In this episode Tom Wadelton and Adam Hale sit down with one of their own, Joey Kinney, a Virtual CFO at Summit, to discuss the importance of onboarding for accounting firms. Joey explains how an onboarding specialist helps to set the foundation for successful client relationships. Collectively, they emphasize the need to tailor the onboarding plan to each client's unique needs and the importance of setting expectations during the onboarding process.
“Without the foundation of a good onboarding process, it's going to be very hard to have each client make sure that they're hitting all those deliverables because every client is a little bit different.” - Joey Kinney
The finer details of this episode:
Episode resources:
Developing an Onboarding Process with Joey Kinney
[00:00:18] Tom: Welcome to this episode of the Modern CPA Success Show.
[00:00:21] I'm Tom Wadelton. I'm a virtual CFO at Summit CPA group. Joined as always by Adam Hale. Adam is a partner at Andrew CPA Advisors and one of the founders of Summit CPA group. Adam, welcome this morning.
[00:00:33] Adam: Thanks Tom.
[00:00:35] Tom: So today’s show we're gonna have actually a conversation. Onboarding is really important to us.
[00:00:39] Who we have is one of our team members Joey Kenny. Joey is one of our CFOs, but he is really focused on onboarding and making sure that's successful. As we have different meetings, Joey's very involved in engage in college sports. Big Wildcats from Kansas State fan. Adam, I'm not sure if you remember from his resume.
[00:00:58] Joey was a double major in accounting and finance and a minor in economics with a 4.0 outta college. So we taught Howard. But he's a big academic dude that's in here.
[00:01:06] Adam: But he does have a lot of sports analogies, which is my thing too. So that's why we get along so well.
[00:01:15] I didn't realize he was that big of a nerd, but. . Yeah.
[00:01:18] Tom: So we'll probably have a little bit of sports trivia as we get into this, but Joey, if we start off then do you wanna tell us a little bit more about, I said full-time onboarding and the CFO role? You wanna tell us a little bit more about what that really means?
[00:01:30] Joey: Sure. Thanks, Tom and thank you both for the opportunity to hop in here and speak with you today. I'm looking forward to talking about onboarding and my role and how I see it, how I see the future. Really the importance of it with CPA firms. So appreciate the introduction. I'm gonna try to not have too many sports analogies cuz that does limit the audience a little bit.
[00:01:50] But, it's always a beautiful day to be a Kansas State Wildcat. Always a beautiful day.
[00:01:59] Tom: So did you rank, I'm trying to remember. We've got [00:02:00] Indiana University represented in Purdue University. I'm trying to remember rankings where Kansas State falls. I think they're a little lower than those two. Is that right?
[00:02:05] Joey: I think we're in between Purdue and Indiana right now. It's an unexpected good year for us. We weren't expecting much. We had a new coach and a basically brand new team from last season. They've gelled really well and the energy is back which is what you really want to see in Manhattan.
[00:02:23] Tom: So on onboarding.
[00:02:26] Joey: Yes. So I think it's an interesting, I think Adam would be the first to say when I was hired at Summit where I started versus where I am is a very different. They're two different things. So I joined and Tom, I've told you this before, but I wanna mention to everybody, you are the reason, one of the reasons that I am at SummitCPA. We had a conversation in 2021 when I had first interviewed with Jamie Na, and I talked to Adam and I remember saying, Adam absolutely scared. Me to the point where I was like, “I'm not entirely sure I can do this. I don't know that I've got the skills. I don't know any of this.” I was terrified. And then I talked with you, Tom and you really were like, “ no, you can handle this. Adam just scares people. He does that to everybody.” And it wasn't the right time in 2021, but I remembered that conversation and it stuck with me for about a year until I was able to finally say, “you know what?
[00:03:16] The time is right. I've gotta get in and talk with these guys.” I Appreciate you for I'm glad that it made that conversation.
[00:03:24] Tom: I can tell you one way I can hear that though. You met Jamie and Adam like, “man, those guys are impressive. I couldn't do this.” And then you met me and like, “oh, I could do this.”
[00:03:30] Adam: That's kinda what I was thinking, Tom, but I wasn't gonna call that out. That's how I'm glad you can read between the lines. I can.
[00:03:37] Tom: I can. Okay. So now that you've started.
[00:03:39] Joey: Yeah. Now that we've started, we kind of identified, and I think it's part of the growth plan I would imagine, Adam, as you're trying to think about how the company's gonna scale.
[00:03:48] It's hard cuz we want to think about all of our clients as roughly the same, right? We have a deliverable, we have a package, we have a forecast, and all of the different things that we're promising as part of our value proposition to provide the clients. [00:04:00] But without the foundation of a good onboarding, it's gonna be very difficult to have each client make sure that they're hitting all those deliverables because CPAs are different.
[00:04:09] Every client is gonna be a little bit different. So we found out within about three months of me being here that I, for whatever reason, and I'm not entirely sure what y'all saw that made you think that this would be where I would end up, but, saying, “hey, we wanted to dedicate you pretty much full-time to just onboarding support and helping CFOs and helping the accounting process, and just making sure that the foundation is set for the good future of that relationship.”
[00:04:34] And I've been pleased with where we've gotten to, I think we've got a lot more work to do. Just like anything, no process is perfect. So there's always gonna be change. And the key to it is identifying where the problems are, what's working, what's not working and try to solve for the end result of where you want things to go.
