In this interview episode I have Michael King from the CFO Accelerator on to chat about marketing, branding, and positioning your firm.
In this episode you’ll hear:
Michael King is the CEO of KFE Solutions, a fractional CFO firm based in Dallas, Texas, and the founder of The CFO Accelerator, where he works with accountants and fractional CFOs who are looking to start to scale and optimize their advisory services.
Connect with Michael on Instagram @thecfoaccelerator
Sign up for his 5 Minute Fractional CFO Newsletter: https://www.thecfoaccelerator.com/blog
Attend the CFO Accelerator LIVE: https://www.thecfoacceleratorlive.com
Thanks for listening. If this episode inspired you in some way, take a screenshot of you listening on your device and post it to your Instagram stories and tag me, @ambitiousbookkeeper
For more information about the Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast or interest in our programs or mentoring visit our resources below:
Visit our website: ambitiousbookkeeper.com
Follow the Blog: ambitiousbookkeeper.com/blog
Connect on Instagram: instagram.com/ambitiousbookkeeper
Connect on LinkedIn: Linkedin.com/in/SerenaShoup
Connect on Facebook: Facebook.com/serenashoupcpa
Follow on Twitter: twitter.com/serenashoupcpa
Thank you for your support of our show. If you haven’t left a review yet it’s super simple. Please go to: https://www.ambitiousbookkeeper.com/podcast and leave your review.
Podcast Publishing Tools we use:
In this interview episode I have Michael King from the CFO Accelerator on to chat about marketing, branding, and positioning your firm.
In this episode you’ll hear:
Michael King is the CEO of KFE Solutions, a fractional CFO firm based in Dallas, Texas, and the founder of The CFO Accelerator, where he works with accountants and fractional CFOs who are looking to start to scale and optimize their advisory services.
Connect with Michael on Instagram @thecfoaccelerator
Sign up for his 5 Minute Fractional CFO Newsletter: https://www.thecfoaccelerator.com/blog
Attend the CFO Accelerator LIVE: https://www.thecfoacceleratorlive.com
Thanks for listening. If this episode inspired you in some way, take a screenshot of you listening on your device and post it to your Instagram stories and tag me, @ambitiousbookkeeper
For more information about the Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast or interest in our programs or mentoring visit our resources below:
Visit our website: ambitiousbookkeeper.com
Follow the Blog: ambitiousbookkeeper.com/blog
Connect on Instagram: instagram.com/ambitiousbookkeeper
Connect on LinkedIn: Linkedin.com/in/SerenaShoup
Connect on Facebook: Facebook.com/serenashoupcpa
Follow on Twitter: twitter.com/serenashoupcpa
Thank you for your support of our show. If you haven’t left a review yet it’s super simple. Please go to: https://www.ambitiousbookkeeper.com/podcast and leave your review.
Podcast Publishing Tools we use:
[00:00:00]
Serena: All right. Welcome back to the Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast. I have a repeat guest, Michael King on today, and if you have not heard the first episode we did together, you'll have to scroll way back, apparently to a year and a half ago. Do you remember what episode number
Michael: that was? No. It was January of 2022.
Serena: Okay, so scroll way back to get, the part one, I don't know if this is really gonna be a part two, just more of like a conversation of what you're seeing now, [00:01:00] how things are going, some changes you've made and all that good stuff. So if you wanna introduce yourself for all of our new listeners, but aren't aware of you.
Michael: Yeah, absolutely. My name is Michael King. I am. The C e O of K FFE Solutions. Were a fractional cfo, F o firm, based in Dallas, Texas. I'm also the founder of the CFO, F O Accelerator, and the CFO F O Accelerator. we work with accountants and fractional CFOs that are looking to start scale and optimize their advisory services.
So that's, that's me, that's what I do.
Serena: Awesome. So if you listened back a year and a half ago to our first episode, Michael was, the, under the, I guess, umbrella or brand of the connected accountant. So do you wanna talk about some of those changes you made?
Michael: Sure, sure. Yeah, I think a lot of times this is an interesting conversation, Serena. Cause I think a lot of times as an industry we can tend to either [00:02:00] underappreciate or over appreciate the importance of branding. Right. I, I see a lot of extremes with it. And, and in my case, you know, we got, I don't know, about 18 months into the, the company, coaching. Just sharing with people how to, how to scale their firms.
And I realized that the name, the connected accountant really didn't speak to who we were talking to, what we were doing well enough. It was causing a lot of confusion with people. And so we made the decision, I guess back in the October of last year to rebrand. And I will tell you this, this is the first time I've re brand.
