Connecting the Dots...with a adrenalin accountant (Dan Scougall)

This week, I reconnect with Dan, an accountant who defies every stereotype. From racing cars and running a farm to harvesting grass trees and managing an accounting firm, Dan’s story is packed with business lessons, adventure, and adrenaline.

 In this episode:

• How he went from plastering to becoming an accounting firm partner
• The unexpected three-year break from accounting and why he returned
• His passion for motorsport, including power cruising and speedway racing
• What it takes to run a 1,200-acre cattle farm
• The importance of having an outlet outside of business

A must-listen for business owners, car enthusiasts, and anyone who wants to break the mold.

Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts & wherever you get your podcasts.

#ConnectingTheDots #Podcast #BusinessStories #Motorsport #WorkLifeBalance #FarmingLife #Accounting #Speedway

Transcript

Speaker 0:00

Week 44. I'm filling up this year since I turned 49. Connect with people every week that I know, don't know. This is another one of those ones where I know this person. I met them in the chamber of commerce. So I was president of the chamber of commerce on and off for, Oh. years. And they were on the committee at the time and they got to meet Fat Adam. And for those that don't know, I was pretty big, really big. And and he was one of those first guys I ran into after I'd lost a lot of weight and he didn't recognize me. And and then he was like did you have the surgery? And I was like, no, went running a lot, heaps. Anyhow, he's one of those guys that I, I don't know boring accountants. And I know a lot of people call accountants boring, but he's another example of not a boring accountant in any fashion. He's got some pretty cool dangerous hobbies too. So let's go find out about a non boring accountant.

Speaker 2 0:57

This is Dan. We met like a long time ago. I'm guessing probably first for the chamber of commerce.

Speaker 3 1:04

Yeah. I think so. And about 2008 odd. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:08

And you were an accountant then.

Speaker 3 1:09

Yep.

Speaker 2 1:10

So, you're an accountant now. A lot's changed though, because you're a different firm. Yes. But you weren't always an accountant. No,

Speaker 3 1:17

no.

Speaker 2 1:17

So let's go back to, when did you go to high school?

Speaker 3 1:20

Tullawong. Right? I knew you were local I didn't know you were

Speaker 2 1:23

that local.

Speaker 3 1:24

My first state school, Tullawong High School. Yep.

Speaker 2 1:26

What did you do after that?

Speaker 3 1:27

Well, during high school I was actually washing I was doing cars, doing car detailing for electric attrition business. Then, yeah, I pretty much went to uni. I was plastering. Dad's a plasterer. So, we were doing the basic work. I was doing back blocking and, and sanding and helping sheeting, just sort of the. The grunt works are doing that through uni then yeah, halfway through uni, I started with a firm when I was about 19 made less money the first couple of years accounting than I did plastering part time, but yeah. And

Speaker 2 1:53

did you, were you just,

Speaker 3 1:54

Like manual labor plaster or did you do any trade? No, no trade. So, basically I didn't do any of the setting or cornice work or anything. It was, it was just probably the most technical part was the sanding. So that's probably the only skill set I had there. The rest was just you know, sheeting.

Speaker 4 2:07

Yeah.

Speaker 3 2:07

Helping move things around, clean up, sort of, but sanding was my biggest job. So I'd go around, basically after they finished setting the job, you go through, you sand it, make sure everything's ready for the planer. Yep. And yeah, that was it was, it was good work. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, good work for dad. Yep. And which firms did you end up at? So I saw an ad in the Sunny Coast University. They had like a placement in there. And I went for a job at Mobs and Company at Caloundra. They had Mobsy, Jamie Mobsy had three staff at the time, I think. And then, yeah, started with him part time as the only other bloke in the office. So, I had two older, well, they weren't old, but they were older than me, older ladies to learn from. And yeah, pretty much them and Jamie got me, got me started. So, it was a good, good team to learn with. Yeah, awesome. And that,

Speaker 2 2:47

That must have worked out well.'cause I think by the time we met you were a partner of the firm.

Speaker 3 2:52

Yeah. So, when I was 22, I hit Jamie up for for more money. You know, I was, I was a pretty good worker there and, and picking it up pretty fast. And I was doing, actually doing kickboxing at the PCYC and mate of mine worked at KPMG and KPMG, one of the big four.

Speaker 4 3:07

Yep.

Speaker 3 3:08

So I said to mobs, I want more money or I'm going to KPMG'cause it's a namesake. Or I want to become a partner. So he said, if you want to become a partner, that's fine. I, I bought in 10 percent and we bought an office at Caboolture for me to start running.

