In this special episode, hosts Jamie and Jody reflect on the success of their podcast in 2023 and some of their most memorable guests and shows. If we missed any of these episodes, catch them in the episode resources. Happy New Year from the Virtual CPA Success Show hosts and producers. – Jamie, Jody, Rob, and Roxanne
Intro (00:00:00) - Welcome to the virtual CPA Success Show for Creative Agencies. The go to resource for agency owners looking to scale their business. Join us every week to stay ahead of the curve and position your agency for future success.
Jamie (00:00:15) - Hello, everybody. Believe it or not, we've made it to the end of 2023. I know, I know, Jody, and I can't really believe we've made it this far. These years go faster every year. I feel like.
Jody (00:00:26) - Yeah, the funny part about it was 2023 was significantly better. Respond to our YouTube channel then what 2022 or 2021 probably combined, actually. And from right here, it's blazing the internet right now. So, uh, super excited about it.
Jamie (00:00:42) - Yeah, I'm gonna tell a quick story. So, um, the other day, I was taking my real quick. I was taking my son and one of his friends to a basketball game, one of the high school basketball games, which we do quite often.
Jamie (00:00:51) - And, you know, I'm just driving. I'm listening to my wife.
Jody (00:00:54) - I heard the story already?
Jamie (00:00:55) - You have not heard the story. No.
Jody (00:00:56) - Okay. Okay.
Jamie (00:00:57) - Okay. Yeah. So I'm driving in the car and I'm up front listening to my own podcast, not our podcast, but a podcast that I was listening to. And I just hear the boys giggling in the back, back of the car. I'm like, what are they doing? So I turned my podcast off and they're listening to our podcast Making Fun of us. So that shows you how much we've blown up. Is that like 14 year old boys are listening to our podcast. So maybe that's the only reason it's blown up is because there's just my kids making fun of me in us. But good.
Jody (00:01:24) - Good possibility for sure.
Jamie (00:01:26) - I was not expecting that.
Jody (00:01:28) - No, I had a ball. Um, you know, you and I both speak on several podcasts, not just us. And, uh, these are always the fun ones, because we can actually ask the questions that we want to ask.
Jody (00:01:39) - And it's not all about us, which is the nice thing. So, we can get a really good understanding, really kind of pull out what we think our listeners can, can think of. And, and I'm kind of, you know, we do a lot of this off the top of our cuff. And I've got my, my Spotify open here. Just looking at all the different podcasts that we've, that we've recently done. And it's, it's pretty amazing all the, all the guests, you know, David C Baker, you know, Tom O'Neil, uh, you know Tammy we've got you know shoot. We've got Natalie, you know, tons and tons of different content that, uh, I would just so honored to be on, on a, on a podcast with, uh, with those individuals shared a lot of great stuff.
Jamie (00:02:12) - Yeah, definitely some of the ones that that really stood out to me is we did a lot of podcasts with, with some of our close friends this year, uh, people that we hang out with a lot.
Jamie (00:02:20) - So I'm thinking of Todd from Fort Kitchens and, uh, yeah, and Tracy Barrett, of course, Tracy's one podcast will always, always stick in my mind because it was just like us having dinner at an event that's happened a hundred times, and that that one just flew by. And that was one where I was like, I can't wait to get on the on the microphone with Tracy. You just have another conversation so that that those podcasts to me are always special. We get to hang out with people that we hang out in real life as well.
Jody (00:02:42) - Yeah, great. Claire is another one with Pinnacle Advisors. Me and that guy is, uh, he's. That's one podcast you really need to listen to. He's, super, super. Well, red super, you know, he's a business coach for elite companies and really helps companies up. And it is just one of those things that when you have a good friend like you had mentioned, like there with Greg is with me, um, it just makes the conversation go, you know, that much quicker, that much faster, that much more informative and actually funnier to listen to.
Jamie (00:03:09) - Yeah, definitely. And I know we have a couple of good ones coming up too. So I know today is going to be a recap episode. So you kind of can see some of the ones we've done in the past, but we've also recorded some that I'm excited to release. Yesterday, I just did one with a guy named Michael Johnson who was a ballroom dancer turned coach. Um, and he is a great guest. Unfortunately, Jody couldn't make that one, but I'm excited for that one to drop because I think a lot of our listeners are really going to enjoy that one.
