Same Team. Bigger Outcomes.

Welcome to the Growth Minded Accountant podcast where our experts will share best practices on running your firm in the digital age. This podcast is brought to you by Counting Works Pro. Let's get started. Hey everybody and welcome back to another episode of the Growth Minded  Accountant Podcast. My name is Lee Rees and today I want to talk about something that I think almost every tax and accounting firm in the country is feeling now. And even if they haven't said it out loud yet, I think a lot of firms are hitting a wall. not because they aren't talented, not because they don't care, not because they aren't working enough hours, But most firm owners I talked to are working incredibly hard now. and the problem is the traditional model is starting to break under the weight of modern expectations. And you can blame Claude and Chatchv or Plexity, whatever you want to blame. Clients expect faster communication.

They expect cleaner onboarding.  They expect more visibility to their financial situation, They want more proactive guidance. They want more education. They want to know what should I be doing? How can I make more money? How can I save on my taxes? How can I live the life I want to live? they want more responsiveness. and it's even harder and harder as a tax and accounting firm because compliance work is starting to compress. staffing, finding good people, finding anyone at all is harder than ever. you have the boomer wave of retirement, you got younger people taking over. So, operational complexity is actually increasing. So, firms are trying to modernize while still delivering deeply accurate work under tighter timelines than ever before. So, let's admit it, it's exhausting. I think many firms feel stuck in this strange middle ground now. They feel they need to modernize. They know AI is changing the landscape.

They're just not sure how. there's still some tax accounting pros are still stuck on how to write a prompt, They don't really understand what AI is all about and how what role it should fit and how the human in the loop should work. and they know client expectations are evolving. I'm seeing it. I'm hearing it in conversations, on LinkedIn, on Reddit, it's definitely there. So, the problem is you're also buried in your day-to-day operational chaos. ? And I think the reality is most firms are not out of ideas, they're out of complexity. And that's the real bottleneck. That's going to be the topic of today's podcast. because I actually believe there's an enormous opportunity happening now for firms that understand where the profession is headed. So I think the firms that win over the next 5 years may not necessarily be the firms with the biggest teams. I think there's a huge opportunity for solarreneurs, people that are niche related, for boutique firms that are starting to use technology to scale.

so I think the firms that learn how to create bigger outcomes with the team they already have. So the theme today is same team bigger outcomes. so let's get into this. I'm going to start as usual with these podcasts. I kind of break them into sections. the first one is basically most firms don't have a talent problem. And let's talk about this for a minute. . So you probably already have a talented team. that's usually not the issue. The issue usually is operational drag. And I'm going to get into that. So what does that mean? It's the constant follow-up. It's the constant chasing, repetitive admin work, the disconnected systems where you have you're trying to use Zapier and you're trying to connect eight systems together. the onboarding bottlenecks when people ignore you, how does the follow-up happen? are you sending best practices like engagement letters? Are you creating proposals to maximize well a limit scope creep, but more importantly to maximize each engagement?

Are you chasing documents? it's the scattered communication. you have some clients on WhatsApp. You have some on Dropbox. You have some that might be texting you or FaceTiming you. Who knows, Zoom. So, this is all the back and forth that I'm talking about. and then you have the internal back and forth as well. So, not only just trying to reach out to clients, but then partners and admins and who's doing what. And then what happens here most of the time is marketing completely disappears during the busy season because everyone's completely underwater. So over time all that friction starts to compound and eventually firms stop operating proactively and stop operating start reactively and proactive versus reactive I think that's a big deal. So that's where the growth slows down. Not because your firm perhaps lacks expertise. It's because the team has reached operational capacity. So I think this is why so many firms feel overwhelmed now.

they feel they're capable of more but the current model is making it harder and harder to create leverage. And then we always say in the tax accounting space, oh the same way as last year and for whatever reason this profession hates change. it's whether it's being risk adverse whether it is I just really like the way I do things now. I don't want to learn a new trick. and that's the problem. And then that comes into what I believe the biggest misconception is now is that AI is very misunderstood. and it's a both extremes and I'm going to go from one side who said you have people screaming AI is replacing accountants. It's going to be all DIY. It's going to be all automated. And I don't necessarily believe that. On the other side, you have firms pretending nothing is changing, Head in the sand. I don't believe that either. what I believe is happening is AI is becoming an operational leverage layer for modern tax and accounting firms.

And that's the shift I'm going to talk about. So AI by itself is not the answer. And I've watched a bunch of podcasts. I was watching the CEO of Salesforce, the founder of CEO Benahhoff, talking about AI and just the way Salesforce is looking at it. and he made some really good points that AI without context, without guard rails, without trusted inputs is it goes rogue. It goes all over the place, So AI by itself is not the answer. AI without context is dangerous really if you think about it. And I was just at a summer, not a summer, it's like a presummer college consulting presentation for my daughter who's a junior. she's going to be applying to colleges this summer. And we had three different local consultants, college planners, whatever you want to call it. And they kept just saying, "Do not rely on AI about the whole thing. You're going to completely mess it up." I think someone who knows the questions could get halfway there.

