Tim Seymour, Guest on Ashley Leeds Podcast 15 Minutes for Accountants Bookkeepers 106

Gonna win as long as you're happy? You're always gonna grin? You get out what you put in? You get out what you put in. Never gonna lose, never gonna win Long as you're happy, you're always gonna grin. You get out what you put in? You get out what you put in? You get out what you put in.

We are live. You're on your own.

I am. I am. I don't know where Duncan's got to. He's trying to join us, I believe.

Oh, my goodness. Anyway, Tim, you're here to tell us a little bit about Profit first and what you guys get up to. So come on, come on, tell us a little bit about yourself first of all, please.

Yeah, sure. Well, I'll give him a background, if you like. I had the accountancy business for 17 years and made a lot of mistakes in setting the business up. I think I acted as an accountant rather than a business owner and gave myself quite a few headaches with offering everything to anyone who wanted to use my services and not charging enough money. So built a bit of a monster business, Worked long hours, didn't pay myself enough from the business. So classic kind of situation for somebody that really needs Profit first is the actual reality of it. But I didn't know about Profit first at the time, so got myself in a bit of a hole, decided that I had to dig myself back out of this because this business wasn't working for me. My clients were happy, but I wasn't. So came across the book Profit First. It was. It was mentioned to me, actually, by a client who was. Who used to be into marketing. And he came across the book and suggested, you know, to me, you might like this two chapters in. And I'm on the. I'm on Profit First Professionals website. Inquiring is to become a Profit First Professional. So have the call with Ron, which is Mike's business partner. Mike, as you know, wrote Profit first and had the call with. Had the call with Ron, and fortunately he accepted me onto the program as a Profit first professional and I joined as a member. And the rest, as they say, is history. But my life changed from that moment onwards because I was able to use the strategies of Profit first to offer better services to my clients, which allowed me to charge more money, which allowed me to reduce my clients, serve less clients, but earn more money. And so, yeah, so that. That was how I kind of changed where I was at with my business. And then, of course, now I guide accountants and bookkeepers with the strategies of Profit first and I Help them hopefully be a lot more successful than before when they joined us. And, and you know, we've got evidence of that building in the background now.

No, absolutely great story. And the thing is, right, I think an awful lot of accountants are, are in the same position that you were in, especially at this time of year. Here we are, 31st of January. We're not going to have anybody watching. Well, we do because we've got, we've got, we've got the one wonderful Pavel who always comes and watches on a Wednesday. But most of them are a knee deep in the tax returns and stuff like that, aren't they? So. I think so. So it was the book that totally changed you from being an accountant to being a business person.

The, the book, the book gave me the light bulb moment. So reading the book gave me that light bulb moment. There's a better way of doing things. And guess what? It's really simple. So it kind of, I kind of kicked myself why didn't I think of this, you know, making life easy for myself and making life easy for my clients. But because we're so engrossed with the compliance side of the world where, you know, we're churning out tax returns, like you say, especially this time of year, we don't have that headspace to be able to step back and think about things logically. So when we read the book, it hits us square in the face and we realize that what's the most obvious thing we don't see? So, yeah, reading the book was the first step in changing my life. But I'll be honest with you, joining Profit First Professionals is where everything happened. Because when you become a Profit First Professional, you live and breathe Profit first in your business, first and foremost, and then you go and deliver to your clients and the learning takes place whilst you're actually implementing it in your own business and learning to overcome the obstacles and resistance that you may have, which we help our members through, by the way. And then they, they come out of that with a clear plan on how to help their clients moving forward and they can add value to their clients in a better way. But yeah, mentioning it as January, I really don't miss January anymore. I was able to sell the accountancy side of my business off two and a half nearly three years ago now, and I don't miss this time of year, I'm not gonna lie. So, you know, well done to everyone for getting through January. Anyone that listens to this after, congratulations, you made it through. The plus side is potentially, it's A bump a month. From a sales revenue point of view, you know, there are positives. The downside is I just hope you're feeling well and it's not been too stressful for you guys.

