Humanise The Numbers - for ambitious accountants in practice
Welcome to the 'Humanise The Numbers' podcast series. Here you'll find a whole series of interviews with the leaders of accounting firms who are building (or have already built) a firm of the future now! You'll hear key insights, key skills and key habits that underpin the success of these firms. Insights, skills and habits that can underpin your firm's future success too. It seems that when an accountancy firm connects their team and their clients to the numbers that really matter to them they transform the results for everyone. This is accelerated when the humanity of the way they work shines through too. That's why we're talking about ambitious accountants humanising the numbers.Here's what a director of a multi-partner multi-national firm said recently ."What I like about your podcasts is that they are real. They are not scripted and I appreciate the fact that your interviewees admit they don’t have all the answers but are willing to let you put that fact out on a podcast. It is what is going on at the front lines of great small accounting practices. I have now listened to about half of them, I intend listening to them all as each one just has a nugget that I am writing down to see if I can use in our practice at some stage."
Humanise The Numbers - for ambitious accountants in practice
Transforming Numbers into Relationships
Dive into this fascinating episode where we explore how listening serves as a cornerstone in transforming client relationships within the accounting field. Our discussion highlights the extensive barriers created by ego and preconceived notions that prevent accountants from truly connecting with their clients. We introduce the concept of 'holding space,' a practice that necessitates genuine attention and empathy during client interactions, allowing for deeper insights beyond mere numbers.
Throughout the episode, we consider the unique strengths of introverts and how they may apply them effectively in advising clients. The narrative encourages a shift in perspective, asking listeners to understand the emotional and human elements intertwined with financial discussions. This conversation is a compelling reminder that humanising the numbers is about fostering valuable relationships built on trust and effective communication.
As we reflect on these themes, we provide practical advice for accountants to cultivate their listening skills and embrace the art of questioning, leading to more productive and empowering client dialogues. By keeping empathy at the forefront of client interactions, accountants can elevate their advisory roles and ultimately enhance the value they provide to clients.
Join us in this eye-opening episode, and let’s humanise the numbers together! Don't forget to subscribe and share your feedback with us. What has been your most significant learning in building client relationships?
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.
Speaker 2:With a client, you sometimes think you know all the answers, but actually the answers are within the client and not with you, because listening is really easy if you just hold the space for someone. And holding the space is really difficult, especially if you've got your own issues and that has again. I don't know who said this, but when I talked to my friend who's a trauma specialist, you know that is about trauma. You cannot hold the space for someone easily if you carry baggage around and you're ego-led and you want to be the dominant person in the room. It's very difficult to listen. If that's what you're going through, it doesn't make you difficult to listen. If that's what you're going through. It doesn't make you a bad person if that's who you are. It just means that maybe you need to do a bit of work so that you can become a better advisor. You might be a great accountant, being ego and dominant, but not a great advisor because your stuff gets in the way of the space needed to listen better to the client's issues.
Speaker 1:Magic happens in the space. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Like, imagine when you asked your husband or wife to marry you and you got down on that one knee and said will you marry me? The bit between her saying yes or no or him saying that's the magic. That's like you don't know what they're going to say. You hope that they're going to say yes. That's the magic bit, isn't it? And if, if we overlook the magic, then all we're ever going to do is miss the, the important, the important information, the reading of the room, the reading of the expression, the caring, the like coming from here coming. Nobody can see me coming from my heart, like the conversation that we're having. Paul, my intention when I came today was to help as much as possible. That's what it's about. Other people will come on podcasts not necessarily your podcast, but other people in other worlds will come on podcasts and be like I've come on this podcast to sell stuff you know completely different. It's all about intention and having empathy. Hold the space.
Speaker 1:Whenever I'm with a leader, a leadership team or even a large audience of accountants and share, or rather ask, whether it is the technical work of accountancy, the speed with which the work gets done, or the relationship work that matters most, that's valued most by clients, it's rare for them not to say it's the relationship work that really, really matters, which is why I think the conversation with Amanda C Watts around the way introverts run better client meetings, build stronger relationships, is so valuable. Let's go to that podcast discussion with Amanda now.
Speaker 2:Hey folks, I'm Amanda Seawatts and I am the co-founder of Oomph Global, where we specialize in helping accounting firm owners and partners offer more advisory services in their firm and start a consulting or coaching offer. What's really interesting about the work that I do is I really enjoy helping those introverts. So I don't know if any of you are like me and who are listening today, but I'm not one for going out and pretending I'm the next Gary Vee, and if you haven't heard of Gary Vee, then do check him out, because he is an interesting character and one that scares the life out of me and most of my clients.
Speaker 1:I think he's brilliant, he's absolutely brilliant, he is really good.
Speaker 2:But the problem is is you see all of these marketers out there saying, hey, you need to do marketing, and they get you to show up in that way and as accounting firm owners and as practice owners, we're petrified, absolutely petrified, of getting out and doing it. So I'm an introvert and I love talking to introverts. If you're an extrovert listening to this, it doesn't exclude you, but please be aware that I can't stand icky, slimy sales tactics and yeah, and I also don't like leaving my house, my children leave the house, but I don't leave the house.
Speaker 1:How many children Amanda?
