Episode 80:

Welcome to The Upstream Leader Podcast. I’m Heath Alloway, your host for today’s episode. And we have a first today. This is the first episode that we’ve ever had three guests on at once and, quite frankly, I’m not sure what to expect. I plan to have a good time, but outside of that, I’m not sure where the conversation is going, but I am excited. I have three guests: I have Caitlin Gibbs, a manager at ORBA, Caitlin, welcome to the show.

Thank you, glad to be here.

Good to see you again, Caitlin. And we also have Matt Skinner, a partner at Beaird Harris. So Matt, as always, good to see you

Thank you, thank you.

And we also have Trevor Brown, a senior manager at PYA. So Trevor, welcome to the show.

Good to be here, Heath. Thank you.

Well, for the group, just real quick, before we jump in, just to give our listeners a little background on the discussion—so, the three guests that we have on, they’re part of peer networks that I get the opportunity to interact with. And Caitlin and Trevor and Matt, they’ve all been great contributors. They’ve provided a lot to those peer networks, and really just focusing on what’s most important to the groups. The three of them have done an outstanding job. So I wanted to give everyone a glimpse into the power of the profession and just getting us on and having a discussion about where the profession is, how can we continue to get better, and the power of having that community? So Caitlin, something we like to do with every one of our guests—we ask everyone this question—what has really made you the leader that you are today?

Thanks, Heath. Yeah, I think finding good mentors that have the skill sets that you want to have as a leader, and then trying to emulate that, that’s been the biggest piece for my career. Just surrounding yourself with, you know, people that have those skills that you’re working towards or that you like or don’t like, so you can see what you want to do or don’t want to do.

So Caitlin, how did you end up in the public accounting profession?

I graduated with my accounting degree, but I didn’t have like a job lined up. And so my father’s in corporate finance. He’s like, go into public accounting, it’s a great way to start your career. That was back in 2007 and I have yet to leave. So I don’t see myself ever leaving.

Very good. So Matt, same question for you. What’s really made you the leader that you are today?

Yeah, I think I would echo Caitlin that, not only finding quality mentors, but I think the opposite is also true—I think I learned just as much or maybe more from people that I said I absolutely categorically don’t want to be like you, or treat people like you, or operate like you. So for all the value that exists for someone that you say, this is a great individual, this is an inspiring and important individual, I believe truly there’s a balance where you say, wow, I really don’t like anything about the way this other person does it. I’m going to actively course correct and do the opposite.

So Matt, with that being said, and well, if you could go back in time, what advice would you give to yourself today? Or if you could—old Matt vs. Matt today, what could you go back and what advice would you give to yourself?

I hope I wouldn’t call myself “Old Matt” when I travel back—I hope it wouldn’t be like, “There’s Old Matt.” I think, at least for me in my youth, it’s really hard to look forward, right? There’s the standard question, what are you going to do in five years, ten years, and then it’s really a struggle early in your career to kind of see that plan. I think same thing I would say to anybody now who would call me “Old Matt,” is you don’t have to know all the answers and you’re allowed to change whenever you want, but also it’s to your benefit to sort of say, okay, I do have a goal, I do have a five or ten year goal. And whether or not that’s one for esteem or money or time off, I think it’s crucial that you sit there early in your career and say, “Okay, I am working towards something for me.”

Very good, Matt. Yeah, it’s easy to get stuck in the moment, gosh, not even just early in our career, but even throughout our career. So, Trevor, same question for you. What really made you the leader that you are today?

I think, first and largest influence is probably my parents. That’s how I was raised. But I think getting involved in things going all the way back to school life and high school, college, and then also as I entered my career, serving on boards, getting exposed to different positions such as that. And then I think just being curious about things. I love to read and love to learn. So I think doing that also improves your leadership skills and you just get exposed to like what Matt was saying, think people that do things the wrong way and the people that do things the right way, and you can kind of combine the attributes you like there and try to implement those into your own career.

So Trevor, a little different question for you, thinking about where you are at today, what’s really kept you in the public accounting profession?

I think it’s the constantly changing environment of working with different clients, working with different teammates, working with different rules that get created and passed down from the government or from accounting boards. You know, I think it’s just, you constantly are getting exposed to new things. And then I also love the service aspect as well, where we’re helping our clients grow their businesses and understand their businesses better. So, you know, it’s a great platform to really get to know your clients better and provide more insight. And I think both of those factors play a role in that.

