants use. So I just started sharing a little bit of that every day. Eventually I stumbled into other people who were doing similar things. Like Chris Hervichon was a guy, early days, who was like, oh, this guy's nerding out like I am. And just the more I talked about that, the more I found some peers who were into similar things. And man, that just, it was like a light bulb went off for me where I realized, okay, that like, the way for me to make this thing sustainable is to kind of surround myself and draw inspiration from the people that do what I do. It was so energizing to have those people in my life and they're still like really powerful friendships. And I mean, oh my gosh, built so many relationships since then that make all of this feel worthwhile and much more easy to turn up every day and do through a lens of positivity and opportunity and gratitude that we're able to do this stuff for clients. But for whatever reason, accountants, like, I don't know that they generally will seek that stuff out. Like, if you're in a firm with any number of people, what percentage of people in that firm are going out and seeking out external stuff beyond just like the throwaway blog posts that, you know, we'll go out and read that sort of thing. People aren't really poking around on social media to learn from other people who run firms and just talk about like what that day to day journey looks like. So for me, when that switch sort of flipped and I used to use social media for fun, I think that's just where most people are when that switch flipped, that. Okay, there's actually a whole ton of people out there that do what I do. Really smart people that have figured out things that I haven't figured out that totally changed my kind of decision making framework for how I do things within my firm. I posted this online today. We're just gonna jump ahead to the shower. Thought I said more people than ever want to tell you how to run a firm, but how do you balance their expertise with doing what's right for you? There isn't, there isn't a correct way to run an accounting firm even, I mean, even stuff that like, I think in certain spaces, like, are framed as like non negotiable aspects of running a firm, like ditching the billable hour, stuff like that. Like, I'm not quite so absolute on all of that stuff. I think there's very few, like, globally applicable, here's the best thing for everybody type situations. And in the early days I was like, I think everybody's familiar with like consultants. Like, they'll have like, you know, people that hold themselves out as firm consultants and they'll come in and transform your firm. And I know, I know a bunch of people that do that and I know how valuable that can be. But that was very different than what I wanted at the time, which was just a peer group, like. And I got this, this switch flipped for me also. And I think it was 2019 0con. It was the first like Tech Forward conference that I'd gone to that really resonated with me. I sat down at a table and there was just this amazingly diverse group of people that had all sorts of different levels of experience. But I had something to learn from all of them. And it just kind of reframed my brain to think I need to be spending more time validating my decision making and what I'm trying to do to ensure, to increase the likelihood that I'm making the right decisions rather than just doing. Because really just doing oftentimes is the easy path and we can work really hard. And you know, I say run into the same wall 10 times in a row and sometimes that's the very easiest thing that you can do rather than stopping and reconsidering your process. And so I had this mind shift toward kind of like investing in myself better and understanding other people's lived experiences and how they have managed changed in their firm to better inform how I run my firm. And like, where that totally blew up for us, which I've shared before, was moving to the wrong practice management system. And that's setting the firm back years because it was like a year long process to get there. All of the training of getting people over to a new system and then on the other side of it you realize, well, this is, this is the wrong one. So what do you do now? Everybody's exhausted from the change. Do you actually pull the rug out from under this process that you've just been doing for the last 12 months because you know you need to go to something different? Or do you ride it out for a few years knowing that every day you're just pouring time and energy and frustration into this thing? That was the wrong decision. And that decision fundamentally was made based on what software salespeople told us, which obviously is absurd, but that's how we make a lot of our decisions. It's based On a landing page. It's based on what the sales associate will tell you. And it goes without saying, those people, they don't understand many aspects of what you do and aren't, you know, their incentives are not aligned with, with your incentives, as opposed to having a peer group where you can pick their brains and they're like, oh yeah, we did this three years ago. Let me tell you about that experience. Oh my gosh. Or finding 10 people who have transitioned into the software that you're considering in the last 18 months and have them give you the real story of what worked and what didn't work. You still have to give like, the vendor the opportunity to speak into that, I think. But to make decisions based on like, that peer group that you have a relationship with who are willing to be collaborative and share