It's a nightmare. It is a complete, it's a huge underdo nightmare. Yeah. To, to go through all the, the u r L changes, the email changes, the website cha, all the things to update. It's, it's tremendously hard. But, you know, I, I also pointed out that sometimes our industry tends to over-index the importance of, of branding and it, it's really interesting.
I [00:03:00] see a lot of people, especially when they're first getting started, Putting an inordinate amount of time on things like websites and logos and brand kits and colors and all of those things. And, you know, it's, it's, it's normally, you know, kind of my hot take on it. It's normally a distraction. Yeah.
Especially early on. A lot of people use that as an excuse to not do other things in their business. Things that are a lot of times like harder that, that, you know, you need to be doing. So. Always wanna caution people when they, in our industry, when they're thinking about websites and logos and all the branding stuff.
Make sure that that's really something you need to be focused on right now, and you're not letting that be a convenient distraction from doing the hard work, whatever that might be.
Serena: Yeah. Procrast to branding. Procrast
Michael: to branding. Did you just come up with that?
Serena: No, I'm pretty sure I've heard that somewhere like a long
time
Michael: ago.
I'm, I'm gonna own it. That's gonna be a, a Mike King quote going forward.
Serena: Yeah, it's funny too, because [00:04:00] I definitely did that a little bit at the beginning and then I, and then for some reason I kind of fell in out of love with that branding and now I'm starting to become drawn back to my original.
Branding, which is a very interesting thing, but, so, okay. Maybe that was the one mistake that people were making that we couldn't remember. It could be.
Michael: I have no idea.
Serena: So that kind of like, Feeds into the conversation that we were going to have about marketing anyway, which is really interesting. So before we get into that though, one of the key things you said was that it was confusing people, right?
The previous branding that you had. And I think that's a big piece of branding. So I would love for you to. Talk about like how you figured out it was confusing people.
Michael: Y yeah, and I'll, I'll tell you, I'm, [00:05:00] I'm not good at very many things in life, right? I'm not this like s stupid skilled person, but I'm really good at listening, especially to my audience.
And I would get questions from people all the time, like, Hey, is this, you talk about a lot of like CFO stuff and advisory stuff, but is this for accountants and, you know, or accountants would come, here're, like, it's called the connected accountant, but you're talking about advisory stuff like I'm, I, I don't, is this for me?
Mm-hmm. And it, and marketing, it's just such a cliche, but it's so true. When you confuse, you lose. Mm-hmm. And, and I wasn't bringing in any of the right people, you know, and, and. Just listening to people look, listening critically, you know, staying curious about the questions that were getting asked and the, the, the, the kinds of people that are coming in.
I said, wait a minute. We've got a problem here. There's, there's a bit of a delta between, you know, what, what we're trying to do and, and who we're trying to serve and, and the people we're attracting.
Serena: is that something that you find. with accountants and their branding as well?[00:06:00]
Michael: It, it can be normally, gosh, there's so many thoughts on, on accountants and branding. It's such a weird, it's a such a weird space. Yeah, we don't like it. Right. Like it's the marketing, branding, sales. It all just feels woowoo and gross to, to so many of us in, in our industry.
I would say the biggest disconnect when it comes to marketing and branding in, in, with accountants or in our industry is it's, it's too surface level. It doesn't connect with, with anybody in particular, in any particular way, you know, so think back, take the stereotypical accounting firm from 1994, right?
Like, just think about your, your mom or your dad's accounting. That doesn't sell today, right? It just doesn't resonate today. It's so much, it's so important today to really connect your brand, your firm with certain people, with certain groups that, that you wanna serve. And so I, I would say that, You know, less so with accounting firms, [00:07:00] you know, kind of indexing that way.
More of what I'm seeing is you're not talking about like who you serve, why you serve them, where, where your passions are. It's more of like, hey, you know, we offer bookkeeping, tax prep, s-corp elections or, or whatever. It's, it's just two features based and not enough values based or, you know, benefit kind of based.
Does that, I don't think that really answers your question. I think, I think the, the gap in our industry is a little different than that.
Serena: I would agree with that. And I think part of it too has to, like, I've worked with some other accountants that have been like, I'm attracting the wrong clients.
I keep getting these type of clients that I don't like working with. And so that's why I kind of asked that question. Okay. Cause it's like, when someone has. Concern or that question, what can you tell them to like, , to not have that happen, right? Like Sure, sure. Just kind of go back to the foundations of like what it is you actually want.
Right.
Michael: [00:08:00] Exactly. So when that comes up, now I see where your question's at. So when that comes up, I love to do a dry erase board exercise every time this comes up where you're like, I'm attracting the wrong client. So I'm like, pause time. Let's block off two or three hours one morning when you're fresh, okay?