Speaker 4 3:19

Yeah. Awesome. How long did you do that for?

Speaker 3 3:21

About 10 years. So we started in 08 there and then I sold out in 2018. Yeah. Okay. I think when we started we had three or four staff and when we finished, we probably had, you know, six or seven sort of thing. And we kind of doubled our turnover at that stage. So it was and it was our biggest office. So we ended up with a. An office up the coast, the Caboolture one and one in West End. Three partners. Yeah. We had 20 odd staff in the financial planning firm that we'd, we'd set up to. So Caboolture was the biggest office that I'd grown that into. So yeah. Good, good area for it, but good team. Yeah. Yeah. Good fun. But then yeah, after 10 years it sort of, had a, had a bit too much going on. Yeah.

Speaker 2 3:58

And and, and what did you do after that?

Speaker 3 4:01

You had a little

Speaker 2 4:02

break, did you?

Speaker 3 4:03

I did. Yeah. So, three year Australian of trade which is, which is fine. Didn't think I was ever going back at that stage. Cause I'd sort of done my, done my time, but we, we've got a farm up at Gaynda with the family there.

Speaker 2 4:14

All right. Where's Gaynda?

Speaker 3 4:16

Gaynda. So I think it's pretty much inland from Bundy. I think it's about a hundred K's. As the as a crow flies or something like that. But from Bundy or from here? From Bundy. From Bundy. Yeah, so from here it's about 3 hours 15 minutes. Yeah, okay. So you can sort of go up through Gympie and out west and Goomery sort of way up, up from there. But Gaynda was actually, is Queensland's oldest town. So Right. Gaynda was one of three picked to be our our capital.

Speaker 4 4:40

Mm hmm.

Speaker 3 4:40

Obviously we went with Brisbane because there's a Burnett River at Gaynda, but they would have had to dredge way too far inland to make that work. So It's it's a nice little town. Oldest pub in Queensland's there. Wow. Good place to have a drink. A lot of good old farmers there. So, yeah, we, we got about 1200 acres up there. We're running cattle on as a business. And I decided to harvest grass trees, yeah, harvested those for a couple of years and wholesale mainly down to Victoria.

Speaker 2 5:05

Yeah, wow.

Speaker 3 5:05

Yeah. So, that was, yeah, that was, that was a good bit of outdoor work, a lot of harder labor. You've got to manually pull the trees by hand and, and then get them grown back here and, and sort of do all the work there and also did self managed super fund audits as well. So. The old business partners had no problem with me doing that. So I did audit work as a registered auditor at the time for other accountants.

Speaker 2 5:25

Yeah.

Speaker 3 5:26

Gotcha. Then yeah, three years after the restraint finished day after I started a new business, which I didn't expect to do. So yeah, right. And we're sitting here

Speaker 2 5:33

now. It's called Next Level Taxation.

Speaker 3 5:35

That's the one. And and it's not just you anymore. No, no. I've got another lady. She's an admin bookkeeper sort of office administrator. So she's here two to three days a week. Marisa, she's she's our first team member. And making a move next month into a, into a premise and looking for an accountant at the moment actually, so looking for someone with one or two years experience, so we'll see how that goes. And

Speaker 2 5:56

are they hard to find at the moment?

Speaker 3 5:58

Yeah, no one wants to do accounting.

Speaker 2 5:59

Right.

Speaker 3 6:00

Yeah, they reckon the the, the rates have dropped off. Okay. With the government intervention and there's changes coming in July where. Accountants have to dob clients in and dob each other in for things. There's all these new regulations. I think it's putting people off.

Speaker 2 6:12

Right.

Speaker 3 6:13

The works there. Yeah. One thing I never have a problem with is, is bringing clients in. I sort of try and talk to clients as I'd like to be spoken to and, and get back to them on time and things other accountants aren't good at. So, bringing the work in is fine. It's just finding somebody if, if we decide to go. Yeah. If I can't find somebody, well. I might go back to how I was trained, you know, traditionally we'd always work on the premise that you'd go to the university, put an ad in, you'd train someone up while they were in uni, then you set them on full time. I was hoping to find someone half trained, but I don't think it's a possibility unless I'm willing to. Bring someone in from South Sudan or Sri Lanka, which seems to be where all the resumes are coming from at the moment, so that just won't work for someone in house.

Speaker 2 6:53

And I noticed a lot of accounting firms also go down that offshore, you know, accountant path as well. Have you considered that?

