063 Build An Accounting Firm Around What You Love

Welcome in. Today we're doing something new. It's a challenge episode. Can we build an accounting firm around some ridiculous interests? I am convinced that the best version of work is the work that doesn't feel like work because it's something that you love. And is there a way to like build a firm around that thing that you love? I think there usually is. We're going to give a new format a try. It might be great. It might, might be a complete disaster. Come on in, let's give it a try. How do you build an accounting firm around that weird thing that you're into? Okay, to set the stage here, I did an interview on the CPA advisory show podcast the other day. By the time this publishes, I think it'll be live. I'll put a link to it in the show Notes with Chris Hervichon and Jeremy Wells. One of the things we talked about was like one of the most common questions that I get. How did you have the time to make stupid YouTube videos while you were running a 40 person accounting firm? Like, the most common question that I get. And I think there's a lot of people out there who are like, they saw the volume of stuff I was putting out and they're like, that guy doesn't actually run a firm. I don't, I don't believe it. And I'll be totally honest. Like the, the YouTube, the main YouTube channel. By the way, a lot of people finding this podcast. I have another YouTube channel that is my main YouTube channel. Much more production effort goes into all that. If you haven't, check that out. But basically, for a year and a half, I published two YouTube videos a week that nobody watched. And it took, I can't remember, something like a year and a half to get to a thousand subscribers or 500 subscribers or something like that. And it's just like anything else. The people that you see who like, look prolific at a thing, you're just seeing years of effort. Like you're not seeing. You weren't watching them when all that stuff sucked. And today with the fact that we all just scroll algorithms, all we ever see are the people who are prolific at a given thing. So when you're trying a new thing that can be a really hard thing to get over, all you see is amazing versions of that thing. And then you're like, I'm gonna give this a try. And then you watch it back and you're like, holy, that's terrible. Wow. But for a year and a half, I published two YouTube videos a week and if you've ever tried to do that, you know that's a lot of work. And so the question was basically, how do you have the time to do all of this stuff? I was tweeting three times a day for over a year as well at that point in time. How do you have the time to do all this stuff when you run a firm? And I'll be totally honest, I got no idea. I don't know. Like, there were definitely, like I was shooting videos on weekends, there were definitely nights and it was like work. This was like through Covid relief. Like early Covid was like when I really doubled down on this stuff because it just felt like this moment in time where like everything was going online. There was a much bigger appetite for collaboration because we're all trying to figure out these hard things at the same time. But ultimately, how did I do all that stuff while running a firm? I don't know, because the firm was a big obligation. Like that was more than a full time job. I also had a bunch of kids during that time, so I got a two or four and a six year old now. So like I had, I had two kids during that period. But like, what I've kind of taken away from that is I think the reason that I don't know and the reason that it all just happened was that I loved it. I super enjoyed it. I learned that video was this like creative canvas where you could put like all these silly, absurd ideas out there for the world in a format that's like kind of infinitely flexible. Like, and it was this really fun marriage of comedy, which I love, and firm running and talking about like weird, like squishy kind of woo woo firm stuff. And the process of learning how to do video and publishing those and meeting people through doing those videos, I was having a ton of fun. And it was one of those things where like people are always at their best when that thing that they do that is work doesn't feel like work. So when I would try to hire people or task people with special projects, those things always went the best when it was something that person was super into. Because when you're super into something, it's just what you think about. Like it's all you think about. Like you go home at night and you read about it like it is what your newsfeed becomes. Because it's all that you're engaging with and when that can be work, oh man, like you are 100% at your best. And I think we all have those things. What is that thing that you are super, super into. Like, here is your work life, but outside your work life. Like, John Garrett's got his podcast what's yous? And like. Like, almost all of us have this other thing that we're super into, but we don't think of it as. We don't ever think of there being, like, a work mashup there. When I think one of the greatest things about running small accounting firms is you can align them with what you enjoy with your personal interest. Because, like, just about everybody needs an accountant, needs a tax preparer. Like, there's businesses around pretty much every interest that need your help. And as an accountant, like, running a small agile firm, you can kind of follow those interests and build a business around the folks and the businesses that would be fun to work with. Right. Can you? I don't know. Let's double down on this. So here's what we're gonna do today. We're gonna use ChatGPT right now to generate