Humanise The Numbers - for ambitious accountants in practice

Dan Crowther, CEO of Thorne Widgery

• Paul Shrimpling

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Chances are that the vast majority of the people in your firm want to do a good job, whatever their role – accounts, bookkeeping, audit, tax or payroll. 

They get out of bed every morning to do good work. 

But to be successful as an accountancy firm, it's more than just the accountancy services that matter. As valuable as these are, what also matters is the care with which the work is done and the care with which a firm looks after and serves clients. 

In this podcast discussion with Dan Crowther from Thorne Widgery, Dan makes an impassioned plea for the privilege that is doing accounts – which is worth listening to in its own right – and he also unpacks a handful of things that we should take seriously if we want a firm that's fit for the future. 

Dan also runs a technology business, so he's got an eye on the future of technology as well as an eye on what's right for a firm’s team and, if he had a third eye, it would be on a future that's right for a firm’s clients too. 

I heartily recommend you check out this Humanise the Numbers podcast at humanisethenumbers.online, or go to your favourite podcast platform and look out for the podcast with Dan Crowther. 

Please scroll down the podcast’s episode page for the contact information for Dan and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in the podcast.

Paul Shrimpling:

Welcome to the Humanize the Numbers podcast series Leaders, managers and owners of ambitious accounting firms sharing insights, successes and issues that will challenge you and connect you and your firm to the ways and means of transforming your firm's results.

Dan Crowther:

The accounting relationship can be a massive impact on that business owner and that, you know, manifests its way in all sorts in all sorts of ways. You know I've sat down with you know people who I was sat down with a guy, um, you know, a few years back, and you know he'd been laughed out of his job. He literally, you know, and I sat with him, I remember going to his house, sat around his kind of dining room table and he got laughed out of his job and he said, and he basically said, I'll show, I'll show them. And he set his business up and I've worked with him ever since and honestly, he's, he's, it's transformational what he's done. He set up a business from that day forwards.

Dan Crowther:

Um, he still quotes me on things today that I said to him around that when we spoke around that table, um, and I've watched him like change his life literally, um, you know to, to kind of every aspect of his life has changed because of what he's managed to achieve. And I've been on that journey with him and it's a privilege to do so, by the way, a privilege to kind of help somebody do and achieve that, and it's a it's a transformational story when you see from what kind of what where they were to where they are now. It's amazing. So there's a privilege to be, you know, uh, to be part of that. I'm not saying I changed his life by any stretch of the imagination, but just being part of that journey is is really an amazing thing to do. Um, just just to things like you know, challenging people.

Dan Crowther:

So I challenged a guy, kind of on a decision he'd made um, which I do kind of uh, you know that's what I suppose, full-time business advisor, because I do that regularly with him um, and he said you know what you're you're right about that decision. He, he went back and did what I said and kind of another transformational um result in terms of his business. So, and the figures kind of were amazing once that, once that thing had happened. But there are. So there are really um important decisions that you can help business owners with by doing the right things and being part of the journey that they're on, and it's that is where I think the caring piece comes in. Um, you know it not, it doesn't have to be a transactional relationship that here's your tax return, here's your accounts. It can be an awful lot more than that, and that's where the power is. That's where actually you start making a difference to people's lives.

Paul Shrimpling:

Most accountants are absolutely committed to the quality of the services they deliver to their clients. Speed matters too, and client care also matters. But when you get really deep into client care, you start talking about personalising things for every individual client and, by the way, every individual team member too. And on this podcast with Dan Crowther from Thorn Widgery, you'll hear Dan's passion for the profession, for the privilege it is to provide accounting services to business owners and business leaders. Let's go to that podcast with Dan now.

Dan Crowther:

Hi, I'm Dan from Thornwoodry, ceo of Thornwoodry. I've been at Thornwoodry since I was 18 years old, so three years or so, no, so I've been there. I'm 42 now, so quite a long time. I started as an apprentice. You know doing all of that making the tea. You know putting the files away, all of that making the tea. You know putting the files away, all of that type of stuff, um, coding with purple pens. You know writing codes next to like hundreds of bank statements, uh, and kind of worked, worked my way up, I suppose, from there. So I've been there, been there a little while.

Dan Crowther:

Our firm now so we're about there's about 50 full-time equivalents in total in the team. We've got three local offices Hereford, our first regional office, was then followed by Ludlow and then quickly followed by Shrewsbury. We've got a base down in London as well Do all of the normal compliance stuff that you would imagine and then do a lot of kind of tech stuff and advisory stuff over and above that as well. When I'm not doing that, I'm usually around a football pitch somewhere, either playing or coaching my children or running around in some way shape or form after a round ball. So so, yeah, that's, that's what I do outside okay.

Paul Shrimpling:

Well, there's no accounting for taste, although, dan, I have just booked tickets to go watch derby county play burnley because burnley's my team. So, yeah, just down the road next week. I haven't been to a football match since the last time I went to see burnley get knocked out of the premiership. Well, there we go um brill, uh. So, dan, as as is normal on this podcast, we start with the obvious and logical question Given your lengthy experience in one single firm, albeit a firm that has morphed and changed over the years, how would you explain the phrase humanise the numbers from your perspective?

Dan Crowther:

it's a good question, uh, and one that they told me that you would ask and I forgot. But I've got a good, I've got a really good uh answer, maybe, so, um, but, but because I think that's our job, okay, I think that is what an accountant's job is. So when we talk to clients and when we're working with the team, the whole thing is about humanizing numbers. For me, it's making the numbers easy to understand for everybody around. So that's what I think it is. It's making it accessible to business owners, entrepreneurs, people where perhaps their forte isn't figures, and that's a lot of who we work with in our profession, because that's why we do what we do and that's why they do what they do, and it's making it relevant and understandable to everybody.

Paul Shrimpling:

Right, so interpreter.

Dan Crowther:

Yes.

Paul Shrimpling:

Yeah, okay to everybody, right. So, interpreter, yes, yeah, okay. Uh, so as interpreter of the numbers, that tends to suggest there's got to be pretty strong numerical skills and pretty strong human skills bolted together. Where do you think the biggest challenge lands?

Dan Crowther:

uh, I think it in the profession, it's the communication skills usually. I think that's the hardest bit. I mean we can usually find people who are good at maths. I mean that's not too difficult. As an overall, the challenge is finding people who are good at maths and can communicate what that means in an understandable way, and I think that's the. That's the challenge finding those skill sets that complement one another.

Dan Crowther:

Um, as one and and as we all know, the profession is moving more. You know, we, as a profession, we used to employ people who, uh, my, my phrase is add up good, um, you know so, um, so you can add up good, so you can be an accountant. Great, you know, that's um, and and also, in when I, when I interview people a lot, I ask uh, I ask a lot of people like you know, maybe trainees or apprentices. I ask them why do you want to be an accountant? Yeah, it's one of the questions I would always, I always ask during an interview um, nearly I. I would say, and I don't know.