Yeah. And you're going to go out onto the slopes, go for a bit of skiing, and you're just going to just sleep for the whole week.

Aren't you going to have a break in February after that? Definitely.

Absolutely. So the other thing. The other thing is you're working your socks off, but you're also paying your team an awful lot of money because you're paying overtime because they're all having to work their socks off as well. And it's, it's, it's. It's pretty crazy, isn't it? And there's been. There's been a lot of division on LinkedIn over the last month or so of people going, oh, I've done all my tax returns. And then other people going, you know, you don't know what it's like. And it's, It's a really difficult balance. But, you know, at the end, at the end of the day, we've got a load of tax returns we've got to get out by a deadline, and. And the nature is we all leave everything to the last minute. And I have heard it rumored that a lot of accountants are doing their tax returns today, which is funny. Which is funny, isn't it? So, yeah, there you go.

Right.

Okay. So, Profit first. Mike. Mike McCallovich, who I was lucky enough to meet at your event, was it September, October, Last year?

In October, wasn't it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It just seems like years ago. Man. What, what an amazing guy. What a great book. I've already read one of his other books as well. I think it was. I think it's clockwise and. But, but yeah, really, really good book. So that was the. That was the changing thing. But you say you then got involved with Profit First Professional. Tell us a little bit about what that is then, please, Tim.

Yeah, so. So Profit First Professionals is a worldwide organization that's headed up by Mike and his business partner, Ron. And basically, it helps people become certified in delivering the strategies of Profit First. But more than that, it's a support network and a community where we all help each other along and help accountants, bookkeepers and coaches. Coaches should not be forgotten in this process as well. It gives them the strategies to use Profit First. It gives them the license to use Profit first, but it also helps them deliver that advisory service that so many accountants and bookkeepers are looking for right now but don't quite know how to deliver it. Profit first gives you that easy win when you talk to a client straight away. When you can, you can, you can dig into your client's business quite easily because you've got the information to hand and you can find areas where you know Profit first is going to help them. And so you've got a great opportunity to open up a conversation with a client and be able to deliver a strategy to help them. And then of course there's a value attached to that which of course you can bring that into your advisory offering and you know the fees that you're charging. But first and foremost, to get back to your questions, I've gone off on the tangent slightly there. Profit First Professionals is a membership organization and myself and Duncan who was going to join us but unfortunately doesn't look like he's going to now, but never mind the technical issues at his end.

So is he still running, is he still running an accountancy practice?

Yes, he is.

You know where he is then, don't you? You know where he is. He's either slaving over the pizza shop to quite possibly sweeten up the staff, hasn't he?

So, so back on the back in March 2022, myself and Duncan are very fortunate to have basically became Mike and Ron's business partners and taken over the license for Profit First Professionals in the uk. There were no, we are the first license holders. There wasn't a license holder before. But we approached them, asked the question, conversation flowed and it was just a naturally good fit for all of us. So we run the membership for Profit First Professionals in the UK and you know what, it's the best role I've ever had in my life when it comes to work relation, work related stuff. So it's immensely fulfilling helping accountants and bookkeepers who then help their clients because you get that ripple effect going down the line that Profit first can help you with.

No, Absolutely. Fantastic. So you've, you've now got this community in the UK headed up by yourself and Duncan. So you, you're actually helping accountants at the moment and bookkeepers to learn all about what to do with Profit first, implement it and things like that. And so now you've got this community in the uk, UK based. The, the event that I came to. Was that your first event?

Our first full event, yes. We, we'd done an event previously for members only, right in Newcastle. We went to the DAS show and we, and we exhibited last June and we had a workshop just after that. But yeah, this was our first full on live event open to members and non members and. Yeah, well, I think you would agree what a fantastic event. It was. It was absolutely great speakers.

You had some tremendous speakers. I couldn't believed my luck when I walked in there. So Dina, Dinah is joining us. Hi, Dana, how are you? Hope you're well. So this, this event was October time. Are you doing it again this year?

Yes, we are.

Okay.

It's going to be in September.

Okay. So the back end. The back end of the year, which is absolutely perfect because all of the events seem to be at the front end of the year, don't they?