Like no calls, no emails before, and just get on your dry erase board. If you don't have a dry erase board, use pen and paper. But really critically think, ask yourself, what about these clients is wrong? Yeah, a lot of times we feel this tension that we're not working with the right people, but we don't really pause to ask ourselves what about them is wrong for us?
And it can be a whole litany of things, Serena. So as an example, it could be I'm attracting clients from the wrong industry. You know, maybe, maybe I'm getting a lot of, Getting a lot of coaches or course creators, but I really wanna work with lawyers, right? But I, I keep on attracting these folks. So it could be the wrong industry, it could be the wrong size, you [00:09:00] know, maybe you wanna work with businesses that are seven figures and above, but everybody that keeps coming to you is 250 K or less.
It could be that you're attracting clients that are out of alignment with your values. It can be all these different things, and I think the first thing you do before you can troubleshoot is like really just start riding. What, what about these clients is wrong? And equally as important is the clients that you have.
And I'm, you know, let's hope you've got some that you like. What are the things about them that really excite you, that really fire you up and be in intentional about listing those out too? Yeah, so I'd say start by really listing those things out, both of them. I love a dry erase board. Right. Then go. To the language that you use, the imagery that you use, the photos that you use, the places that you're showing up, and ask yourself, am am I showing up in those places, [00:10:00] using the right words, wearing the right clothes, saying the right things, that's going to attract those people that I do wanna attract.
Yeah. Normally that's where the gap is. Yeah. Right? You're fishing in the wrong pond, you're using the wrong bait, you're using the wrong fishing pole. And so you're, you're catching things that you don't necessarily want. Yeah.
Serena: Yeah. That's a really good point because I, I think people get caught up in this whole branding thing and what are the other bookkeepers in my, around me or accountants doing, and how are they getting clients?
And so there's a lot of like, let me just mimic what other people are doing and hire this marketing firm that will, you know, do the social media for me. But then it's like they're posting in places that your ideal client's not gonna be.
Michael: Right. Yeah. I, I, I was talking to my mastermind, gosh, recently, about this, and I said, look, if, if you wanna attract as an example, I think the person I was talking to was like multiple seven figure lawyers.
And I said, you gotta [00:11:00] quit post on Instagram. Yeah. The, the managing partners of, of large law firms, they're not hanging out in IG reels. They're just not, you know, Go get on LinkedIn. And I also think there's other channels, there's other ways to market. I think, you know, one of the other misconceptions I see Seren is so often we think marketing, our heads go straight to social media.
Our heads go straight to Facebook ads, right? Or, or TikTok or whatever, LinkedIn. There are other marketing channels out there that don't include social media. Yeah. I think the reality is in a lot of cases, if not the majority of the cases, you know in, in this example, you wanna work with larger businesses.
Those other marketing, channels are oftentimes better than social media. So, you know, I, I would challenge people like, don't have this, don't put the blinders on. There's a lot more to marketing than just social media.
Serena: Yeah, I would agree. A couple weeks ago I had an episode, or I don't know, by the time this airs, [00:12:00] a couple months ago, I had an episode with someone and we talked about LinkedIn and relationship marketing and, and things like that.
So, Like you said, a lot of the type of clients that you do want to work with, you have to think like the person who's leading that business, the decision maker and where they're at, and what they're paying attention to. They're, like you said, they're not gonna be on Instagram, but they.
Probably have relationships with other people that would be able to refer you or maybe they're gonna be at certain events or networking things, right? So you really have to think out of the box there and just really like, it starts with who you want to attract. Who's the key decision maker in that type of business, and where is that person gonna.
Michael: Yeah, I, I, you hit on a couple great ones there. Seren, I don't see enough people talking about, you know, one of the, one of the things that's working really well from my firm right now is what I call partnerships. You know, so we, my firm tends to service,[00:13:00] We tend to work with like blue collar service-based businesses.
So think movers, roofers, electricians, construction, tho those kind of folks. And what we found is, hey, let's, let's go partner with other people that serve that industry. So let's take the, the roofers as an example. I've, I've found a, a guy that runs a co-op for roofers. And what he does is he gets movers to join his yearly program and then he goes out on their behalf and buys, or comes up with agree.
For raw material suppliers for roofers, and so they're kind of buying in bulk on behalf of these roofers, and so they get, you know, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5% off. Well, the, the guy that runs this co-op has a vested interest in the roofers being financially successful because the more supplies that they buy, the more kickback he gets and the more savings they all.
So he has me come in once a quarter now and talk about things like cashflow forecasting, like projections, like tax strategies, like Goldman, right? So now all of a sudden I'm in [00:14:00] front of this audience of people. They're there because they're interested in growing their business. He's already vetted them for me.