Jody (00:03:33) - Yeah, and another one would be with Bob. Coach Bob with ideas is coming up as well. Um, great. Again, another and he was one of the first US implementers, um, knows Gina Wickman extremely well and has a lot of great insight on, uh, on business coaching and really how to how to run a successful business. So that was an exciting one. And I'm looking forward to getting that published here in the next few weeks as well.
Jamie (00:03:56) - Yeah, I, I definitely think in, um, we have some good ones coming up and they're only getting better. And I think, uh, Jody and I both agreed that the guests make the show. And, um, so with that said, I definitely want to take this time into the year to thank, uh, Roxanne, who does all of our scheduling for us and finds our guests like she has done an excellent job this year and some of the guests that she's sending our way next year I'm really excited about. So she continues to level up when it comes to finding us guests. So I just wanted to take a quick second to thank her, because I really do make this show.
Jody (00:04:23) - And of course, we can't go without, uh, you know, thanking Rob for producing this and making it what it is. Uh, because again, Jamie and I could definitely not do this or take the time to do this or it never would happen. You just probably see one episode every, you know, six months or something like that.
Jody (00:04:37) - And it wasn't because you didn't listen to them because we didn't produce them. So, uh, Rob, I appreciate the time and effort you put into it as well.
Jamie (00:04:44) - Awesome. So with all that said, let's, uh, let's get to some of the highlights for the year.
Jody (00:04:48) - It's pretty amazing how folks have been so successful in not really understanding, uh, the true way, the true reason their businesses actually generate revenue, the reasons why, how they generate income, you know, success. I think, you know, a lot of folks just got lucky and priced it properly. And, uh, they kind of built their practice and, and because of that, they think, oh, I'm doing well. I don't need your help. Uh, because. Might look at might look at the way that my finances are running. How do you address those folks, or do you or am I right? Or could I be completely off base on that?
David (00:05:21) - No, I think you're right.
David (00:05:22) - What I one of the things I do is I try to set standards for this and say, okay, your profitability ought to be this. That's part A, part B is oh, and you can't underpay yourself in order to achieve that profitability. Right. So we've got to build these two things together. And then if that isn't the case, then how are we going to fix that. Right. And it is kind of surprising. I still have some clients, although it's not nearly as prevalent as it used to be where you have. They've got an 80 year old CPA in New York who does everything on a cash basis, no accrual basis. The statements are every quarter, and they refuse to follow industry practices. Right. And the firm still makes a lot of money. It just sort of yeah. And then you've got other people that are using very they're using Great Plains or NetSuite or some, you know, some overkill product. And they've got everything figured out, including all their cost accounting, and they've got 7% profitability every year.
David (00:06:22) - They're not making much money, but they know where everything is. It's just so weird to see all these different contrasts.
Jody (00:06:28) - What do you think the big difference is?
David (00:06:33) - Think it comes from. Aptitude for entrepreneurial risk. Some people really view their business in the creative field as it's sort of like Norm, you know, when he got a job at a brewery from cheers, Norm from cheers. He, they hand him a paycheck after the first two weeks, and he looks at it and says, what's this? I didn't know I was getting a paycheck, you know, and he's hugging the vats every morning. I think some creative folks are just so thrilled to be to find clients who pay them for something that their expectations are lower, right? Whereas the really successful ones view themselves as a professional service. They're an architect, an engineer, a CPA, a lawyer, or somebody in the creative field, and they don't feel like they have to make a compromise in terms of how much money they make.
Jamie (00:07:26) - Yeah, I think it's been fun to see, um, companies go through that business maturity. Like you said, when you first when you're first doing your thing, you're like, oh, wow, people are people are paying me for this and this is fun. This is what I've always wanted to do. And then, you know, by the time we first meet with them and then, you know, two years later, you can see the questions they're asking and how well they understand their business and all these parts of it. So you want to kind of talk about that path from that point where your point A, you're like, ah, this is I just love what I do to kind of C, D or Z or whatever it is. But you're like, oh, wow, I really understand my business.
David (00:07:54) - Mhm. Yeah. And I try to come up with ways that help them in a very simplistic way, figure out where they are. So I wrote an article recently about, if you want one single metric to figure out how your firm is doing, here are the eight options.
David (00:08:09) - And here are the pros and cons of each. And then I landed on one and I said, listen, here's the simplest one. Your fee billings for full time equivalent employee and 85% of firms are stuck in that 150 to 160 range. And once they see that, they're stuck there and how to improve that, all of a sudden the light comes on and they think about their business very differently. I, I think finance needs to be viewed as a way to tell a story, an interesting story that you can shape by doing things differently.