[00:04:50] But I'm very pleased to be working with teams. I like talking to all of the different CFOs. I get to work with all of you, so it's a lot of fun.
[00:05:01] Adam: Yeah. I would say like the evolution, and to be on the record, I was opposed to having Joey be the onboarding CFO. So we'll get into that. But I was not advocating for that.
[00:05:11] I was wrong by the way. But I wasn't advocating. But the evolution really is that, like you said, it's first impressions. It's not cheap. Our service isn't cheap. We charge double for onboarding. So there is a fee associated with it to cover some of that cost for additional resources.
[00:05:25] But even before we did that, it doesn't matter. Our fee is not inexpensive. And whenever clients come to us, they typically come to us because they have a need. Again, we're not selling them on what we do. They're usually coming to us because they have a problem and they want us to solve the problem.
[00:05:38] Unfortunately, it takes an onboarding period to be able to get to the point where we can fully diagnose the issue before we can prescribe a solution. That as a customer, I appreciate as well that's a hard thing to do. It's like, “hey, I brought you in to solve this thing. Why the heck is it taking three months to get there?
[00:05:58] I'm paying an awful lot of money and I [00:06:00] don't feel like I'm there yet.” So really the intent around an onboarding is to really dedicate a ton of resource, a ton of effort right out of the gate. I actually just talked to a CFO the other day. And they're like what really needs to happen, Adam, is for the first two months of an engagement, just let somebody work 40 hours a week on it.
[00:06:19] And I'm like, that's not very practical. And it's frankly impossible. So that would mean that I have somebody on the bench all the time that has no other work to do that's just gonna handle that one client. And then once they get through with it, what happens whenever they jump on client two, in client three and client four.
[00:06:36] So that's, it's just not practical. That's just not how you're gonna be able to scale the practice. So you really need a dedicated resource that can jump on board and help guide discussions. Also the consistency factor that having a separate onboarding team that's gonna bring to the equation is huge.
[00:06:54] And so we limped into it. Whenever we did that, at first we just said, we're gonna double your fee and we're just gonna work more. Like the permanent team, we're just gonna work more. It didn't happen. It still took a long time. There was problems. So then we said, “okay, who's the next person that needs to come in there?”
[00:07:08] They need help, accounting help. So then we bring in this like supervisor role, which is basically another senior accountant, a little bit more advanced. They're gonna help just move the. Blocking and tackling stuff that really is tough and we're gonna build a structure around that. It worked out okay.
[00:07:24] But nobody was really good about managing the entire relationship and the project and reporting back to the client on the status, making sure that everybody's aware of here's what's holding us up and here's where we're moving on. That's whenever we brought in a project manager. We call now client success manager cuz they have a deeper role once they get going and that's how we afford them as well.
[00:07:43] And so we thought, okay, everything's going great. But it wasn't because the problem was, is yes, we were getting some of the accounting done, and yes, the client was informed, but the CFO, who's very busy doing other things, was still having a problem getting their deliverables across [00:08:00] the finish line in a consistent way.
[00:08:02] And Jamie, our accounting director and I, we're having this discussion, we're like, damnit another admin type of role. We're gonna take somebody off the bench. You gotta take your A-player off the bench and you gotta put 'em in this role. Cuz Jamie, in this entire firm, there's only two people that can't handle this conversation.
[00:08:17] It's me and you. That's it. So you got, so that your other option, if it's not you or me, is we gotta go and grab like a really senior CFO that's been doing it a long time because anybody else isn't gonna understand it. So Jamie comes back to me and he goes, “Yeah. So have you met Joey?” And I was like, “yeah, he seems good.”
[00:08:35] Yeah. He's like, “that's who I wanna make the onboarding CFO. I was like, “no way."
[00:08:40] Adam: I go, “he doesn't even know if he likes us, let alone knows our systems yet.” And I was like, “hell no.” And he's like, “no, just bear with me. I think that I can teach people how to do these systems and hold this.”
[00:08:56] I go, “Jamie, I don't need another project manager. If all you're gonna do is tell Joey how to tell Tom what to do and when to do it, that's not what I need. I need a strategist in this role.” And he's like, “no. That's what I'm talking about. I think I can do that too. Just gimme some time.” And I said, “you know what?
[00:09:11] Go for it. Knock yourself out.” I said, “Hey, Joey. You're great. I wish you the best.” Do this. Worst case scenario for me is Joey comes out being a superstar CFO, right? Because he one-on-one with Jamie and all that kind of stuff. So anyway, fast forward, Joey, you've been doing it for several months now, and by all accounts, been doing it at a super high level.
[00:09:32] We've seen a big increase. In fact, I would say we're almost abusing you the other direction. So we need to reset some lines because you are so fantastic at it. And so I was, not usually, but this one exception, I was proved wrong and very pleased. So, thank you Joey.
[00:09:52] Joey: You're welcome and thank you for the opportunity. I really do appreciate it. I'm glad we've got this on the record, cuz I think [00:10:00] Jamie's gonna want to take that little snippet and he is gonna wanna put it on a nice little trophy and he's gonna carry that around with him to all of our in-person retreats and just have it with him or the wrestling belt too. The wrestling belt would be a lot of fun for him, I think.