Yeah, they're all really interested in this stuff. And so I get, you know, I speak for two hours with a q and a once a quarter to these. And they get to see me teach, they get to interact with me. They get to visualize what it is, what it's like to work with me, how I answer their questions. And all of a sudden, you know, we've got four or five, six leads coming in, very hot leads off of one two hour presentation that had nothing to do with social media.
So there's a, there's a lot of other opportunities outside of TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn.
Serena: Yeah, that is definitely a hurdle for a lot of accountants because they're like, oh no, I'm not gonna in front of people to speak, so get yourself a speaking coach. I did it. You can do it.
Michael: It's, it's reps, you know, but there's, there's other things that you can do as well.
Another example that's on our, our [00:15:00] strategy board for this. And, and again, we're strictly advisory, right? So we're not doing any, any type of accounting, but the same thing can work for you in a, in a similar way, we've got a list of CPAs and accounting firms in the Dallas Fort Worth area. I'm in Dallas.
We had a list. And, you know, somebody on our team went and looked for all these firms that don't offer advisory services. So, hey, let's reach out to them and create relationships with them so that as they get people that are coming in asking for help on, with things like tax strategies or, you know, the, the cashflow forecasting, the projections, goal setting financial strategies, they refer 'em to.
And when we have people locally that need accounting services, we refer them. So if you're not that type of person that wants to get on a webinar, you don't wanna get on stage or the thought of going to a networking event terrifies you. You could approach something like that where it's much more of a one-on-one casual conversation, relationship-based thing.
So there's, there's a lot of different ways you can skin the marketing.
Serena: Yeah, the marketing [00:16:00] cat. I just picture this cat like holding up a billboard sign. I'd love your analogies. They're
Michael: great. Oh, I do.
Serena: Okay, so before we hit record, you talked about one of the major things that you're seeing, and this all kind of ties in together, I'm sure, but with.
Advisory firms and consultants that you've been working with, when it comes to marketing. So do you wanna dive in?
Michael: Yeah, sure. So a lot of firm owners, and I've, gosh, we've got 120 something now, I think in inside of, in my inner circle program. So there's a, there's a lot, right? So I have a wide sample of furnace owners that I work with on a daily basis.
The big challenge that I see a lot of them facing right now is they've got the, their mindset around marketing off a little. What a lot of people do, and I, I used to do this too, if I'm being honest. What a lot of people do is you'll turn on the marketing engine, right? You're asking for referrals. You're on Upwork.
You're, you're [00:17:00] going to the events, you're doing whatever your thing is to, to generate leads. And then you start, you're ramping up your client load, and then you start freaking out. You're like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I've got more business than I can handle right now. I don't know if I'm ready to hire. And so you turn off the nozzle for, for the marketing engine.
You handle the clients, you get 'em onboarded or you complete the projects, whatever the case may be. And now you very quickly go into this, this mode of, oh my gosh, I have no business. What am I gonna do? So you ramp up the marketing again. But the reality is it takes two or three, sometimes four months.
For that marketing engine to really kick back into gear. So you, you've gone from this period of like no clients or not enough clients, so you can't handle them. Now you're in this, you know, famine realm again, back up here. And so it's this cyclical thing where it's marketing on marketing off too many customers, not enough customers.
But what happens is this becomes [00:18:00] unsustainable. You can't grow a business, you can't scale a business. When you're always in like abundance or famine mode, like, or overabundance in famine mode because you're either putting out fires or you're desperate for the next sale. So I think a lot of people need to recognize is you've gotta keep that marketing machine going even when you've got enough or too many clients and just be okay with telling people like, look, we're not taking on new clients right now.
But we will in a month or two months or three months, just be okay. Telling 'em no is, it's so much easier to to start accepting people than to reboot the entire marketing machine that you have. That's so true.
Serena: So can you elaborate more on. Like what? I mean, maybe just take an example because it really like, like we just talked about, it really depends on who you're trying to attract, what your marketing machine is gonna be.
So if you wanna like walk through a, [00:19:00] an example of one, what would that look like?
Michael: Sure. So, You know, we'll, we'll, we'll stick with lawyers. We'll, we'll go lawyers. And, uh, I'll also hit on, professional services, cuz that's kind of where I'm at. So, just to give some different flavors. So let's say that you wanna work with, with lawyers as an example.
Lawyers love a good happy hour. They love a good networking events. You know, they find a lot of businesses at those things. So you might commit to attending one, you know, networking event for lawyers a. Or maybe one a quarter. I, I think one a month. Like you gotta kind of stay in the game, stay in front of people.