Jody (00:08:43) - It's kind of funny you mentioned that because when we bring a client on, the first thing we do is we put together a really in-depth forecasting model for them. And it's not one of those deals where you just said at the beginning of the year and you look at the end of the year and say, how did I do compared to that, that mystical number that I made up, you know, 12 months ago? It's one of those very robust things.
Jody (00:09:03) - It's very dynamic. Every month we're changing it based on what life is and what life happens to them. And the key is it's not just simply saying, you know, hey, we're going to increase our revenue by 10% or 15%, or we're going to miraculously increase our bottom line by, you know, to 25 or 30% or where we should be. It's really breaking it down to the non-financials. Right. You know. Hey how many you know. You know what do we have to do. How many people do we have to have. What you know what's our billable rate? You know all the different non-financial metrics that they actually have control over to be able to make those decisions. And, and a lot of folks are like, wow, no one's ever brought it or broken it down. That simple for me to understand that I just can't miraculously hit a goal by saying and, you know, saying, you know, by labeling, hey, we're going to hit that 10% number.
Jody (00:09:49) - And it's kind of funny how many folks, you know, actually achieve or nearly achieve those numbers when they have that financial plan and forecast put in front of them. And I'm assuming that's kind of where you're getting at with that. Is that you really can't just simply it's got to be based on you got to break it down to the non-financial, I guess is the big key.
David (00:10:08) - Right. And somebody at the firm here, I'm assuming there's more than one partner, but at least one of the partners has to think that their one of their primary jobs is to understand and impact the financial performance of the firm. I mean, that's job one that's even more important than culture. It's more important than new business. And once you get that done, then and you may need outside help with that, obviously, then you can move on to these other things. But if the firm isn't performing, it doesn't matter how good your new business plan is. You won't need one.
Jody (00:10:43) - We got. We got a ton of coin.
Jody (00:10:44) - I got a ton of questions. Personally, I'm sure you do too, I do too.
Jamie (00:10:47) - Yep. Definitely.
Jody (00:10:48) - The one thing that, um, that I want to hit right off, right off the bat is that, um, you know, I don't know, Greg. If you knew I worked for vector marketing for about 3 to 4 years, and we, uh, we sold Cutco cutlery. And so we did, you know, this was back, you know, back, you know, right before college. And, uh, with that, it was cold calling. It was, you know, you know, basically presentations to sell a very expensive, high quality cutlery to folks all across the nation. And I two did really well with that. You know, in Midwest that was number one in the Midwest. And sales opened up a branch office, uh, recruited other folks to, to do exactly what I was doing and train those folks up to be able to sell.
Jody (00:11:29) - And the one thing that it wasn't the one issue they had or the one, I guess barrier of success, in my opinion, is what they had is that and I never had this issue and it doesn't sound like you had this issue as well, but it was actually making the call. You know, making the call to somebody to actually schedule the appointment. You know, once people were on the appointments, they did really well. You know, their closing ratio is high. You know, that they did had very success. But the one thing holding them back, you know, what was that fear of making that call. And throughout your journey there, man, you've had many different opportunities for that fear to take over and really kind of squash things. And I'm wondering, you know, is there a is there that secret, secret pill or secret sauce or how do you overcome it? Or why does that happen? I'd love to get your opinion on that, because I think that's a main barrier for really anybody, not only in sales but anybody in general.
Greg (00:12:30) - I Jody, it's really the 6 or 7in between your ears, right? I mean, that's what determines I mean, if you look at the people who are great in any profession, and from the Tom Brady who had a chip on his shoulder because he didn't get picked up. So he's going to prove them all wrong. He's just going to outwork them. Two people who grew up like I had a, you know, a tough upbringing. I was in an orphanage for a few years. You know, if you wanted something back when I, when I was growing up, you just had to go earn it. Right? I had a paper route like. And we would pay for the papers. And you had those people that didn't pay you for four weeks and those little tabs you used to give them. And so you got good at that. But you wanted to make extra money. Then you volunteered to go sell new subscriptions, right? So you got in the van and went with the regional guy, and you would knock on doors and try and sell them.