[00:10:15] Adam: The score is one to a hundred, so it's okay.
[00:10:19] Joey: Hey, sometimes that one one's important.
[00:11:00] Tom: When someone's singing this role, how does the onboarding team work with you in there? You've got a CFO, who's going to stay and you're gonna leave? And other team members who come in. You wanna talk a little bit about when you come in, what you do? That kind of stuff.
[00:11:11] Joey: Yeah and I think it's important to note that not every CFO is gonna be the same Tom. You're gonna operate different from Adam. Adam is gonna operate different from Jamie. All of our CFOs are a little bit different. So that's the first thing that I want to think about.
[00:11:26] In order, in my opinion, to be successful in this role, I've gotta know how I can best support the CFO. I think that's the very first thing to note there. And again, since you're all different, your needs are different, Tom, you need a different level of support because of where you are in your career.
[00:11:40] You don't need as much, for lack of a better term, handholding than maybe a newer CFO who's not used to systems and processes and knowing how all of the different pieces of the tech stack fit together, or even when to do a certain thing, when to have a conversation with the client, right? When to push back.
[00:11:58] So I'm gonna consult a little bit differently in [00:12:00] my role than I with you, than I would with say, a newer CFO, but, From, if I could break it down to the 80 20 rule, for most folks who aren't you, where we'll typically start is at least having the conversation with the new CFO about, okay, “what are you identifying as the client's pain points?”
[00:12:17] Because Adam hit on a big thing. If you've got a client who's coming to Adam, now cuz they've got cash flow problems today. Us saying, yeah, we'll solve that cash flow problem for you when we're done with onboarding in 12 weeks like that doesn't do a lot of good. That doesn't build a lot of rapport in the relationship.
[00:12:33] That doesn't build a lot of trust. So helping the CFOs understand, what's a quick deliverable that you can knock out? That you can solve a problem really quickly and buy us some time to get the accounting cleanup done. That's usually a huge step. And then from there it's just helping them develop the relationship, helping them think about how they're gonna do their forecast, what the drivers are gonna be, relationships between nonfinancial data and financial data and really working with our tech team to push them through.
[00:12:59] Cuz, Adam, I'm sure you've noticed this too with a new CFO. The. hurdle for them to overcome is getting out of the understanding of I'm the CFO. I feel like I need to do everything. No. What you really need to do is leverage the resources that we've put in place as a firm to help you.
[00:13:14] We're paying for these resources to help you, so let's use them. Let's use them to the best of their abilities and just guiding 'em. That way.
[00:13:21] Adam: I would say my experience is maybe the, I agree with you differently. But I would say it was almost like the opposite. What I hear is technology is my hurdle, and so that's the problem.
[00:13:32] I'm like, “then you use a piece of paper and a pen and hold it up against your screen.” I don't really care. I need you to be I need you to be the strategist. Have a good conversation. Don't worry about all the other stuff. That's where, like Joey, you could help out.
[00:13:44] What I think where we found the natural gaps. Assume that you get to a point where you feel like you can have these roles and keep in mind that these roles exist, even if it's one person. So you're just asking one person to wear multiple hats. So take this for what you will. You don't have to build out this [00:14:00] entire team, but in a perfect world, I think this does line up is that you have, on ours, we have a two person delivery team.
[00:14:08] So we have a VCFO and a senior accountant. And so what we're trying to do is mirror that cuz we charge double technically for the first eight weeks. So what we did before is we added on the senior accountant, and it's a supervisor level, so it's a super senior, if you will. They've had a lot of experience doing those kind of things. So we had that. The problem though, the challenge is that the number one job for the CFO before it comes to giving strategy is architecting the information. . So even silly things like architecting the way I want the chart of accounts to look, architecting the conversations I want to have the data that I'm gonna review, when I'm gonna review it, how I'm gonna review it. Even whenever we put the super senior, somebody that can knock out any tech, any problem, whenever it came to the blocking and tackling, they were still directionalist. And and then whenever you get a new CFO that doesn't know our tech, how to leverage that.
[00:15:07] They would start sketching stuff out and they didn't know how to really use those resources, like you were saying. But they also struggled at architecting it because they didn't know those resources. So that's why I'm saying like, I think from your standpoint, what you do and what you really help out is you help with the architecture to let them know what's possible and how to do it, and how they can use those resources.
[00:15:32] But I think you also act as a communicator, as a conduit between the CFO’s ultimate strategy and that senior that we have, that we've added to the team. Because without that, what happened was like, “hey, Tom's a great guy, but he's not telling me to do anything and I don't know what to do for this onboarding.
[00:15:50] I think we go this direction, but I don't know if he knows what he's actually doing or not. Sorry, Tom seems smart, but… And then, with you being in there, you can act as that [00:16:00] interpreter and by doubling up the team in each one of those roles. Now we have two people at there.
[00:16:06] Now we have equals talking to each other because a lot of times we do have new people on both on the senior accountant side and the CFO side on the client delivery side. So having experienced people to match up with on both roles is important. And then of course, sitting on top of that is the project manager.
[00:16:22] Before what we were doing as we're asking the project manager to be that interpreter between the CFO and the senior accountant like, “hey, how come this work isn't getting done? How come this isn't set up? You've been able to solve for that gap.