and all that, it just, it changes how you make big decisions, how you manage people. Pretty much every aspect of firm running now for me is just informed by kind of the people that I trust most who have gone through a similar process and being able to see into how it went for them. And not always, I mean, not generally copy exactly what they're going to do, but then just have a much more rich framework for how I'm going to make that decision. And so let's talk about communities, because communities mean a hundred different things. And again, I have a community, but I'm not going to talk about it that much. I want to talk about what communities mean from kind of a, a higher level because they mean different things to different people, but they also have relevance for like, how we run firms and even how our firm is in many ways a community also. So ultimately a community to me is like kind of a common, common desire, common subset of context that brings a group of people together. And so like, there are big, wide open communities, you know, like tax, Twitter. Like, that was probably the first community I would say that I engaged in. And that's a huge community. There's very little context because it's so big and because there's so many different types of people in there, there's things that that's great for and there's things that that's not great for. Like when it comes to like, actually, you know, having any level of vulnerability or, you know, sharing stuff that could be sensitive. Obviously all that stuff's off the table in a public forum like that. There's also a, you'll, like, when you see like the really kind of specific communities versus the really wide open stuff, you'll also see what an impact a lack of stakes has on a community. Anybody can pop in, drop a bomb and pop back out. Like there is. There is no accountability in something like that. That being said, it's the biggest version of a community and oftentimes that's helpful, like to have like a huge breadth of different types of people and perspectives and all that stuff. As long as you don't lose sight of just the lack of context that's there. The right answer for somebody else isn't necessarily going to be the right answer for you. Other similar communities the subreddit taxpros it's interesting how different communities can kind of develop their own community. I don't know, sort of internal, like, best practices and, and sort of inertia. Tax Twitter is definitely this way where there's. There's vocal people within Tax Twitter that will kind of steer the discussion on certain topics into what kind of becomes like this perceived right answer for this or that. And our tax prose is totally the same way. But when you poke around in there, you'll notice like, it's just a very different type of person than you get on Twitter, which is interesting. People who are at different stages in their firm running journey, even just, you know, things as simple as the vernacular and how people interact and all that kind of takes on its own life. In each of these different communities, there's a tax discord. I think it's invite only that's got some really sharp people in it. It's a free community, but it's something about it feels more specific. And that specificity may literally just be because there aren't that many accountants that understand and are willing to hustle discord. But like, that is a filtering mechanism that gets you to like a more specific type of person. Tons of free Facebook communities out there that I've learned a lot from, they're kind of more, to me like the modern version of a forum. If you poked around forums a lot like me back in the day. So there's a ton you can learn from them, but I don't know that they're a place where you're ultimately going to like, find the crowd that you want to run with and like build those kind of vulnerable, open connections. A lot of vendor communities out there, which can be good, but obviously they're fundamentally biased in some ways and there's certain things that just won't be discussed that can sometimes feel like the elephant in the room. That being said, especially for stuff around that specific product, those communities can be really valuable. But I'm gonna let me cruise through like some of our, what are kind of like the, I think the leading paid communities that are out there right now. And kind of the differences, my understanding of the differences of each of them because they actually, the ones I'm going to touch on, all do wildly different things. And at any given point in like where you are in firm running, some of these things you'll, you'll be hungry for and other things you won't be. And those that like that desire will even evolve over time. So Ryan Lazanis has got future Firm Accelerate and my understanding, feel free to correct anything that isn't right here on any of these communities. Ryan's like definitely a framework guy and so his, um, you know, he's going to help you grow, you know, whatever it is, grow your practice to, you know, a million dollars in a, in a manageable way or something like that. So it's something that you could even sell at some point if you wanted to. And what he's fantastic at is like kind of organizing his, his methodologies and his best practices into frameworks that he can then share and let people leverage. And that's a lot of what that community is. There is like a peer community element, but a lot of it's also like access to like, this is Ryan's formula for running a firm. And if you're plugged into that and his vision for what that looks like, like, that's the best way