a list of 10 hobbies. Like, weird little, like, kind of unique interests that people could have. And we're just gonna, like, think through the process of who around those hobbies could you build a firm around? Like, what are the businesses that exist within that space and just kind of ideate, how could I get in front of those people and work with those people and marry that thing that I love with how I run a firm? Not because we're looking to, like, intersect. Oh, oh. Steve's listening right now, and he loves taxidermy. We just got taxidermy. Let's build a firm for Steve just. Just to, like, open our minds and how we think about not being 100% locked into whatever our firm reality is today. But, like, there's a big aspect of permission here, I think, like, permission to marry the stuff that you love with your work, because that is when you're gonna be at your best. So let's spin the old chatgpt wheel of unique hobbies. So I'm gonna drop a prompt in here. Generate a list of 10 unique hobbies. I hope these aren't ridiculous. Okay. Astrophotography. Goodness sakes, that sounds hard. Beekeeping. Okay, we're building a beekeeping firm. Glassblowing, Foraging. This, we may have bitten off more than we could. Experimental cooking with unusual ingredients techniques. Or creating complex dishes. Kite building and flying. These are great. Microscopy. No idea what that is. Geocaching. Nerd alert. Eco volunteering, and home brewing. Okay, so let's just start at the top of this list. Let's say Somebody's got this interest in astrophotography. Maybe when you go home at night, all you want to do, you want to peer down that, that, that. That tube. What is it? A telescope. Almost had a microscope. You want to peer down that telescope and just lose yourself in the infinite expanse of our universe. And how small and insignificant your struggle over what practice management system to choose really is. So, astrophotography. Let's write another prompt here. What are the various businesses around astrophotography that me, an accountant that does bookkeeping and tax, could support in my firm? So like, around astrophotography, who are the, I guess, businesses that are, I don't know, making telescopes, making magazines. I don't know. Okay, we got astrophotography equipment, retailers and manufacturers, photography studios specializing in astrophotography, astrophotography workshops and classes. Oh, like learning how to do that stuff. Travel and tourism and freelance astrophotographers. This episode is sponsored in part by dark horse CPAs. If you're a loyal listener of this pod, you'll recall that Dark Horse CPAS is looking to fill obsolete jobs with mediocre talent. How dare you. You'll also recall that being a tongue in cheek joke. It was. The point is, they've got a very compelling opportunity for someone who is looking to take their career in client accounting services to the next level. 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I had staff in the Philippines like totally red pilled me to like, oh geez, like we need to globalize the way that we get our work done. Check these folks out. Link in the show description Cloud accountantstaffing.com Geez Louise. There's more publishing companies and astronomy clubs and nonprofit organizations. Okay, so of this list of like, you know, like, I guess maybe a good analogy here is you think about something like real estate. There's a bunch of accounting firms that specialize in quote unquote real estate, but there's a hundred different things happening around real estate where like the best version of that firm is probably the one that is focused specifically on, you know, that what like real estate agents or mortgage brokers or like that one kind of specific thing within that domain. Right. So this is what we're trying to do here is like let's take astrophotography, which is kind of abstract, and nail it down to who exactly are the people who have pain points that I can help solve? And I don't know that on day one you're going to get this exactly right. Like know exactly what is the best industry to build a firm within. I do think we oftentimes think too small and think, oh, surely there's not enough there to build a cool firm out of. Like, and as an example of like us just kind of underestimating just how big the world is, like I genuinely think you can build a cool little firm around just about anything. So what have we got here? We've got equipment retailers and manufacturers. Those are really two different things. Like maybe you got a background in E commerce and there's a marriage of ecom and astrophotography, equipment selling or you know, selling photography online, that sort of thing. Manufacturers. That's one of those like really complicated things that many of us Steer away from, but where there's a huge need for people that can build, like, accounting systems for managing inventory and doing all that stuff in a cloud rather than in the cloud, rather than using very old timey systems, photography studios, specializing in astrophotography, educators running workshops and classes. These feel small, but, like, I think we kind of need to push back against that. The reality is, like, if you're going to, like, kind of pivot a firm to have part of this firm be built around a personal interest, like, it ultimately doesn't need to take over your entire firm. And there is some risk in building an entire firm around people that do astrophotography workshops, because if that dries up one day, obviously there goes your whole firm. But, like, let's just pick one of these. So people that run astrophotography workshops and classes and like, these days a lot of that is probably happening online. Like, who are the astrophotography