Greg (00:13:10) - If you couldn't sell them the whole week, you try and sell them just the Sunday paper with the TV guide and the comics back then, but it just really became I did have the head trash. I never wanted to be in sales, but you have to change your perspective. It's back to everything in life, you know? Fair. Uh, one definition is false evidence appearing real. Right? So I have this fear, that fear, rejection, fear, failure, whatever. And there's another acronym, acronym for fear. And that's face everything and rise. And one is a very motivating, like empowering one. I read the books The Greatest Salesman in the world. I can almost quote the great, you know, the scrolls. I will greet this day with love in my heart, for it is the greatest table. Like I had to literally talk myself into it. But then I made a game of it. You know, people that hang up on me or call or, you know, I've got so many great, funny, amazing stories around that, as you can imagine, you know, from just call right back and ask for a different person.
Greg (00:14:09) - Right. But, uh, I would do that how we got started. So my first city, Cleveland, Ohio in the States, I come here, we rent these two apartments. Literally all we had was I bought a headset from RadioShack. It was a little keypad with the earpiece, the one mic, and we had the yellow pages, literally the yellow pages. And I turned into the yellow pages and we would start. Everyone starts in the A's, so I never start in these. Like, I would just like start in G or H, like just somewhere else because the A's get a lot of calls, but nobody gets to the G’s. So I would just call anybody. And everybody who had a sales person had a sales team, and I knew the car dealerships, you know, they would meet on Saturday morning, but the realtors would meet on Monday morning and the stockbrokers wouldn't talk to me till the market closed at 4:00 and the furniture companies would talk. And so I knew all these different industries, and I would just call.
Greg (00:14:59) - I would ask for the sales manager. You had to learn all the tricks, right? If you say, can I speak to the sales manager? They're like, well, who is this and why are you calling? And so we just got better, right? Hey, I'd like to send some information out in order to get it to the right person. You tell me who's responsible for your sales team. Oh, that would be Jody. Okay. And how do you spell Jody's last name? Okay, great. I'll send that. Well, you can call back 15 minutes later and say hi. Can I speak to Jody? Right. So. And you wouldn't get a rejection at that. So the so you just had to learn that and it's just systematic desensitization. Just doing it over and over and over and over and turn frustration into fact. It's not fascinating. I've now made 20 calls and no one wants to talk to me today, right? Yeah, it is right here. And so many people, Jodi, they don't make it in life because of that.
Greg (00:15:50) - You know who they are. And I think there's people are coming to our country, as you know, who have this motivation. And you read these stories, we meet these leadership team members and their stories are about, man, my parents got divorced. I had to figure it out, right. Something happened, uh, to me, to my brother, something. And you realize this person has all this motivation, and nothing's going to stop those people. And when you hear their stories, you're like, I would bet on that stock right today. Like, if that's the story, that's the stock I'm all in. So after a while, you know, then I started getting scientific about it. I knew there was words like, don't say to catch it a good time because it's never a good time. It's signals. Salesperson. Right. Uh, don't try and qualify him over the phone. Are you the decision maker? Like, there was just things that you had to do and evolve with it, and, um, you know, to the point now where I've done it in my sales mastery classes with our guides, where I'll put a speaker on the table and I'll say...
Greg (00:16:48) - Even back in my traction days. Give me a name. Anybody? I'll call anybody you like. I'll pick somebody off LinkedIn. I'll call a a wealth manager in Chicago and talk to them. And I will get you a presentation. And they're like, you can't do that. And I would do that because to me, it was just an opportunity to sharpen the saw. Right. And the marketplace will teach you what you need to know if you are willing to listen. The marketplace will teach you. You know, what you're willing to learn, to learn. So anyway, that's the fear of cold calling in. And now, of course, you know, no one makes cold calls, right? Anymore cold.
Jamie (00:17:23) - Emails.
Greg (00:17:24) - Yeah. The bill get emails later. That's a different challenge. But I still believe in our industry. And to the financial advisors on CPAs and people in finance, nothing replaces a conversation. You know, I say this today, you know, all great clients were created with a conversation.
Greg (00:17:43) - None of them put a CPA in a shopping cart right over your 20 year history. As anybody just said, oh, I'll take two virtual CFOs and I'll put them in
Jamie (00:17:53) - Return policy on that.
Greg (00:17:56) - Yeah. It's never gonna happen. So but you need to have that conversation. You need to engage with them. And some people today are hiding Jamie behind emails and voicemails and texts and whitepapers and content and posts and like, sometimes you just have to pick up the phone. Um, here, uh, I give these to all of our guides, and I make them put them on their phone.