Speaker 3 7:00

Yeah, I've had 15 phone calls in the last week from offshore people. The last bloke had a good laugh actually, because I told him he was the 15th caller and he kind of figured that's where we needed to end the conversation. But, I'm always polite to them, but I sort of say, listen, I need someone in house. I want someone who can be there all the time, you know, I've got a shoulder reconstruction coming up soon. So I need someone in there to actually do stuff for me. And that's how I prefer to do it. We have tried offshore before in the last firm, the and, and they're very good at can work. Good. I've got friends who run larger firms who solely use offshore.

Speaker 4 7:29

Yep.

Speaker 3 7:30

However, when I was trialing it myself, I found they didn't pick up on things that we Yep. Absolutely. In this country, we would understand as normal parts of business, there was just, you know, the cultural difference on things. It just took a little bit longer, and by the time you went back and forth, it was just as easy to pay someone a bit more to be in house. So, I'm sure it works for some businesses, depending on their clientele base, but yeah, it's not something I envisage ever having.

Speaker 2 7:53

So what are you going to do with the setup here for the

Speaker 3 7:55

business? Yeah, so we're sitting in a standalone converted shed. Once again, the beauty of having a dad and a brother who are plasterers.

Speaker 2 8:03

Yep.

Speaker 3 8:04

Very nicely done though,

Speaker 2 8:05

including the whiteboard behind

Speaker 3 8:06

us. That's a wall turned into a whiteboard. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. That's my fancy part. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So my, my shed with the office facade on the front it will, this will be a, I guess, sort of guest bedroom and things. Gotcha. I've got a baby coming in, in June. So my third child. So, to be sort of guests can sleep in the boardroom here and the kids can watch telly and. Play their Mortal Kombat Arcade game that I bought myself as a wedding present and things. Actually my wife bought that for me as a wedding present, so that was the coolest part of the wedding. So you're not going to convert it into a toy shed, because you've got

Speaker 2 8:39

toys.

Speaker 3 8:40

Yes, yes, so the toy shed's Behind us there. So it's full at the moment. So, yeah, I don't have any room for any more. What,

Speaker 2 8:47

Run us through your toys. What do you got?

Speaker 3 8:49

The wife's got a couple cars. So she's got a 64 Mini and a it's a 70 something Datsun, but it's a Datto

Speaker 4 8:55

1200.

Speaker 3 8:56

I got the 69 Mustang convertible in there and my car, my favorite one is my 75 Chrysler by Chrysler. So. It's a 408 stroke small block was supercharged on meth, but we put it back to street set up. So in a couple of motorbikes the wife's BSA Bantam in there and in the dirt bikes and stuff. So with that and all the They're not really toys at the farm, but the, the dozer and things up at the farm, they're still fun. Yeah. Yeah, there's plenty.

Speaker 2 9:22

And the Chrysler, did you used to throw that down the quarter?

Speaker 3 9:25

More for power crews.

Speaker 2 9:26

Right, okay. Yeah, so

Speaker 3 9:27

we've my, I'm the oldest of three, so, my brothers are into cars too. The youngest one's into he's doing a Mustang up and he's got an ex cop charger from Surry Hills, ex Aussie charger and The old man's got his twin turbo charger as well. It was in street machine last year. He set up for drag week.

Speaker 2 9:42

Right. Okay.

Speaker 3 9:42

And then the middle brother's actually going to power cruise. I think it's a. This week or next week, PowerCrew Sydney is on, so he's got a supercharged Sentura that he's taken down there, so we used to do PowerCrew, so basically just racing people on track, having a bit of fun, you can do some burnout events and off street racing and stuff, which is cool, but yeah, most of it's just, just for fun, yeah, but the downside with a It's a big supercharger, it looks cool, it's good to sit in your shed and have a beer and stare at, but you can't drive it on the street.

Speaker 2 10:08

When when I knew you in the Chamber of Commerce days, were you into another type of motorsport?

Speaker 3 10:13

Yeah, Speedway. Yeah, right. Yeah, so we were running, And they're

Speaker 2 10:15

the things that look weird with the off centred sides. What's that about?

Speaker 3 10:19

Yeah, so it's all for the the downforce. Right. It's left, it's like NASCAR, so you're going left all the time on dirt track. Yep. We were running Formula 500s, so Sprint cars are the big boys, they've got the 410 V8s in them so they're pushing 900 horsepower. They've got a better power to weight ratio than a Formula 1 car, we were the next class down, so we were second or third quickest out of the categories, but we ran an R6 motorbike engine on methanol. Same, same everything, same setup same rear ends, you know, but except we weren't, we were chain driven, we weren't running a diff, but yeah, they were, everything was sort of set up and you had to change for each track. So, I had a crew chief at the time who would help me set up. He was Bruce, he was a gun. So, yeah, we've, we've raced from Cairns to Mount Gambier when we're doing that. Dad and I were both running cars together at one stage, which was cool because we. Put them in the truck and went to different tracks and I built a sprint car after that. Yep. But then I sold out of mobs and I've realized once I sold out of mobs that sprint cars aren't cheap. Yep. I say

Speaker 2 11:13

an expensive and dangerous sport.