Speaker 2:So two kiddies One is 21, currently in Sardinia on holiday, and the other one is turned 18 two weeks ago and is currently in the pub with her no, not the pub, the park with her best friend, enjoying the fact that she's 18 and shouldn't be drinking on a Friday afternoon, but actually is.
Speaker 1:That's cool. That's cool. So how long have you worked with accountancy firms, Amanda?
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. I have worked with accountancy firms since 2016. I got my first accountancy client and since then I've worked with 700, over 700 actually Right 700 plus. Wow.
Speaker 1:Okay. So with that, with that context, with that background, what does the phrase humanise the numbers mean to you and your experience of working with accountant leaders, accounting firms, accounting teams?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that goes back to me talking about introverts, actually, because the reason why I see so many accountants get into the accountancy profession is because they want to hide. And I understand why they want to hide. They want to to be able to be behind the numbers and let the numbers do the talking. What humanize the numbers means for me is let your your expertness I don't think that's a word, yeah let's roll with it.
Speaker 1:That's the word. I'm looking for expertness now. We'll use that again yeah, I'm really intelligent.
Speaker 2:Guys come work with me let's get your expertness out yeah, um, yeah, get your expertise to the stage where you are actually sharing your knowledge. And humanize the numbers means take those numbers and then make them understandable for people and bring your personality into it. Uh, if you don't want to bring your personality in it, just bring some like energy behind it so that people can really understand what those numbers mean, because they don't. They don't have a clue what you're talking about so bring some energy to the piece.
Speaker 1:Isn't that contradictory to the introvert piece, or how would you play that one?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we talk a lot about branding when it comes to marketing and part of branding is understanding your values. And we have three values We've got have empathy, okay, be effective. And then the third one is bring energy. And if I go down the introvert route for a moment, the best way to explain introvert and extrovert.
Speaker 2:So an extrovert wakes up in the morning and has no coins. So imagine no coins at all and you wake up in the morning and you've got no coins in your pocket and every single person that you talk to you get a coin. So by the end of the day, you've spoken to the person randomly on the bus as an extrovert, you've walked into work and you've gone morning, morning morning to everybody. You've enjoyed standing up in a meeting and sharing your thoughts, even though they probably didn't mean very much, but you were very happy to share what was on your mind without thinking about it. And you've got these coins. And by the end of the day, when you've been at work, you go hey guys, what a great day it's been, let's go to the pub, all right. And you're at your maximum energy at the end of a day. You're at your minimum energy at the beginning of the day as an extrovert.
Speaker 2:As an introvert, it actually works differently. So you wake up in the morning and an introvert has five coins and with each interaction with a person they lose a coin. So what we have to do as introverts is go where do I want to spend my five coins today to get the maximum value? So it's not oh my gosh, you're an introvert. You're really quiet. It's oh my gosh, you're an introvert.
Speaker 2:You have to limit the number of conversations that you're having, and each of those conversations have to be effective. So I talk about being effective. So, for example, we're talking today. We've put an hour and a half in the diary to have this conversation. I have nothing after this. Like, as an introvert, I'm going to give you all of my coins. I'm bringing my energy today, but I'm going to go sit in the sun or I'm going to go and just stare at a TV or a blank wall because I won't have the energy for anything else. So it's about understanding your introvertness. That is the word. Understand your introvertness and being able to manage it and we can actually use it to benefit us rather than it hold us back it to benefit us rather than it hold us back right.
Speaker 1:So if I've understood you right is um, each time an introvert spends a coin, their energy is running out whereas with the extrovert. Every time they collect a coin, their energy is building exactly that. That fits quite well with a. An earlier podcast we did with um a firm uh leader, uh cat. Well, andkent Kat talked about she was very happy actually going on stage presenting to an audience, but afterwards she's completely shattered, exactly Whereas I walk off stage after an event and I'm high as a kite.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, so you're the extrovert. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're the extrovert.
Speaker 1:Although I've got I think there's another one Go on, and this just comes from a piece of research and I'll do everything I can to get that research reference into the show notes of the podcast. But it shows and it was some research about sales effectiveness. Yeah, Introvert versus extrovert which one's the most successful.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, actually it's a weak question because standard deviation curve shows that you've got introvert versus extrovert. Which one's the most successful? Yeah, well, actually it's a weak question because, um, standard deviation curve shows that you've got introvert, ambiverts and extroverts, so actually the vast majority of us aren't at the extremes. Really, at the extremes, we've got more extrovert than introvert.
Speaker 1:Me, there's more introvert than extrovert, maybe you, but with very few people, right at the extremes yeah and the most successful sales people, according to this quite strong piece of research, are the ambiverts, which most of us actually are, but I get, there's an emphasis piece at play, isn't there?
Speaker 2:and one of the reasons why is is because, as an introvert or ambivert, if we're going to go down that route, we are listeners, so an extrovert gets their stimulation from everything around them, so they get all excited. So if you're having a conversation with someone and you will feed off their energy and you will be able to read them just from their energy, Okay, as an introvert, we might miss their energy, but we feed off what they're saying and we process what they're saying and we're thinking about what they're saying. And the reason why in a meeting, say, say, we're an introvert in a meeting and you've got 10 people around the room. There's two introverts in there and eight people who aren't. They're all extroverts putting their hand up, giving ideas, and an introvert is sitting there really quietly and looks like they're not participating, but what they're doing is processing in their head and they'll come back to you half an hour later if they feel like they have permission.