to go deep on what his version of firm running looks like. Another group I talked with recently, they're called Renew Group. I can put links to all these in the video description, but this is an example of a community that is like mega hands on and like transparency is required. Where they're going to be like, in your financial statements they're going to be making changes and then they're going to be like super plugged into what are the results of those changes and like very profitability focused. So it's a much higher point of entry. It's going to be, you know, much higher cost because there's very real coaching elements to it. But it is very high effort and ultimately is about like, how is this actually going to translate into the profitability of your firm and like digging through the numbers and having a deeper understanding of all that stuff. It's interesting in each of these communities you will have different subsets of people. This one, my understanding is this one, it is tax practices mainly, I think in the US but it's kind of your, like your more traditional tax practices. That you'll see out there. Whereas like Lazannis community, I think that's attracting like more kind of the cloud accounting practices is my understanding. Obviously my community attracts probably a specific type of nerd to where you know, that comes from. I guess the people that are that like connect with the type of stuff that I talk about, which is oftentimes different than the things other folks talk about. But the interesting thing to me about Renews, it's kind of like a combination of some community elements with like some coaching elements where it's like very hands on and very much about your firm's financial results and how to drive those in a positive direction. Thrival run by Jason Blumer. He's got a podcast too that you may have heard before. They've got a community that is more, more around kind of like mindfulness and what it means to run a practice in a sustainable way and like be more self aware of like what the impact firm running of the impact firm running has on you. And just like everything mental that goes into that. And to me that's a great example of how like a private space enables vulnerability in a different way than like your big, you know, open communities do when there's no stakes, when anybody can come in and be anonymous and all those things. What else? Roundtable labs. So they run like kind of like cohorts maybe isn't the right word, but they put together these, these roundtable groups where you can connect with, I think they go up to 50 people or something like that where you connect with people that run firms and it's one that's very clearly not focused on thought leadership or a single methodology or anything and more interest, like more built around shared learning. So your roundtable group, like what is everybody figuring out in that group and them all helping and, and helping each other grow as they share their own journey. So very different than like the Renew group where it's hands on, different than like Lazannis future firm where it's like hey, here's the framework for, for how you want to build your practice. And then my community, it's called Realize RLZ IO my community is really just a peer to peer community. So like there is no level of like, like coaching or anything like that. Like for me, what was always most valuable and I've kind of tried to build the community in a way that's a reflection of this. What was always most valuable to me was like finding that next person who has a super deep understanding of what I do and can speak into how I'm growing my firm and you know who I can like steal a couple of ideas from. So obviously I am very visible and all the stuff that I do, that's kind of my job now, from running a daily show to doing talks at conferences and stuff like that. And what that is in many ways is like I'm a lighthouse kind of for a specific approach to firm running that's going to resonate with some people and it's not going to resonate with other people, but like a really interesting way of leveraging that fact that you've kind of become the hub is to be able to be the person to connect all of those folks who the content resonates with. So like I don't like give away realized memberships like in a. And you know, they do these kind of tax season giveaways and all these different things. And so they'll ask like, hey, do you want to give away memberships? Stuff like that. I don't do stuff like that because some random person wins a membership and then they come in, they're not coming in with that like shared context that someone who would normally find the community and be willing to pay for it would have. So like, I don't advertise it. It's buried like way deep in my content and that's the only way anybody ever finds it. And the result is the only people that are then coming in are the folks who like that stuff super resonates with. And so to me, like the beauty of a community is that specificity. And that's like what I always wanted was like, how do I find the people who I'm just like going to see firm running and like in such a well aligned way with, how do I find that next person that's going to then make me a better firm runner? And that's for me, that's like an interesting way for me to leverage my visibility and be a resource in a way that's much bigger than me making anything. I mean, I try to be really transparent about the fact that pretty much everything I share I've stolen from other people in some form or another. And I don't really like holding myself out as an expert or a