Jody (00:18:21) - There you go.
Greg (00:18:23) - Pick me up. I make you money. So...
Jamie (00:18:27) - That’s great.
Greg (00:18:28) - It's crazy. It needs you. You need a sticker on your phone to remind you that, uh, when the phone is ringing, somebody's trying to buy it. They're looking for help. And so sometimes my voicemail, I just called one of our guides today, and they say, if you're looking for help, you call the right place.
Greg (00:18:42) - That should be your answer, right? I mean, they're calling looking for help. Did they get a runaround, or did they get help? Right, right. Oh.
Joey (00:18:50) - Speaking of tools and you mentioned this, there's a ton of tools out there and more getting developed every day. Is there a place you like to go that's like a library of all of the AI tools that are available that, like, might be useful for somebody who's, you know, trying to figure out what's a good AI tool that's maybe been vetted by some folks and be like, hey, this one is an absolute garbage. Like, give this a shot and see if it works.
Shanif (00:19:14) - You know there is not. And that's why I started creating something. So I just had my I use an ocean for a lot of things. And so I started tracking all of the tools that I come across in a notion board, tracking what it is that they're supposed to be doing. What is their headline? What is their tagline? And so from my perspective, I think that it's moving so quickly.
Shanif (00:19:32) - There's nothing, there's not a single place right now. Um, but I think you're going to start to see tool directories come out. I'm actually hoping to produce one in the next couple of months. Um, and I think that the idea would be, like you said, there's a lot of stuff that's coming out. You don't really know how good they are, how bad they are. It would be great to have a central location where you trust what it is that they're saying, and you can kind of get a sense for what they do. So long answer. Short answer is no, not yet, but I am working on it.
Joey (00:20:00) - Well, and you mentioned to kind of going back to something you said about using some AI and type stuff to drive growth, even outside of like automating CRM systems. Is there something that you can think about in terms of whether it's using an AI tool to empower a team? That or using it to, you know, better synthesize your internal data to drive revenue.
Joey (00:20:21) - What's if you could give like a business owner one tip on how to get started with this? What would you what would you say?
Shanif (00:20:28) - Oh, well, you know, I'm biased because I don't know if I told you I've actually developed a product to do exactly what you just said. So a lot of my customers are using.
Joey (00:20:35) - I was going to ask if we could talk about that for sure. Yeah.
Shanif (00:20:37) - Yeah, yeah, maybe it's a good segue. So I'm not trying to sell. But one of the things I've learned when talking to customers is they've got older data spread across like 50 different systems slack, PDFs, Google Drive, whatever it is. And they would love to have a single place where they could just ask a quick question, get the answer back, and get a link to where that answer came from. I've heard this across like 50 different customer discovery calls. So I basically started building something that could do this. And so, you know, now I've got customers who are using my tool, which is a chatbot that's connected to all of their data sources, and they basically just ask the questions of the chatbot.
Shanif (00:21:13) - It goes out, it finds where that answer is from their data source, and then comes back and gives them the answer and a link to where that answer came from. Maybe it was from a PDF, or maybe it was from their slack historical messages or their Google Drive. And this is, you know, it's saving my customers a good amount of time when it comes to research and when it comes to customer service. A lot of folks, what they do is they use this tool during sales calls or customer touch bases where they're talking to a customer. And a customer might ask them some really obscure, nuanced question like customers tend to do. And instead of now having to say, well, I'll get back to you and then spending two hours to try to find that answer, they'll just ask the bot, and then it'll come back with a quick answer, and they can tell their customers, hey, here's what you're what you're looking for. So there's so many ways you can use AI. This is just one where you can improve your operations and your productivity by basically cutting down the amount of time it takes to search for something.
Shanif (00:22:06) - But you can also do things like I mentioned, which is if you've got an engineering team, you can plug them into ChatGPT and they can start using this thing and save hours a week by not having to debug. If you've got a marketing team, you can use this to come up with content ideas about the next set of guides or articles you want to write. Um, and also edit. You know, if you've got a legal team you can use this to. This is something I was talking about with a couple of lawyers. If you've got a legal team, you can plug in all of your historical case documents and then use that to research which cases are most relevant to your current case. So there's so many things you can do. It's almost one of those things where I can almost guarantee, if you're working in the world of information, there's something that you could do with AI. It's sort of depends on your business. Um, but the areas I've seen that have had the biggest impact, like I said, are search, information retrieval, um, content generation and content editing.