But you're also going to see this in your client experiences, So, you're going to have clients are going to DIY. They think they heard something here. This is why am I not doing this? So, the idea here is to put AI with guard rails. AI without guardrails risky. it's a wild west out there. People can make really big mistakes. So, an AI without experienced professionals, specifically in a regulated industry like tax and accounting, is a real big problem. You need professionals reviewing it and guiding it. More importantly, guiding it. the tax and accounting work is deeply human work. Clients are not paying you just to fill out forms to be a compliance machine. this is where I think the advisory kind of talking points come in. So they're paying you for interpretation, they're paying you for guidance, they're paying you for strategy, 100% for trust, judgment and the relationship. It is a really important thing.

And if you take all of these points and you look at it at your business, that is your moat. That is what is going to protect you from this AI wave of people trying to come after your clients. So the the moat becomes more valuable as compliant work becomes increasingly compressed and automated. So it is really important that you start thinking about that relationship. You always are kind of taking it for granted. And I think now you need to start thinking about how can I improve my client relationships? How can I make it easier for my clients to work with me and more importantly my own staff and myself make it easier for my day. So when AI is paired with experienced professionals, connected systems that talk to each other. So Zoom that talks to your AI plat. So we call ours Max. So Zoom meeting feeds Max. Max writes a summary, gets it ready to send to the clients, and then puts together a couple to-do lists or assigns some tasks to staff, Structured workflows.

. How does an engagement happen? Proposal goes out, client pays, engagement letter goes out, engagement letter signed, intake form goes out, dynamically created and personalized to that client with from trusted data. ? And that's where things really get interesting. So, now you can start removing friction in your practice. ? And when you move this friction, I think you're creating capacity. So, if you're now able to do twice as much a day or three times a day or four times a day, that is a true unlock. I mean, can you imagine? I've heard professionals already say, I'm saving 5 hours, a day doing using automation now and I'm doing more advisory work. I'm able to spend more time on outcomes for my clients. So, which goes back to same team, bigger outcomes. So, I'm not talking about replacing your people. I'm talking about helping your current team finally operate at the level they're capable of.

So imagine reclaiming hours every week because onboarding workflows trigger automatically. Engagement letters are generated instantly. Reminders happen consistently. Intake forms adapt to the client. So it actually knows that client because it's been scraping their data, their tax return data, the intake forms, the client conversations you have, It has all that as context as Benhoff is saying to really personalize this experience. So blogs and newsletters continue running even though it's busy season. Social content stays active. AI drafts communication for review. So an inbound message comes in. AI can already research it probably write in your tone and have an answer that you can review, add to and send out to your clients. And think about how much time you're sp you're saving. So your proposals become streamlined. your workflows, more importantly, they become coordinated. They're working together.

and advisory opportunities surface automatically. So the AI tools are actually looking at your client's profiles. we have a tool now where we can append data. We can enrich the information we have about your particular client, So, it even it can even listen to what they're talking about on LinkedIn, what is on their websites, and this gives you a cleaner p picture of your client that you don't normally have. You may see them once a year, whatever. Now, you're you're kind of getting a feel. Oh, I've heard you're you're hiring a bunch of people. Maybe let's talk about X, and that really changes the economics of a smaller, more boutique firm. So, here's the important part. The goal is not becoming less human. I think this is really key. That's not what I'm saying. is actually creating more space for human connection where it matters most. So, more conversations with clients, less busy work, ?

More strategy, more planning, more responsiveness. you don't want to be that pro that has a bunch of one-star reviews. My CPA never responds to me or they respond to me, in the deadline. and then we're, always on extension. That's a bad kind of relationship, More relationship building. make your moat stronger and bigger than it ever was. More advisory, not just the monthly, but you have a whole set of advisory opportunities in your current clients every single year. Some might be one-off opportunities, but if you have AI technology that's listening for these signals, guess what? There's less time buried under operational chaos. you're just reacting to what is being exposed to you via the these engines. So that's the future firm. One of the biggest problems I see though, and this is a global blanket thing. We did a webcast last week. Cookie cutter is dead. And what do we mean that cookie cutter firms are going to continue to struggle because you can't be generic and say the same exact thing as every other CPA firm or every other bookkeeper or every other EA.

think about it. Generic firms are going to have a much harder time moving forward. They're going to be more of a commodity shop. So for years, many firms could survive with, a template-based website. There's tens of thousands of them out there now. generic messaging, inconsistent content. you put up a blog and you haven't posted another article for six years. exactly what I'm talking about. Reactive communication versus predictive, proactive, interchangeable positioning, meaning, what is the difference between this CPA firm and this EA firm? how would I know what is a good deal, what's like a bad deal and even that like what am I willing to spend based on the branding the narrative that you're putting forward the more importantly what's happened is AI powered search is changing how people discover your expertise so the old days a referral hey uncle s who should I work with I work with Lee Reams and Associates pretty clean no noise now and then even the old days then Google happened so people would Google the name of Lee Ree They would look at the reviews.