Dan Crowther:

I haven't done any official statistics on this, so I'm making these up as I go along, but I would say 80 to 90 percent of the answers are because they're good at maths or because they like maths or something along those lines, right? Um, so that's the logical. That's still the kind of where the profession is in terms of from the outside. They think accountant, I'm good at maths, I'll be an accountant, but there's a lot more to it, especially these days, than there. Um, then, perhaps there was kind of 10, 20 years ago where it was more about producing the numbers. Now it's about more interpreting those numbers.

Paul Shrimpling:

I think do you think there's a time when maybe we'll stop hiring people who are good at numbers, because the technology is going to do it all for them?

Dan Crowther:

um, it's a good question, I think. What do I think about that? I think numbers are still the core of what we do, so I think those skills are still still important. I mean, I would find it really difficult to do my job if I couldn't have a really good grasp of the numbers, but I don't necessarily think that's the only skill that you need. So, to answer that directly no, I don't think it will ever get away from people being good at numbers, being really good at a job, but it's not the only thing that makes you good at your job. In fact, you could be really good at numbers, but, um, your clients, they're on. If you can't understand what you're saying, you're not giving, you're not communicating with them, then actually the client perceives, you know, a poor service, even though perhaps you're doing everything they need.

Paul Shrimpling:

I think it's worth everyone knowing, listening to this. That you, there's two businesses in there, that form, you know there's the bridge part and then there's the accounts that you're listening to this, that you, you, there's two businesses in there that Thornwood, you know there's the bridge part and then there's the accounts parts. You just want to, um, just run us through what bridge is doing, just it, it's. The answer you've just given down is coming from a place where you're really embedded in the technology piece, so just, just run us through where we're at on with you.

Dan Crowther:

Yeah, so I we've, I'd probably start, I'll just. I'll just go back in time a little bit. So we've. Okay, we were an early, early adopter, um in with zero and kind of tech generally. So you know, when zero first moved to the uk, we were one of the final first to kind of adopt it and we've been with it ever since. So it's a core part of what we do. And during that kind of journey, uh, it became really apparent to us that technology was at the forefront of our um profession and um embracing technology and using technology is was always going to be important to the what. What we foresaw was the future of what we deliver and how we deliver it. So during that, as part of that journey, we had um, a team which we we brand separately all part of the same business but we brand separately called bridge. They in the early days were, you know, it's a very small team, um, but now we've grown and grown and grown. It's kind of a fast part, really fast growing part of our business.

Dan Crowther:

So we've got coders, developers, you know, people writing bespoke programming. The main thing that they currently do at the moment is, or one of the main things we work on is something called XFE or Zero for Education. So that's where we've taken Xero and built some software and apps behind it to bespoke it for the education sector. So, uh, big in the academy space. So we support a lot of academies with software, which in the education space they in okay, I might be speaking out of turn, but, um, really complicated, expensive systems that are used in that and actually zero does the one that what we've offered does everything for um and it's much easier to use. But alongside that we also do a lot the same team. They do a lot of technology in terms of add-ons, apps development, reporting, all sorts of things outside that, uh, to help businesses brilliant, brilliant, thank you.

Paul Shrimpling:

And so your answer to the question do you think you'll get to a stage where you're interviewing people and you won't be looking for the numbers because the technology will take it over? It takes on, I think, another level of meaning. So you're coming from a place of, or you could. You've seen the technology journey, you've got a good eye on where it's going, and yet you're still saying, actually we need numbers people from an interpretation point of view, not in isolation. They've got to have the comms piece as well. I think that's really powerful. Um, so, when it comes to finding, recruiting, interviewing people who have got the human skills and the numbers skills, um, what, what, what's your what's, what's your best question?

Dan Crowther:

when it comes to unpacking the human skills, then, dan, I mean, I would like to tell you I've got a magic question to this, but I don't. Uh, it's, it's, it's it. We know in the space it's a challenge, like recruiting is a challenge and we are, we constantly recruit, so we never stop, we're always looking for people. I believe, kind of we should always be recruiting, because if we want to move forward, we want to grow, then then we need to be able to find people. And what you know, it's the chicken and egg scenario Do you recruit before you go, or grow and then recruit?

Dan Crowther:

So you know, freeing up capacity, getting people doing the things that they enjoy, and if you get great people, everything, I always think everything takes care of itself anyway. So, in terms of what great question, I think when you're, the real challenge with the whole of the interviewing, recruitment process is you get like an hour or two with a person to try and make a decision for the rest of potentially rest of their life or potentially a really short period of time, depending on, depending on how well the interview goes, um, so, so, so it's a challenge. I don't have a specific really excellent question. I think it's all and I you know the recruitment process is really really a challenge, but I think just spending time with them, getting to know them, you know, seeing how they communicate with you, in that, in that short period of time that you have will give you an indication of how they deal with things um and

Paul Shrimpling:

that that's the best way, that that, that we do it or that I do it yeah, yeah, we, we've taken to well, we, we've done it since we started the business into. You know, doing everything we can to give people a road test, if that's feasible. You don't actually get them doing some work, which is harder in a for an accounting firm setting uh, particularly given that they're probably already in in work. But it's uh, it's certainly paid dividends for us if you can actually fold that into the, the recruitment process. Um. So if we just step out of um the recruitment space and go into the, because in your opening line, oh there's the recruitment bit with this, how do you, how do we grow our people? You grow your people by recruiting extra ones, new people, and you grow your people by helping them build skill and knowledge and and experiences and so forth. Um would you unpack for us how that works at Thor Midgrey?

Dan Crowther:

So how we recruit? How we?

Paul Shrimpling:

train people, yeah, how you develop people, and there's two sides to that. One is the numbers side and the other is the you know that human skills part as well, which is certainly an area that you know we work with multiple firms. There's, you know, there's a struggle on in that space.

Dan Crowther:

It's. You know how do you make the most of that opportunity? Yeah, and, and there's. I think this is, this is difficult as well. So, like there's no, I don't know, everything's difficult isn't it so uh?

Dan Crowther:

sometimes it feels that way down, yeah, yeah, so the way that we so we, I, I think we're a training organization, so that's what I class as being and we take on a lot of trainees and I was a trainee and we take on training. Now we take on training like quite a few trainees every year Because that helps us grow, because that helps us move other people up.