Yeah. There's, there's a million of 'em out there, even in smaller cities. So find those networking events where you can go and just kind of stay in front of people. You, you could also go on podcasts. There's so many podcasts for. Whatever industry you, you could think of out there. Yeah. You know, so maybe you wanna be on podcast, but just do those little things to kind of, to, to stay [00:20:00] warm, to stay in front of fresh eyes, to keep those, those leads, kind of coming in.
does that make sense? Yep. Okay. With the blue collar businesses we like working with, they're not as heavy into networking events. They're not as heavy into podcast. But they love industry gatherings, you know, where, where they can find savings on things or, you know, they can, it's a trade show. Trade shows is an exa that's a great one.
A trade shows are, are really good ones. They love going to events. Like I spoke at an event last year, called Moving Mastery, right? I got in front of 500 movers, right? And I'm just talking to movers about cashflow forecasting. There's 500 ideal clients in there for. I spoke at that one, but I didn't need to.
Isn't it like if you're not into speaking, you can just go and meet people. Yeah. You know, so you find one of those or two of those a year to go to. Right. So just find those little ways to stay connected with, [00:21:00] with your audience, to hear what's going on in their industry, to, you know, even if you're not getting business cards, so to speak, just to stay connected with the industry and, and what's going on.
Cause again, if, if you go ghost for four, And you try to get back in the game, it's gonna be hard. It's, it really is gonna be hard. Yeah.
Serena: And like, just continuing to stay in the game. It's, it's good for your own momentum too, not just for getting clients, but it's like, if it, like you talk about putting in the reps, like an object in motion stays in motion type of situation.
Michael: So it is, and nothing will give you more confidence, more swag. You know, than, than reps, than putting in the work. So, you know, just, just go talk to a couple of people. If you know two or three people, if that's, if that's where your comfort zone is. But you'll get better, you'll get more comfortable, you'll get more confident over time, but you're not gonna get better.
You're not gonna get more comfortable, you're not gonna get more confident over time. If you're [00:22:00] sitting on the sidelines, if you're, you know, at home binging the, the latest season of, the fabulous Mrs. Maisel or whatever's on right now, like, that's, that's not gonna get your firm where you want it to be.
Serena: Yeah. Yeah, I completely agree. Is
Michael: it marvelous? It's probably marvelous. Marvelous. Yeah. Ok. Cause the alliteration. Alliterate got it. Ok.
Serena: That's a good show. I haven't seen that. I haven't watched that in a couple years, so I guess I need to catch up.
Michael: I don't, I've never, my wife watches it. No. Easy pass for me.
Yeah,
Serena: I don't do a lot of tv, So one of the questions that popped into my head earlier when you were talking and I wanted. Kind of wait to ask it. Sure. But what do you see the relationship between branding and positioning?
Michael: Branding and positioning? I think branding and, gosh, I am not a marketing guru, so there's problems.
That's ok. Someone listening to this, it's like, what did he just say? [00:23:00] This is just kind of what, how I, how I process it. Okay. Yeah. So I just start by saying I'm not a brander. When I think of branding, it's more around who I am or my firm is and what we represent. Positioning is more around where we want to be in the.
Yeah. Right. So, so branding to me is more like communicating my, my values, my perspectives, the types of services that we offer positioning is, hey, we're, we're working with lawyers in, uh, Spokane, Washington that are between three and 10 million in revenue with one, there's, you know, a single owner, you know, it's not a, a group of managing partners, you know, and, and we wanna be working.
Pricewise we're, we're towards the, the higher end of what a, a firm would charge in that area. Like that to me is positioning, like where, where do you show up in the marketplace and who are you working with? Branding's more about like, who I am or who we are or what's our d n a? [00:24:00] Yeah, I
Serena: like that. I like, did I it right?
Did I do it right? I mean, I don't know. That's why I ask, because it's like, can we put this in? Kind of like what we try to do for our clients is take what we know and make it like. Put it in their words and their language. So having another successful accountant or C F O advisory firm be able to articulate the way they interpret something so that the rest of us can understand, I think is a really valuable thing to have.
Michael: Sure. So I'll give you, you know, let's take that. Let's, let's assume those def definitions are correct and, but you know what, they're correct for us. Good. Let's take those and then I'll plug, I'll tell you from a branding and a positioning perspective where my firm lands, and I'd love to hear this for yours too.
Does that, does that sound good? Mm-hmm. Okay. So from a branding perspective, right, we're we offer fractional CFO services, I've already talked about, you know, Who we serve, [00:25:00] but for us showing up with the heart of a teacher. Very important servant leadership, very important professionalism, but not stuffy. Making sure that we always deliver multiple times. The value that we charge is like, that's part of our core values is always deliver more value than we charge. Those things are really, really important to us as, as a firm, it's part of our d n a we, we won't take on clients that don't embody those things as well.