Very good. Well, Trevor, one thing that we, whenever I was kind of opening our discussion and one of the things that I tell people that I just truly love about our profession is getting to see and interact with so many different firms. And early on, before I was at Upstream, when I was in a firm, I think too often I looked at our peer firms or other firms as competition, and maybe I wasn’t as open to sharing in some of those cases. And as I’ve, you know, kind of grown over the past few years, I just see a lot of firms really investing and sharing knowledge to help elevate other firms. So, Trevor, I’m curious to get your take. What is your experience that’s been, whenever you’ve been interacting with other firms? What does that look like?

You know, overall I think it’s been very positive. Collaboration is probably the quickest way to success. You know, helping others, exposes you to their problems and allows you to share your knowledge, and then therefore they’re more willing to share their knowledge. It almost creates like a vulnerability among firms where both are able to share their problems and the ways that they’ve solved those problems. I think it helps both sides of the equation there. I do. I have seen the negative side of over-competition as well in my career and I think it does the opposite.

Well, I’m curious from Caitlin or Matt, as Trevor was talking, thinking about your career path and growth, at what stage did you realize that, I’ll say most firms, not all firms, but most firms were actually open to collaboration and kind of sharing what they’re going through. Was there a certain point in your career whenever that light bulb came on and it’s like, you know what, I’m not in this alone?

For me, I would say it didn’t happen until later in my career. I just wasn’t exposed to it. I would say when I, you know, was an experienced senior, you know, newer manager was really when I got the opportunity to be in some of these peer networking groups and like Trevor had said, it’s just been all positive since then.

How about you, Matt?

I think it’s, I would echo the same. When you start serving on boards or committees or even you start going to networking events, I think the first doorway into that, even before you’re talking about strategy and operational things, it is a group therapy space where you say, “Man, I am really struggling with this one specific thing” and then 15 people you’ve never met are like, “Oh dude, I know, like it’s the same thing for us. We’re 20 states away and we’re four times your size, but we have the same problem.” You kind of realize, to Trevor’s point, that not only can you work together towards something, But the majority of the obstacles and frustrations that you have aren’t unique to you or your leadership or your team, and they’re a lot more universal than maybe you naturally are inclined to think.

So Matt, I promise I’m not picking on you when I do this and I won’t call you “Old Matt” anymore, but I am going to have you travel back in time again. When you go back to when you first started in the profession, what observations do you have as far as change? What’s changed since you first started in public accounting?

Yeah, I think initially, we sort of had set up a, let’s say an artificial difficulty barrier to being a CPA in public accounting, right? We still have the exam, we still have these things, but there were a lot of badges of honor of, oh yeah, I worked 180 hours last week, or, oh yeah, I’m such a great tax preparer that I missed my grandpa’s birthday, you know, something that, at the time, I feel like 10 years ago, and for some people it still is, it’s just a race to the bottom on these specific brags. And increasingly, both in terms of the age of the workforce and the general culture around it, everything post-2020, I think a lot of those priorities have shifted, and from my position, rightly so, that now increasingly people are saying, “Okay, wait a minute, the service matters to me, my clients matter to me, the occupation matters to me, but also at the end of the day, like, it is a job, and a lot of the maybe technical and administrative aspects, it’s not so impressive anymore to say that I didn’t attend my third grader’s graduation because I was working on 1099 forms” or whatever it was.

Yeah. So with what you described there, Matt, and this is a question for the group: When you reflect back on just your time in the profession, do you think most of what Matt just talked about or any change observations that you have, has more of that been forced change, or has some of that been more intentional of, we see the vision of the firm, but we, or the profession, and that’s the direction we’re moving. So, I just want to get a feel for, you know, your, sense of what’s been forced change, and then what have we intentionally done as a firm or as a profession? So, maybe, Caitlin, I’ll start with you, and then Trevor, I’ll get your input.

Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with what Matt said with the change, and the, bragging of, “I’ve worked 120 hours,” like, that’s great, but I like my sleep, so something has to give. And as far as the current change, I think it’s been both. I think firms are realizing, especially with this younger generation who want the work life balance, rightfully so, we have to adapt, otherwise you’re not going to retain and keep good staff. So the concept of just burning yourself into the ground is just not working anymore, and we need to figure out what is. How do we retain staff? How do we build those relationships? And so some of it is leveraging technology, or some of it is making the work life balance work better, but that’s really been the progress I’ve seen. I mean, when I first started working, we were still doing paper audits. So now, the technology has just come so far that we can, you know, really leverage that and make everything more efficient.

Yeah, and Caitlin, even when you say that, you think about it, in all reality, that’s, a lot of that’s happened in not that much time. So, Trevor, this is, well, let me let you answer that one first. Give your observations and then I’ll just warn you ahead of time, I’ve got kind of a hard question coming your way, but I’ll let you answer that piece first.