[00:16:33] Joey: Yeah, the feedback is I don't speak accounting because they're not accountants, they're project managers. I think you hit on a good thing too. There is a good point that I probably didn't do a good job of advocating for what I do in the role.
[00:16:46] But where we're really seeing that communication, that interpretation, is when we've been expanding into new verticals. If we've got a client that comes in that's like our bread and butter service-based organization, ours and people. Like most of our team by now can probably set up the pieces for that in their sleep cuz we've done it so much that's our bread and butter. As we've, since the merger and more verticals are coming in, we've got more, trucking type stuff. We've got some manufacturers coming in, we're doing more medical, we're doing more things that don't follow the standard templates of how our stuff is set up.
[00:17:18] That interpretation piece does have to occur. And if it doesn't occur, the system gums up and stops working and we're looking back and in onboardings at 18 weeks and everyone's looking at each other what happened? What's going on here? And it's because that interpretation piece wasn't happening the way it should.
[00:17:36] And stuff was just getting lost.
[00:17:41] Tom: One thing Adam said I think was really important, and I think that the value there is when I started, so five years ago, we didn't have the kind of role you had Joey. And I was doing that architecture that Adam talked about. A lot of it I didn't know the tools and the common summit processes.
[00:17:52] So I implemented what I thought made sense and a lot of times the clients were saying why don't we do this? Why don't, just in the cashflow meeting, you can take 15 minutes and [00:18:00] cover those things. And I'm like, okay, I'll try that. And experience like Joey, I think you would've said no that wrong time.
[00:18:06] Let's do this. Once that's in place, it's hard to then switch the client, say, Hey, I was doing it wrong the whole time. And I think what you put in place, which helps, and I've heard Adam say one of his fears is on a discovery call. He tells the prospect, here's what we do. The fear is we're not doing that.
[00:18:20] And I think if you have an onboarding that's unguided and someone not sure that fear is coming true, that like we're doing something but we're not doing what we claim to do. So a great way to implement and start standard processes is having someone guided so it's set up correctly. And I think for the new employee, it's perfect.
[00:18:36] You're like, here's the tool. That's what this is. You're teaching in that part. That's where I think there's real value.
[00:18:39] Adam: Yeah. And Joey, I don't know if you'd give yourself enough credit here or not either. So for people that are just focusing on one industry, I would still argue that probably through us being overconfident in our ability, one is probably a little bit, so maybe a little ego.
[00:18:56] The other one is cost. From a cost perspective, why am I adding this cost? But I think we probably did everything backwards. If we really think about, if you have only one hat to put on there from an administrative standpoint, and again, it'll pay for itself double or triple your fee for the first eight weeks.
[00:19:13] It'll cover it, knowing how many onboardings you do, even if you were just considered a net wash from an expense standpoint. And we cover your fee that way. But I think that. I think that the onboarding CFO f is probably the most critical role, and it's because y you also can sit back and listen to the same conversation that the client is having with the CFO and the CFO F might get super granular on something and you're like, “hey, at post-call you can be like, here's where I see the big problems being.”
[00:19:40] So you can also give a second set of perspective there. Kind of work with the CFO there too. Not to say that their idea isn't good, but I'm just saying that two heads are better than one. And then, getting the work done and then having somebody that's dedicated to be able to assign and oversee how that works.
[00:19:58] The project manager [00:20:00] doesn't really have the ability to do that, cuz like you said, by design, they're not an accountant. We don't want 'em to be. That's what makes them so special. However if your role's in place first, if you're trying to say, Hey, if I do this on a budget, yes, it's the most expensive role for sure out of the three, but if you start with that role, I think you could stretch that probably pretty far before you needed the other two elements.
[00:20:22] And that's how you could also cover the cost of having a Joey on your team, is they could act, they can stretch as the project manager. They can stretch with helping the senior accountant, the permanent person doing some of that work. That's how I would limp into it if you would.
[00:20:36] Until. Until your load gets big enough in terms of onboarding new clients to afford a full blown team. That's probably how I would advise another firm. If they're thinking about it, it's worth the money. Put 'em in that seat. . Yeah.
[00:20:52] Joey: So if you could back just again, I'm gonna pick your brain here, Adam, because I think this is one of the things you told me when I first started was I've made all of the mistakes that everybody's gonna make, and let me tell you how not to make 'em.
[00:21:03] So say I'm a firm and I'm feeling like I'm at that point where I maybe need a more permanent resource, worried about A, how to cultivate that type of talent. B, how to identify who the right person in that seat is. How would you go back if you could do things differently for Summit? What are some of the things you would do?
[00:21:22] How would you identify who to put in that role and how would you have worked out the numbers to where you're like, I know that we can afford this. Not just from an onboarding, doubling up of the onboarding fee, but also from a culture perspective.
[00:21:34] Adam: Yeah. Great question, and obviously I was wrong, so I'll once again, I told you I messed everything up and you're the result of that.
[00:21:42] Which is great. But I would say that, For a little bit. I think what was really important for me to understand, but it maybe gave me a little bit of a bad view, not recognizing that I could bring somebody else in. But that's just maybe Jamie having better foresight. I put myself in that role for a long time.