Dan Crowther:

So you know, we'll take a trainee on and kind of the next, the last year's trainee gets to step up and above and above and above. So you know it has that that kind of ripple effect, um, which means everybody's always growing, which I think is really important. Uh, and because you know that it's one of the kind of basic needs at work, I think, is to feel like you're moving forwards and going in the right direction, growing, developing. So that's that's how we do it, I mean in terms of how that works, we have, you know, there's teams, there's mentors. You know, obviously that for the normal kind of financial work, you know, I suppose, traditional accounting, obviously there's study and kind of you know, people telling them and explaining things to them on a daily basis. But they work within teams, they work within pods of four typically, where they have different levels, different people at different levels, and so they all support one another and there's always somebody to to oversee the person below in terms of, you know, helping them and developing them. In terms of helping them and developing them, they have regular meetings to discuss performance in terms of what they're struggling with, what we can help them with, all of those type of things.

Dan Crowther:

But they don't just talk about the skills that are financial or numerical. They also talk about the softer skills, because one of the interesting things nowadays, I think, is, um, I don't know whether it's new, but it feels new like in terms of uh, that it's a problem at the moment, is like using the phone, so like, again, those real life communication, I think is seems more of a challenge for the, for the younger people joining us, so, uh, and I don't know whether they just don't get as much exposure to it. I don't know whether it's mobile phones, I don't know whether it's text and email feels like you know that's the normal way of doing things these days, but you know that there's no, in my opinion, there's uh no substitute for kind of being able to talk, whether it being in real life or or on the phone. So encouraging that communication from from early in their career is something that we try to do, uh, and we've built that in as part of the development programs and kind of how to how to do it.

Dan Crowther:

I mean, you know, sometimes they, if they're, sometimes it'll be like, well, you know, going to sit in a room by yourself if you feel conscious doing it in in office, you know. So we'll just let them go and use a pod or a room to kind of just make calls. You know, not for this, we're not just kind of ring them for just to kind of, you know, talk about their holidays, but, you know, for real reasons. But but trying to encourage that to make sure that they develop that skill set as well as everything else. You know that comes with the, with the numbers yeah, yeah.

Paul Shrimpling:

So the the, the technical cPD side of things relatively easy to track and measure tangible shifts. You know the qualification chain enables that. You know, if you've got a skills map for each layer within the business, then that helps as well. What about on those? You call them them softer skills, I call them the human skills. How do you track progress in that area? Because that it's that human skill numbers thing um. Can we kpi this, build human skills so that we actually build stronger relationships with clients, so that we build the results of the firm?

Dan Crowther:

um, I don't. The honest answer that is, I don't know, but I mean I suppose we do, we do build them to a certain extent. So, like with, with some of the trainees, like the, we might say, um, you need to make I don't know five phone calls this month, for example. Um, just, and that's a that's not necessarily building, kind of how well, like how well they're doing it, but just the repetitions, I suppose, to make sure that that skill is being built.

Dan Crowther:

Um, I think it's hard to kind of quantify is like or you know, say that, okay, how good are you on the phone with a rating of kind of? You know, I think that's really difficult, but in terms of how often they do it, that's quite easy to quite easy to measure and monitor, um, so I guess that's what we would measure because it's simple to do, so you know. So if we've got with our trainees to be like do this, many calls um, so therefore, like we can, at least they're, they're building that muscle you know, rather than rather than not yeah, I love that phrase.

Paul Shrimpling:

Building the muscle you've reminded me of when I was at first finished my degree, first full-time um role the sort of official role anyway outside of setting the business up was, um.

Paul Shrimpling:

We were required to make 10 calls, 10 before 10 I know the 10 is a number that resonates here, but 10 before 10, so 10 calls every day before 10 o'clock.

Paul Shrimpling:

And now, don't get wrong, that was in a sales setting, so very different from an accountancy setting, but interesting that it is the quantity, the repetition that builds the muscle, that therefore builds the skill, that therefore builds the quality of the interaction over time. So it seems to make sense that you would track and measure that and encourage your team people, uh, to to make those calls, the junior people anyway. Um, because there is, I think, and there's some research that backs this up in terms of, you know, generationally, if you're north of 50, you're more comfortable actually picking the phone up and making something happen, and if you're south of 50, younger than 50, you're less. And then if you're younger than 30, you're significantly less because you've never been without a phone anyway, which is a bit weird. You've never been without a phone but you're not necessarily as good at making phone calls, so it's bizarre and that may shift, mine it so you know it may shift over time.

Dan Crowther:

That actually you know that I'm encouraged. I still, I still don't think there's, um, you're ever going to lose that face-to-face communication or, you know, voice communication.

Dan Crowther:

I still think that's going to be really important. But you know there is a lot more things that are done online now. You know like you know, zoom calls, teams calls um, a lot more email like text, you know all that type of stuff, so maybe that becomes a more important factor. But you know, in terms of getting an answer and resolving something and you know, and just seeing getting the tone of kind of where things are and where how things lie, for me it's going to be really difficult to replace that kind of face-to-face or at least kind of on the phone communication, kind of you can. You can just pick up an awful lot more and deal with things an awful lot quicker, uh, and using using that form of communication, in my opinion.

Paul Shrimpling:

So so it's important, yeah, you make I think douglas, our colleague he's just uh come off the back of running a workflow workshop with um a dozen, 15 accounts from different firms and um, uh, one of the common issues around uh messing a, messing your workflow of jobs through the pipeline, if you will is the non-responsiveness of clients. But ultimately, one of the reasons for that is that no one's picked the phone up and hassled them two or three times in order to get the information out of them so you can finish the job off. So it's a key skill that's not necessarily going to go away, because that is going to be a common issue as it is now, in five years time and 10 years time, unless the technology enables us to overcome all of the hurdles of accessing of data.

Dan Crowther:

Yeah, I think, I think you know. So we have the same issue, like lots of I know lots of accountants have that, like you know. Can we get answers, can we get the information that we need, and for that I think we have to go back to okay, how do we best communicate with these clients? Like, how do we best communicate with them? Because you'll have the same everyone will have the same issues.

Dan Crowther:

Like you'll ring that person up 10 times and he still doesn't answer the phone you know, or we've sent him 59 emails and he still hasn't responded, and that like drives me mad, by the way.

Dan Crowther:

So um so like you know, I say like oh yeah, well, you know, um, have you, have you asked for that thing? And yeah, we've sent him an email. It's like, okay, have you rang him? And then um, and then you know it's just kind of those different communication forms, so we're we're always constantly kind of assess where, how can we best communicate with these people. It's not always the same thing for every client, and that's my point.

Dan Crowther:

I suppose it's like it's finding the best ways to interact with them. So there's some of the clients that, um, we've, we've just got, um just got. We've been doing it a little while, to be fair, but I suppose it's relatively new in in um in terms of how we communicate. But. But we just set up WhatsApp, so business WhatsApp, and we started just sending WhatsApp messages to people who perhaps were not the easiest to communicate with in the past, and now we just get responses immediately. So it's like all of a sudden it's their thing and this is much easier for me to communicate with my accounts at times. But where that's difficult for us as a profession, I suppose, is there's so many forms of communication nowadays, nowadays in terms of how you can communicate, you know.