Speaker 2:Okay, so a lot of us are. I don't want to overstep the mark as an introvert, you know. I know for me, being in the in the profession and when I first came into it back in 2016, 2017, I found it really hard to make friends with my peers, and even now I don't hang out with my peers so much because I get nervous around it. So, Paul, we've had a few conversations, but we don't know each other that well, Do you know?
Speaker 1:what I mean.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of big names in the profession and all I've ever said to them is hello, whereas they all hang out together and they all do stuff together and I can't do it. I can't do it. It's not something I can do. I keep myself to myself, which I'm sure you're aware. I just get on with my day job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a couple of interesting things in there. So introverts feed off the listening, the thinking and the processing yeah, is what I heard and actually need permission to participate, more permission than, say, an extrovert or a extrovert biased, ambivert.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:If I'm going to be awkward, which is not unusual ambivert if I'm going to be awkward, which is not unusual. So I'm studying and researching some stuff at the minute around the need for psychological safety. So what it sounds as though you're saying there is an introvert requires greater degrees of psychological safety in the room for them to actively participate in the meeting once they've listened and once they've thought about it and processed the content.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and just to make life really difficult, there's like four different kinds of introverts as well. So you've got a social introvert, which is actually okay in small groups, not great in large groups. You've got the anxious introvert they definitely won't put their hand up and they probably won't leave their house. They're anxious in their house as well. You've got the thinking introvert, which is what I am. I'm definitely a thinking introvert and a social introvert, so I can do a few people and the different kinds of introverts. We show up in different ways and we're a mixture of all of them, but the only introvert that ever really gets spoken about is the anxious introvert, right, yeah.
Speaker 1:Did you say there was?
Speaker 2:five. No, there's four.
Speaker 1:Four, so social anxious thinking. What's the fourth one?
Speaker 2:And oh, now you've put me on the spot.
Speaker 1:Well, we'll come back to that. I'm sure it'll jump into that later. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it'll come back to me, oh restrained, and that's my daughter.
Speaker 2:So my daughter, a restrained introvert, is the introvert that takes a long time to get going. So we mentioned Annabelle being down the park having fun with her friends. She takes two and a half hours to get ready for college in the morning. So we leave for college and she has to get up two and a half hours beforehand and she doesn't really do much in those two and a half hours apart from gear herself up for the day. So she has a cup of tea, she'll stare at her phone, she'll come downstairs and she'll watch TV for an hour. She can't be time to get up, leave the house, and that's a restrained introvert.
Speaker 2:And a restrained introvert finds it very difficult to make decisions and finish stuff, so they will take a long time. So when we talk about marketing a restrained introvert, if you said to a restrained introvert hey, you need to write an ebook, they'd write three quarters of it but they would never get it out there because they'd have to make sure that it's 100% right. They don't want to get it out there. They'll do most of it, but not take that end bit. So, yeah, interesting.
Speaker 1:So what's the sort of research behind the? I'm just trying to get to the derivation of where we've got this social anxious thinking and restrained introvert. Yeah, absolutely, Where's that from? It was?
Speaker 2:a gentleman I need to look up. Well, carl young started the introvert side of things, which I'm sure you're aware of, um, and then there was another psychologist called jonathan cheek that looked into introversion and he's the one that came up with the four different types of introverts. So it's not me that came up with that yeah, yeah, um it's him that came up with that.
Speaker 2:It's him that came up with the four different types of introvert, and it's really interesting and it has completely changed the way that I function in my business, the way I run my day. Understanding it has given me permission, like I said to you, after this podcast I'm not going to do anything, whereas five years ago, six years ago, I'd be like, after this podcast, oh my gosh, I've still got three hours left of the working day. I have to do some stuff. No, this is my. All my energy is going in this and from this I can then have a break afterwards and recharge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay. So how are you working with firms of accountants in and around applying this distinction between social anxious thinking and restrained introversion?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the way that I work with my clients is half in a teacher mode, so I would class me as a teacher. Some might call it a coach or a consultant, but I don't really ask them questions. I tell them what to do. I'm quite bossy like that. So my mum always said to me you want to be a teacher? I'm like no, I don't't. And I've actually managed to become a teacher in my own right without having to go through all the qualifications um, but yeah.
Speaker 2:So the way that it works is.
Speaker 2:One of the things that we do is is we have Q&A sessions and and I have my clients in front of me and, as an introvert myself, I listen.
Speaker 2:So I listen to the excuses that they're giving for for not being able to do stuff, the struggles that they have, the fact that maybe one of them isn't a finisher so why are you not finishing this?
Speaker 2:And I dive into it. And once we understand the psychology behind everybody's thinking and acting, then we can adapt how we work with clients. So if we just give it to the context of our accountants that are listening and bookkeepers that are listening today, you know, if you can start to look at the person, okay, let's go back to humanize the numbers. Look at the person that you are advising, look at the person that you are supporting and what is their personality, how do they act, what makes them anxious, what excites them, what are they struggling with, and listen to what they're saying, and listen to the bit that they aren't saying, that they don't know how to say as well. So really start to see in between the lines and then then you can start to move mountains and people can do things that they never knew they could do and get results that they never knew they could get when you start to humanize the numbers, haha okay, so thank you.