Shanif (00:22:57) - And so those are areas where you probably could get started right away.
Joey (00:23:01) - I think that's I think that's fantastic. And it's, it's something where again, we're always and we joke about this all the time in our consulting. Right. Like whenever you go to do anything with consulting, you go to business school or you go wherever they teach you all the things you need to know, like you take 4 or 5 strategy classes, right? There's not a class that talks about operations, right? There isn't like a business operations class. Um, like how to do Lean Six Sigma or how to do other types of management things. If you're going to use like an entrepreneurial operating system or something like that, you have to learn all that behind the scenes. And I think that's probably the biggest hole that I see in a lot of businesses is, you know, as they're scaling and growing, they're just kind of moving through and saying, like, I'm just going to see what sticks when I throw something at the wall and we're just going to go with what works and, try to build that way. And man, I think if you're someone who's trying to grow from like a couple of employees, maybe doing a couple million a year to to 2 or 3, exiting that and really growing your business using some sort of tool like this to help streamline and automate is a great fulcrum that you can use to lever up.
Shanif (00:24:13) - You know, it's totally true. I actually wrote something recently where I suspect that small businesses, midsize businesses are going to get a disproportionately larger amount of benefit from this stuff because they can automate away a lot of the things that they might have needed to hire for. They can automate a lot of the things that they originally took a lot of time to do. And I suspect, like, if you're a small business and you're growing quickly, you're probably going to be able to use automation to really, really hyper charge your growth. You have to know how to do it and how to implement it properly.
Shanif (00:24:41) - But if you're really focused on that, you can really get some really good productivity going.
Joey (00:24:46) - Well, I think about PMS in particular, write most creative and digital agencies. And really a lot of companies in general struggle to figure out how to maximize the ability of their project management team, which, you know, is there's an operational question there, but there's also a work question to and if you can figure out a way to automate more of their your PM tasks and stuff like that. So they're not spending as many hours working on the administrative data, organizing and stuff like that, and they're able to spend more time driving value to your client. That's a very easy way to not only increase your revenue, but also move some of your resources from, from, you know, overhead below the line to something that's revenue generating in a higher percentage. That's a win for all aspects of your business.
Shanif (00:25:36) - It's true, it's true. There's so many things you can do here. I'm really excited because I think that we're going to start to see a lot of areas where jobs are going to become more efficient.
Shanif (00:25:46) - You know, some people are worried, well, they're going to become redundant. And that might be the case, but I suspect that it will also lead to brand new jobs that are being created. But for the jobs that exist and people who know how to use AI tools for them, um, it's one of those things where you're going to really start to see a lot of growth. I don't know much about the PM, like the project management space. I've done a little bit of product management, and so it certainly could help in areas there. But, um, I think it's a great time to be able to start embracing a lot of this stuff and learning how to how to use it so that you can do your job better.
Jody (00:26:17) - The book is talking about your second stage and your career, your life, you know, like, which is pretty great because we've got a lot of companies we work with that are that are at that point, you know, they're selling their business.
Jody (00:26:28) - They've sold their business. I think we had ten of them last year, and I think we've got 4 or 5 of them already this year that have sold. And so they're really going to that next stage of life including, you know, putting yours truly. And you know, with that, you know, it's kind of nice because it's kind of a guidebook on hey how to go from there. So if you could explain that and that you know, why you decided to take that angle with it. Because I think that angle is great. I've not read anything you know, before in that, in that regard.
Traci (00:26:57) - Yeah. Um, I think because, you know, I've been doing this process for years, um, strategic life map, where I'm taking people through a two day, super intense one on one process we're going through. It is intense, you know, and it is, but it's so transformative. And I mean, when do you get to take two days and pause and talk about yourself and figure out what you really want for the rest of your life? And I think that is so amazing.
Traci (00:27:30) - It's such an amazing gift that you can give to yourself and the best investment you can make. And so I do have a lot of business owners that come at that crossroads, you included, that are like, okay, I built something great, and now I'm in this, you know, new phase of life. What do I do? How do I take all of this? What direction do I do? I put it in, how do I reimagine my future? And I help people process that and help them understand their unique talents and their core values. And, you know, all the things we do with companies, we're basically doing it for your life. And most leaders have been through some sort of strategic planning process for their company and realize the power of that, but they've never even thought for a second to use those same tools, you know, on themselves. And so we do a great job of really looking at kind of what got you to where you are today. What are some of those, you know, patterns that you've picked up along the way that you need to resolve? And, you know, who are you today? And that's very different than who you were when you were 22, you know, and then what do you want for the for the long road ahead and really give you an action plan? And I, I too had never read a book like this.