[00:21:58] . So for the first couple [00:22:00] years, whenever we brought on our first CFO, our second CFO I was in that role. And then eventually I took an A player off the bench. Jamie and I put him in that role, and then eventually he's okay, cool. I'm overseeing a broader team. So I did start with taking an A player off the team.
[00:22:16] Like I took myself off the board and started doing more behind, how can I, instead of being the number one CFO for 10 clients, how can I be the number two CFO for 50 clients? . So that's how I stretched into it to begin with. And you can do the same thing with an A player if you want just.
[00:22:33] I think what Jamie's proved is it doesn't necessarily have to be the, A-player on your team today. It just needs to be an. A person which is what happened with you, Joey, is we were able to bring you in. But I don't know that we would've even had that foresight and that vision.
[00:22:50] Had Jamie and myself not already been in that role, cuz then Jamie wouldn't know how to look for the right person for that role. And it has to be somebody that can stretch the rubber band. I think one of the biggest, one of the hardest things for me in scaling and advisory service is, CFOs that we hire by trade are gonna be CPAs, which means they know accounting.
[00:23:14] And so whenever they come in, they want to get super ground level granular. Now, what my client asked for is a business strategist that knows accounting. They didn't ask for the accounting, so trying to get accounting people to be able to be advisors, give opinions, talk from a business standpoint. I just talked to a client for an hour.
[00:23:32] I looked at their financials but digging into their operational stuff and ask 'em how they're gonna operationalize all the numbers. Nobody's ever met a forecast they don't like. I can, that's math. I can plug in a few numbers. Who gives the crap? I'm challenging them on? How do they opera? What are they changing operationally to make sure that number happens and I'm pushing and doing those kind of things.
[00:23:53] I'm consulting at a business level. That's hard whenever you hire an accountant. The other thing is or I [00:24:00] hire the op opposite side and I hire somebody that's. Lives in the clouds. They're super high level. and then the only problem is the clients that we work with, we don't work for Coca-Cola.
[00:24:11] We work for clients that are one to 25 million. The reality is I need you to get in the weeds. I need you to do some analysis. I figured all the, I knew the answers to those questions before I went to 'em. I don't know the exact operations, but I went in and I dug in, and so that leaves a bad taste in somebody's mouth.
[00:24:28] Whenever you have somebody that's like really high level, they're like, nah, that's tough. So we end up with these two different people and we need to find the person that's that perfect unicorn is in the middle. So what we've done is we've created process and. Cadence of meetings and stuff like that to pull that, that accountant up.
[00:24:48] Yep. And now we're starting to create a more advisory senior to hopefully support this person that lives in the cloud a little bit so that they can be supported and a little bit. Better way. So it's not really necessarily like finding the person, it's around understanding does the person live more here or here?
[00:25:07] And then we're creating process to level set them. We're giving them a person over here, we're giving this person process over here to hopefully level set those and the person that you look for to run that role. I think somebody that just naturally fits in the. And Joey, I think you naturally fit in the middle.
[00:25:24] You can stretch with me whenever I'm thinking 10,000 feet or a hundred thousand foot but you're not afraid to dig in and get into the weeds and make sure that a rev rec process works. So that's the person to me. You put in that role. Yeah.
[00:25:38] Joey: I'm glad you mentioned that advisory senior role too, cuz I think that's gonna be an important piece of our growth cuz I'm sure I've found that over the last couple of months as we've identified that role, that's where the bulk of the training that I've been doing with the team has been taking place is, to your point, how do you get that advisory senior who technically very good accountant, probably hasn't spent a [00:26:00] ton of.
[00:26:01] Thinking about the strategy piece, how do you get them into that cadence so they can start thinking like a cfo, F O? Because ultimately I think that's gonna be where all our future CFOs are gonna come from. If we're doing it we hire at the advisory senior level and say, look, I'm creating this pipeline of CFOs.
[00:26:16] I like to use the Texas Tech Quarterback Room as an example for that. Here's the sports analogy, Adam, here we go. I want four quarterbacks on my team, a freshman, a sophomore, a junior, and a senior who have spent time in the. and when it's their time, they know the playbook, they know the rules, they know how to do it.
[00:26:33] They know all the reads. At that point, it's just getting 'em out there and executing, and that's where that advisory senior role is for me, is getting a used to the system, but also how to think in such a manner that they can do it when they're, when it's their time, when they've had enough, again, time in the room.
[00:26:49] Tom: since we're talking onboarding. , one of the challenges that I think we have that I'd love to hear how you're coaching people in this, Joey, one of the challenges, you can take a client and say their accounting books are a complete mess and there's a ton of cleanup. , it makes some things difficult.
[00:27:02] You, we can finders and I've been in this position where I feel like three months into onboarding, our team is killing it from a cleanup perspective. , the client feels like it's taking longer than Adam told him it would take. And he's not heard me say anything about consulting. So you got these two different perspectives and I'd love to hear a little bit, but cuz you are in a position of, I don't have great data to tell you, but at the same time you've got these business problems, how are you coaching?
[00:27:23] Maybe we talk about some of the key topics that come up during that onboarding time. Cause that consulting is so important. For
[00:27:28] Joey: sure. So I think there's a couple of different things that you can do and a lot of it just comes down to listening, right? The client's gonna tell you within the first 15 minutes what their pain points are and more often than, Their pain points aren't about bookkeeping.
