158 How to Network When You're A Shy Accountant

Back from Vegas and we are doing.

Q and A Friday.

First up, how do you network for your accounting firm?

Put yourself out there if you're shy.

If that's not a thing that comes.

Naturally to you, right?

How do you manage security when you.

Hire a virtual assistant, either onshore or offshore, making the time to create content, the pressures of picking a niche. And we did it. We're in the top 100 most influential accountants in public accounting. I'm going to tell you how it feels. How does it feel to be influential? What has this changed for me and how it went when I told my wife I didn't think I should have to take out the garbage anymore. A story of celebrity and how it goes to your head. Come on in, let's talk about it. Lovely seeing a bunch of you in Vegas at AICPA Digital. It was a fun one.

First up, this is from Zach Jensen.

This was coming on a daily pod video.

Started posting to Twitter, but I'm impatient.

Want to do other stuff at the same time. Would you still recommend going to conferences and networking events?

And if yes, how do we as.

Shy firm owners navigate that landscape? Gang, I am shy. That may come as a surprise to you, but in general, I'm pretty shy. Like, I was a pretty quiet person coming through school and, you know, even at in person stuff, like if we bump into each other at a conference like that, I'm not a super, I don't know, over the top outgoing person. And when people that I know in my real life see my stuff, like see video or something like that, they're like, wow, who's that? But the best trick for me to overcome that was to go to places where there are people who geek on the things that I geek on. Because while I despise small talk and I'm not like the guy that's gonna go to a party and have a fun time and, like, be able to enjoy, you know, chatting up my kids, friends, parents, and stuff like that. Like, I, I will do it from a standpoint of survival, but it's not something that energizes me. But when it comes to work stuff, there's certain things that, like, I get amped about and I suspect you do too. And when you find folks that understand the nuance of, of that thing more so than, you know, other people in your life, for me, that's really energizing and, and everything starts flowing. So that is, for me, that's, you know, anything around firm running, that's AI stuff. Obviously, I get very excited about in tech in general. So if you're going to say an accounting firm conference, are the other people there, like, is it a focused enough conference to where the other folks there are going to have a lot in common with you? I think that makes it a lot easier to be able to talk with them just through the lens of like sharing experience and sharing ideas and not just through the lens of making conversation, because that is, that is hard. I will say on the subject of going to conferences, it gets easier. You sort of almost build a friend group and it makes it way easier to go to those things when you already know some people there because you can hook up with them when you get there and that's just probably who you're bumping around with. Then I can tell you the very first conference I ever went to was definitely the most intimidating. Cause I didn't know a single soul there. That is one of the really powerful things about social media, about online communities, the fact that you can build relationships with those people online. And it takes what would otherwise be kind of a spooky thing going somewhere where you don't know anybody to almost being akin to like this family reunion where a whole bunch of your friends are getting together in one place. And that's a really special energizing time. So I would say if you don't have relationships already with anybody that are, that's going to be at these events, there's probably other ways to build those relationships first. Like, are you engaging consistently on social media through the lens of being an accounting pro, which may be happening on a different platform or different profile than how you engage on social media for client acquisition. I built a ton of relationships obviously on social media with other firm owners. And I've got a bunch of people I now consider friends and they go to these conferences too. And it makes it way easier, way less so spooky. And then you're still going to meet people at these events as well, but it takes a lot of the anxiety out of it. So to summarize two things. Go to the places where there's going to be people geeking on what you're geeking on and that'll make it fun and energizing to have those conversations and build relationships before you get there. Like if you're going to a place where you're, there's going to be a bunch of people that you already know, you're going to super look forward to that and it's going to be a fun event and all of the in person stuff is going to be super easy because you already have those relationships. On the quality assurance episode that we did, a few folks reached out about one thing that I said there specifically the value of centralizing your review notes. So if you're writing review notes for members of your team, normally those all are contained and very siloed like in a document in a specific project, right? And so you don't have a way to see all of your review notes in aggregate. And I argue there's a ton of value in being able to see all that stuff in aggregate because it points to ways that you can improve that quality control process. So I don't like analogies like this, but I'll use one anyway. When Toyota makes a whole bunch of cars and they all have the same issue, Toyota wants to know about that so that they can change the process to prevent that issue from ever happening again. And the more we can make how we get the work done about the process and the less it is personal about the people doing it, the better. So in order to centralize those review notes, what a number of people asked was, how do I do this? Don't overthink it. Honestly, it can be as simple as like a giant shared Excel sheet where column one is the client, column two is the project, and you just filter based on client and project. And that's where you leave your review notes and that's where you can go back and review them. And then you've got all that in a single sheet. This is really valuable for over the top process management. It's also helpful at the personal level if it becomes clear there's like certain specific education that a member of your team is lacking. But wherever possible, rely on system, don't rely on people, don't rely on that person's specific knowledge. How can you institutionalize what would have been the right way to do that into your system? And ultimately the way you institutionalize that is like by having smart people with good ideas around how to systematize that. So still coming from people, but those review notes like that is your best data set for what you can do to improve that process, Gang.