This year they do. So we're trying to time it so it's a little bit different. We've also coordinated it with a certain somebody traveling over from America who is actually going to be in the UK for us again this year. So we're excited about that. We haven't announced anything, but you can guess I'm talking about Mike. And then of course, we're in here. I gave that away.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. But, but the thing was that was the first time that he was in the uk, which was absolutely brilliant, wasn't it?

Yeah. He bought his wife with him as well. And they, they really enjoyed looking around the uk. They went to Stratford on Avon, they went to Bath, they went to London and we. And we dragged them to Milton, which, which was different for them. But why not? They've got us, they've got to experience everything. Absolutely. And we had a great time with them.

And I guess coming from America, coming to Milton Keynes, it's more like home, isn't it, with all the miles and the roundabouts and stuff like that.

Yeah, it's quite, it's kind of based on it, isn't it? With the blocks and the straight roads and stuff? I guess.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, so, okay, so we're going to have a conference next year. But so if I. So I'm running a contingency practice and I'm watching this on repeat or whatever because I'm too busy doing tax returns. I'm thinking, oh my goodness, I don't want this to happen again by joining you. Okay. And profit first and, and the community and everybody there. Are you guaranteeing that this time next year I won't be stressed out in January?

There's a pretty good chance that you won't be stressed out this next January if you join us. Yeah, fairly soon. Like, like everything with profit first, you know, implementing profit first into someone's business Takes time. It's not a Profit first isn't a quick fix. And we're very clear on this when we explain to people, you know, because let's be honest, there's no quick fixes in the world in reality. So it, it's a slow process. You gradually change how you're handling the money in the business to make things better and over time you get a really good success. And it's the same. It's the same. When you join Profit First Professionals the first stage is you go through certification which takes about 10 weeks. After that then we work with you quite closely on your branding and your marketing and then we move into an area that's, that's the, the difficult bit is identifying the type of offer you're going to make to serve your clients with. You know, how are you going to incorporate the Profit first strategies into what you're offering to your clients? And so we, we work very closely with people there. And then once you've identified that and you start to bring a few different types of clients into your business, suddenly everything looks a lot better. And it might be that you get yourself into that position when you can start offloading those not so desirable clients that perhaps have turned up in January saying, here you go, here's my books, I'll have my tax return done by the end of month please. And I don't want to pay much tax either. Those clients, we don't really want them if we can help it.

Not, you know, interesting, interesting. So I, I, I sign up, I come on board after 10 weeks, I'm solo or how, what happens after 10 weeks?

You're never solo. As long as you're a member of Profit First Professionals you've got access to us all the way through your membership. That can be via onetoone course. That can be in our group, regular group sessions which we, which we're now bringing in to be in weekly. So every Monday we have a group session. One week it's half an hour, the next week is an hour and it's a complete check in call. We have so many different types of sessions as well. We have the odd guest come along and talk to our members. Actually as you know quite well, I believe you do. Yes. So, so we're having these inspirational causes we're calling them and we bring in a guest like yourself, you know, we've got others like Amanda C. Watts is going to come and join us. Mike is going to come on another call for us. But that's within our membership. So, so yeah, we, we're very busy trying to provide support all the time. If anybody has any issues, they drop us an email, we jump on a call with them. Simple as that. On Friday, one of our members dropped you a message on LinkedIn. I've got a problem. It's actually nothing to do with profit first, but I could do with a bit of advice. Have you got space to jump on a call? I don't do calls on Fridays, Ashley, but it was one of our members and I thought, you know what, they're asking for a bit of help. I've got the time, jumped on the call with them half an hour later and they're happy that they've bounced their ideas off of me. They feel a bit better about the problem they had and they've gone off and enjoyed their weekend. So we're there to support. Our aim is for our members to be successful and we will do what we need to do to help them achieve that. And, and everyone's success is slightly different, by the way. We don't, we don't offer, we don't say you're going to grow your business to this level, you know, we just say, whatever you want to achieve, we will help you achieve it. Interestingly, most people say that they would like to earn more money but work less hours, which I guess kind of makes sense when you think about the situation we're in with January etc. And, and the way that the world of being an accountant, bookkeeper can be.