Speaker 1:Um, so I get the listening bit, which has got to be preceded by the questioning bit yep um, how does that then get an accountant to a place where they can transform the relationship with their client because they recognise their introversion or otherwise?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so we have to. Oh gosh, I don't want to call introversion as an obstacle, because I think that extroversion is just as big an obstacle. We're just personalities, aren't we? So it's not an obstacle. Both get in the way.
Speaker 1:Amanda, both get in the way, and I think it might have been. Forrester's research shows that extroversion gets in the way of success. Introversion gets in the way of success and it's actually recognising that and seeing that actually there's a bit of both in all of us. But there is a needle which you know and actually sometimes varies day to day.
Speaker 2:But hey, or not for me.
Speaker 1:Oh, right, okay Not for me.
Speaker 2:So, but yeah, so what we have to do when we're sitting there with a client, so you're going to do advisory, you're not just going to do the compliance, where you've sat hiding behind a computer, all right. So you're going to do advisory work with a client and you're sat there and you're saying, right, these are your numbers. Ok, these are the numbers. We're in our quarterly meeting. I'm going to sit down with you and explain them. What we have to do is say to them in alignment with your goals, this is what's going on. And then we need to say to them what is stopping you from achieving your goals? And these are the insights that we have from you know, going through the numbers, these are the insights we have.
Speaker 2:What do you think is stopping you? And then they're going to say I don't have time. That's, like everybody, business owners' biggest problem I don't have time. Well, why don't you have time? Well, I don't have time because I have to take the kids to school. Or I don't have time because, you know I've got 700 clients and I only turn over 700,000. That's one that I get a lot, you know.
Speaker 2:And then what we have to do is go well, why have you got 700 clients and look at the personality and go, well, what are their problems? Do they have like money mindset where they're not charging their worth? They don't know how to present their value. There's always an underlying reason why the client isn't succeeding and there's always an underlying reason why the accountant hasn't got the clients that they want. So when I speak to my accountants I'm always going why are you only charging £1,000 a year for services? Well, that's what the profession average is. Okay, so you're biased. Then you bought into that. So now let's see why you've bought into that. And going deeper, and actually there's this thing called the five whys. Um, don't ask me where it's come from.
Speaker 1:I know you're going to ask me and I don't know the answer to that question, you know, was it six wives deep and five house wide, isn't it?
Speaker 2:yeah, or something like that so you know what what I'm going to talk about is like why do you feel that? Why do you know that, why do you think that? And you just get wider and wider with the whys and eventually you'll get to the crux of it. And normally it's sad to say, but normally it is something from their childhood and I'm not an expert in this. My best friend is. So we talk a lot about childhood trauma a lot of the time, but some kind of childhood trauma or the way that you have been brought up has given you the view of the world. So your teachers have shaped you, your parents have shaped you, your peers have shaped you, and that view of the world that you got when you were between the ages of three and seven now affects the way you run your accounting practice. That's it.
Speaker 1:OK, so when you know the why, because you've gone deep enough on the why so when you know, the why because you've gone deep enough on the why. How does that then? Or what is needed by an accountant to then appreciate the next steps? How do you take that appreciation of the why and turn it into something that's practical and useful?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And that goes back to my three values again be effective, bring energy and have empathy. So, once you understand what people are going through, it's time to either help them shift or, if you can't do that as the advisor, team up with someone. So if someone is struggling because oh, they've got okay, if they've got relationship issues with their husband and wife, who's also their business partner, then you need to refer them to a relationship counsellor. That's not your job as the accountant to do that Absolutely. If their business is struggling because they can't get good clients, then maybe, just maybe, we're looking at. You know, either you as the accountant, you learn how to do marketing or you team up with someone who's an expert that can help you. That's when you get partners in and they they support you through that okay, so maybe you can, so you do.
Speaker 1:If you can't, yeah, absolutely and there is nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 2:Like I, I do not know how to do accounts, so I will get in an account specialist if I need someone to give that talk okay, so if I'm packing that a little bit further, so I've got whether we've got introvert, ambivert, extrovert.
Speaker 1:However, um and we already agreed, introvert, extrovert both can get in the way of a strong relationship. Better able to help clients, better able to charge for that help with clients. Um, irrespective of all of that, the, the word that stands out for me in terms of, uh, the humanity skills. Um, listening more than anything else is connected with the empathy piece that you talk about being part of your values. How do you? Um help accountants build those listening skills? You know, so there's an accountant or two listening to this podcast going yeah, I need to be better at that. What are the two or three? You know the 20 that delivers 80 of the wins, what? What are those skills that? Um, you know the things that people do to be better at listening. What are they?
Speaker 2:it's quite simple and I I don't mean to belittle it, but it's actually caring about the person in front of you, because you'll listen if your wife is crying or you'll listen if your children need help. You'll listen to what they want. But with a client you sometimes think you know all the answers, but actually the answers are within the client and not with you. So just care, because listening is really easy if you just hold the space for someone. And holding the space is really difficult, especially if you've got your own issues and that has again.