[00:27:41] Their pain points aren't about , Ooh. I'm not on a accrual basis when I should be. I'm on cash basis. No. It's things like, I've got all of my clients, like 95% of my money comes from one client and it keeps me up at night, or I don't feel like I've got enough cash cushion to be able to handle things.
[00:27:57] We're working, we're onboarding a client now where they [00:28:00] have a massive cash outlay at the beginning of a. And a 6, 7, 8 month time window between when the project starts and when they ultimately collect on all the contracts. And we know it's gonna be a profitable endeavor. We do project costing.
[00:28:14] We know all of the stuff. It's just a timing issue. So the consulting here, while we're cleaning up the books, can be something along the lines of okay, let me start with addressing your immediate issue, which is you need some. and you need some liquidity, right? So how do we help you get this liquidity?
[00:28:30] And sometimes that can involve some cleanup and if that's the case, we tell 'em. But other times too, it can be, Hey, we just need to restructure some things. Maybe you need to start charging 65% upfront from your clients instead of 50 to give yourself a little bit more runway because the math and the numbers tell us that you're not gonna be able to, to sustain a 50% deposit on that.
[00:28:49] So I think the. In that moment is just identifying those two to three to four things that maybe aren't even related to the bookkeeping at all. It's what Adam said. It's a process issue. It's a business structure issue and spend your time solving those problems versus, sitting there saying I can't really give you anything cuz I, I don't have the data.
[00:29:10] Which a lot of times is true. That is a big hangup, but it doesn't have to be something that destroys your relationship with the client as a. .
[00:29:19] Tom: Yeah. And in some of those pipe, I've had good success with clients in a meeting to say, let's talk about a couple things. But one can be, here's where we are. We still need some information from you.
[00:29:28] We're doing the cleanup. Here's what we're hearing back. I also wanna have the conversation, cuz you talked about the cash . Let's talk con customer concentration. , tell me more about the 90% and things. And often the advice that I'll give people when they're in that case is, Hey, if that same customer comes and wants to give you, Business, don't turn it down.
[00:29:44] . But all of your sales and marketing efforts should be on getting new customers to where you're building up the other parts. So they're, you're not so dependent on that customer is one of the pieces. And then you can talk about where are you focusing on the time. And if this 90% customer is the time suck, that's keeping them from everything else, [00:30:00] that's where you're saying, okay, then you're making a mistake.
[00:30:01] Cuz you've gotta be out cultivating other kind of business. Around that. Yeah. But I think that can be, I can have a strategy conversation and
[00:30:07] Adam: more operational. Yeah. I think that A recent mistake that we made and we're trying to correct. I think that goes into this conversation the way we used to sell.
[00:30:18] Onboarding to people is we're gonna double the fee, but we're gonna double the resources check. One team is gonna go backwards, one team's gonna go forward, so we're gonna just divide and conquer. Somebody's gonna do housekeeping, clean up, get everything stood up. The other one's gonna focus on strategy and do everything right out of the gate, day one.
[00:30:39] we're gonna divide. Now to your point, Tom, there are some strategic conversations that you should be having and could have without seeing the data, but I would say as data driven people. A lot of our advice, we try to be precise with and so we're not just like speaking off the, off our hip.
[00:30:57] And so we do wanna digest a little bit of that before we prescribe the solution. So rather than when we have the conversation with the client and say, Hey, we're gonna just go in two different directions and you're gonna feel both right away, , that's why we're doubling your fee. What we've started to say is that the first half of onboard.
[00:31:17] the entire team is gonna be focused on architecture, data cleanup. Documenting process, understanding everything about you. That'll set us up for the second half of onboarding, which is gonna be diving into a lot of those consulting conversations, standing up of dynamic forecasts and doing those kind of things.
[00:31:34] So the importance there is that it doesn't put you, the CFO F Tom. In the line of fire, you're like, damnit, I wish you would've done this two years ago whenever I was onboarding a bunch of clients. But doesn't put you quite in the line of fire right out of the gate. Yes. And what it also does, is it or what I should say it does not do is it doesn't put you and the onboarding CFO in opposing corners right out of the gate I'm going back doing this, and you're going that way.
[00:31:59] It's [00:32:00] Nope, same team, same focus. on this so you can collaborate and then you can move into stage two of the onboarding process. And then that way also, because we've put that emphasis on there, we've also said, and if we knock out the walls and see the plumbings not really what we thought it was, it might extend that first part of the onboarding a little bit longer.
[00:32:23] But we'll let you know that at the very beginning. So I would say if you look at, listen to earlier podcasts or things that we say about the onboarding process, this is something that we've probably learned the hard way again. As we continue to evolve in something that we've changed.
[00:32:40] Just, I guess the messaging to the client. I think it's a great
[00:32:44] Joey: point to, to bring up there, Adam. Cuz one of the things that we've been, as I've been explaining to clients what the new onboarding process is, which it's new to us all, the whole onboarding process is new to the client. But as I'm explaining what we know as our new process the way I've been thinking about it is you could line up 15 digital agencies, one right next to each other, and you're gonna get 15 different sets of problem.
[00:33:07] They're all different companies. So if they're all different companies, shouldn't they all have different onboardings? Why are we trying to fit every client into one onboarding process? It just doesn't make sense. And I was in the meeting with Jamie and Scott Hoffman on the Anders Accounting team.