Yeah, we can all make more money, but we can't make more time. And that's the most important thing, isn't it?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

So.

You'Re working with lots of different clients and the way you've just said that is on Friday. That's because it's a community and that's as humans. That's what we crave, isn't it? You know, we're running our own businesses. You know, we might have a couple of staff, we might be on our own in a yellow shed. Who else do you talk to? And to know that there's other people going through the same stuff as you, so that. That really makes it happen.

Help. Helpful.

Now, tell me, do I have to join on a specific date and you. We all come through together or do I join whenever I fancy it? How does it work? You do you close the doors and have insets and stuff like that?

Yeah, we, we used to allow people to join as and when it suited them, but we found that we found a better way to support people when they join. So, so we're doing things in cohorts now. So we're taking on our next cohort on the 26th of February. So that's the onboarding day or onboarding call that we'll have on that day. Then we close the doors until the 1st of June and then we close the doors again into the 1st of October. And the reason being is that it takes about 10 weeks to go through a certification stage. You know, we've got a whole program developed now on how we take them through. We schedule the calls in advance and we've got a tight schedule to stick to, but we don't overwhelm our members with loads of work. You know, we just give them two or three clear actions to complete before the next week's call. And that's offered in a group environment with their fellow members of their new cohort. But also we have one to ones in there because there's times when it's more specific to the numbers in their business. So obviously that's a one to one call. We wouldn't expect anybody to share finances and stuff about their business with their, with their peers unless they particularly choose to. Of course.

Yeah, I think, I think people do share a little bit more than they used to, which is, which is lovely. And so, but, but the thing is there's, there's, if I join on 26 February, did you say?

Yes.

So if I join on 26 February, there's going to be other people joining me the same day. We're all stressed out because we've just done all our tax returns. But within the, the whole group, the bigger group, you've got people that are way ahead of us. So I could pick their brains and, and they, you know, they may come in and have a little chat with us as well. Is that, is that how it works?

Absolutely. So when we have our group sessions on a Monday, everybody that joins that session you have access to. So there will be members that have been there for five, six, seven, eight, nine, nine years. I think the longest serving one is, you know, and there'd be something if only been there a year, but they've still got a year's experience over where you're at. And as we know, it's great to learn from, from people. You know, we, we've had calls in our community where we've, we've picked on topics or topics have come up for discussion and then it's, it's caused a ripple effect where people have put one to ones with each other. Outside of the group session because they said, I can actually help you with that. Just drop a call, drop me a line and we'll book a call. Calling. It's a really giving environment and the type of person we look for are those type, types of people that are willing to share, willing to ask if they need help, but also willing to help if they've got a solution for people. Not everybody's got a solution, of course, you know, myself and Duncan don't have all the solutions, which is why we use this group environment and the community environment so that we can find the support and if we can't find it within the community, we go outside. You know, we bring someone in to talk about how to use LinkedIn, like yourself, you know, we bring Mike in to talk about the advanced strategies of profit first because it's, it's his, you know, so he helps us there and we bring someone like Amanda in to help us with marketing, branding, personal branding, that kind of thing. So there's, there's always areas that we can bring support in as well if we can't provide it.

No, fantastic. Pavel's saying it sounds amazing. It loves the fact that there's no corporate gimmick. So that's great, great to hear. And Heather's got a question for you. So she's finding the book a bit of a chore with regards to the figures exercises. Heather, are you an accountant? Any tips to get my head around this as I know I'm going to enjoy the book overall.