influencers who are out there? And so if I were to go after this specifically, I'm going to reach out to the people who are influencers in this space and figure out how can I just be helpful for them? They all have accounting needs, they all have tax needs. Like, I'm going to reach out to those people and be like, hey, I'm going to do all of your stuff at no cost, because I'm trying to build a business within this space. And then I'm going to go out and see where are the people where people who are interested in this stuff, like myself, where are they going out to learn? Like, are there people selling trainings for how to get better at this stuff? Are there people, like, wanting to get into freelance astrophotography to sell those images? Like, people that are creating businesses around that stuff these days? The quickest way to get in front of a bunch of people, I think is just like finding the influencers in that space, getting on their podcast, like, finding a way to be helpful to them. And that's going to then get you in front of their audience and you're kind of like hijacking all of the audience building that they're doing. And then ultimately, when you've got this influencer that you do work with and they talk with the other folks that do these workshops and classes as well? Like, who else? And this is the value of getting super specific. Who else is supporting people that do this stuff? Like, where are they going to find another accountant that, like, works with this very specific person that does astrophotography workshops? I don't know I don't know that that person exists. Well, now it's you. So when they talk like that's you. The other like really big thing to invest in I think is conferences around these specific domains because it gets you in person with them, so it cuts through all the online noise and you can meet those people in person. But then you also learn a ton about like the business of the space too. Let's go to the next one. That's astrophotography. Beekeeping. Oh golly. Okay, I'm just going to change this prompt that we had before. What are the various businesses around beekeeping that me, an accountant that does bookkeeping and tax, could support in my firm? This may be a way easier one. So the first one, beekeepers and apiaries, I don't know. These are individuals or businesses that own and manage colonies of bees for honey production, pollination services. Yikes. Next up, honey producers and processors, bee equipment suppliers, bee product retailers, bees beads, beekeeping training and consultancy service as deep cut. Okay, let's just start at the top here. Beekeepers and the other word. Where do beekeepers hang out? There's got to be like beekeeping con, there's got to be conferences, there's got to be podcasts that these people all tune into. But like beekeeping is a legit thing and I imagine just like any other sort of like food related production, there's the cool little independent, you know, like the free range bee production equivalent. And then you've got your, your Tyson Foods, you know, Tyson Chicken version of a whole bunch of bees and in cages that are probably like six times the size of a normal bee but produce honey, like those things are just dripping with honey all the time. I don't know how honey production works obviously, but where are those people hanging out? If like say you're a hobbyist and you've got like a little, little colony, you know, in your backyard, you probably already consume some stuff around that hobby. But like to build a business around it, it is like, who are the folks that are doing this, like actually as a business and how do I connect with them? And honestly, like step one for me is just finding an influencer that I love in that space and giving some work away so that they will then talk you up to their peers and turning up at conferences to learn more about what goes into being a beekeeper in the business of production and all that stuff. Because gosh darn it, put your finger on an accountant right now. That is the accountant for beekeepers. Like, I don't think it's out there. And so it, I mean, this is like the old paradox of we worry about getting too specific and that keeping us from being able to add clients when the reality is the more specific that you get, the easier it is to add the perfect type of client. And man, if you are all hopped up on honey, like, what would be more fun than talking with beekeepers all day? Like, this is like, I think a great example of how this combination of different things can be super fun. Glassblowing. This could be a hard one. Okay, what are the various businesses around glassblowing that me, an accountant that does bookkeeping and tax, could support in my firm? Maybe an analogy here. Donna Bordeaux, friend of mine, she, like, she. I don't know if she still does for a while. She's running a firm that was basically for like pottery studios. So I could absolutely see like same sort of thing for glassblowing studios. So that's the first thing suggested here. Glassblowing studios and schools. Interesting. Didn't know the glass blowing schools were a thing, but that would be a really interesting niche. Independent glass artists, glass art retailers, glass art galleries, glassblowing equipment suppliers, event organizers, repair and restoration services, corporate gift companies. Interesting. So studios and schools. I think there's a couple interesting options there. Definitely you could work with glassblowing artists. Some, some kind of like mental blockers. Like, what are my blockers? As I'm thinking about this, like, because I am an accountant and so I immediately jump to why this wouldn't work. Independent glass artists. Are there enough people there