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This was a good one and I think it was actually from a LinkedIn comment. What's the best way to ensure security when you're hiring a virtual assistant, either onshore or offshore? And for me I think the problem here is oftentimes that we don't have an explicit standard for how security is managed in our own team. Because whatever that standard is for you internally, like that same standard just needs to be applied regardless of who you work with. So if I have remote employees and we have specific tools they need to use and they probably have to do that stuff on our hardware or they have to do it within like a maybe a virtual environment. If there's like desktop tax style software that needs to be accessed. No matter what the standards that you set within your firm, they need to be playing by either the same rules or something that is fundamentally better so that at a minimum, it is meeting the standards you have for all the folks on your team. And so hiring an EA for me when I already had remote employees, like, that wasn't a huge lift because we already had those standards and they were just an extension of those standards. When we went and we began hiring folks from an offshoring group, that wasn't a super hard thing to do because the offshoring group had its own standards that were actually way above our standards that we had set because they had an entirely different level of investment that they could put into that from, like, literally badge scanning just to get into the room where all the computers are and they have to leave, like, their smartphones and all these things outside in, like, a locker. Like, way beyond the lengths that we go to with in, like, an onshore office. But I think oftentimes when he asks this question, it is. It's because we. We don't really have our own, like, firm standard to where we can then put that in front of a group or put that in front of a person and say, like, these are the requirements for working with our company. So that's usually the place to start. Anytime you bring up offshoring in the US everybody always shouts 72 16, which are some disclosure requirements around any offshore people or companies that are working with tax data. This is. The rules around this are so unbelievably out of date. We have so many software vendors that we work with who have offshore team members who have access to this data from literal, literal servers for Zoom meetings that are offshore. Like, there's so many examples of areas where we ought to be disclosing, but because the rules are super out of date, people don't. Now, that is not a rationale to not disclose. But I think when people jump to the disclosure discussion as soon as they hear offshoring, it totally misses the point because usually the conversation is, well, my clients won't like that because as part of the disclosure rules for 1040s, you have to put a separate disclosure form in front of them that they have to sign. When it comes to entities, it can be put in the engagement letter. But the pushback for most tax preparers now is, well, my clients won't like this. To which I would say, since when does the client thinking that's the right or wrong way to do something impact the way that you do things like If a client tells you they disagree with you on a technical thing, or if you say, like, here are the boundaries for like, how quickly we can turn around something or something like that, and the client says, like, no, that's the wrong way to do it. Like that stuff happens all the time in other situations. And usually the right answer is like, sorry, bub, like, those are the rules. Like, it's my way or the highway. If you are setting up a firm to turn around tax returns or accounting month end closes or whatever it is, you are in the driver's seat. And you know how to do that better than any of your clients do. Ultimately, you're responsible for the quality of the output and what goes back to the client and the client experience. And if you genuinely believe that pulling in offshore team members is the way to do that and is going to yield the best experience for your clients and ensure that you can keep growing and get the work done on a timely basis and all that, then that is 100% your decision to make. And anybody that's a client that wants to come in and tell you, no, that's not the best way to run your business, that's like, in my eyes, that's, that's their problem, that's not yours. And people are going to do it and it's a thing. And I'm not going to pretend it's not a thing. Especially in the US we have a uniquely, often times misplaced nationalism around how we get work done. But I'm also not going to let them tell me the best way to get the work done within the firm. Like, if I think that's the best way to get it done, then that's it. I don't know that I really care about my client's opinion on whether they disagree on that or not. And I get that's like glossing over, like, what is going to be a real conversation when your client has to sign that thing. But at the end of the day, you make the rules. Couple questions along these lines that have. I've had kind of sitting on the sideline for a minute along the lines of wishing they had more time to do content stuff. Like, I wish I had as much time as you referring to me to make content. And I'll be honest, that sort of commentary, like, oh, I wish I had the time that Jason did to do this stuff was a big fear of mine when I stopped firm running. Like, we all, there's, there's the whole element of, like, you don't run a firm. What how do you know what you're saying? Should I really be listening to that person? And that is valid. Like there's a lot of validity to that. I will say there's a lot of things I've been able to do that I could have never done when I was running a firm that also inform how I think about firm running. Like being able to talk with hundreds of firm owners in a way that I couldn't have if I was just seeing the world through my like sole lived experience of just running one firm. Like that's a pretty incomplete model for how to advise other firms as well, I think. And it's probably why most people are fixated on like a very limited set of circumstances. That is just what their firm looks like today. And to be clear, like that is almost every business owner. Like that's just what we do. Our model of what we understand and how to do it. It's just based on our own experience. What I've been really fortunate to do is talk with a bunch of people to like super widen kind of my perspective on what works and what doesn't work.