Yeah. Right. Now, from a positioning standpoint, you know, we, again, I talk about the industry. We tend to be higher priced. You know, we're at $8,000 a month now, right? So as fractional CFOs go, that tends to be a little bit, you know, probably in the top 90%. Nope, top 10%. I got the backwards. We're probably in the top 10% of what fractional CFOs charge.
We work with blue collar service-based businesses located in North America that use QuickBooks, [00:26:00] sometimes zero if I have to. We, I know how you feel about that. and, and now we're starting to, because we're working with larger clients, we're having to take on some NetSuite and, and sage, you know, accounting platforms as well.
But that's kind of like our, our positioning with that. You know, we're at the higher end of this industry or these industries. This is what we charge. What, what about you?
Serena: Yeah, so branding, I would say. We really value. Learning and having clients that also are willing to learn because a lot of like what, like what you do, I mean, I don't say like part of a teacher, but a lot of what we do is just educating our clients on what's happening with their numbers so that they can make better decisions going forward.
And yeah, like the customer service aspect is really important and growth, for us professionally, personally, and for our clients as well. So that would be like our branding and our, our values type conversation. As far as positioning, we serve [00:27:00] online course creators and experts, so coaches, consultants, kind of anyone that really is connected to that online business world with some of them have a e-commerce component.
And. I would say our sweet spot is between 500,000 to a million or two in revenue. Awesome. And, we do provide bookkeeping, sales tax, financial reporting and some advisory level type stuff. So budgeting, forecasting, things like that.
Michael: As you were sharing that, that's, that's awesome. Can I give you an example of branding gone wrong?
Yeah. Okay. So there's a, there's a firm owner in my mastermind who was getting really burned out with her client base. Okay. She is a no nonsense, does not mess around lady like mm-hmm. Like, I would not want to tick her off. Right. She's, she, you know, she's super sweet. But she doesn't mess around. Yeah. Right.[00:28:00]
And she's working with a lot of coaches, consultants, and course creators. And she's getting frustrated because she's like, just super direct. Like, go do this, go do this, and profits will be this. And as you know, they don't like that. Like you've got to, you gotta massage it in you, you gotta use words like manifesting sometimes, right?
Yeah. You can't just be so direct about it. And, and so I'm talking to her about, And, uh, and I said, have you ever worked with somebody that loves how direct you are? That like, they just value that. She pauses for a minute and she's like, yes, lawyers. And like, I'm like, I have this. Alma lawyers are like that, right?
They don't like to beat around the bush. And so her brand figure out. Yeah. Yeah. So she recognized. You know, that's who she is authentically. It would've been very unnatural for her to try to be more soft spoken and less [00:29:00] direct and you know, some of those tactics that you've gotta employ to be able to really connect with more artistic people, more creative people.
So she recognized like, oh, I need to focus more on people that love that, that value that in me. And so she recognized that about her branding. And then her positioning, right? She got her audience more aligned with that. So back to your initial question, like she's like, I'm attracting the wrong people. The, you know, there's this tension there.
So we gotta redirect it. So it can be a, a, a monumental, shift in your business if you are feeling those kinds of feels. Yeah. You know, where, where like they're not understanding me. They're not receiving what I'm telling them. Really go through this exercise and ask yourself that question. Like, wait a minute, maybe, maybe I'm speaking to the wrong people.
Serena: Yeah. That's, that's so true. That's, that's a good point. That's probably why I really like working with that industry because I, I am more of a, I do consider myself more of a creative [00:30:00] than a numbers person, and I think we've had that conversation before. Yeah. And I've had to employ my own guardrails around my own finances because I have a creative personality, so it's like I can really help people with that.
Michael: It's imp. It's just so important to recognize that. Right. So many people like they fight it. Yeah. I'm like, no, find someone that values that about you and that that receives that well, that can resonate with you. But where I think a lot of people get stuck or where the danger is, is they don't do anything and they just start burning out.
Yeah. You know, it's like I don't feel heard. People aren't respecting what I'm telling them. They're not doing what I'm saying. There could be a reason for that beyond just. What it is you're saying, it might just be that you're speaking to the wrong people. Yeah.
Serena: Yeah. I think, I think the key point here is to be able to reflect on, oh, important, where things stand, you know, like having, having the ability to reflect and, reevaluate things is.
Is a really great skill [00:31:00] and you're gonna have to constantly do it. Like I'm constantly reflecting and reevaluating our client base and our positioning and our marketing. And that's another thing I think that really scares accountants, is I want it, I want it to be done set in stone and I never wanna have to touch it again.