making good enough money to like be able to build a cool business around? Probably. I think it doesn't need to be a huge group to be an interesting part of your firm. And again, we, I think it's, it's easy to think like, oh, if I could never see this replacing the entirety of my firm, like, if I'm a two million dollar firm right now and I can't see a path to this being this cool new three million dollar firm, then I don't do it. Well, the reality is like, you could turn this into a half million dollar practice and it would be a bunch of fun because you get to talk glassblowing with people all the time and like go deeper on something that you really love and enjoy. And so even for, even if you're trading out your $800, 1040s for $1,200, you know, schedule C glass blowing artists, where they've got a side hustle, where they, you know, sell some glassblowing on the side for me that's still a cooler version of the firm than the one that you have right now. Right? Cause it's leaning into something that you super enjoy schools that's really interesting studios. Like maybe there's a more sizable practice to be built around glassblowing schools. Like that's very specific. Team. This episode is sponsored in part by Copilot, the customizable client portal built for modern firms. Nacho Stanky O legacy firm for modern modern firms. Let me tell you about Copilot. Copilot lets you provide clients with a one stop shop experience with a client portal that streamlines messaging, payments, file sharing, help centers, custom app access and a whole lot more. All that in one place. Used by hundreds of happy accounting firms. Copilot comes with a comprehensive API. Okay. And zapier support. I like it. You can set up automations that streamline sign up, onboarding, intake forms and more. Copilot comes with support for app embeds. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can embed like notion pages to create a homepage for your clients. Embed calendly to make skills scheduling easier. All that inside a single portal experience. Check this one out at go co wep@copilot.com use code Jason get the first month for free. You kidding me? Like what'd you ever do for them? Copilot.com use code Jason and let me know what you think. Hey. This episode is sponsored in part by Firm360, the cloud practice management system that gives you a 360 degree view of your firm. Everything. Documents, projects, client facing stuff. That's why they call it 360. I'll just throw that around. Case study time. Let me tell you about Marion. Marion picked up firm360 in August of 2020. The team was looking for a platform that could streamline their project management needs, increase efficiency and give them visibility into what their team was working on. Sound familiar? What's your team working on right now? 3, 2. What if you if you didn't know? Think about it. They also needed a way to securely communicate with their clients and send or receive documents. They were able to roll out firm360 and use it to improve processes and predict their needs. They plan out work for their team with it. They predict when they need to hire more staff. They've grown their team by over 50%. Marion, bless your heart. Based on data for when they would need more employees and have made sure they're still delivering awesome, awesome service to clients along the way. 50%. How much have you grown Lately. Okay, be like Marion. Be a Marian. Take a look at firm360. Could be just the one for you, right? Check out a link in the show notes to learn more. Let's do one more here. Foraging, the practice of identifying and collecting wild foods like berries, mushrooms and edible plants. Okay, challenge mode engaged. What are the various businesses around foraging that me, an accountant that does blah blah, blah, could support my firm? Okay. Foraging tours and workshops. I gotta imagine especially as like I feel like stuff's going more experiential. The stuff that we're into these days. Like there's I think a bigger and bigger premium on like paid experiences where a guide takes you out and do these things. I gotta imagine there's foraging tours and workshops happening in like every single state. Like I gotta imagine that's becoming a bigger and bigger thing that would be a fun little niche like supporting the folks that run those tours and workshops. I could totally understand that. Restaurants that use foraged ingredients. Another way of thinking about this is like, where are the, where are the hubs of people with this unique interest gathering? So like, is there a hub of people who want to run restaurants or want to create DTC brands around foraged stuff? There's got to be, right? So like where are the hubs of where those people hang out? Is it podcasts, is it an online community? Those are gold right now. Those little niche online communities that are built around a very specific interest. If you can come in and be the one nerd that knows anything about tax or anything about accounting or anything about entrepreneurship, that can be really valuable, a great source of, of picking up clients. Foraged food retailers. Yeah, maybe you double down on like e commerce foraged food retailers, tours and workshops though. Like that totally makes sense to me. And that's something that is like so specific that I gotta think there's a hub of folks, some online community somewhere of people who are into this stuff and building businesses around it where you could come in and be the hero. And is it okay if you go out and that only becomes like a little 5 client part of your firm? I totally think it is. Because you know what? Like it is five clients that are really fun to work with that you don't have right now. In some cases it will be the sort of thing