Speaker 2:I don't know who said this, but when I talked to my friend who's a trauma specialist, you know that is about trauma specialist. You know that is about trauma. You cannot hold the space for someone easily. If you carry baggage around and you're ego-led and you you want to be the dominant person in the room, it's very difficult to listen. If that's what you're going through. It doesn't make you a bad person if that's who you are. It just means that maybe you need to do a bit of work so that you can become a better advisor. You might be a great accountant, being ego and dominant, but not a great advisor because your stuff gets in the way of the space needed to listen better to the client.
Speaker 2:Magic happens in the space, yeah yeah, like imagine when you asked your, your husband or wife to marry you and you got down on that one knee and said will you marry me? The bit between her saying yes or no or him saying that's the magic. That's like you don't know what they're going to say. You hope that they're going to say yes, but that's the magic bit, isn't it? And if we overlook the magic, then all we're ever going to do is miss the important information. The reading of the room, the reading of the expression, the caring, the like coming from here coming. Nobody can see me coming from my heart, like the conversation that we're having. Paul, my intention when I came today was to help as much as possible. That's what it's about. Other people will come on podcasts not necessarily your podcast, but other people in other worlds will come on podcasts and be like I've come on this podcast to sell stuff you know completely different. It's all about intention and having empathy. Hold the space.
Speaker 1:Hold the space. Yeah, I love that phrase. Hold the space we. In the back catalogue, before this podcast was published, there's one with Gary Turner.
Speaker 2:I do know Gary.
Speaker 1:X-E-R-O. X-e-r-o guy. And Gary was brilliant about, you know, getting a room of good people and shut up. Yes, and it's not just shut your mouth, it's shut the chatter. And I think that's what you're referring to, because if you've got the chatter going on in your head but your mouth shut, you're still not holding the space for someone to actually and, by the way, they'll know you don't care because you're not really listening to them, you're listening to yourself, I mean exactly, yeah, the stories we tell ourselves.
Speaker 2:And that, I suppose, leads me on to one of my favorite sayings is I want to be the most stupid person in a room gary turner was in exactly the same space yeah, like I, I want to be the stupidest person in the room. Then I'm going to have a good day. I don't want to be the most intelligent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't need to be the smartest no and I, I, I think you you've, you know, really sharply important point in terms of that hold the space, shut yourself up, shut your mouth up and care. And, by the way, there's, there's a um, one of one of the most influential advisors from the us, a, a guy called Edgar Sheen, talks about the three C's and we, we, we do a lot of work in this space as well, and one of those C's is care. If you come with an attitude of care to a conversation, like you say, if it was a child crying, you should just bring that, and now it's. How do you do that consciously, as opposed to just get on with the chatter that's going on in the room?
Speaker 1:And I think that sometimes is not as easy as we're maybe making it out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, practice with the family. So I do it. So I will send a message. So my best friend, who I'm talking about a lot today, she actually lives in Spain, so I can't see her very often we see each other every six weeks or so and I'll send her a message and say I've had a bad day. I need you to hold the space. I'm going to give you a call which basically means don't say anything. I'm going to rant at you and then I'm going to hang up so we can practice this with our family and our friends. And, like even now, I've got Matthew to the point, who's my husband and business partner. I've got him to the point and I'll look at him and he'll go. You don't need advice right now, do you just need me to hold the space? And it's a learned behavior and it actually starts with conscious thought of I've got to shut my mouth.
Speaker 1:I've got to shut the chatter.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Cool. So listening key skill I mean off the charts key skill yeah, okay, you've got to have the questions first, but let's just run with the listening piece. So skill of approach every conversation with client or team member or partner or child or dog or whatever with that attitude of care, another skill in that listening space that elevates your ability to either hold the space or listen better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's ask better questions. You get better answers. If you ask better questions Like you, are getting out of me a very different conversation to someone who might interview me and go. So, amanda, what do you do? And I told you, I help people. Market advisory. We haven't spoken about marketing advisory because you're asking good questions. We're going into stuff that's really interesting here. Like you can Google how to market advisory to start with. They don't need another podcast on that. This is good stuff because you're asking better questions.
Speaker 1:So how did so? I get that, and there's a brilliant book. We've got a business breakthrough report on Ask Better Questions, which we'll put in the show notes afterwards because it's and it is a brilliant book. So Amanda and I are talking about asking better questions, listening in a deeper way. You can't listen unless you ask better questions, of course. So why not check out the Business Breakthrough Report about asking smarter questions for getting better results? It'll take you about the same amount of time as it takes you to drink a cup of tea, probably less. You can get the link in the show notes on this podcast, and actually I've got a library behind me and about a third of them are all about asking questions and listening. So we're, you know, I think this space is really valuable, yeah, but how do? How does a leader, a manager, uh, an ambitious accountant who wants to get into that client space?
Speaker 2:yeah learn to ask better questions oh man, if you'd asked me a year ago I would have said read one of those books and practice and practice. And I don't know if we want to go down this route in depth. I type it into chat GPT and say what questions should I ask my clients and see what they come up with? I know that like that.
Speaker 1:So cheating you mean. Yeah, cheating, Because basically the thing with cheating is just a shortcut, I guess.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, it's a shortcut. So why? Why make it difficult? It's practice a shortcut, I guess. Yeah, exactly, it's a shortcut. So why make it difficult? It's practice and feedback is how you know if you're asking a good question. You've got to practice, you've got to ask feedback, you've got to ask open-ended. So if we're going to go down the, here is the five ways to ask better questions.