Dan Crowther:

You know whether it's whatsapp, whether it's text, whether it's voice calls, whether it's emails, whether it's team messages, whether it's slack, you know there's there's lots of different opportunities um that you can communicate in it's choosing, choosing the right format that works for you, because it and and the client as well, so that there's a there's a challenge the more communication forms there are, but, um, there's also opportunity with it, I think yeah, it's that the customer is always right.

Paul Shrimpling:

Really, there's one phrase that crops up. Another phrase that crops up is segment size one. So every customer has to be treated entirely individually as far as their communication preferences are concerned if we're actually really going to build a deep enough relationship with them. So some of the marketers would have us believe. So customers always right, segment size one. It's in the same space, that. But then there's also well, hang on a second you want to set your stall out, the way your firm works, so it can be really efficient, so you can make a decent enough margin. Um, I wonder if there's a correlation here down between you know, you can be a completely zero only firm, or a QuickBooks only firm or a Sage only firm, but what it does is it means that you're going to exclude customers from your firm. Uh, and if you were a whatsapp communication firm only, we're also going to ignore and, uh, isolate, exclude a whole raft of clients. So it's, I guess it's good. It's hard to find the balance, isn't it?

Dan Crowther:

I think it it's hot. Well, what's my, what's my reaction to that? It is hard to find the balance. So if you're, when you're trying to run, run a business, um of any sort, I suppose it's one of those things like of trying to work out the best way of doing things, so that maybe, so let's say, um, you went down the route that we're we're a zero only firm and and we probably are quite close to that, but we're not.

Dan Crowther:

I'd 80%, 90% of our clients are zero-based.

Dan Crowther:

But the good thing about that from our perspective and the client's perspective, is we can standardize how we do things.

Dan Crowther:

This is how we do things, so everybody will be treated in the same way and because we've kind of standardized what we do, it's going to be really good because we really know what we're doing on this and therefore we can deliver a really great service and we know exactly what we need to do. When you need help, we can support you in the best possible way, as opposed to a client, an accountant, which perhaps does a little bit of everything. Perhaps they won't be as good as zero as perhaps we are, because we do it, we live and breathe and we do it all day, every day does that. That probably is makes it a challenge attracting I don't know a sage client, because we don't use it as much. Our team probably are not as good at doing a sage job as they would be a zero job. So there's there's definitely some advantages of it, but there are also some disadvantages in terms of if you do specialize, then okay, you are segmenting the market that you're attractive to.

Dan Crowther:

But my view on that is, I suppose, that we want to work with the clients that we can deliver a good service for, and we can't deliver a really great service for everybody individually if every, if every way is different because we wouldn't be able to to skill up to be able to do that, yeah.

Paul Shrimpling:

And I do wonder, though, dan, is, if I'm, if I was to change accountant, do do as a business leader, myself owner. Do I care whether I'm on Xero or Sage or QuickBooks? Not really, I care that I've got the right accountant. Now, I don't know whether I'm weird, but I think finding the right accountant, advisor, supporter is more important than whether I'm on Xero or Sage. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm a small business, a larger business. That's a different issue, because we've got, you know, four or five or 10 or 30 of our team interacting with the software. Therefore, that's a bigger change. I get that, but I just wonder what your views are in terms of which is the trump card, the technology or the? You know the trust and relationship with the accountant. You know which trumps the other.

Dan Crowther:

It's clearly the trust and the relationship with the accountant, with you know which which which trumps the other. All right, it's clearly the trust and the relationship with the accountant that is fundamental to the whole thing. If that's not there, it doesn't matter. If you're on like zero sage, quick bricks, if you've got a shoebox full of carnage, you know, then it doesn't make. It doesn't make any difference. If you don't have that, that relationship, then the rest is irrelevant. And, to be honest, if you built that, if you have the relationship anyway, the likelihood is the client will take your advice on everything else anyway. So if you really had a great relationship, they're going to listen to you about what the best thing to be on is, whether it's serious age or quick fix.

Dan Crowther:

And that won't be the deciding factor. So, uh it, it's absolutely the relationship you have with a team of people that you're you're working with on a regular basis within that foot, within that client for it's not, yeah, yeah it's not just the md, it's the fd, it's the financial controller, whoever's in the bookkeeping team.

Paul Shrimpling:

There's a blend of that, isn't there? I think sometimes that gets lost in the appreciation of what's going on between accountant and firm. Is that programmed into your firm, dan? Is that part of your process management in terms of, look, we've got to build a relationship with the bookkeeper, with the financial controller, fd and the md. I'm just wondering how, um, how process driven that is within your firm uh, how process driven is that?

Dan Crowther:

I I couldn't say that it. We have a specific process to to deliver that. I guess that's just a thing that happens naturally. I feel like that just naturally happens and because it's, I guess it's harder to process that because every client will have a different size finance team. You know, it might be a really small business which doesn't have a finance team. It just has the business owner, or it might be somebody who's got I don't know 10 people in their finance team. So I guess what we do is we'll have, but it's the same for us, so we've got a team that will work with them as well. So you know it will be. You know you'll have different levels of people helping do different things and you may have different services as well. So you might have a payroll.

Dan Crowther:

Our payroll team, for instance, will liaise with certain people within their team to do payroll and they'll be liaising with the right people for that, you know, for that particular job. So I don't know, maybe it is process. There are certain things that definitely process, but, and you know, for us there'll be always more than one point of contact. So if it was my client would never just be me there'd be at least two contacts and they always get introduced so everybody knows who they're talking with. We'll both know about that client. So you know if I'm on holiday, for instance, somebody else can pick up and have a sensible conversation about what's going on.

Paul Shrimpling:

So there are certain things that process process driven like that, for example. Ok, so that leads into the question. So how do you give that different people talking to different people within your client firm, within your client's business? How do you establish the behavioral communication standards that everyone's using, so there's like a minimum appreciation as to what's expected of you when you're communicating with the client across thornwoodry?

Dan Crowther:

um, how do I do that? So, uh, I suppose there's different ways that we do that. If we start from a really base level, there is, yeah, when we, when we work with a client, when we take if I take a client journey, so if you, the client just starts to work with us today, there will be a service level that that will agree with the client up front. So like that will dictate how many meetings they have, what's obviously what services are done. But the communication of meetings particularly will be set from the very outset. So you know whether that's like it could be 12 meetings, it could be six, it could be four, it could be two. We usually go from, you know, for any business client it's normally a minimum of two meetings a year. So that's really clear. That gets built into our services and what we plan for. So if we signed up client today, like the meetings would be not booked in in terms of dates, but they'll be scheduled into our diaries that this needs to happen at this point in time, we need to book a meeting here and etc. Etc. Um, so those sort of things get get programmed in our kind of default response time is within 24 hours. So, um, or one working day, I suppose actually is the is a better term for that so everybody gets a response.