What are people saying about me? Have I written any articles? I'm a blogger. Do I do I give any podcasts? So, they're they're doing research about me. They're doing their due diligence. But what's changed here is AI tools are getting dramatically better at identifying who has real authority, who has real educational value, who is consistently out there, who is trusted, who deserves that trust, who is in a niche. maybe you're a QPS stock, maybe you work with landscapers or plumbers, what is that differentiation? which means that cookie cutter firms are becoming easier to ignore by these AI tools. So what they're doing is they're not talking about your firm, your brand, when your clients or prospects are asking questions. So that's why we continue to say cookie cutter is dead. Narrative wins. And narrative is no longer just marketing. Narrative is now about discoverability. Narrative is about building trust in a relationship that many people establish online.

Narrative is your positioning. Narrative is differentiation. So if you keep getting a bunch of calls from clients who are nickel and dimers and aren't in your ideal client profile, I would say your narrative positioning is wrong or your differentiation is wrong because you have not established I work with highincome dual taxpayers. I work with attorneys. I work with expats in this region, And what you're seeing is modern firms early are going to create a huge advantage over the next five to 10 years. They're going to own all these conversations and the authority and trust inside this ecosystem. So, this is where we talk about what the future firm should look like and why it should be so different. It's not necessarily bigger, but it is smarter. It's more connected. you're having multiple tools be able to talk to each other and have multiple AIs be able to talk to each other which makes it coordinated, It's more responsive.

It's more proactive and it obviously it will make you more visible. So, I think this is one of the most exciting moments the profession has had in a very long time. But you really need to step back and think through how are you going to optimize on this? Because the for the first time, smaller tax and accounting firms can begin creating experiences that historically only larger firms could deliver. And you're seeing the big firms spending billions on AI. Why do you think they're doing that? Because there's a huge opportunity here. And the firms embracing modernization now are not simply buying software. They're redesigning how their firm operates. And I think that's the big takeaway from today's podcast. So, if this episode resonates with you, if your team does feel maxed out, if your firm feels stuck, between old process and rising expectations, I know it's hard to understand. It's hard to understand how these tools work together.

You're still trying to figure out how to write a prompt, and now people are telling me, "Oh, trust it. AI will be able to scrape data. It will be able to say, "These clients should do advisory, and it's able to write your proposal for you." You got to be kidding. There's no way it can do that. Yes, it can because it can do things at scale 24/7 that no human team can do, but then it brings you as the human in the loop to actually deliver this advice. so if your team is capable of more, but your systems and workflows are slowing you down, you are not alone. I hear this all the time. I see it on the internet. I see it in LinkedIn conversations. So, the profession is changing underneath everyone now. but I also believe that there's an enormous opportunity ahead for firms willing to modernize intentionally. So, not recklessly putting things together, not blindly, not by replacing people. I don't want that.

I know I've talked about AI is labor, but that's not the goal here. But by combining your human expertise, AIdriven leverage and connected systems and then have a narrative that is different, that is you, you will create better outcomes with the team you already have. That's the future that we believe in here at Accounting Works. I believe as a Growth Minded  accountant, that's what we're all about. And we're trying to spend every day working towards helping tax and accounting firms modernize from the inside out. So, we always say start with your narrative. You got to own something. Show your personality. Again, it's not always about a niche. People say, "Oh, you got to niche down. you no just create a narrative of whoever you are whatever your firm is what you believe in the type of clients ideal type of clients how you work that is a narrative that's enough to start differentiating you and then you need to start installing AI driven systems that can talk to each other this will remove operational friction this will start saving hours and hours a day more importantly it's going to improve your client experience and little firms can start outperforming big firms they're still bloated for a reason and this will create more capacity for growth.

So what do we mean by that? If you could decide, well, I guess I could spend less time working or I could pick up maybe five more advisory clients per month, And that's where if $2,000 times 12 24,000 per if I could add 150,000 in revenues means smaller per year for the next five years, that's substantial, And it's not that hard. So, if this conversation resonates with you, we've started offering what I call a same team strategy session. Basically, it's it's not a demo, it's not a software demo. we're going to do an assessment of your firm, where you are losing time, where operational friction is building, where your client experience is breaking down, where disconnected systems are creating bottlenecks, and more importantly, where AIdriven workflows and narratives could create leveraged for your existing team. So most firms don't necessarily need more people first. They need better coordination, better systems, better visibility, and more importantly, better leverage.

So if this is something that interests you, I have a link in the description or you can go to countyworkspro.com. You'll see a big blue banner, start my free assessment. We will start and help you out and we'll get you a result that will help you keep your same team with bigger outcomes. So again, thanks for listening everybody. I'll see you on the next episode of the Growth Mind Accountant. hopefully summer's starting here soon, so hopefully you're getting in the summer season. again, appreciate you being a listener and we'll see you soon.