Can’t wait, Heath. I would say some of it was intentional change, due to the focus on retention. I think that’s a pain point that has impacted most accounting firms over the past 10 years, like you said. However, I do think the pandemic was a thing that kind of force changed a lot of things as well, such as working more remotely or not having to travel all the time to serve clients overnight. So things like that have also probably forced companies to change the way they’re doing their work as well.

Well, Trevor, this discussion, it’s had me kind of thinking, and I’ll get to the hard question. And Trevor, you know, if Matt and Caitlin have thoughts on this too, I’d love to get their input. But so you think about what Matt said and what Caitlin said, about the hours badge of honor or the way things we’ve always done it, and it’s helped us get, be successful to where we are today. And we talked about that. And yes, this is where we are and how can we get better? Let’s go to the other side of that, Trevor. What about from a business case, when we’ve all heard the comments of the generation coming in, they don’t want to work like we do or whatever it may be, how can we balance some of that change—or let me ask it this way: When we think about the change, more work life balance, maybe not the hours, the things that are, in a lot of ways, really good for their profession, is it possible to still run a highly successful firm or maybe even be more profitable on ways that we have approached the way we’ve always done it?

Yeah, I definitely think there is. Obviously, with each new generation that enters the workforce, That generation becomes the pain point of everyone before it. I personally am a millennial and I remember when I first started, no one could stand millennials and how lazy we were. And now as millennials are becoming more in leadership roles, you start to hear the same thing about the next generation, Gen Z or whatever we’re calling the one after that. So, you know, I do think part of it is just that’s what happens with each generation.

But I also think, you know, I think it’s a healthy thing, because doing the same thing the same way is never a good idea. The world is constantly changing, our clients are constantly changing, and therefore we as CPA firms need to be constantly changing as well in order to keep up the pace. And I think being open to hearing from our younger or newer employees about things that are important to them and about things that they’ve learned that, you know, we didn’t have the opportunity to learn when we were in school—I think having a management team that is open to listening and engaging with that, and understanding that, you know, potentially something does need to change. That’s key to success.

So Trevor, with what you described there, and this is one for the group, when you think about that, and we talked about the power of the profession, learning from others, kind of elevating other firms, do any of you have an example of something you were trying to do as a firm, say a firm initiative, you know, strategic initiative, to where another firm that has already been down that road, where you’re able to interact and kind of hear their best practices and the lessons learned, do any of you have an example of something you’ve done successfully within your firm, but you first had to maybe connect and hear what other firms in the profession are doing? So open to examples that any of you may have.

I have a good example. We, last year, we implemented using Data Snipper, which is an add on tool to Excel. And so, you know, you hear a lot of great things about Data Snipper, but we were really focused on the implementation and the actual end use of it. So I was able to discuss it with the Upstream Peer Networking Group, and I think half of the other firms on my particular group had used it, and they gave great tips and insights on how to, what worked, what didn’t work for them. And then I was able to pay that forward, you know, in later meetings when other firms were talking about the tool as well. So it’s been huge, it’s been great for us.

Yeah, Caitlin, we continue to hear positive feedback as well, and me hearing that conversation has actually been able for me to help some other firms as well, so greatly appreciated. Matt, do you have any examples where maybe you’ve leveraged some other firms as well, or any interactions?

I mean, I think generally when we’re looking to roll out any new, software, right? I mean, I think especially on the automate and simplify side, that we’re all trying to do for really all services, all due respect, a salesperson is probably not going to give you a non-biased opinion. So to that, we have a number of peer groups, both in technology space and then in specific software spaces where you can really ask that open question. We changed document management software about a year ago—we could say to these groups, what are you using for document management, right? And undoubtedly some of them say, this one, but I hate it and it’s a nightmare, so we can cross it off the list. The salesperson is not going to say, by the way, you’re going to hate this and it’s a nightmare, so having that actual valuable discussion with people to be able to say like, what are you actually using, nothing is perfect, what were the pain points you experienced with that, I think lets you do that, sort of pre-mortem to try and offset the inevitable problems that are going to arise in a large scale software rollout with multiple people who use it, and kind of know what those weak links might be, in advance, which is something you just, you couldn’t get without talking to someone else, frankly, about what they’re already using.

Yeah, in a way, Matt, you’re leveraging time and information that others have already experienced. And Matt, I think the only salesperson that I’ve ever seen that’s operated that way was You, Me and Dupree, I don’t know if any of you have seen that movie, but he said his product was quite inferior, and I think he ended up living on someone’s couch for a while. So yeah, you’re right, Matt. Maybe that’s not what typically happens in that process.