Speaker 3:Sure.
Speaker 2:You've got to ask the how and the what and the you know not. Yes, no questions, because you'll get shut off. So you don't want someone to be able to say yes or no at the end of it. If you want to get people to open up, but at the end of the day, as an advisor, if you don't know how to ask good questions, then ask someone that does and chat GPT. Those are a lot of the answers now.
Speaker 1:Which are the questions? Yeah, it's interesting. You ask them for the answers, but the answer is what are the questions? Yeah, it's interesting. You ask them for the answers, but the answer is what are the questions a CUD should ask? You've glanced over it, but you have hit on.
Speaker 1:the two most valuable questions, I would argue, are what and how? Yes, exactly the why. One's got real sensitivities to it. I think it can be used as a I'll just tell this story from stage Wed anniversary. I won't tell anybody. Everybody which one kate's coming downstairs and go why have you worn that dress? It's not a good why question so that was the end of the evening, basically um, but why? Can often generate defensiveness?
Speaker 2:yes, and so it needs to be handled and managed carefully, in my opinion if we want to go down that route, if if I'm going to go on a tangent slightly simon cynic talks about starting with why yes, and I don't like it.
Speaker 2:I have to be honest, I really respect simon cynic. Excellent man, excellent, yeah, yeah. Yeah, do we really care why you started your accounting firm and why? No, not really, you know, I don't. I want to know why you helped me. Yes, a little bit, but actually I want to know what the answers are and how to grow my business, which is why I come to you. I think start with why is slightly overrated and it fits very beautifully when we talk about Apple and you know things where businesses do start with Y and I think it fits well for him. But yeah, it's not my favourite thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think if you're in an inverted commas, whether it be compliance or advisory conversation with a client, there's a time and a place for that Y conversation, not necessarily right at the beginning when you first met them. I think that might be a bit you know straight for the jugular. So I think in that setting I would agree with you wholeheartedly. Um, and I think you would agree as well. I think that you know, if and when you get to the reasons behind them doing what they're doing, it can often influence the decisions they make and therefore how you help them as an accounting firm. But it's so you don't start there. It's too sensitive. You might create the reaction I got from kate when, uh, I asked her how was she?
Speaker 3:yeah, that was a bad question.
Speaker 2:I'm good at learning, though I haven't done it again. Yeah, you never did it again.
Speaker 1:No, no, um, and that's why I'm a, and the research points to, you know the how questions and the what questions are the? Ones that, so you can build out um, all right, so we can go. We can go to chat gpt or we can work out good how and what questions. We can care if there was one other key skill in that listening space, bearing in mind that your ability to hear what's being said ultimately determines the depth and strength of a relationship with anybody, never mind just a client.
Speaker 2:What does listening even mean? So with like asking good questions, asking open-ended questions and hearing what they're saying. When we're having this conversation now, you're asking me questions. I'm thinking about the answers. I've got no idea what questions they are. We're absolutely riffing this. When you ask me how can people listen better, what does that even mean? Because why are they listening? What is it that they are wanting to listen for? And the agenda is always to help that person in front of them.
Speaker 1:Is it Well?
Speaker 2:that's where I said about caring. If your agenda is to help yourself, then you're going to be a really bad listener because you're only going to be listening to your story that's going on in your head rather than the person in front of you. So I suppose I'm being quite assumptive and I'm working through, because I'm an introvert, right. So I have to think. So I'm now working through, I'm going back to the beginning of our conversation going. I want to explore what that even means before I even start to answer it now. Now I've had time to think about it for 10 minutes. But yeah, I 100% think that listening is just a word and our actions are the actual thing. So caring about the person more than you care about yourself is really key, because otherwise we're only going to oh, let me give you an example, okay, so speaking to my friend Pascal again, oh gosh, going to keep talking about her, but she literally is the person I speak to 10 times a day.
Speaker 2:And I was speaking to her and I said, oh, I ran this thing by my friend Richard and I ran this thing by Ben, but I'm not really going to take what their opinion is on it because I don't trust them enough that my agenda is more important than their agenda in this decision making. I said the only person I want to have give me advice is actually you, and the reason why? Because my decision doesn't affect her in any way, shape or form and I trust her. So here's the other thing as well is you have to have trust if you're going to be an advisor. I'm not going to use the term trusted advisor, but you have to have trust there. Okay, and the reason I went to her and for her to listen and for her to give me support was because her agenda was my agenda, not my agenda, her agenda being, yeah, see what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:So, there's a really good example and I've spoken to three people about it, but I'm care. Another one is be committed to help.
Speaker 1:So the intention of the conversation is for your best interest, not mine. Yes, 100%, and I just think that's just so simple and so elegant.
Speaker 2:But who does that? Like, very few people actually do that. Like, I know that I came in with an intention to help and you came in with an intention to help because you're doing this. But I will question whether or not your first idea of a podcast was because you wanted to help or whether it was like, oh, that might help grow my audience. Now it's to help. Now you're in it and now you're doing it.