coach or anything like that. As much as I like sharing kind of my vision for what a sustainable approach to running firms looks like these days. Like, but it's very scant on absolutes and like, hey, here's the right answer for you. Instead I invest in, you know, content like this and all that to like be the hub for that very specific type of person so that I can bring those people together. Like, the best part of this show, this Daily show, is the comments is the people that are turning up every day that are learning from each other, the questions that I'm going through from them, the thoughts that I'm sharing from them that then enrich all the other people that turn up. That's the very best part of the Daily show to me. And that's what the community is. And so that is my spin on a community. It's not like, come in and get a framework or even necessarily educational content. That being said, I do. We do like monthly series with the folks who I think are like the smartest people in the profession. The folks that are like, most inspirational to me. So like, Brandon hall is doing a series right now and Rachel Fish and Kelly Parks and Chad Davis does like a monthly automation thing. Twyla Verhels is doing like a Women in Accounting leadership series. That's like phenomenal. So it is like a collection of the stuff that I most enjoy. And then twice a year, we match make people into, quote, unquote, mastermind groups which mean very different things to different people. Mastermind groups can mean a hundred different things within the context of my community. That means I'm going to match you with into a group of four to six people based on the demographics of you and what you're doing and your firm and how you're trying to grow or not grow. We match make those groups so that you are with very similar people to your own or in kind of a similar stage with similar goals. And then those people, those groups meet once a month for six months, for a couple hours each month. And it's like an opportunity to just learn and steal ideas and like, feel like, feel like you are one step closer to finding or building that crowd that you want to run with. I had a couple mastermind groups early on that like, changed my life. And anytime you do something like that, it could be amazing. It could end up not being helpful. It's a bit of a crapshoot. I think the more contextual communities are, the greater the likelihood that that's going to be valuable. But that was like how I found my peer group of folks that I could call and talk to about anything and they were going to be transparent and share their journey with me. And the more of those people I found, like, the better, more, more broad perspective I had and the less isolating all of this stuff was. So that's another thing we do in the Community. We match make those groups two times per year. We're doing it right now. And the next groups will start or I'm gonna, I'm gonna put together all the groups at the end of this week. So if that is something that's helpful for you, check out more on the Realize homepage to see if that's something that makes sense for you. A couple odds and ends I've learned in the process of community running. Like everything else, it's one more thing. And everybody has enough things to do these days. So whether you're building a community for your clients or anything else, it's like, what about that? Community is going to give people value in a way that they're not going to get elsewhere? Why is it worthwhile for them to invest time in this other thing? Because we all have an abundance of stuff to do right now. But maybe the most powerful thing I've learned is just that like it is a huge force multiplier for an identity or for an ideology. So there's only so much that I can ever ultimately teach anybody. But when I do my best to share what I'm learning with people and that collects a bunch of like minded people, what's even better than them learning from me is then them dirt them then learning from each other. Like if a thousand people turn up to watch a video, those thousand people have more to learn from the other thousand people that turned up than they do for me. And I think one example where we don't really lean into this yet is the fact that many of our accounting firms are very specific collections of people. And the small business owners that we work with, they have all the same insecurities, all the same struggles that we do around finding the group that they're going to run with and what they do. Feeling very isolating because for the same reason that like I never talked with the other accounting firm owners in town, people just don't do that for whatever reason, good or bad. Accounting firms, like there isn't really any need to be competitive. Maybe in other types of businesses there's more rationale for kind of not being competitive. But if you approach relationship building with that mindset that you have more to lose than to gain by sharing the playbook, kind of the inherent implication there is that like you're doing every little thing better than anybody else out there. And I've worked with a lot of people who are like, no, you can't talk about this or that or how we do this process. Somebody's gonna steal that. And it's like, no. Like, the reality is, when you share your playbook, people are gonna reciprocate. Not everybody, but a lot of people are gonna reciprocate. And the only situation in which you don't come out ahead is if you're somehow doing every single thing better than anybody else out there, which is just not the case. We all have something to