[00:33:23] When he asked, Scott Hoffman asked the great question, which is like, how are you promising timing on a client before you've even looked into their books? And I remember Jamie just looked at it. That's a really good question. I don't know. And that was the impetus for us, like thinking about how we were going to change the onboarding process.
[00:33:41] I think it's been a great change. The feedback both from the clients and from the CFOs working on the onboarding has been overwhelmingly positive that we're able to create this, what we call the tailored onboarding plan that says we've looked at this, here are the 15 or five things that need to be fixed.
[00:33:57] We think it's gonna take us this amount of time to do it. [00:34:00] While that's going on, Tom, you're gonna be doing your consulting and we're gonna meet at the end here in 10 weeks, and this is where we're gonna be. And it just sets the expectation. It keeps the expectation from. Being, to a point where if we promise a client eight weeks and we can find out later, it's 10, we're, we're the enemy.
[00:34:19] If we find out, if we tell 'em 12 and it's 10, we're the hero. It's still 10 weeks. But it's just level setting that expectation.
[00:34:26] Adam: Yeah. The only thing that I would probably, especially as accountants, push back on a little bit and maybe it's cuz I'm more on the sales side a little bit and probably a little more ego-driven in some regards to this.
[00:34:38] But I would also say that. Yes. Setting expectations is important. Yes. Telling a client, we've, your stuff's a mess. Just being upfront saying, it's gonna take us a couple more weeks. That's cool. . But being so like guarded, like most traditional firms are, that it's just can't promise you anything. Can't say anything. It's no. The difference between me and. CPA firm is that I do this and I do this all the time, and yeah. , I can do this in eight weeks. You've gotta have the carrot special circumstance. That's what I mean. It should be an expectation.
[00:35:11] Swagger, call it whatever you want. Yeah. But I'm just saying what frustrates me oftentimes and any professional service business like, and I know I've had some conversations with internal team members and they go Adam, that's why you wouldn't be my customer. And I go, that's right.
[00:35:26] And that's why you would never be my vendor . And the way I look at this is it's like whenever you go into a doctor's office and they just want to preach to you and tell you yeah, you don't need to know that kid. I'm the smartest guy in the room. Probably not. I know me better than you know me and I know this isn't right.
[00:35:43] That's the kind of approach that I take and I expect whenever I deliver service to a customer, I want somebody that's gonna listen, somebody that's gonna pay attention, somebody that's going to talk to me with some level of urgency and get things. And I think what has been always important for me, and [00:36:00] especially as we merge in with the Anders, is just making sure that same care and urgency on the front end of just being okay with putting yourself on the line and saying, we're gonna figure this out and we're gonna figure this out fast because we know we gotta get to this other part.
[00:36:16] That's an important part of building trust with the relationship. And frankly, if you've done it 150 times, I get it, every situation's a little bit. D. You should feel okay saying, It's gonna take about eight weeks, which is the reason why we only charge for eight weeks. . Again I wanna just separate that from the conversation of, I get it.
[00:36:35] Messaging is important and yes. If we look under the hood and it's a disaster. Yes. But we shouldn't just be so coy to say. We'll get to it when we get to it and we'll figure it out when we get a chance, you're on our time. It's nope. That's a different customer perspective.
[00:36:51] That I have. . Yeah. That boat doesn't float with me. And you're right. I wouldn't be your customer if that's the way you think so, yeah. I don't know. I just, whenever I meet people in industry, a lot of times sometimes people have that. That mentality and it's like, you need me more than I need you.
[00:37:07] And I don't take that approach with any of our customers. It's
[00:37:11] Tom: a relationship. Yeah. Accountants are so careful too around. I don't wanna promise we've had people who can't believe we offer a price the first time we'll meet a customer, that discovery call in that hour. Adam, you're saying We think it takes six to eight weeks to clarify in case people don't know.
[00:37:24] When Adam talked about we charge double. If the weekly fee we charge someone is a thousand dollars during that eight week time period, we're charging 'em 2000. If onboarding then takes 14 weeks. At the end of eight weeks it goes from 2000 down to their price of a thousand, and we continue on and say, okay, here's all the cleanup and things we're doing.
[00:37:42] That client, hopefully from that says, oh, you know what you're doing. You know how much it's gonna cost me. And you know what that is. If we get in to find out the services they're asking are dramatically different than the sales call, which doesn't happen very often. You can modify during onboarding and say, look, here's what we're seeing.
[00:37:56] Do you want this additional level of service for many more [00:38:00] invoices, more complicated process than you described, or something different? And then we can modify it and continue. .
[00:38:05] Adam: And we do have big lift stuff there that will multiply the onboarding fee. So it's not always just, so if, for instance, if they want us to do a cash to accrual conversion and go back and restate prior your financials. Okay, that's gonna be, that's gonna take a little extra time and I'm gonna charge you for that. So tho but those are, we have three or four of those questions that we asked during the sales process. Do you want us to do this? Do you want us to do this, or do you want us to do this?
[00:38:27] Because that's different than all the other build and process stuff that we're talking about. And people are like, Oh, okay. No, I don't need you to do that. Or no. I guess nevermind. I don't need you to restate the last three years financials if it was included. Sure. But if not, I'm good with moving forward with it.