Speaker 3 11:15

Yes. Yeah. The danger is the fun part. Right. Okay. The expense is the downside. Okay. Yep. But And

Speaker 2 11:19

is that why you do something like that? It's just all for the adrenaline.

Speaker 3 11:22

I think in an outlet, I think in business, and I say this to a lot of clients and other friends in business and, you know, I'm assuming you're the same. Most of my friends are business owners because we have a lot in common. But. You need an outlet if you're stuck doing something day in day out and the drudgery of it, you need that outlet. Family's fantastic. You can do things with your family, but I think you need something for you as well. When I lost doing something for me, it, it, it kind of set me off a little bit cause I didn't have anything I could not look forward to. I love my family, but just to, just to have that outlet to throw it away. So. You know, I'd love to do it again, but at the moment I've got a baby coming of course and the two boys that I've got half the time from the prior relationship. So business, running the farm is enough to do for now, but I'd definitely love to do that stuff again. But yeah, at least my valiant will be running next month so we can go and do family cruises and still have a little bit of that, a bit of an outlet. Yeah, not, not the extent I'd love, I'd love to get back into a spring car or a jet sprint boat. I'd love to get into those, yeah, those little, you know, they go through little tracks. Where they

Speaker 2 12:22

create their water course track. Yeah, and you make the

Speaker 3 12:25

wrong turn, you end up on the dirt. You're upside down. Yeah, right. Yeah, so, Not dangerous at all. No, my dad said he wouldn't navigate for me in that because he has no ambition of sitting upside down drowning. Yeah. I'm like, well, that's more of the excitement, but yeah, yeah. Yep, so, you need, you need to get your kicks, no matter what it is. No matter what your hobby is, I think you need If you're going hard in the business, you need to have an outlet somehow.

Speaker 2 12:45

Yep. Yep. How often do you get up to the farm?

Speaker 3 12:48

Every couple of weeks at least. Yeah, okay. So Dad's sort of semi retired. Does anyone live up

Speaker 2 12:51

there?

Speaker 3 12:52

No. Okay. But Dad's semi retired now, so he's up there a bit more. Yep. There's a, there's a lot to do. Like, we're up there over the weekend selling cattle. We took them out to Ipswich. Yeah, you, you gotta tend to them all the time. We got new births coming through. We've got, you know, 10 to 12k of fences to maintain. Yeah,

Speaker 2 13:06

wow. 10 to 12k of fences?

Speaker 3 13:08

Yeah, on 1200 acres, that's sort of our surrounding diameter. So we we've just sort of fixed all those, which is good. And yeah, you know, but a storm comes through, you've got to go through and check them. Yeah, you're always worried about your beasts and stuff. You're maintaining equipment, weed control, trees, before you push new tracks. Yeah, it's funny to do. Yeah, wow. It's good work. It's, Yeah. Farming's a tough one to make money in. Yeah. You know, on our scale, you know, we are running as a business and we are running it to profit, but to get, you know, a decent profit, you really would have to have a lot of money involved. An awful lot. Yeah.

Speaker 2 13:40

Yeah. And have you got a set up there for you to stay at and,

Speaker 3 13:43

Yeah. There's an old wing of the Maryborough nursing home up there. Right. that's, that's that's the house. So they got moved

Speaker 2 13:47

there or Yeah. Got moved there. Yeah.

Speaker 3 13:49

They took it up on a truck. It's 130 meters up on a hill. So they had to come through the neighbor's property to get it up. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, there's a couple of sheds down there and a dome shelter for our hay and whatnot. But yeah, no, it's, it's, it's lovely up there. The people are nice. It's just a throwback in time.

Speaker 2 14:04

And how do you get around the property? Is it motorbikes or is it little buggies or?

Speaker 3 14:07

Yeah, we got we got a couple of farm cars, so like a service vehicle and then the old trusty late 70s Hilux ute. Yep. That's our sort of fence running vehicle where you sort of run your barb off the back, but I use a a Kawasaki Stockman. I've got a proper farmer's bike now. Yeah,

Speaker 4 14:21

yeah,

Speaker 3 14:21

yeah. Yeah you know, that, that's sort of handy. You can, how

Speaker 2 14:24

long does it take you to get around and check out 1200 acres if there's, you know, been a big storm or something?