learn from virtually everybody. Even if you run very different types of firms or even if got this other person that just started running their firm yesterday, they've got a framework, they've got some ideas, they've got some concepts that absolutely could inform your firm as well. And accountants feel this pain, but so do small business owners. So if I work with a bunch of dentists or a bunch of e comm companies or something like that, there's very few people out there who are seeking out that community and have a place where they can be vulnerable and share their journey with other people that do what they do. And there's actually an immense amount of value in you simply being the hub for them. Because where else do all these people collect? What are the common needs that they all have? Software vendors, sometimes. So, like, that's part of the motivation, I think, for vendors to create these communities. But again, fundamentally not like an independent thing. They're gonna be biased, that sort of thing. And so if you are developing a niche or even if you're thinking about maybe I'll wait into this new niche. A community is actually a really interesting thing to consider through the lens of an accounting firm because not only is it a kind of collection of people that will attract new people, but it is a force multiplier for your value. So when somebody joins my community, I mean, so many, like, incredible connections and friendships have been built there from, like, I'm sitting at engage with a buddy who's in the community and he's just like, super pumped to talk to the person next to them. And I'm like, how do you. How do you all know each other? And they're like, oh, they were in mastermind groups together and this is the first time they met in real life. And it's like, got this best friend now that does exactly what I do. Or literally talking with somebody yesterday, they're like, oh, yeah, me and this other person, we're gonna go to France for a couple of weeks. And like, they were in a mastermind group together. And like, that is such a amazing thing that you can enable when you're the hub of a certain type of person. And as an accounting firm owner you are, whether that's simply entrepreneurs, whether that's a niche of a very specific type of person, when you are the hub, right or wrong, if you make that connection, the value is attributed to you. So people will say, this is, you know, changed my life totally. I built so many relationships and friendships from this and that and all these things when ultimately like all I did or all you are doing is just creating the space for those people to come and share value with each other. And it's not to say that's necessarily an easy thing and it is work to manage that and you're gonna get stuff wrong. Communities don't just run themselves. But that's probably been my biggest learning about running a community and even informed how I take on projects like this, the Daily Show. It's an opportunity to build this little kind of micro community that's living in the comments and the people that turn up every day where these people can then exchange value with each other. So like, if I were to build an accounting firm from scratch tomorrow, that's actually something I would think really long and hard about is how do I create kind of a companion community. I don't know if it would be paid or not, but how do I build sort of this companion community alongside my accounting firm that enables those specific types of people to exchange value with each other so that I don't have to be the only source of value. Because if you're the one that creates the space for it, the value of those peer connections ultimately is attributed to you. Like you're the one that made it happen. And that's like a bigger thing than any of us. Like you're enabling peer connections. Like I said, that's like, that's more than you individually are ever going to teach somebody. So that's a big long rant on communities. Why? It was like the best thing I ever did for my own well being and like I'm incredibly fortunate now I have all these like amazing friendships with other people with a deep understanding of what I do that just incredible people that blow my mind every day with their generosity and transparency and willingness to share and all that. And I want that for everybody. Like there's a million different communities out there and people talk about starting communities and they're like, oh, I don't wanna step on your toes. Like man, I wish there were a hundred more little communities out there that are contextual, that create a space for people to connect and make what they do feel a little bit less isolating. Just like this show, you know, like I wish there were just way more of those things out there to encourage and energize us to do what we do. So hopefully that's helpful. I don't know how to bring this one home. We would love to hear what your experiences have been with communities in the comments. Anything I got wrong on other communities as well that I haven't been a part of like please share or other communities that you've gotten value out of. Would love to hear about those also. Again this is a hard one for me to talk about cause I don't wanna feel like I'm shilling but like I'm just. I think it's the very best part of the Internet for all of the awful things the Internet enables like those high context little communities where you can find your people like it's just the very best part of the Internet. So that's all I got for today. What is it? Thursday? Got one more day to go this week. See you tomorrow.