[00:38:43] , it's okay, cool. So are we. Yeah don't get me wrong I don't wanna say that it's a. A free for all and we're over promising or any of those things. I'm just saying from a, I just try to put myself in the shoes of a customer and don't get me wrong. I'm probably a tough customer.
[00:38:57] And you don't want to bend the knee on everything. We're pretty rigid in our methodologies. But we're also pretty confident in our abilities and sometimes maybe to our own detriment to some degree, but I'm okay with taking that risk if it shows the client that, not only do we know what we're doing, but we're invested into the relationship and we'll figure it out and cuz the most painful experience in the world is onboarding and just at taking forever.
[00:39:25] . From my perspective, I've had a couple bad experiences. Sure.
[00:39:29] Tom: So Joey, as we wrap up it, I'm curious, do you feel like there's one or a couple things if you walk out of an onboarding that's finishing and say, we fricking nailed it. What would be the one or two things that you might tell Adam if he's Hey, why did you think that was the best one we ever did?
[00:39:43] What do you think would be the couple.
[00:39:45] Things
[00:39:45] Adam: that you said make that
[00:39:46] Joey: so great. I think the number one thing is just connection between the CFO and the client. Like I think that rapport is the most important thing. Cuz if you can come out of an onboarding and you're like, man, this client just trusts me.
[00:39:59] like[00:40:00] they're listening to what we're saying. We have a great relationship. I can be their coach, I can be their cheerleader, but I can also push back in places when I need to push back and have the difficult conversation with them. I think that's the most important thing, is building that relationship cuz you know, your forecast is gonna change.
[00:40:17] We can come out of a, out of something and have the best forecast built in the history of the world and something could happen. and that's gonna change. So we know there's gonna be change there, but if you've got a wonderful relationship and you've cultivated the relationship and the trust, that's gonna be the permanent piece that makes you sticky as a CFO.
[00:40:34] Okay. Outside of that, I would say though, having good understanding of what your deliverables are and your, , your promise to your customers, which, I think Adam is very. , he's very direct in, this is what we do. Here is the promise. We have these deliverables, and we are going to hit them every time, which is what we need as a, as, the doers on the project.
[00:40:55] We need that direction from management on These are the expectations. Yeah. These are what we want to have happening, so we cannot come out of onboarding with those deliverables and they need to. At a certain level or quality where I think we could sit there and say, look, this is a foundation that you can build on, but if you've got the building blocks and you've got a great relationship, that's gonna be a client that's gonna be around for a long time.
[00:41:18] And that's what we want. We wanna build long-term relationships. .
[00:41:23] Tom: Yeah. Adam, any different view what you'd want to hear when someone says it was a fricking killer? Is there a particular thing you would want to hear different than what Joe described?
[00:41:30] Adam: Nope. I think permission to play is we got all the deliverables and we've set the team up for future success, but I think that's a great point.
[00:41:38] I think the relationship is what you're trying to establish at the beginning. So I think that's solid.
[00:41:45] Tom: Yeah, I think you're right. I think from a deliverable standpoint, maybe another thing I think of is, , if the forecast is good enough that the client relies on it to the point where they're like, Hey, can you show me in the forecast what would happen if, and they believe the forecast well enough that if we make that [00:42:00] change, they look and go, oh, that's helpful.
[00:42:01] That helps you make a decision. Then you're feeling like, okay I've got a tool that's helping you to look forward to do that, and I think that can be really valuable. Thing that we have,
[00:42:10] Joey: Yeah. You haven't experienced this yet, Tom, cuz you haven't come out of a you're in your first onboarding with me as a CFO, but at the end of it.
[00:42:16] We have four questions that I asked the client directly and, okay. A last one and one of those is, do you feel like you have a forecast that you can rely on and can you ask your CFO. Questions before you go out and do something. Because I think the worst thing that would happen for me as a CFO F o, is I've got what I think is a great relationship with the client and I find out, oh yeah, I went and hired this sales and marketing person.
[00:42:37] I didn't even talk to you about it. Cause then you're like can you plug that?
[00:42:39] Adam: What's going on here, guys? Yeah. It never happens.
[00:42:42] Joey: To your point that's cool. That's where, if those, I think we've got four questions that we ask at the end that are along the same lines.
[00:42:48] Yeah. Were your expectations met, so on and so forth. But to your point if that's something that they can rely on and they're gonna go to you for those questions before they do 'em that's the secret sauce that's gonna separate someone who's a true advisor from someone who's just looking at the books and doing some numbers.
[00:43:07] Yeah.
[00:43:07] Tom: That's great. Cool. I'm excited that you're in this role. I know we've seen lots of changes recently in our onboarding piece, and I think it's gonna help new employees coming on, going through that, they learn faster. And the clients get to experience a better level of service because of that.
[00:43:20] And I don't think it has to be, you've gotta have these full-time dedicated people from the beginning. And we talked about that some as you scale, this is scalable. It's not just, oh, this is only for big firms who do this all the time. That we've grown into doing. Yeah,
[00:43:32] Adam: and you can't help Joey.
[00:43:32] He's ours, yes, exactly. Yeah. Find your own Joey .
[00:43:37] Tom: Great. Thank you guys, everyone. Hope you guys all have a great day.
[00:43:40] Joey: Thanks, Don. Appreciate us.