So, thinking about some of the conversation we talked about, some change has been more reactive, you know, outside forces that are driving that. Do any of you maybe flip the script or have a good example of something as a firm you said, we know this needs to change, we know this is the direction of the future success of the firm, where you’ve had that intentional change, do you have any examples of that, and how that’s positively impacted your firm?

We’re kind of in the middle of it right now with outsourcing. We’ve used outsourcing on our tax department, and I literally have a meeting this afternoon, you know, talking about the various outsourcing opportunities on the audit side. I mean, I think that’s the part of the wave of the future that, you know, that we have to all work through.

We moved a large number of our bookkeeping clients to AI powered bookkeeping, and of course, initially there was a big pushback because anybody, right, you’re concerned you’re going to be downsized, or replaced, or that the work will not be as good, or that it’s a strictly economic decision. And I think on those things, to Caitlin’s point, right, it’s about couching it in its actual value, right? It’s like, you are too good and too smart and too valuable to do these menial tasks, so we’re having someone else do them so that you can do more valuable, more interesting, more rewarding work. It’s not to replace or reduce an existing workforce, it’s to let them do the kind of things that they’d rather be doing rather than punching through reconciliations or, you know, typing out spreadsheets. Like let’s let somebody do that for a couple hundred bucks so that the quality, intelligent labor you have can do quality intelligent projects.

So Matt, as you say that and you think about the future and as the profession continues to evolve, let’s say fast forward, when you say that, what do you think are going to be some of the most critical leadership skills to help do that? To not do the work that others could be doing or that technology could do, but what are those skill sets do you think will be made for successful leaders in the future?

Yeah, I think it’s really two things. One is, there’s always going to be human beings who are comfortable in a backseat role, right, like they want to do data entry, they want to do reconciliations, those are the things they want to do, I think that’s great, and I think you have to recognize that not everybody wants client contact, not everybody wants to run meetings, I think you have to give people the opportunity to say, “Hey, I don’t want to do those things, I’m like the TV sitcom version of an accountant and I would really like to be in the background and no one pay attention to me.”

And I think the other thing to Trevor’s point as the workforce changes, I don’t think people will work out of obligation anymore. I think people recognize the value of their own capital, and to that, I think they want to know what that value is, right? Like to be able to say, we’re not doing this sales tax return because it’s crucial that these couple thousand dollars go to the state. I think people struggle to frankly care very much about that. I think when you say this is a whole business, it’s got employees, it’s got clients, it’s got all these things about, we’re here to serve them and be productive as a client, people understand the purpose of those components once they can recognize the value in it. So we try to really present things more holistically to say like, it’s not about a tax return. It’s not about a financial statement. It’s not about any single deliverable piece of paper at the end of the engagement, it’s really all of the other stuff that doesn’t show up on the paper, is really what your job is.

In a way, how can we help them be the most successful that they can be? So, hearing about some of the different things you’ve done within your firms, Trevor, when you look at, I’ll just say like, say a manager role in a firm. When you think about those strategic initiatives or shaping the future of your firm, I’ve seen too often the mistakes made where it’s like, oh, that’s our firm leadership or that’s our partner group. But as this generation continues to take more ownership and more leadership, how do you view that role within a firm, maybe within your firm or maybe to the profession? What guidance do you have for those on, maybe in ways that are sitting back saying that’s our partner group, not my group, but in all reality we probably have more say in it than what we think that we do. So any guidance that you have for those looking to get more involved?

Yeah, I mean, I would say hopefully you’re at a firm like ours that values that and if so, I hope that you’re encouraged to have the freedom to speak up. Our firm also has kind of a built in network—we refer to it as the accelerator group. But it’s a group of seniors and managers and senior managers that have been identified by the partner group as future leaders at the firm. And, they do have specific development skills that are being taught to them and are exposed to the types of decisions and strategic initiatives and objective key results that you’re referring to, Heath. And I think that only benefits future leadership at the firm and allows for everyone to feel comfortable speaking up and having a role or playing a role in that decision making process.

Trevor, with what you described there, and having a role in speaking up, and again, maybe you haven’t been in this situation, but say, you know, as you continue to progress and maybe there’s a decision made within a firm or within a team that maybe you’re not fully on board with, maybe you’re tasked with helping from an implementation standpoint, what happens at that stage? How can you be a leader to step in and say, maybe I don’t agree with this, because there’s decisions that are made that not everyone’s going to agree with. How do you professionally handle those types of situations?