that you could build an entire practice around. But if it's hard to see the path to that today, I don't think that's a reason to not start it. And the beauty of get getting like super, super specific. And I've said This before, I think it's a blocker to us specializing more. There's that it was an excerpt from the Win Without Pitching manifesto. Super good book where like there's the analogy. You're standing in a room full of doors and you're afraid of walking through one door because it means you can never go back and explore what was on the other side of all those other doors, right? So that's why you're afraid to commit and go through that one door. When in reality, when you go through that one door, you enter another room that has a whole bunch of other doors that you would not have seen had you not gone through that door. And like when you find specificity, like under that rock is a whole bunch of other smaller rocks that there is stuff under. And so I think as we like wade into this stuff, we find other things that maybe we enjoy that we realize, like, oh, there's like a cooler, even more specific problem I can solve for people now that I've done this deep dive. And we talked about this a bit recently around niching. Niching your firm and like the biggest counter argument to going super niche, like committing to one niche in a firm, the biggest counter argument is what if something happens and there's like an extinction level event for that niche tomorrow? Is that risky to have built your practice, entire practice around that thing? Maybe, yes. But my. The. I think the most meaningful counter argument to that is on that journey of specificity, if you just built a whole practice around one really specific, specific thing along the way, you just found a whole ton of other things that would be interesting to build a business around within that domain. So like if you work with say dentists, because every single accounting firm specializes in dentists, it seems along the way you met a bunch of dental suppliers, you met a bunch of contract docs, you met a bunch of hygienists who want to be influencers. Like there's, there's. As you go down that path, you find all these other things to where like if that one thing went away, I really think in most cases somewhere on that journey you would have found like, oh, I could be the guy that helps people use, you know, ozone credits to start up dental clinics and like low income areas. Like, like there's so many ways in. Or the cost guy for dental clinics, right? Like the. There's so many ways in that you only see once you go down that niche. So all that is to say, even if there's like an angle into this thing that you love where you could Pick up a few of those clients. I think in our heads, it will always seem smaller on the outside than it actually is once you get into it. And once you invest in getting in front of the influencers in that space and going on those podcasts and writing guest blog posts about, like, here's how to create a business around this thing, or here's, here are the biggest things that. The biggest tax deductions that foraging tours and workshop companies miss. Like, until you invest in that and go down that rabbit hole a bit, we always underestimate how much opportunity there is there until we're in it, until we see it and we understand the problems and struggles that those people have. That was kind of fun, like, a challenge format. Hopefully that kind of opens your mind a bit to, like, the how, how, how you can marry something that you really love with how you do your work. I think we absolutely get tunnel vision for, here's what my firm is today, and that feels like a forever thing. We also think about changing and making new decisions and that feeling, like, too big of a commitment. And, oh, if I go over and if I start talking to foraging tour companies, then that's like, that's what I am now, and that's what I'm going to do forever. And, like, that's the beauty of running your own business is none of these things are forever things. And, like, even if you invest in that today, like, that doesn't mean that's what you're going to be doing until the end of time. So right now, like, in the short term, like, invest in the stuff that's going to be fun for you. Ultimately, the best version of work is the version of work that doesn't feel like work. And that is when you are at your best. That is when you're pumped and loving what you do and the hours just fly by. It's not an excuse for working too much and not taking care of yourself, but pretty much everything that we do comes back to sustainability, right? Like, is this a thing that I can actually do for the long term? And the type of stuff that you just love, that doesn't feel like work, like, that will always be sustainable. Like, there's no better way to go through life than having fun turning up to work every day. So here is permission to marry your professional, your professional side of you with the fun side of you and the fact that those things can work together. You got any anecdotes along that line? Those lines, like, have you ever had success marrying those two things? Is there a risk. And if it becomes work, then maybe it's not fun anymore. Eh, I think that's a cold. Take myself. Like, there's things that I love, there's influencers that I watch, like from my personal interests that I'm, like, a fan of. And it would super be fun to work with those people and learn more about that business. Thanks for coming and hanging today. If you've had any experience with stuff like this, like, you're into golf and so you got into this aspect of the golf industry or something like that, would love to hear about that. And I'll see you tomorrow.