Dan Crowther:

You know, whether it's I hate, I absolutely hate it when people don't get responses to emails. Honestly, it drives me insane. So, um, and it's one of the biggest things, like, whenever we get, whenever there's somebody kind of um coming to us from another accountant, they all, like it gets quoted like all the time. You know, they don't. They never reply to my calls, they never reply to my emails, which, and um, I hate people talking bad about their old accountants, by the way, so it's not something I encourage, um, but that's usually one of the common things that, um, that gets said, uh.

Dan Crowther:

So I think that is really important to us and it drives me mad as well. So if I send an email to somebody and they don't respond to me, like you know, I hate that. So it's something that we try really hard to be good. It doesn't necessarily mean you'll get a response Like the whole. You know, if you send me a really complicated tax question, I'm not giving you the answer in 24 hours that's unlikely but you'll get a response and a time frame to which you'll get, you'll get a proper response on it. So, um, but that's kind of how one of the defaults that we've set internally is like within 24 hours response time brilliant.

Paul Shrimpling:

So you've got a proactive standard which is clarifying the meeting expectations in the client's mind as well as in your team's mind, and there's triggers within the firm to ensure that they happen. And then you've got a reactive standard which is same day response, whether it's by email or phone or whatever. Um, we're going to get back to them. Just do you track and measure how good you are at that that both of those uh, do we track?

Dan Crowther:

so the, the, the, the scheduled meetings, that is just. It's built into our workflow so we track every single job gets set up. So if it's a tax return, if it's a meeting, whatever it is, it gets set up within our system and tracked. So, basically, it has to be done or it's still outstanding. So all of those things get measured ongoing. We work a lot on planning our production in terms and our workflows. So I know that february, march, like a busy time of year because I'm doing a lot of like pre-un meetings, but they're all scheduled in um, so that's the, that's the sort of thing that. So they don't they, that's how we track that. It's a scheduled work item that gets, that gets. So if there's they, that's how we track that. It's a scheduled work item that gets that gets completed.

Paul Shrimpling:

So if there's an outstanding flag on your system, you know it's not happened and therefore it's dealt with. Yes, Brilliant.

Dan Crowther:

Brilliant, okay. And going back to the reactive stuff, so there's, there's one, so one bit of the business. So we do, because we do kind of tech team, they do kind of support, so we measure our standards on our support, response time, so that all gets measured. But if I'm being really honest and I don't, so I don't have the answer to this yet, but I don't have a measurement of how well we do on the 24 or one working day response times to kind of things like emails and calls.

Dan Crowther:

We track them all so like, um, you know, if it's a, if it's a return call, it's like within our, within our software, to kind of this is the call that needs to be made, um and the same. But you know, with people's internal email inboxes I don't have a statistic I can give you to be able to say this person has on average responded within kind of 17 hours or whatever it might be.

Dan Crowther:

I don't have that. I mean great if I could, but we haven't got that far. Right, okay set out um for the team to kind of stick to, but we don't have specific measures that we can point to, to say like we, we achieve this 90 of the time, or you know or 100 of the time yeah, it's interesting, isn't that in that software space you've probably got a ticketing process.

Paul Shrimpling:

You know there's something, something's not working, so you know a ticket's locked and the speed and depth and quality of that response is part of that mechanism. I know there's been accountants who've tried that ticketing process within. You know emails and you know software and so on. I've yet to find anyone who's absolutely bossed that. So if anyone's listening to this and go, oh, I've bossed it, then get in touch because we'll get you on the podcast.

Dan Crowther:

Yes, send me the details. Yeah, yeah.

Paul Shrimpling:

I think we'd all like it, we would Brilliant. So if we segue from talking about internal team processes, systems and turn back to the client piece, dan, run me through how you think client expectations. So we're recording this in March 2025. Yeah, you know the world's changing at a rapid rate, not that everybody knows and is sick of hearing of it, but what, in your view, is going on in that expectation shift within the mindset of your general client mix? What do you think is the big shift that we're all having to manage?

Dan Crowther:

I think what's the big shift that we're all having to manage? I think, uh, what's the shit? So I think you know we are now in living in a world where and it's moving really quickly we're living in a world where things are becoming automated, um systems and processes doing more and more than ever. Chat gpt will give you a fairly intelligent answer on whatever you decide. You know you want to do. You know whether it's tax or whether it's um, whether it's running. So I chat gpt last night, like how I'm trying to get my 5k time down below sub 20. It's like, how do I get my 5k, you know, uh, time down below below 20 minutes? Um and like, and it gave me like like a step-by-step process to be able to to do that. I don't know if I I'm gonna have a go at it, but I might. I'll report back and let you know whether it was yeah but.

Dan Crowther:

But my point, my point is now there's a lot more information available, um, and people can do more things for themselves, things like bookkeeping. So I firmly believe that bookkeeping will become far more automated than it is now. So if you look at what's happening at the moment, so people have got bots in place whereby a lot of their day-to-day routine bookkeeping. So if you've got everything set up as you should do, you know you've got a cloud piece of software. It's connected to your bank account. You know your invoicing is all being ocr. You know either by email or photo it's all going in. It's very minimal amounts, um. So if you've got all that in place and you've got rules and everything set up, you know at the moment people have got and they're just kind of doing the matching and everything, and that's kind of one step on from probably what most people are doing at the minute. But that will quickly, in my opinion, be removed by the software doing it themselves. So the software will start to pick up that and then that will get offered as a day-to-day service by the software providers. That's where I believe we're heading on that. And then when you've got all of the day to day stuff being being done by software pretty much. I mean other than you. You know, having to input it and, by the way, that's ignoring kind of e-invoicing and stuff where it's going to be right. You send an invoice to zero to say to dave over there, and that invoice goes directly into a system you know, you, don't, you? I mean there's questions whether things like decks and everything will be, will actually be shortcut as well in the future. Um, that's where we're heading. I mean, I, I, I don't think I you'll change my mind that that is where the future of kind of bookkeeping, so to speak, will um will evolve into doesn't necessarily mean you don't need bookkeepers, but again you're doing the bookkeeping work. It speak will um will evolve into doesn't necessarily mean you don't need bookkeepers, but again you're doing the bookkeeping work. It's becoming of a higher standard and a higher level. So you're actually having to do more interpretation and humanizing, to use your phrase of the numbers, rather than actually um, you know, data entry, type work and matching things, and that's where the skill set is shifting to in the profession as well.

