Episode 243: Winning at Business and Life with Amanda "Jo" Erven

This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast, where business leaders share their insights. It is 6 questions in 7 minutes because successful business leaders are busy and rarely have more time to spare. So let's get to it. Question number 1: In a few sentences, please tell me who you are and what you do.

My name is Jo. I go, I go by Jo. It's Amanda Jo Irvin, and I do 3 things. Basically, I do audit, I do consulting, and I do education. And my company is called Audit Consulting Education LLC. Surprising, right? Uh, I call it ACE for short. And really those are the three wings of my business. I do internal audit, mainly strategy work, go into organizations and say, here's where audit groups can be more valuable. Here's how you can be more valuable to your organization. Uh, consulting side, I call myself a culture consultant. Um, my passion is ethics. And I like to go into organizations and show them how they can truly live their ethical values. And third, education. I am a CPE provider. I provide that continuing education. I'm NASBA, a NASBA CPE sponsor, and I'm also a higher ed professor. I'm teaching accounting right now at a state university here in Denver, Colorado.

Well, Jo, it's a pleasure to have you on the show. And I think you could add marketing to that list as well, because calling your company and all the three 3 areas that you're a specialist in. That's marketing when you can talk about it as succinctly as you did. Thank you. Question number 2, what is something that makes you smile and/or laugh about working in your industry?

Oh, I want to do one of each. Smile to me is when somebody tells me that one of my books, trainings, keynote presentations has impacted their life. Somehow. That always makes me smile. Just recently, I did an ethics presentation, and I had someone come to me after and tell me a story of when they had to stick up for their own ethics. And, you know, they said my presentation and my books just really continued them down that path of speaking and living their values. And that just means the world to me. That always makes me smile and know that I'm impacting people. What makes me laugh is I'm an auditor by nature, and nobody likes auditors. That's just kind of how it is, and it makes me laugh when I see auditors still trying to be a bad cop at their organization, and I spend my days trying to transition them to be a crossing guard. I tell them to stop catching and to start coaching our organizations to be better, and that's really how they're going to add more value. So I always, I always giggle a little bit when I see that bad cop image with with auditors.

That's a great story too. And I, and you know, it's, it's funny because, uh, I think most of the auditors that I've worked with, uh, just assumed to take that bad cop role. So I could totally appreciate that.

Question number 3, I would like—

question number 3: I have a fictitious book with all the answers for business. What chapter would you think most companies should read?

How to Walk Your Ethical Talk. That's my catchy chapter title. I think that all of our organizations, or all, most organizations have some sort of value when it comes to ethics, whether that's integrity or honesty or some doing the right thing value. But the trouble they get in is when their leaders don't walk and really walk that value, that ethics. It's all talk. And so I think that's a chapter a lot of organizations need to focus on, getting back to their values. How can they not just put them on the wall, but actually live and breathe and reward people for living those values?

And I think that is very insightful because I've worked for organizations who did just that. They stuck the values on the wall, as you said, gave it as a card for— on the backside of your security card and stuff, but they didn't actually do anything to reinforce it. And so it's very powerful what you said. Thank you. Question number 4: Other than the generic work harder, have a great attitude, and care for customers, what advice would you give to other business leaders?

I'm going to stick with my same theme that I— for the last question, and I'm going to say be ethical even if. And I add that even if to it because I know it's a challenge. Sometimes, especially in today's world, to stand your ground. One of my favorite ethical mantras is speak up even if your voice shakes. I think being ethical even if means that you're going to do that even if you, even if it's hard, even if it costs you in the short term, even if everybody else is doing it, even if you lose a customer, a client, a business partner, a colleague, a friend, a job overall. I think that leaders need to remember that they, they need to— I always ask this question: would you quit your job before you quit your ethics? And I want them to, to really think about that answer. And I think just being ethical is something they need to build back into their everyday business model.

It's so, so interesting how you put it there, and I love that even if, because that says that you're taking a risk. And I know the feeling, the voice cracking, because it's like, oh my gosh, should I be actually saying something here? But the other thing that I think about, which is so impactful from what you said, is that the ethical— ethics is, in my opinion, something that equates with trust. And if you act in a nonethical way, you're losing trust of your business partners, your employer, employees, what happens? If you lose that trust because your ethics have gone out the door, it's going to be very difficult to get that back. Am I right about that?

Yeah, absolutely. In one of my books, I write about the ownership tips that we all need to have in our lives. One of those tips is just remembering that selling equals trust and trust equals selling. That's the cycle, right? You bring up that word trust, and I think that's the only way, no matter what career you're and you're selling something. If you're an auditor, you're selling your recommendations, your ideas, uh, you know, no matter what you're doing, you're not going to be able to sell that product or that service unless you have built that trust. So working on things that are foundational, like ethics and trust, is going to make everything else come natural. Um, in fact, I ask a polling question a lot of my trainings. What do you think is foundational to the success of organizations? Is it finances, revenue? Is it their product or their strategy? Or is it their ethics and their culture? And almost everyone answers that answer C, the ethics and the culture. Yet we don't spend enough time on that ethics and culture. We spend all our time on our finances, our revenues, our products, our strategies. And we need to get organizations back down to those basics because then that selling is going to come natural. It's, it's just that, that trust that needs to come first.

Absolutely. I couldn't have said it any better. Thank you for that. Question number 5: What other business leader like yourself would you like to acknowledge and invite to be on my podcast?

I'm going to invite Lori Pace. Lori Pace is actually somebody that I just got the pleasure of seeing in action. I watched her presentation that was called The Diversity Difference: Leading by What You Do, Not What You Say. And I think that is just critical from so many aspects of leadership today. Not only does she teach us about diversity and inclusion, but she teaches us how to act upon it. Again, it's about walking your talk, right? And I just, I loved what she brought to the table in her presentation. One of her quotes in her presentation was, "Diversity is a good ethical decision." And of course, me as an ethics instructor, speaker, that's what I'm passionate about. I just, I thought, wow, I had never equated diversity to being ethical. And she was exactly right there. Lori's also huge supporting females in the community when it comes to real estate. She's got a real estate background. And she thinks that, that women who own who they are and own property, that's the true essence of control and power in our community. So she is all about lifting other women up. And I absolutely love that about Lori. So I think she'd be great for your—

Yeah, she sounds like a great one. I look forward to reaching out to her. Thank you for that referral. And our final question, question number 6, please tell me about your first job.

Oh, well, my first job was teaching ballet lessons to 3 to 5-year-old kiddos. Uh, I— not very many people in my professional network know that I was a dancer for 18 years, and I once thought that I was going to be a Radio City Rockette or on Broadway. That was my life's ambition. It was, it was not to be an auditor, but this is where we ended up. So, but yeah, I tell you, it taught me a lot about discipline, about— it really is who I am today. It's foundational to me.

So, well, it's great, and it's, it's, it's great that you learned some, some neat things, and you are the first dancer to have the first, first job on my show. So that's, that's another first there. So I appreciate that. And Joe, thank you so much for being on the show. How could people find you?

Uh, LinkedIn is a great way to stay connected. Uh, it's again Amanda Joe Irvin. I have Joe in quotes. Uh, and, um, yeah, connect with me there. My website's auditconsultingeducation.com if you want to check out anything that I do, or any of my books are out there as well.

Perfect. This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast. Thanks for listening!