Right. Well, I do think first off, you have to remember that most likely the decision was made, not just by one person, but by a group of people who thought about it a lot longer than I have. So if it’s something I strongly disagree with, it’s probably something that it would be better off having a conversation to understand maybe some more of the background information. But I also think that there’s humility also in the idea that “I don’t know everything.” As a leader at the firm, sometimes it’s best to just perform what you’re being asked to do and also not feel afraid to communicate when you do disagree. I think you can kind of do both of those at the same time, rather than having a bad attitude about something.

And Trevor, as you say that, I think any strong culture is one that they’re willing to have that open and honest dialogue and get things out on the table. I think that’s how we all get better. So one other topic I’m going to spend a little bit of time on: One trend that I’m starting to hear a little more about is that gosh, firms have seen pretty good growth, they’ve seen good profitability the last few years. And maybe we’ve been a little lax on business development and firm growth. I’ll say intentional business development. And there’s a lot of transitions going on, so maybe the next generation doesn’t enjoy that or doesn’t have the skillset to continually grow the firm. So when you look at the roles you’re in today, how can managers, senior managers, maybe new partners, what guidance do you have for them around that area of business development that’s so critical to the future success of a firm? So maybe Matt, we’ll start with you and then I’ll get others input.

Yeah, I think a lot of it is, determining, like I said earlier, what you want for yourself, because there’s nothing wrong with say playing the volume game and going out and trying to get 200 maybe lower build clients versus landing one or two much higher build clients. I don’t think one way is more correct than the other, but I do know you can’t really do both. So there’s a certain focus on saying, okay, what am I looking for? Whether that’s a specialization geographically or industrially, kind of figuring out what it is you want to look for.

And then the other is, you know, I think there’s been a long period really in every service industry that says, “Oh, the client has a bank account? Perfect fit. Bring them on. That’s the one requirement we really have,” and that’s one of those things that’s just not sustainable. I think it makes people burn out. I think it becomes very frustrating. I think one real jerk of a client is equal to like 10 or 15 perfectly nice clients in terms of the effect that they have on really staff and senior or early manager and below. So I think it’s just being able to communicate this is a person who’s a good fit.

I also think it’s important that people early in their careers know when clients are released. I think it’s important that they know when clients are not a good fit. and I think it’s extra important to know when they are either not a good fit or released because of something that they have done to the staff or the firm itself. Because unfortunately if you are a jerk or you don’t pay your bill, I don’t know that you get to hide behind anonymity on that. If someone says, what happened to this client? I think the answer is they had a problem paying their bill or they had a problem treating individuals with respect so that people understand that tone is there. I have no qualms with the volume game, I just am afraid that’s seemingly the quickest way to grow your book of business is to just get a ton of cheap dates.

Yeah. That gets back to intentionality of our time and I think unfortunately, you know, in the profession, you look back years and years that was the mindset. But what happens is you can get spread so thin or we only have so much time in a day. almost reevaluating where and how we can be the most impactful with our time. And Matt, I think in a lot of ways, our professions made a lot of progress the past three to four years in that space. So, I’d say a good trend to see. And maybe Trevor and Caitlin, maybe the way I should have asked that question was, is that perception accurate? Maybe we’ve seen good growth, so we’ve been a little lax and, maybe, you know, future partners don’t see the value in business development or aren’t doing enough. Do you think that’s a valid statement or do you see it differently?

I imagine it’s probably case by case at the firm that you’re at. You know, I think business development at our firm is something that is thought of intentionally and encouraged. I do think that some of the younger people here just kind of assume that’s for, you know, the more established partners to worry about. You know, one of the ways we talk about this development here is more, more focused on just relationship building and, is not really, you know, I heard Matt say the term “book of business.” It’s not really focused on book of business, but it’s really focused on what is an area that you like to focus on for business development? Maybe that’s just geographically the community you live in. And it’s going in with the mindset of how can I help this business. And maybe helping that business is, “Oh, I know this other firm or this other company that does that—let me connect you.” And it has nothing to do with your book of business. And then maybe down the road that favor is returned, but that’s very hard to measure the impact of that business development. So I think really it’s focused on just being a helpful person in the community you live in or the community you work in or the industry you serve, and I think overall that will, long term, establish good business development growth.

Yeah, Trevor, it’s interesting because most business development trainings that I do, I’ll, I ask the question of Who got into this profession to do business development or sees it as a strength and rarely do any hands go up. But then you say what you just said of who got into this profession to serve clients, help clients, and then everyone’s hands go up. And it’s just a flip in mindset, and I love hearing you describe it that way. So Caitlin, any other thoughts around driving from growth, any thoughts for our listeners?