Traci (00:28:44) - You know, there's so many books and, and coaches and people out there saying, live your best life, be the best version of yourself. And that's great. But most people I coach are like, I don't know what that means. Like, it sounds great, but what is the best version of me? What is my best life? And like, I want that because it sounds, you know, all rainbows and sunshine, but how do I get there? And so I think that is something that's definitely different about this book is I wanted to take that process because I'm only one person. I can't, you know, facilitate a strategic life map for, for everybody. But how can I sort of share the philosophy of it and, and, um, and make it go a little bit deeper and wider. And so this is sort of, you know, a much lighter version, but still gives you enough, you know, questions and tools and things to answer where you can get with your journal.
Traci (00:29:36) - And you can sit down and read the book and you can start to sketch out, you know, all the, all the, um, bits and pieces that you need to. Craft and reimagine your future.
Jamie (00:29:49) - Yeah. So I was reading the book. What I really thought was great was that you told a lot of personal stories and you told a lot about your life. And I first wonder, was that a hard decision for you to do, or is that a hard part of the writing process? And then second, like I think it was necessary. I think if that wasn't in there, the book wouldn't have been nearly what it was. And so I'm kind of curious about the process of that. And then the decision to make sure that you you had to put that in there.
Traci (00:30:12) - Yeah. You know, that came from a lot of encouragement of people that I was sharing my early chapters with. Um, and I have a good friend who, you know, is also an editor, and she, you know, read some of it.
Traci (00:30:25) - And she was like, you know, what would really help is if you told a little bit more of your own personal journey and, you know, there were, you know, I, I knew what she was saying was true because the books I relate to the most and the people that I relate to the most are the ones who just, you know, give the real, real. And so, you know, there are some things in the book that I'm not have never been comfortable talking about. Like, you know, I talk a lot about my health journey and my struggle with rheumatoid arthritis, and that has never been something that I've been comfortable with. But one of the things I talk about in the book is why I've never been comfortable like and how I don't want to be seen as weak or I don't want pity. And, you know, that's part of what I struggle with as an overachiever and, and trying to, you know, to alter my path and to be successful.
Traci (00:31:17) - And that pursuit of success can often cause us to push things down. You know, that we don't want people to see and, you know, so to go from not ever telling anybody, you know, except for my family, that I had to writing it in a book and just sort of sending it out into the universe.
Traci (00:31:38) - Was a really hard thing. And I, I talk about other a few, quite a few other personal stories that, um, also were things that not super, you know, comfortable talking about. But I knew that other people could relate. And, you know, there's one story I talk about flying. I talk about postpartum, you know, depression and, a friend of mine, um, also from the television industry, she sent me a text the other day where she circled, you know, uh, on her Kindle. She circled the passage and she just put an arrow and said, me too. And I think that was the affirmation.
Traci (00:32:15) - That was the moment where I was like, oh my gosh, putting it out there and saying it was exactly what I needed to do. And if I really want this book to matter and hit home with people.
Jamie (00:32:27) - And like you said, I mean, when you're talking about what you do for other people, you said it's kind of therapeutic. And when do people actually have time to sit down and talk about themselves and evaluate themselves for even two days? And I'm sure this book process was a lot longer than two days. So do you find it therapeutic to kind of put it on paper and really just like, think about it in a different way?
Traci (00:32:44) - Yeah, I did, I did and you know, we were talking earlier about recording the audiobook and there was a section in the, in the book when I was reading, I actually had to take a pause because I got choked up, like rereading and going back to that moment in my life and, um, and, and what was interesting is like, I cried when I wrote it, and then I cried when I read it, and then, you know, and, um, and I think that, you know, that's therapy.
Traci (00:33:12) - Crying is great. You know, feeling those emotions and purging those emotions and going there is necessary. And so, yeah, there was a lot of, uh, therapeutic, um, you know, experience for me in writing this book.
Outro (00:33:27) - Enjoy this podcast, visit our website SummitCPA.net to get more tips and strategy for achieving business success. We're here to be a resource in this ever changing industry.