Speaker 2:But anybody, when they do anything to do with marketing, are they starting it to help or are they starting it to to grow their business? Not just you, but everybody, sure? Um, any action that we take, do we do it for us or do we do it for other people? Um, and I bet that we do it for our kids, but I bet we don't do it for many people other than our children. I'm picking joshy up um on saturday night at uh 12.
Speaker 2:He gets into Gatwick in the morning Saturday night, saturday morning, and he sent me a text saying can you also take home James and all these other people? And it's like it's half past 12 at night. I'm going to get to bed about half past two. By the time I've driven for an hour and dropped everybody off in different places out in the countryside. But who am I doing that for? Well, I'm not doing it for me, I'm doing it for Josh. I'm not doing it for his friends, I'm doing it for Josh. How many times do we do stuff that selfishly for anyone other than our children?
Speaker 1:I think we do it more for them than anyone else.
Speaker 2:I think so too, a hundred percent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah for sure. And in every conversation, even one of those parental conversations, there's a multitude of intentions, there's not just one. We're more complex as humans than that, aren't we? But it is about. You bring the trust element into this, quite rightly. It's the motives, the intentions deliberately emphasising the S the plural and it's the mix the intentions, deliberately emphasising the S, the plural and it's the mix of those that have a profound impact on whether a level of trust has been achieved or not in a conversation or a relationship of any description, including one with a client.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I love and we refer to it all the time with the work we do with firms and leadership teams around Charles Green's trust equation.
Speaker 1:And he unpacks trust and says it's the blend and sum of the level of intimacy you achieve in a discussion, the level of credibility you have or create in that discussion, and the degree of reliability you talk about the actions that basically do what you said you were going to do. Credibility might be to do with your past experience, past knowledge, past results and so on. Intimacy about how often and how deep you connect with people. And then we're back into edgy. Shine in your care, be committed to help um, however, those three. There's a, there's a factor line, you know um. Divide that by your level of self-orientation yeah, so if it's about you, and that's really high, no matter how good the numbers are at the top, the trust equation goes down, whereas if self-orientation is all on them, you're committed to help them trust goes up. You go, ah right, sometimes I just get lost on that. We share that equation a lot.
Speaker 2:And what's really interesting, really interesting is it probably always does come back to you. So why am I picking him up at half past 12 and running the kids around? Quite possibly because he's 21 and I want him to stay in my life and I want him to make sure he can rely on me and I want to make sure that you know he always comes to mummy and actually that's a really selfish thing. So actually I'm doing it for multiple reasons.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah yeah, and you know there's no bad in that. No, but the motives are multifaceted, so we've got good intentions, commitment to help, care and ask better questions, which, by the way, is the third C of Edgar Sheen's model, which is be curious. So if you're curious, you care and you're committed to help, you're in a place that most people don't get to in the quality of listening so interesting I'm gonna have to look this guy up.
Speaker 2:I don't know it's genius yeah, um.
Speaker 1:So there's um, but over here I know you can see I'm pointing over there there's the his four books humble consulting, humble leadership helping and humble inquiry. I'd start with. Humble inquiry is off the charts, brilliant, we'll put a link to it in the show notes as well. Stunning yeah, just stunning. And then there's obviously Charles Green's trust equation. So Charles Green, whose book is the Trusted Advisor. I don't know whether you like that or not, amanda, but hey, oh, I don't mind it.
Speaker 2:I just know that a lot of accountants switch off when we talk about being a trusted advisor. You've heard it too much.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I think the advisory label is overused and under as a word and there's very little, you know, lots of talk about it, not lots of action around it. But that's my idea.
Speaker 2:And nobody knows what an advisor is, unless they're actually an accountant Like hey, I can be your trusted advisor, really.
Speaker 1:I don't even know what that is, uh cool. So, uh, ask better questions. Interesting answer actually the chat gpt one. Um, I quite like that, having played around with it, as everyone has done to some degree. Yeah, um, uh, we've been running a couple of training programs recently for managers in and around the skill of questions and listening, which is why I'm so interested in this discussion. So we've got introverts showing up, ambiverts with an introvert bias showing up in client meetings.
Speaker 1:We help them. They end up better at listening. But your point earlier about it's more about the actions than this word. Listening the actions. Do you want to unpack that?
Speaker 2:Well an introvert can't take action until they have clarity. And I've got this saying, which I love and my accountants love it when you are clear, it takes away the fear. It's as simple as that. So you can't take action if there is any lack of clarity. And when someone asks us a question, we get. It takes us a while to get clarity. So you know, when you were asking me questions and we're riffing, so you're throwing questions at me, which doesn't really match my personality because I haven't had a chance to think it through. So I'm going with my gut rather than going with a process. But actually that's great. That creates a great podcast.
Speaker 2:But I got clarity 10 minutes after our conversation started. Okay, so I had lots of ideas, but the clarity didn't come into actually what is leadership, what is listening? And then I was like, hey, no, stop, I want to stop this. Actually, I want to explore this before I give you my next answer, because now I've got clarity through talking it through. One thing I do contradict on the introversion side is that people get clarity in their brains. Yes, if I'd gone away for an hour and thought about it, I would have got clarity. But I also get clarity through talking. I don't have a problem with talking things through. I like having accountability buddies to talk things through with what was that phrase?