Yeah, the book, the book, the book's great, it's a fantastic book, but it's not a manual and it's not a textbook and what we find is that a lot of. So I'll answer this a slightly different way. We get a lot of inquirers from businesses that have, that have read the book and they've said, right, I'm going to implement profit first in my business. They've tried it, they've got stuck because they've tried to put too much money into the different parts and then they've run out of money to pay their bills. It's a common theme. Then they reach out to us and say, we need the help of a profit first professional. So then we put them in contact and the profit first professional can guide them and, and I think that's the difference. So to answer Heather's question, trying to do it from the book is not as simple as it would seem, but with the help of someone from professional professionals, you will find it a lot easier Heather. I think Heather might go away. Croissants and Coffee community. So, Heather, I'd be happy to give you some support with this. Anyway, outside of here. I'm happy to jump on a call and have a chat with you about it.

Croissants and coffee. What am I missing?

Did I. Sorry, I. I think I just glitched a little bit there. Crosses and coffee. So you know my crosses and coffee community. I know we're here to talk about Profit First Professionals. I also run another community which is a free community of crosses and coffee. It's to help UK based accountants and bookkeepers and support them. It's a free community. It's a Facebook group. We have online sessions, we have guest sessions as well, online. Actually, you're coming along to talk to us on one of those as well. We have.

Do I get the question? So that's the key thing. Do I get the question?

Well, I'm trying to. I'm trying to work out how I can get croissants delivered to people so that when someone's a guest speaker, it'd be great, wouldn't it, to send them a delivery of croissants. I haven't quite worked out where to do this, so I'm looking into it. I'm not going to promise, though.

That's hilarious. There's had to be someone, there's better be someone watching that knows the answer. Martin is saying he cannot speak highly enough of the support that Tim Duncan and Jason provide and the strength of the community. And I think that's the key thing. It's the community, isn't it? And, and you heard the song at the beginning of the show. It's my strap line on my, on my, on my business. You get out what you put in. And I think there's some really, really good communities out there where people just, they just want to help each other and the thing is we all grow together and I think that's, that's the lovely thing is. So, so, yeah, an endorsement from Martin there, which is absolutely super.

Martin's one of our Profit first professionals and he's, he's a great, he's a great member and a great attribute to our community. So thanks for that, Martin. We appreciate it.

So what sort of struggles are you seeing accountants and bookkeepers having at the moment then, Tim?

No time is the, is the. The main one is no time. To be honest, quite a lot of people aren't necessarily happy with the clients they're serving. That. That is quite a common theme as well. So we do encourage, you know, when someone joins, joins us and they go through certification, we encourage them to look at their clients. We don't, we don't encourage people to just tell everybody, you know, say you've got 500 clients or 250 clients. We don't encourage people to just try and sell profit first to all of them. We actually say, do you know what, have a look at your clients. Who's your top five clients, who should top 10 clients. Let's think about having a conversation with them rather than trying to blanket sell things because for us it doesn't work. You have to be more specific with who you're talking to. So yeah, I hear a lot of people saying they've got difficult clients within their business, but they can't afford to not serve them at the moment just because of where they're at in their business. So if you're looking to move out of that compliance world where you can be price shot, where, you know, some, a, a client just expects a service and they don't want to pay too much for it. If you want to find those clients that are looking for help, looking for strategy sessions from you, then profit first is an option. We don't take everybody on though, Ashley. We're quite, we're quite fussy. We, we haven't actually, actually I don't want to put anybody off the plan by saying that because I'm always happy to have conversations with people. But we don't take just anybody on. We look at whether they're the right fit for profit.

So, so isn't this practicing what you preach? Because, you know, the reason that we're having problems with our business is we take anybody on, don't we? You know, oh, they've got a pulse, they're going to pay us, let's take them on. And we don't stop and think, hang on a minute, are you a good fit? And so that's great to hear that you're doing exactly that because that's how we get good clients, isn't it?

Yes.

And that's how we build a good team. That's how we build a great community. You know, you don't want someone coming in the community that's just gonna take, take, take or somebody with different, different views to, you know, the, the rest of the, the people in the community. So I love, I love that. I think it's a great, a great thing.