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What I was doing while I was still running a firm was making content. And the only reason I stopped running a firm was because I realized there was a business to be built around that. But like, the reality is, the last 18 months of me owning an accounting firm, I was a 40 person firm. I was publishing two YouTube videos a week. I was tweeting three times a day for 18 months. I had three children under five. I had one kid during that time during tax season. And I made it work. I think we will prioritize the things in our life that we think are the most important. And it became really evident to me that really high leverage stuff like social media and being visible ultimately was going to be what served me best long term in my career, regardless of what thing I was doing, whether I was running a firm or doing stuff like I do now. You can do it, like you can make time for it. I think the blocker for most is probably delegation and undervaluing our own time and attention. Not signing it, not assigning a high enough value to the person or the service or whatever it is that can take that thing off of your plate. And as a result you end up doing all that stuff yourself. I mean there's, there's a million things that go into that around, like how to do, do that stuff as efficiently as possible and like, you know, batch, like scheduling social media posts and like the pros and cons of that. So there is a ton of nuance there along with the other people in your life. Like having a partner who we're fortunate does not have to work and is a rock star and does so much with the kids. Right. Like this wouldn't be possible for me without my w. It also wouldn't be possible if I was the one rearing the children. So all of that stuff absolutely influences your capacity to do those things. But you're capable of more than you think you are. And if you think about the way you just spent the last week and you look at that on a pie chart, what percentage of that was solving other people's problems versus getting yourself into a better position for future success? I think 95% of us are skewed too heavily in solving other people's problems, like the opportunity of having the agency of running your own firm. The greatest upside of that agency is to have the flexibility to invest in yourself. And for a lot of people that means hiring a team and those folks coming in and serving the clients. And that gives you the flexibility to invest in those really high leverage long term things for yourself and for the business. But most of our days we're settled into, you know, the habit of what we've always done or settled into what we have seen other people do when they run accounting firms because we can understand what that looks like because it's maybe all that we've ever seen as opposed to challenging like, do I really need to do this? Could I hire somebody for this? Should I be intentional about carving out some time to invest in this new skill or something like that that I know will serve me not only in the short term, but forever? You know, being able to get a, like attract people on social media, be able to present well on video, to do a podcast. Those are valuable skills that will always serve you no matter what you're doing. But because it's hard to make that maybe short term ROI calculation, we ended up doing all the other stuff first.