Michael: It's growth. It's just like anything else that grows in life, you know? Go back to when you were, you were 12 years. I'm gonna hit you with another metaphor here since you said you liked my, my metaphors earlier. Go, go back to when you're 12, right? When we were 12 years old, we, we were like, man, if, if I just had, you know, if I could get a bigger allowance, all my problems would be solved, I'd be able to do all these things, right?
And then one day you get a bigger allowance, and now your parents are like, well, now that you got more of an allowance, you've gotta buy your own this and that. And the. And you're like, oh gosh, if I ever, if I could just get a job, right? If I could get a job, all my problems would be solved. Cause I get all this money.
Then you get a job and you're like, oh my gosh, I have no free time anymore. You know, all my free times. If I could just go to college. [00:32:00] So that I could get a better job where I don't have to work all these hours, right? So the, the problem constantly changes, the problems, the priorities, the competing interests.
They're always changing. And if you're not taking the time to, to really do some self-reflection and evaluation on, on where you're at, where you've been, and where you want to go. And, and do those things that you need to do to help you get there. You're gonna get stuck in 12th grade, you know, so to speak.
You're gonna get stuck in a place that you just don't like. So, you know, I always say that ambition without a calendar sucks. So we have on my calendar time to reflect on these things individually and as a team, where we talk about, just like you said, Serena, what's our client base looking like right now?
Where are our pricing at? Do we need to be going for bigger clients, smaller clients? How about our scope of work? Is our scope of work still serving us and our clients? Well, right now you gotta ask those questions or you just get. That's, that's where growth comes from. Is, is just adapting to you as a [00:33:00] business owner is, is you grow and change.
Yeah.
Serena: So good. Is there anything else that you wanted to. Chat about. I think this has been an amazing, I mean, of course you're like, well, why,
Michael: see, I'll throw, I'll throw one on you, like a total change of direction here that I'm actually a little guilty I didn't give you a heads up on. Go for it. All right, so let's talk about G P T four in chat, g p T.
Okay. I'm curious to hear, how do you s what's your early, inclination on how that's going to impact the accounting industry in the next 12 to 24?
Serena: 12 to 24 months. I think right now. I guess it just depends on who you follow, and what they're saying and like how, how, how much you're absorbing of what's going on.
But I have definitely seen a lot. It can affect any industry, especially when it comes to marketing. If you're not a good, strong writer and you have a hard time ideating, it's a really great tool. As far [00:34:00] as like, I've tinkered with it a little bit, to try to help me write newsletters and the data that it returns is not always accurate.
So I don't think, I don't think a lot of accountants are gonna put a lot of trust in it right now, in the next maybe 12 months, but maybe, I don't know. I think, I think as an industry we're a little too skeptical to, to really. Dive in with it, but, yeah, I don't know. What's your take?
Michael: I, I don't presume to have the crystal ball. Right. So this is, this Mike's opinion. So you get what you pay for. My concern isn't if our industry is going to take it seriously. My concern is are the people that we're serving who don't know that the numbers are wrong. Are they gonna take it seriously?
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Are they going to say, why [00:35:00] pay Serena X amount? When I can look at some derivative of chat G P T or g p T four, that's got a different ui. You know, there's even some already out there for, you know, accountants now, you know, for accounting. ai. My worry is that, that the uneducated masses, like uneducated in the ways of accounting specifically Yeah.
They're going to leverage it. And I think that if we're, if we're not on kind of that, the edge of talking about it as an industry and the dangers of it, if we're not like using it and showing. People love a good, you know, HGTV before and after. Mm-hmm. Right? Like, this is what G P T said about your tax return.
This is the for reals, you know, or, or you know, doesn't necessarily like yours, but show examples. I think we've gotta really understand what are the limitations of it as it pertains to accounting, taxes, strategies, and we've gotta educate the market. Yeah. On [00:36:00] where it. That's who we're fighting, right? We're not fighting against chat g pt, we're fighting against the market that's gonna tell themselves, or the guy that's gonna sell the $29 a month access to accounting ai.com, dot io.gov.
That's who we're competing against, right? And, and so I think we gotta be on the, we've gotta lean into it more and talk about it more with, with our audience, which means we've gotta get into it more. Yeah. We've gotta learn about it more so that we can educate people because my, my belief. As a thought leader, we've got to proactively bring these topics up with our clients or someone else is, and I don't want my clients to hear someone else's narrative or story about whatever I want it to be.
Mine.
Serena: That's so, so true. So I would. Go ahead. I was gonna say, when you were talking about like, our problem is the, like kind of the audience and how they're gonna take it, it, it reminds [00:37:00] me of the situation with all the TikTok, TikTok advice, right? It's kind of the same thing if you Oh, yeah. If you're not out there talking about how bad the TikTok advice is, then your clients are gonna be listening to the TikTok advice.
