Ryan Vaughn shares stories from running an accounting firm and gym to show why firing problem employees matters. He fired an accountant who lied, watched a high performer leave, and removed someone whose behavior hurt clients. Each decision cost money short-term but protected the business long-term.
Is making the right business decision affecting the relationship you have with your clients? I spent the weekend at a summit for some of our clients in a specific industry. It was awesome. And in talking to them, we work with a lot of the people who showed up already, and they're very familiar with us. And one of them came up to me and she's— no, she knows who we are, but she's been hesitant to join. And one of the reasons is because she heard from, um, someone else who had been using us that that person had been through a lot of professionals with our firm. And so on that stand, like, I get it. We've, we've gotten clients from other accounting firms because they felt passed off. And being passed off doesn't make you feel like the company cares for you. Our model is once you're assigned to a professional, that that's your relationship with our firm. Unfortunately, we went through a cycle of accountants that it didn't work out. And we had one was with us for about 3 years. Right. Well, 2 and a half-ish. Sorry, I'm an accountant. I want to be as detailed as possible. And kept getting passed up for promotion due to lack of performance. And, well, quite frankly, we caught him in a lie. And the lie did not result well on the character of this person. And it kind of became a very quick termination after we discovered the lie. We— and then so those clients that this person was managing went to a new person who we loved and was awesome, but something happened in that person's personal life that required him to switch industries completely. Um, I mean, like, it's like, oh man, this stinks. That person was doing a good job, but for the well-being of his mental health his spouse's mental health and his children, it just made— it was a better decision for him and his family if they moved on. And we were very supportive of it. Then we hired an experienced accountant and this person came on and we kind of struggled with this person from the beginning, but they were delivering a good product in the tax services. They were just a little bit difficult to deal with. irrationality, a lot of scenarios that you wouldn't want your team to be— to like have your clients experience some of those things. And it didn't work out. And so the best decision that we could make as a firm is not have people like that in our organization, people who lie, People who get mad at clients for asking them to do work. And in the case of the one, like, it just, it was for his better wellbeing. If he wants to come back, we would take him. He was great. But unfortunately, if the client was with us in the very beginning, they have now, they're now on their 4th professional in 3 years. But it was the right business decision. And it's costing us business because of it. What type of scenarios are you finding yourself in? And maybe because you're worried about losing business, you're not making the right business decision. I know when we had a gym, it was pretty apparent that there was a specific coach that was causing problems, was basically the center of all the drama that was going on in the gym. And my gut told me we needed to get rid of this client, like, very shortly after me coming in as an owner. But we didn't. We stuck it out and tried to help this coach improve, and they did not. And 8 months in, uh, it came to a head and we parted ways. But I could have saved ourselves a lot of drama, potentially clients that we missed out on by making the right decision in the beginning. But I didn't want to lose customers because when this person left, they did take 15 members with them. And that's hard. But it's still the right decision. You have to protect the business. And in my feeling, that includes protecting my team. And if there's someone on the team that's not Basically, it's basically a poisoned apple. It's important that you get rid of the poisoned apple, as difficult as that may be. And so ultimately, I made the right decision because I want our customers to receive the best service possible. And that includes whatever they're paying us for. If that's maximizing taxes, they should be able to maximize taxes and have a pleasant experience with their professional. They should be able to maximize taxes and not feel like the professional is responding in a way that says, I'm more important than you are, using a condescending tone and things like that. That is not a good experience, and I don't want our clients to feel that way. And if they do and the team member who's doing it doesn't show improvement or a desire to change, Then it's in our best interest and the client's best interest to replace that professional. Unfortunately though, sometimes it makes the client feel like they're being passed off when in fact we're trying to upgrade their experience. Um, so sometimes it takes courage to make the hard decisions, and that, that would be what I'm encouraging you to do. And obviously my mantra is profit is a choice, right? Have the wisdom and courage to choose it. And in this case, It would have been a more profitable decision for me to get rid of the coach sooner, and it was a profitable decision for us to replace team members that needed to be upgraded. Even though the client experience in that transition for us, the way we deliver services, was perceived as a negative, it's still the right decision. And in the long run, it'll work out. So hopefully My failures, and then really wins that look like failures to others, can serve you. Profit is a choice. Have the courage and wisdom to choose it.