Ruth chad from a YouTube comment do.

You have any advice on choosing an accounting niche? Should I have one chosen before I run paid ads? I'm stuck on the niche issue. I'm afraid of choosing one that isn't profitable. I eliminated some like restaurants and construction because of the ups and downs they experience. I don't feel I'd be good for SaaS accounting because I'm not up to speed on how to handle things related to stock. I think a lot of people are stuck on the niche thing. You probably shouldn't rush into finding a niche and the likelihood that you get it right on your first try is, is not good. But the work of like finding a niche and finding what about it works for you and what doesn't like that is a learned skill. So definitely work on it. Like invest time in finding a niche. And so that looks like turning up at industry events and like doing some test content online to see if you can hone in on a very specific problem that is really painful for a certain type of of person because that's ultimately how you attract folks to you. They have a really painful problem that they can't solve and we'll pay you top dollar to solve it for them. It feels super high stakes. I get that. And this is why the reality is when most people start their firms, it's something more general, it's something wider and then it gets more specific over time. And that is totally normal. That is how pretty much every firm I've known, that's how it's grown. Sometimes you'll have outliers like we did a roast Affirm video on the YouTube channel a while back of someone who was in a very, very specific niche from day one. But it was because they had ties to that niche already and already some relationships that could start with on Day one the big thing I always hammer on that you want to look out for is what is a very specific pain that I can use to attract these folks. The kind of one where if somebody scroll on their social media feed they're going to like hit the brakes when they see somebody that looks like they can solve that pain. One other bit of advice I wouldn't necessarily always fixate on just industry as your niche. Specialization is a huge spectrum with a bunch of dimensions and industry is just one dimension like demographics, the way you deliver the service. Like there's a whole bunch of other dimensions on which you could specialize. And if you and eventually industry probably ought to be one of those dimensions. But what other aspects of your firm do you want to make non negotiable from day one? Maybe you don't do any phone calls and you just talk over zoom. Maybe they have to pre schedule any call with you. Maybe you only work with clients over slack or teams or discord even looking at the tech stack of that client. Like maybe you want to work with businesses whose back end is all built in notion or in ClickUp or something like that. So there are also non industry considerations and how you could get more specialized in the way that you support people. But it is a balancing act. You don't want to rush into it, but you do also want to be investing in it because that's ultimately what's going to take you to a place where people will pay you much more to do what you do last.

We got named to that silly little.

Top 100 most influential accountants list. We did it. Great job everyone. Firm handshakes lists are funny. That's ultimately the biggest business of all of this stuff is the power of being kingmaker. Imagine making something where everyone that you then put on that thing will then go out and advertise that thing for you until the end of time. Because they're so proud of it, right? It's actually kind of fascinating and maybe something you should even consider the value that's assigned to these lists and the fact that people will be proud of that. You are in a way like doing a favor for these people that you say are influential and then they share the heck out of it for you, right? And at the end like it's all a game and what is it even? I mean it doesn't really mean anything. And there's situation like ignition. I do think there's groups of people that need to be elevated but there's also like others that I think are just kind of the cold hard business of. I've seen versions of it. Like, sometimes it is just fun to, like, cruise through and see. And it's like, if it's a thing you're doing with your friends, that can be fun. But, like, ultimately, I think the biggest value always goes to the maker of the list and the fact that everybody talks about it and you have all these influential people going, oh, look, oh my gosh, I'm so flattered. And that's ultimately great marketing for the folks that put that list together. So with that being said, I'd like to announce the Jason Daly Top 100. Fill in the blank in the comments. I don't know. Should we make a list? Maybe? That would be funny to make a list. A list. What could we make a list for? I dunno. You got any ideas? Put them in the comments.

Thanks for coming and hanging this week. If I got to see you in.

Vegas, thank you for saying hello. I've got a fun one coming up next Monday. I'll see you there, Sam.