Yeah, I agree with both what Matt and Trevor have said. I think, you know, this is a relationship business. So as you grow those relationships with clients, you know, you do good work for them, they’re going to recommend you to, you know, their associates, and then you’re going to get work from that. It’s just, you know, focusing on being that client advisor, you know, really building those relationships, ‘cause that’s, at the end of the day, that’s what it really comes down to.

Very good. Well, so at this stage, is there anything that you would like to ask me or ask your peers on the line, anything you have top of mind you want to discuss? And if not, I have a couple of questions we’ll wrap up with, but let me just pause for a second. Is there anything this group has top of mind that you’d like to hear more about?

So, we were discussing internally earlier this week, I know that it’s a big item and very well may already be on your list, Heath, about the decrease of accounting students nationwide and the volume of people in accounting programs. I think I have kind of a two part question. One is, I don’t feel like we’ve seen a material decrease in quality applicants—considering that there’s ostensibly this 20 to 30 percent reduction in accounting students—I don’t think we’ve seen a 20 to 30 percent reduction. And I think my follow up to that is, of individuals who are in the school of accounting, do we know how many of those actually were going to go into the profession of accounting? Like how many were doing this as sort of a general business degree or a supplement to a second degree? So if someone’s going to go into marketing with their accounting degree and now they are just taking a marketing class instead of an accounting class, I don’t know that necessarily chips away at our labor pool. But again, I only have the experience of being here at our firm, Dallas, Texas. I didn’t know if anyone else had an alternate experience where you’ve seen your pool decreasing or decreasing in quality.

I’m in Chicago and I would say there has been a decrease in quality, or you’re finding larger firms will come in after their freshman year of college and get them signed up for a job, so you just, you know, we’re recruiting younger and younger. And when you’re recruiting younger and younger, you just don’t know. I mean, they’re early on in their college careers, they don’t know how they’re feeling about accounting. So I do think that’s been, that has been a struggle for us, I think. Not to say we still don’t have great candidates—we do. But it definitely feels like we’re casting a wider net these days.

Yeah. So I’m in Knoxville, Tennessee, and we’re about two minutes down the road here from the University of Tennessee, which has one of the top accounting programs in the nation, and that is one of our primary sources of talent, and they have experienced a decline in the number of students. However, we have not seen a decline in the quality, as you were mentioning that. We do recruit at other universities throughout the Southeast, and it’s probably hit or miss at some of those.

However, I think to Caitlin’s point, what’s happened is you’re having to recruit earlier, right? We have several interns starting here in a few months, and, you know, we’ve been talking to them since their freshman year. And the good side of that is, it allows someone to potentially have multiple different experiences at one firm and then another firm to be able to be confident they’re making the right choice, or maybe it’s in tax and then audit to be confident they’re making the right choice for their career, or it could be the fact that, you know, we get to have an intern for a year and a half, over the course of two summers, or since we’re down the road from the university, they can work part time, and you really get to know that person, and then when they do start full time, they have a lot of experience and it’s not like a brand new hire. So we’ve seen some positives from that as well, just in the, you know, ramp up of intensity and competitiveness and recruiting.

I do think, you know, we talked to, we have a good relationship with the university and we talked to some of the professors and they’ve seen a large uptick in finance majors, which to your point, Matt, the decline in accounting could just be that there used to be several accounting majors that weren’t planning on going into accounting, but were planning on going into finance, but thought accounting was a better degree to have. So potentially that narrative has changed and they’re just choosing finance. But overall, I don’t think our firm has been negatively impacted by it. It’s just maybe caused us to be recruiting at an earlier level in a student’s career.

We’ve actually gone into high schools.

My ears are going to be at Little League Games being like, they’ve got the, they’ve got the look in their eye. I can tell that’s a future auditor. I can tell from there.

It’s definitely had us, you know, think differently. Like, how do we adapt as a firm to become more enticing? You know, what other schools can we look at that we haven’t before? So it’s been, you know, we’ve definitely gotten a lot more, you know, diversity of candidates, which has been a good, a positive out of all this.

Well, if it helps, my six year old just got 100 percent on a couple of his math tests, so he’s an up and comer, so we’ll keep an eye out on him.

I was going to say, come to expect an email from me.

Yeah, very good. you can outsource Matt, I’ll see if he can start picking up some work for you all.

We’ll double whatever Matt pays.