Dan Crowther:

So, again, the best service that you could deliver at the moment in terms of from a day-to-day is everything is as up-to-date as possible, and then they can get. Not only have they got everything as up-to-date as possible, so they've got data they can make really good business decisions on up to the minute. But not only that they are then getting insights into that data and what that data actually means. So, you know, it's what I mean by that is, um, how quickly their cash flow is going to run out. You know, actually, there's there's all the opposite how much extra cashflow they're actually generating and where that should be put. You know, should that be just put into a very simple example into a bank deposit account to enable to earn them four, four and a half percent interest at the moment, um, and which they weren't perhaps earning before. Or perhaps maybe it's talking about sales prices. What if you flexed this, you know, compared to what you were, how is your management of overheads? You know, and where are we? What areas of the business are actually working well versus not working well that we actually need to. Either we need to focus on them or we need to. Like you know from, either we should stop doing this or actually we need to do more of this, because this is where this is actually what's making the biggest difference, difference, what is the fastest growing, or whatever it might be. That's where the accounting profession is heading on a more regular basis than than what it is currently.

Dan Crowther:

The profession in the past is is is backward, looking. So, and and this is no slight on the profession this was how it was when I started in my career. You know what, the first time, you know the first, when I, when I started in my career, uh, we would sit down, uh, at the end of the year, uh, we would like type in all the numbers. I type in like 100 bank statements drive me absolutely mental. Um like spent. I remember this, I got there's.

Dan Crowther:

Honestly, you go out for clients, sit there for days just coding bank statements and then, when you code them all, you get to type them all in, so like um, and when you look at that now it's madness. Yeah, um like compared to what? Um, you know what it used, what it, what it used to be, compared to what it is now. There's so much more that we can do in the time that we have available. So that's what it was and and we used to deliver, you know. So we sit there and, honestly, the the insights would be. However, many months after the end of the year. We sit there with him and really clever people would and I wasn't doing this at the time, but I'd give this to the partner at the time when they deliver that information tell them how much they'd spent on their motor expenses for the last 12 months, tell them what their tax would be, and that was what accountancy was then, and it's no slight on the people that used to do it that way. That's what the service was and that's moved and I know I've been doing it like 20 years. Um, it's like you know, slightly more, slightly more. We've wound it down, um, uh, slightly more.

Dan Crowther:

I know I've been doing it 20 years, but the profession is moved at such a fast rate now. You know, probably the first, like 10 years of my career were quite similar or not much movement. Now it's moving at such a fast pace, uh, and everything is changing all the time. But it's enabling us to give much better information to the clients give, and I can do better. I much prefer my job now and I'm sure that the trainees if I had, if I made them do what we are used to have to do I mean, they look at me like I was mental now probably, um, but their, their jobs are better. They're doing more data analysis, more interpretation of the data, helping the clients more. It's a much better service in terms of what we can deliver. So, but that's where I see the profession heading. It's more regular information, better decision-making, better interpretation of the data so that, again, using your face, humanizing the numbers, so I get the journey that the profession's been off.

Paul Shrimpling:

You know. Perhaps you know flat line of change to begin with, and then accelerating will continue to accelerate is the argument. In what ways are the client's expectations changing?

Dan Crowther:

uh, how are the client's expectations changing? So they, one thing is quicker, um, the communication is an awful lot quicker than it would would have been previously. So I think that they're they have a an expectation now of the service level which is higher than perhaps it was in the past. So you know, and it's like, it's like the data, um stuff, I suppose, if that you know that does need to be up to date. You know it's not, it's not okay for it to be kind of, um, nine months behind or however long. Now that needs to be up to date. The communication piece is really important. You know that making sure that we hit that, because you know, used to send letters back in the day. Do you know what I mean? It takes, you know, three days to get there and take three days for them to respond. But that, that no longer I mean an email is like I said. We have a. We have a one day working day response time on that. So and that's much quicker than perhaps what it would have been back then.

Paul Shrimpling:

Yeah, I think I was listening to someone last week just reiterating the fact that as soon as we've got used to Amazon delivering a parcel the day after that you've ordered it. Worst case means that all of our expectations on the speed of everything instantly changes. It's got nothing to do with the accounting profession, but the expectation has changed the accuracy of everything being delivered. I've just received some contact lenses. I've not even looked to check whether the prescription is my prescription or not, I just expect it to be Bob-on, whereas maybe a decade ago you might have had some reservations as to whether it would or it wouldn't.

Paul Shrimpling:

So I think there's a quality piece, a speed piece and I just wonder if there's something in that care area. You know the motivation, the desire, the personalisation of really wanting to help the client which is challenging the profession because it's come from that service obsession deliver the product to then getting into this maybe this client obsession. We've got to deliver for the client and I still wonder if there's still some miles to go yet where we've got. You know, everyone in the firm really cares about what happens for the client and their and how these services, whether it be payroll or accounts or bookkeeping or audit or whatever it is, actually um mean something of value to the client. I don't know how would you react to that um, I think the caring piece is probably fundamental.

Dan Crowther:

So, and they used to be, um, well, the caring piece is fundamental. They used to be kind of a real big buzzword. The buzzword changes in accountancy as well. I've learned over the years um, it's advisory at the moment, whatever the bloody hell that is um so um, but it was. But prior to that, um, it was being proactive. So proactive used to be I don't know if it was which, how many times before it was, but there you know, and it's still used now, that proactive word. So it's being a proactive accountant and there's definition. People will give various different definitions for that, but but my definition for being a proactive accountant was just caring, that's all it is, and by that.

Dan Crowther:

So my advice to our team members is, when they're acting for a client is to treat it as if it was somebody that they really cared about. So whether it be a member of their family, whether it's their brother, their sister, their mom, their dad, their son, their daughter, their best friend, it doesn't matter. But if this was your son, daughter, that was running this business, what would you say to them? You know, it's not, it's not. Would you say here's your tax, it's this is how much it is. Yeah, yeah, so you just pay it like this yeah yeah, that's how to do great Crack on.

Speaker 3:

Would you do that?

Dan Crowther:

Yeah, yeah, would you do that or actually would you give them advice? Would you advise them how that they could impact upon that tax bill, why that tax bill is like it is? Is there actually some tweaks they could make within that business to enable them, if it is tax related to, either tweak that next time or even tweak it this time, depending on when we're having that conversation, and not only that. Is there something that we can talk to them about their business that actually we could give them some advice to be able to help them? So you know, we've looked at your figures like you've been.

Dan Crowther:

You've been invoicing, for I know if it was a plumber, your boiler service has been x pounds. I can see the invoices. It's been that for the last five years. Have you thought about actually increasing your prices? You know, because everything else has gone up? Um, but that takes it from a definition. That's the definition of caring actually and that is being proactive um, but it's coming from a place of actually caring about the client and that's that's the only way I think that you can um, you can look at it is if you really cared about them, how, what advice would you give?

Paul Shrimpling:

I love that. I'm also challenged by that, because we've got this podcast called Humanise the Numbers and I'm actually going. Actually, what Dan's just described is a way of personalising this, personalising the numbers, but even that's not strong enough. It's caring about the numbers, caring about the people that the numbers belong to, in such a way that, like you say, my brother-in-law runs a business and I care for him and my sister dearly. How would I yeah, how would I respond to you know what we're finding out about their business by looking at their balance sheet and p&l account, for example?