So it's like the same, same thing. I actually, it's funny that you brought this up because I actually did exactly what you. You're saying to do, I tried to use chat g p t to write my client newsletter or my client, my firm newsletter, right? Every month I send out a newsletter with all of the upcoming tax deadlines and things and stuff going on.
And I asked chat g p t to write me a newsletter with all of the upcoming tax deadlines, and they were so wrong. So I used that in my newsletter. I was like, I tried to use it, that's awesome. But it gave me the wrong dates. So here's the actual dates of what to be aware of and here's what's actually happening.
And hopefully you value the human touch because that's what you get when you work with us. We are not robots.
Michael: Yeah, [00:38:00] I, I think it's so important. To just play with it like that for all of us so that we can understand what the limitations are, and then we can talk about it. So even if, when you get a client that comes to you and says, Hey, what do you think about this?
You have a story like, look, I, I'm, I'm testing it. I'm, I'm playing with it. I'm getting into it. I'm taught, listening to Serena's podcast where they're talking about it, right? I'm, I'm doing all the right things. And there's some cool uses for it. But let me tell you, when it comes to your finances, these are the things.
Here's three things that, that it's not doing well today. I'm gonna stay on top of it, but I want, I just wanna make you aware that these are the, these are the three things or whatever that I'm, yeah. You, you've gotta be careful of understanding kind of where, where it is and, and where it's going. Yeah.
Don't don. I'm gonna double negative. Darn it. Don't not invest At least some time in researching these platforms. Don't be the, the, the guy that's still on, you know, Microsoft Vista that refuses like, [00:39:00] ah, ai, it's stupid. You know, it's here. Whether it's good or not is a different question. It's here and it's not leaving.
So I'd really encourage people, research it from time to time. Play with it. Get an account, log in, see how it. So that you can educate your, your clients on it.
Serena: Yeah. The other, the other thing that I discovered from that too is, and this is where it's going to, this is where the, the fallout would happen with people trying to use it, is you have to know what kind of questions to ask.
To get the answer that you're trying to get. And it's this, it's literally the same thing when we're talking to clients. Like we have to know what questions to ask them to get the information that we need, right? So keep that in mind.
Michael: The, the video that I did for my event that's coming up in May, the C F O Accelerator Live, the entire script for that was written by chat, G P T, but version one of that.
Was horrible crash because I wasn't asking it the right questions. [00:40:00] Yeah, right. But after three or four or five different iterations is I realized how I needed it to tweak. Then I've got a really working copy, a workable copy. I made, I don't know, half a dozen changes, you know, small word tweaks that were more kind of in alignment with my voice.
Mm-hmm. And that's what we ended up using. But I'm certain that it saved me significant amount of time compared to me just sitting down with a, a blank slate. Yeah. And trying to write it out so it, it has its use. Yeah, for sure. It's important for, for us as professionals, especially thought leaders, to know what those uses and limitations are so that we can speak with authority to our clients on it.
Serena: Yeah. Love it. Well, thanks for throwing a. Curve
Michael: ball. No problem. I, it just popped up, you know, chat,
Serena: me chat. Yeah, it's definitely, yeah, it's definitely being talked a about a lot in certain areas and circles. So it's, it's fun to kind of be able to contribute to that conversation. But yeah, so [00:41:00] if someone wants to know more about the C F O Accelerator, what you have going on currently, where's the best place to connect with you?
Michael: Yeah, so I'm on all the socials, including TikTok, but you can find me at the C f O accelerator or you can check out the website, the cfo accelerator.com. And I'd say if, if you're interested in advisory services, if you just wanna learn more. I have a banger newsletter that goes out every single week.
Oh yeah. The five minute fractional c f o. We've got, oh my gosh, I think 1300 subscribers now just to, I mean, a little bit of a humble brag. We've had less than 10 people unsubscribe ever outta 1300. Yeah, right. It's every week I give you, an actionable tip on starting, scaling or optimizing your advisory services, so I'd love for you to check that out.
You can go to the CFO accelerator.com/blog. You get that in your inbox every Friday, absolutely
Serena: free. It is absolutely worth it. I read that one every week [00:42:00] and, I, I, I love it. I save them, I don't save a lot of newsletters, but I save those and I share 'em with the team and like, it's, they're super duper valuable.
So thank you for taking the time to put those together and send them out. I appreciate it. Of course. Thank you
Michael: for having me today. I love chatting with you. This is great. Yeah. All right,
Serena: well, we'll talk to you soon.
Michael: All right. Thanks. Bye. Bye.