Very good! Well, just, Matt, on the question, I’m just hearing the three of you talk. For one, I think it’s overall good to hear the quality is still there. My challenge, not just for this group, but even our listeners, when hearing you talk about, we’re going earlier, you know, freshman year, maybe even before that, and maybe, yes, they’ve taken some accounting courses, but going into finance, maybe losing some people—thinking about how we tell and how we create a different story about the profession, because I still, I hate it. I think there’s still some negative perceptions that are out there that are just not 100 percent accurate. And I interact with the three of you, I interact with so many people in the profession that are just true professionals that are awesome to work with. And I think people are missing out on a huge opportunity to get into a wonderful profession that yes, maybe some of those perceptions linger, but for the most part, I think there’s a lot of great things. And I would hate for someone to miss out on a career opportunity because of a perception. So, I guess that’s my challenge to not just this group, but just the profession of let’s tell, let’s create that different story where people want to come here and I think people need to hear more of that and not the negatives. The positives definitely outweigh the negatives. Matt, I appreciate the question.

Well, let me ask this for the group. We’ll get input from all three of you on this, and we’ll keep it concise. Feel free to get well outside the box out of just common answers that we hear. But if we were to fast forward, we’ll say five years, we know time goes pretty quickly, we’ve talked about change—if you could describe the profession five years from now, Caitlin, how would you describe it?

I think it will be a profession of opportunities and flexibility and ever changing, you know, really, when you think about technology, it’s constantly changing, so there’ll be a lot of opportunities there. Like you talked about, Heath, about enticing, you know, younger people to go into the profession, it’s just that I find public accounting to be very flexible, and I think we’re going more and more in that direction. We started off this conversation talking about the, you know, the 180 work week, I think that you said, and we’re getting further and further away from that where there is flexibility, you know, your time off for your work life balance and time off. I see the profession just going more and more in that direction to really keep, retain, entice, you know, young people to continue to go into public accounting.

Caitlin, when you talk about the balance and the flexibility, does that entice you to want to actually do more?

Yeah. I mean, I think when you know, your flexibility in your personal life and then at my firm, we had talked earlier about, you know, the manager group getting more involved in initiatives. And I think that’s something in the future, you know, there’s so much diversity of practice and what one partner does versus another partner, let’s figure out what’s working, let’s, you know, start, Initiatives, you know, there’s just so many opportunities. You can really, in public accounting, you can really build your own path. If you like doing technical research, great, go do that. If you like working with people and being, you know, a rainmaker, go do that. There’s just so many opportunities as opposed to other accounting opportunities. But I think in public accounting it’s really, “the world is your oyster,” so to speak.

Very good. Thank you, Caitlin. Trevor, same for you. Five years from now, where will we be?

Yeah, you know, I think we’ll have less data entry and more data analysis taking place, just with the growth and being able to visualize data, and artificial intelligence tools that can help us do that. I think we’ll have less humans doing checklists, but more doing risk assessments that are more detailed or a little bit more, I guess, confined to the specific client. And I think one thing that’s already been a huge change, but I think will continue to change is just having less travel and more remote work where, you know, our team doesn’t have to be as the auditor on site at the client for four weeks at a time. It can be done mostly remotely and it can be on, on site just for important events and meetings, which ultimately will cut down costs and improve, you know, the work life balance of our employees.

Very good, Trevor. Matt, what about you?

Yeah, I think I would say the same as Trevor. It’s a move away from transactional work and transactional deliverables to expertise, right? That’s what someone really wants. They want accessible data. They want expertise. They want someone to be a co-pilot. They want to know how to reduce taxable liability, they don’t really care about the tax return. They want to know how many new people they can hire, they don’t really care about the payroll tax.

So it’s a move away from the things that maybe robots can do or some of these mega gigantic global firms, like you’re not going to undercut them on price or volume ever in the future, so instead we get to move towards fewer clients per preparer, who become experts in that client, and a reliable teammate to that individual and that client to say like, “Okay, here’s my problem, like let’s work through it, together,” versus, “Hey, is this tax return done yet? Like, do you have this financial statements I got to send to the bank?” Robots will be able to handle that, right? They’re not going to want that anymore. They want to be able to call and figure out what they want to do to achieve what they set out to do in the first place.

Very good. Well, thank you, Matt. So let me wrap up with this question and it’s based off an actual recording I just did with another professional about, yeah, he actually works at like a professional placement organization or he works with firms on recruiting good candidates, ideal candidates as well. And he shared a number with me that quite frankly, I was shocked. He said out of the people that reach out to him about job placement and leaving their firm, he said over 80 percent—he said that it was like, it ranged between, I think it was like 80, 82 percent of the people that reach out to me are wanting to leave the profession. But he said, as we start to talk about it, at least half will end up staying in the profession. So, as you think about that stat or that situation, if you had someone thinking about getting into the profession, how would you describe the things that you said, the great value, the great things about our profession? Maybe in a way to ask what are your favorite things about the profession? Matt, I’ll start with you.