Dan Crowther:

um, and and, by the way, nobody nobody that you've ever done that, that I've ever done that with has ever said what the bloody hell are you asking me that for? You know? So, um, they, they this is only a positive thing.

Dan Crowther:

Yeah, there's no, I mean, they're grateful. You know what I mean. They, they, they love that you're asking them questions about their business. They love that you're taking an interest. They love that. Actually, even if it's not relevant, that I don't know the in my fictional example, the plumber did put his boiler prices up last month and kind of realized it. Anyway, he's not unhappy because you've told him. He's actually. You know, you can see that um, see that somebody's thinking and caring about what they do and just trying to help. So there's only benefits to all of that, you know. There's benefits from a client relationship. There's benefits to service. There's actually benefit to the individual delivering that, because in my opinion that's better, um, better quality of work, and there is a lot more job satisfaction in doing things like that rather than just saying here's your tax bill, mr client, I hope you have a nice time.

Dan Crowther:

So uh so that that's the. That's the difference, I think, but that comes down to relationship caring. However, whatever kind of uh word you want to put on it, that's that's the difference.

Paul Shrimpling:

Uh, yeah, and you're right, you can put whatever word you want to put on it. That's the difference. Yeah, and you're right, you can put whatever word you want on it. It's this away from the transactional aspect of the service you're delivering payroll tax accounts or whatever, into the relational space. But I think the way you've described it, dan, is it's just, I've run a business for 19 years.

Paul Shrimpling:

I can't quite believe I've been running this business for 19 years and it's, um, it's just me, it is. You know, I've run a, I've run a business for 19 years. I can't quite believe I've been running this business for 19 years and it's 20 next year. That freaks me out a little bit. But it's like uh, neil who looks after us, is is really respectful of the fact we've been running a business for 19 years and you know the way we've done it and grown it and so on, and I'm always flattered that he's, you know, really passionate about helping us take the next step and I never felt, and I never feel as though he's been intrusive in any way, shape or form and um, he's, he's, uh, he can be a bit bossy with uh, with kate, who's a bit of a control freak, um, and I I even appreciate, even though I wouldn't necessarily want.

Dan Crowther:

Kate to know that, I guess.

Paul Shrimpling:

But yeah, it's that deep personal thing.

Dan Crowther:

Honestly, it's a massively important relationship to any business owner. That's full stop, I suppose, is the answer. So the accounting relationship can be a massive impact on that business owner. That's full stop, I suppose, is there is the answer. So the accounting relationship can be a massive impact on that business owner and that, you know, manifests its way in all sorts, in all sorts of ways. You know, I've sat down with, you know people who, um, I was sat down with a guy, um a couple you know, a few years back and you know he'd been laughed out of his job.

Dan Crowther:

He literally, you know, and I sat with him, I remember going to his house, sat around his kind of dining room table and he went from, he got, honestly, it was kind of unbelievable. He got laughed out of his job and he said, and he basically said, I'll show them. And he set his business up and I've worked with him ever since and honestly, he's transformational what he's done. He set up a business from that day forwards. He still quotes me on things today that I said to him when we spoke around that table and I've watched him change his life. Literally Every aspect of his life has changed because of what he's managed to achieve and I've been on that journey with him and it's a privilege to do so, by the way, a privilege to kind of help somebody do and achieve that. And it's a transformational story when you see from what kind of what where they were to where they are now. It's amazing. So there's a privilege to be, you know, to be part of that, and so there's massive things like that where you kind of I'm not saying I changed his life by any stretch of the imagination, but just being part of that journey is is really an amazing thing to do.

Dan Crowther:

Um, just just to things like you know, challenging people. So I challenged a guy kind of on a decision he'd made. Um, you know which I do kind of, uh, you know that's what I suppose falls under the term business advisor, because I do that regularly with him. Um, and of you know that's what I suppose falls under the term business advisor because I do that regularly with him. And he said you know what you're, you're right about that decision. He he went back and did what I said and kind of another transformational result in terms of his business. So, and the figures kind of were amazing once that, once that thing had happened, but there are. So there are really important decisions that you can help business owners with by doing the right things and being part of the journey that they're on, and that is where I think the caring piece comes in. It doesn't have to be a transactional relationship that here's your tax return, here's your accounts. It can be an awful lot more than that, and that's where the that's where the power is.

Paul Shrimpling:

That's where, actually, you start making a difference to people's lives so how good are you, dan across the firm, at communicating that message, that passion, across your 50 team members so that they get it.

Dan Crowther:

They're all bought in yeah, it's um, I don't I don't pretend that that's easy, um, because, because it isn't, and not everybody has the exposure to those, um, to those sorts of conversations, or even necessarily know that they're know that they're going on. I suppose the only thing, the things that we do to kind of try and get that message out, you know they're um, they're small things perhaps, but important to the to how we work. So it's just kind of we have, you know, we have um team meetings, monthly meetings, where you know we sit the bi-monthly sorry, not monthly bi-monthly we have. So we'll sit the team down together. We'll, you know, a nice it's always a nice meeting. We have breakfast rolls, you know we do. We have a DJ. A DJ plays us music while they come in and so they do the exit and entry and exit music, which is always a bit fun.

Dan Crowther:

But the purpose of that not to just listen to music, the purpose of that is to share what's going on in the business, uh, to come together as a team. Uh, I'll tell people about the bits that are going on, that that are important. They will. Other other team members will get up and speak. We'll share best practices, we'll share positive things that are happening.

Dan Crowther:

Um, we do share. We could do a thing called we do a quiz every time, so there's a new quiz, but it's only very short, but it's just to break the ice, to kind of get get people involved. Um, we do share the wins where anyone can nominate anyone. I stand up like clapping, like, like a madman like, for people who kind of um, who, who have, uh, demonstrated our values and behaviors and kind of done really positive things, and there's always an amazing amount of positive things that we're able to share across the team. Sometimes that may be stories, sometimes that may be um, personal wins. You know, it could be exams, it could be anything really, but that's that's how we try to communicate that in the, in the team that we have and across the organisation. Right?

Paul Shrimpling:

It's one of the ways.

Dan Crowther:

There's lots of different ways. There's lots of small things, I suppose. I'll take that as kind of an example, and I get it.

Paul Shrimpling:

There's no one big thing is there. It's just the daily interactions, coming from a place of passion and care, which you clearly do, the representation of you bringing up values and behaviours. Are they alive on a daily basis across the whole of the firm? Well, you can't see that happening all day times 50 people but there's some way we've got to get that working across the firm in order to establish those behavioural standards between each other, the behavioural standards with the clients and the fact that you've got that bi-monthly almost celebration of what's going on. But maybe, I don't know, do you bring if there's a key challenge that we haven't overcome at a time. Is there a bit of a reality check in those discussions as well?