Speaker 3 14:29

Yeah. So we're only running around the outside, so it's not too bad on the outer edge. It might take you, you know, an hour and a half to sort of put around there. But if the fences are down, there's there's a bit more work to do, but we've over time learned a few tricks and things on, on fence repairs. There's certain little tools and gadgets out now that make it easier and save you a lot of time. So it's, it's not too bad, but yeah, the last thing you want is your cattle out, especially when you're not there all the time. They're tagged. I mean, theft still does happen, but you know, they're tagged, they're branded. You'd hope not, but

Speaker 4 14:57

you

Speaker 3 14:58

never know. So you don't want cattle out on the road. We, we sort of border two roads where we are. Yeah, you just don't want that while we're not there.

Speaker 4 15:04

Yeah, awesome. And fast forward five years, what does, what do you got on the horizon for yourself?

Speaker 3 15:09

Five years, yeah, well at the moment it's, it's office fit out next month. Yep. Because I'll be doing most of that myself which, which will be good. That'll be helping me. Office fit out, shoulder reconstruction coming up, baby due in June. Yeah, a bit of investment stuff going on, so. Fair, fair bit on the, on the cards. This year's a whitewash. Yeah, I'm pretty much done with 25 already. Yeah, right. I've got it all out. Yeah, it's all kegged out. Yep. Growth wise with the business, you know, we'll probably, if we can get another account number, we'll grow a little bit. I don't want to be huge again. I don't want to get to the stage I was at last time. You sort of lose touch with, with the clients. And it's not what I want to do again. People, I don't want people to become numbers. I want to, the only joy I get out of accounting nowadays after doing it for 20 odd years is is helping people those. And it might be those little things where someone's stressed about something. And if you can take that stress off their shoulders or explain something Accountants are bad for communication. Like I said, I don't consider myself a normal accountant. I don't, you know, drink wine. I don't play golf or chess or anything like that. I like to be different. I like to relate. And that's probably why I get along with so many clients. But if I can explain things to them, I think that's, that's a really great thing. Then they've understood something that they've never quite understood. And it might only take me 10 minutes to do, but I get satisfaction out of that. So Yeah, growing, but on a small scale. Aside from that, yeah, maybe in five years once the the next baby comes, a little girl. So, once the daughter's a bit older, maybe then I can look to do some racing or something again. So, yeah, but yeah, we've, we've definitely, my wife, Erin and I have definitely leveraged ourself up this year. So this, we, we've got a lot on and

Speaker 2 16:36

finally, if, if there was a favorite place for you to hop in your Chrysler and go for a cruise, where is it? To the farm. To

Speaker 3 16:41

the

Speaker 2 16:41

farm.

Speaker 3 16:41

Yep. Yep. There we go. The, the farm is, is, this is where I live. Yep. And the farm is where I feel at home. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, that's a, that's a feeling you, you, you don't often get. Yep.

Speaker 2 16:50

But

Speaker 3 16:51

yeah, that's, that's my favorite place. Aside from that, if I was driving around here locally, to answer that, I'd probably just go down Old North Road around the back there and up through Marina. That's always a nice little cruise for us locals, but yeah. You like the country and hilly outlook. Yep. It's nice. Yeah. You know how it is in the old car, nothing better than running up and down the hills. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 17:09

Oh, thanks for chatting to me. Cheers mate.

Speaker 3 17:12

I took the valves at Perth. So, I bought that motor out of Summit, you know, Summit Racing in the States. It was a blueprint engine, brought it over here, dumped it in, it was doing 340 at the rears. Spares in, shot straight down, went through Wilcunia, Wilcunia, and down through there. Yeah. And then the South Australia. And then, yeah, shot across Nullarbor and back, not a, didn't miss a beat. Right. Had two fuel had two jerrycans in the back though. Yeah. I come out of little Topar as I was going along there. I was almost running out of fuel and I swear the guy at the service station was rubbing his hands together when he could see me, when he could hear me coming because the fuel was expensive. Back then it was two dollars something a litre. You couldn't get 98, you could only get 95. So, it was pinging as well because it wasn't the fuel, it didn't have the right fuel in it. But yeah, no, going up the farm, the only downside is it's a big hill. So, when you get to the farm, we've got a set of old yards out the front. Basically, you've got to park your car in there, get one of the farm cars and take you up to the house. Because four wheel drive country. Right, okay. It's about a K driveway. Yeah. Up to it. Yeah.