Yeah, I think public accounting, accounting in general, public especially, I mean, it’s a hard gig. There’s definitely easier, less demanding jobs out there. But I also think there’s a lot of less rewarding jobs out there—both in a practical sense, industry jobs don’t have a path to ownership. You know, you can’t work at, Target for 40 years and then go, you know what? And go open your own mega store. It’s just not a thing you’re going to be able to do. So it is definitely challenging, but it’s that challenge that makes it interesting and it’s that challenge that makes it rewarding and it’s that challenge that makes it enjoyable for so many years. Both Trevor and Caitlin alluded to it: You’re really doing something different every day. You’re really learning something new every, at least, week. Something is changing over time. I don’t know a lot of jobs that have that claim. There’s definitely some rungs on the ladder that are very challenging, and some of them are like downright painful for sure. But they are rungs. Like they are the next step up. It’s not just like “Now I’ve hit this point in my career” and it sucks for 20 years. Like there’s just a period of time where you kind of get through it and get to the next part. So the rewards are there. The rewards are measurable. I think people can look around a firm or at their client mix and see that. But when something happens and you’re looking for the door, it’s hard to see that without someone necessarily bringing it front of mind.

Yeah Well, and Matt, I think hearing you describe that, I think almost every career path has something along the lines. It’s never perfect. I think our expectations may be here, but reality is that nothing is perfect. And Matt, I’d also say that anything in life that takes hard work and that it’s worth doing, it is usually hard. I mean, that’s some of the most rewarding experiences that we have in our lives and our careers. So, Matt, appreciate your insight. Trevor, we’ll go with you next.

Yeah, I think the greatest thing about our profession is the opportunity for accelerated growth in your knowledge. You know, we’re not stuck in one specific company learning how one company does something and then repeating that each month or each quarter or each year. We’re constantly as public accountants getting exposed to a variety of different clients, a variety of different types of projects and seeing how multiple different companies and different industries are handling the same type of problem.

And just over time, that exposure, you kind of grow exponentially in your knowledge of business. I look around in our community and a lot of our business leaders here used to be accountants. And I think that’s a big selling point as well, is that in order to run a business, you have to understand, you know, the financials part, which is what accountants specialize in. I also think accounting exposes you to almost every different aspect of the business. You know, as an auditor, we’re not just focused on what the financial statements look like, we have to learn about each of their different business processes and how they roll up together. And again, because you’re working on multiple different clients throughout the year, you’re getting a higher level of exposure there. And then I also just think the growth opportunity within a firm is almost built into most of the structures of CPA firms where, because of that growth and knowledge and development that’s put in place, there is long term growth that you can visualize. So I think that’s helpful to know as well.

Alright. Caitlin, bring us home.

Yeah. When I think about public accounting versus, you know, a corporate world. Though I’ve never worked in corporate, my image of it is it could become like Groundhog Day. Like, “Oh, we have payroll. We have a month end close. We have a year end close.” Where in public accounting, you know, in many ways, no two days are the same. Like one day you could be working on one client, the next, another. You know, you’re working in different industries. You’re also working with different people. So, you know, you’re not going to get along with everybody, so maybe you’re only working on one or two jobs with somebody that you just clashed with, where in the opposite world, you know, that could be someone that you deal with every day.

And so you get, you know, just to work with different people. You really get to learn about different industries and, you know, everybody knows about the hard busy season of public accounting. But outside of that, I do feel like there’s great flexibility with your work life balance. And then I would just say, like I alluded to earlier, kind of like your build your own career path—you know, find what your strengths are and let’s lean into that as opposed to trying to, you know, “Hey, I need to work on this, this isn’t what I do great.” Well why do that? If you do something else greatly, let’s figure out, “I love this industry. I want to work on this type of audit all the time.” Great. You can be an expert in that area. There’s just so many different opportunities and it’s ever evolving. So, I just think it’s a great place to, you know, to have your career. Like I said at the beginning, I started thinking, hey, this would be a great place to start, and I have never left.

And then, Caitlin, the next day you’re on a podcast.

Right.

Who would have thought? Well, Caitlin and Trevor and Matt, as always, it’s so good to see the three of you. Greatly appreciate your time and your insights to today’s discussion and appreciate all of our listeners and Caitlin, Trevor, Matt, I look forward to the next time. We’ll talk to you soon. Thank you.