Dan Crowther:

I'm trying to think what we do. So I mean, we definitely do things that talk about things that are important as well, so it's not just you know, um happy clappy stuff, you know we'll talk about um, we'll talk about we'll talk about important things, yeah yeah, it's, and that's what I think, um, we always have to be.

Dan Crowther:

I think, you know we. There is no getting away from the fact that, uh, we are service organization and the quality of the service we deliver is fundamentally the people, that, uh, we are service organization and the quality of the service we deliver is fundamentally the people that we have in the, in the team and the organization so we're only as good yeah, we're only as good as they are and therefore looking after them is of prime importance.

Dan Crowther:

You know, in terms of it's one of our key. You know, features of anything we do is kind of is team based really like, how do?

Dan Crowther:

we, how do we help the team? How do we improve the team? How do we um? You know, whatever, whatever it may be, it's always, it's always about the team, because there is nothing else. Like I mean, we talk about software and I and I will. I can talk about software for ages. I'm happy to do that, but but it that does not matter. It does not matter how good my software is like, whether it's Xero, whether it's QuickBooks, whether I'm doing lots of fancy stuff on the side, if the team are not engaged, you know, then it doesn't matter how good the software is, nothing else will work. So that's what you always have to come back to. I think in a service organization, it comes back to the team.

Paul Shrimpling:

Yeah, yeah, I'll send over one of our business breakthrough reports down. It's just, it's on a, the, the findings from a research study that shows up in a book called the progress principle, and it it unpacks how you elevate the level of engagement of everyone across the firm if they all feel as though they've made some progress today. And you, oh my goodness, have we got to really have a conversation which helps every one of our team members see some progress? Yeah, but you know you've got a cascade of responsibility across managers and what have you across the firm. So if the uh, the standard in our firm is that everyone's, um, everyone's, achieved something every day, haven't they? Um, how long does it take to see it? Acknowledge it? Make it tangible, if you can, so it's easier.

Paul Shrimpling:

I'll share it with you, because they pulled 12,000 daily diary pieces off people in five different businesses. Three were doing OK, one was knocking out the park as a business and the other one was failing miserably. But they found a brilliant manager in the failing business and they found a tanking manager in the successful business. And then all sorts of you know all sorts in the research, but it just just what stands out is this let's let's communicate better the sense of progress that's going on. You know, team member by team member, client by client service, process improvement by process improvement, it drops and I know we've been having a conversation about lean. It drops into that lean space really quite effectively.

Paul Shrimpling:

I'll share it with you and I'll put the link in the show notes to everyone who's listening in. So let's get to the last question I'm wondering, based on this conversation it's been fairly wide-ranging, dan, but with a real personal um emphasis. Clearly at this time I just wonder what. What's what stood out for you in terms of just making you think a bit deeper about something that you could, should be doing more or better within film imagery?

Dan Crowther:

uh, what stood out? I think there's there's always loads of things we can do better, and it doesn't matter where we are on the journey and I look at it as our own journey. I try not to compare too much against other people although like it's natural to do so sometimes and other firms, and even though they're doing great stuff, but I try to just make our journey the one that's really our prime focus. Um, there's lots of things that are relevant and what, in terms of our conversation, what's kind of been thought provoking for me? I think probably how we can maybe share best practice a little bit more. I know, I know quite kind of the team meeting. It's like how do we, how can we elevate that again to another level?

Dan Crowther:

so perhaps that's either done more regularly or with more purpose than than perhaps what we currently are doing and that would be an interesting thing to quite unpack, to see, um, to see if we can do that, because I think that's there's a lot of powerful stories that people are doing all day, every day, that perhaps are unnoticed by a lot of the team. So that is something, maybe, where we need to be better.

Paul Shrimpling:

Right In that progress research, you talk about a team of people who were there was a legal case taking place against this business and there was a central team of let case taking place against this business and there was a there was a central team of let's call them five people working on that, but every day the progress that that case made was communicated to their you know, the support team and the team who weren't actually people, who weren't involved in that team at all directly, and there was a vicarious knock-on impact across all of the the diary messages coming back into the researchers, because they were brilliantly sharing the progress of something that was important for clients, important for the business and therefore important for everybody's well-being, because obviously the business pays their mortgage, or rather the clients pay the firm who then pays everybody's mortgage. But yeah, it's really really powerful. Um, brilliant, dan I I I know, uh, how full your schedule is. I can't thank you enough for taking an hour out and spending it with us on the humanize the numbers pod.

Dan Crowther:

Thank you very, very much thank you, no, appreciate it and uh, yeah, thanks. Thanks for interviewing. I don't know if I've said anything useful to anybody whatsoever, but there we go. I did my best, so hopefully something in there makes sense to somebody.

Paul Shrimpling:

I'm sure it does. I'm sure it does Really appreciate it, loved it, thank you. There was lots of great lines from Dan Crowther in this podcast. One of them snuck away quite early in the pod was always be recruiting, always be feeding the growth of your firm, as he said. And that's exactly what the Accountants Growth Academy is all about. It's like-minded, ambitious accountants coming together three times a year to unpack a key element of humanising the numbers in such a way that you end up transforming the results of your accounting firm. If you want to find out more about the Accountants Growth Academy, go to the link in the show notes. If you want to find out more about the Accountants Growth Academy, go to the link in the show notes. You'll find more valuable discussions with the leaders of ambitious accounting firms. At humanizethenumbersonline, you can also sign up to be notifiedpt from a podcast discussion with Dan Cockerton of the Digital Accountancy Show. If you like what you hear and you want to go to the full podcast, visit humanizethenumbersonline or go to your favourite podcast platform, including Spotify and iTunes.

Speaker 3:

I think there's a lot of talent that isn't fully utilized in businesses generally. I have a small number of friends who they had been working for a business for absolutely years. They were doing that role, they were doing it well, but it's not until they've moved on to a more senior role or bigger role where they've been allowed to spread their wings and they've just absolutely flown and taken their new business to another level. And I said to this guy my best friend actually.

Speaker 3:

I said you've done that previous role for eight or nine years. You didn't particularly like it. You like the business, you like the people, but isn't it mad like what you're doing now, where you're leading this global business to new highs and this older company had all this talent there and you sitting there on that desk doing?

Speaker 3:

that job and they had no idea because they never tried you, they never put you in that position. So I do think there's a. I do think there's a. There's a lot of wasted talent out there. Because we keep people in their comfort zones, they do a good job for us. We don't rock the boat or anything. But actually if you give them whatever it is they need to progress or do better things, bigger things, maybe a bit of trust that the firm or the business could be rewarded for doing so, just like you say. Like you say, sometimes people need that nudge to go and do that.