It's looking for long term success, isn't it? Yeah, for all of us. So, so we want me And Duncan want long term success. Mike Ron want us to have long term term success for this. If we went for the short term success and just took everybody on it applied. Yeah, great. You know, we'd have, have probably more money coming into the business right now, but how long would that last? Because we want to be able to serve everybody properly for one thing, but also we want to work with the people we want to work with. You know, values need to be in the line and everything. You know, you just want to work with people that you're comfortable working with and they're comfortable working with you. And I think that helps. So, so when I have calls with people to, to discuss whether they're the right fit, we don't really even talk about that. We just get to know each other and see where it goes. It's relaxed and simple as that.

No, that's absolutely fantastic. I was it Gretchen Marks that said I don't want to be part of a club that wants me as a member or something? I, I don't know who it was.

That said that, but he would say.

It is, it is an absolute classic line, isn't it? So before we go, I want to know as story of an amazing transformation. I know you may not be able to say names or anything, but you know, just let's, let's hear a story of how you've helped an accountant or a bookkeeper.

Okay. So one of our members has increased his sales revenue by 100k just by being a profit first professional.

Wow, that's incredible.

How does that sound?

That sounds absolutely fantastic. That's, that's, that's compelling enough, isn't it? So how can we find out more? And how can anyone join the coffee and croissants gang?

Yeah, so croissants and coffee, anybody can join that. If you're a UK based accountant and bookkeeper, you can join. The best way to join is via the Facebook group, which I know does put people off a little bit, but you know what? We're not in your face. We're not, we're not posting stuff at you all the time. We're actually trying to deliver some value. But it gives you access to monthly sessions which are free. So you get access to me. And our profit first professional guide, Jason with us comes along as well. And we just offer some guidance and support around the room. We have guest speakers as well. So you're welcome. Anyone is welcome to join that. And, and we would welcome you in the group if you're interested in talking about profit first or you just want to dip your toe in the water. That's a great place to start because obviously one of our main topics is always going to be Profit First. If you're interested in joining Profit First Professionals or you just want to find out more, go to profit first uk.co.uk and you'll be able to click on Find Out More and fill out the Expression of Interest form. And it just sends you to me. I'll contact you and we can, we can schedule a call if you want to.

Wonderful. Maybe. Maybe Heather can put the link to the Facebook group in the. In the chat. That would be handy.

I've got it.

The other benefit of joining the coffee and croissants, or croissants and coffee. So I got it the wrong way around, is that next Friday. So that's the 9th of February, at 9am, one of your guests is going to come in and tell you all about LinkedIn. Is that right?

That is absolutely right, yes. Absolutely right.

Perfect. I'm looking forward to that because I did something with your main group the other day and great, great bunch of people. So, yeah, looking forward to coming into that. I've got one more question. No, bless you. I've got one more question to ask. But before I do that, I'm just going to go to let everybody know who's coming in next week. And I've got Claire and Richard. They're not from Steps, they are from All In Place and they're coming in to have a chat and just to help us see how we get everything All In Place. So look forward to having a chat with them next Tuesday. I am doing help with LinkedIn, so got loads of amazing guests coming up. If you want help with LinkedIn, I'm doing this on YouTube, so go over to my YouTube channel and tune into that because I can talk as much as I like about LinkedIn and I can help you, so that's what I'll be doing. So my last question to you, Tim, when you're at school, okay, running around the. Running around the playground with your shorts on when you're primary school, okay, So I don't know, 8, 9, 10, 11 years old, what did you want to be when you left school?

Oh, well, when I was five or six years old, my dad took me to watch Bristol City play, so I wanted to be a professional footballer. Standard for a boy of that age, I would say.

Perfect, perfect. Did, did you, did you ever do much in football?

I played local football and I coach, I coach in grassroots football. Oh, well done years, and I. I find it really fulfilling and enjoyable. So, yeah, yeah, I have a great time through football.

Yeah. Good for you. So you actually are doing some football?

Yes, absolutely. Yeah. It's always been a passion from that day onwards. It's been a passion of mine. Absolutely. Super.

Tim, lovely to see you. Thanks for coming on the show. Look forward to catching up with croissants next week. And thanks to everybody for all your lovely comments and questions. Cheerio.

Thank you. Bye.

You get out what you put in Never gonna lose, never gonna win Long as you're happy, you're always gonna grin.