Speaker 2:clarity generates when you're clear, it takes away the fear clear is that what I said?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, that's why I use that all the time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're picking up on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it does it's when you are clear, it takes away the fear one you're picking up on, because it does.
Speaker 2:When you are clear, it takes away the fear. If you're clear on what you need to do every single day, you will storm through your day. If you're clear on what marketing to do, if you're clear on your offer, if you're clear on who's a good client for you, if you're clear on how to grow your business, if you're clear on how to create a remarkable practice, then you can just go for it. But if you're not clear, you're stuffed. You are, you're, you're going to be your worst enemy yeah, cool, uh, you're stuffed.
Speaker 1:I like that, you're stuffed. I've got the northern version you have I just said you're, you're rather inconvenienced.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're stuffed yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, that's the burnley version yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah so what, um, what skills are needed to get clarity? Because there's that, you, you, you talk about the processing piece a lot there as well, aren't you? Even though we don't mention the process word. So I've got. So there's part of the conversation. We're having to process stuff. So an introvert is I need processing time, I need contemplation time, uh, which, when you're in a one-on-one discussion with a client, it's got to be dealt with in that meeting. It's like walking away, you can follow up by email or phone call, but ultimately that we've got to nurture a really valuable conversation, don't we? Um, what are the one or two key skills to help build clarity so that the clear does away with the fear?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So Malcolm Gladwell talks about 10,000 hours to become an expert. I don't know if it's exactly 10,000 hours, but don't become an advisor or have meetings with people if you don't know what you're talking about. That would be the first thing. If you don't know what you're talking about, that would be the first thing.
Speaker 2:Clarity is through all of the CPD. You've done all of the study, all of the exams. You know what you're really good at. What you don't know is what you don't know. So what you have to do is find someone that might know the answers to the questions that you're having. So you start with best guess.
Speaker 2:Let's just say someone wants to do marketing. They've never done marketing before and they've got no idea who's a good client for them. How are they going to work out who's a good client? They're going to talk to somebody who will be able to help them get clear on who's a good client, and there will be a process to it. You can ask ChatGPT For everything. Yeah, absolutely, but we have to be very aware that we don't have all the answers. We weren't born as Google and we have to accept that clarity is not going to come on the first iteration. We have to do something in beta, and then we have to test it and iterate, and test, and iterate, and test and iterate.
Speaker 2:I've been working with accountants since 2016. I would say I'm more experienced than many people, but am I as experienced as you? You've been in this longer than me, paul. I don't know. Have I tested and iterated more than you? Maybe I don't know. But at the end of the day, it's about getting as good as you can get and I'm going to contradict what you said, sorry dude.
Speaker 3:No, it's good, go for it.
Speaker 2:About having all the answers in the meeting. I've been a coach for a long time, so I've been a marketing coach, not just with accountants, but a coach since 2009. I've been doing this, okay. So one thing that I know that elevates me when I am coaching is I go do you know what? Mate? I don't know the answer to that. I'm going to have to get back to you and there is nothing wrong with that. That actually helps on the trust equation, because I'm not going to give you a crappy answer and you can say to them you know, I don't know.
Speaker 2:So, to answer your question, one experience, so 10,000 hours, absolutely. From that experience, create a beta version of whatever it is that you need to create and then test and iterate and get the feedback. And four, hold your hand up. If you don't know the answer, nobody's going to say anything to you. It doesn't matter. We don't have to know everything. We are not Google or we're not ChatGPT anymore. Gosh, that saying is going to change, isn't it? We're not AI. We don't know the answer to everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't think there is a contradiction here. I think there's just, undoubtedly, each client interaction, the client needs to feel and experience value. Now I think and I'm happy to be proven wrong here, but it's that clarity is about certainty. You know, I think, if I hear you right, what you're saying is introverts seek out certainty and therefore perhaps want to avoid ambiguity is that?
Speaker 2:is that a reasonable statement? Yeah, I would say so. I and I would take that back to when I came into the accounting profession is I wasn't certain that everyone would like me, and the reason I wasn't certain that everyone would like me comes actually from childhood trauma, where I was an outcast at school, and I've brought that now into my business world. So now I don't interact with people because I keep myself safe, because it doesn't matter if nobody likes me because I don't talk to anyone, so that's not a problem. The only thing I have to do is kill people with value so that my clients get value from me.
Speaker 1:It doesn't matter if they don't like me, although we do end up getting great relationships because I spend a long time with them, sure, but yeah, that's what it goes back to certainty of, of knowledge. So the the ambiguity of facing a question that you don't know the answer to is actually quite a challenge in that introverted space. Yeah, um, but I'm with you all the way. I think there's no way of predicting how every client meeting is going to run. It's just there's too many variables, too many personalities, too much history. What happened this morning at breakfast, the car journey there's so many different things impact on how a conversation at midday on a Wednesday would go. So it's, how do we help accountants, who typically want certainty, get more and more comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty and lack of clarity? So they're not clear. So maybe there is greater fear. And having spent a day with 10 managers this week, it is a you know what's the?
Speaker 1:false evidence appearing real fear, f-e-a-r piece. How do we um, and I think uh, the 10 000 piece hours pieces, uh, do it, do it, do it, do it just rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse, and repeat, rinse and repeat. But start, repeat, rinse and repeat, we'll start somewhere.
Speaker 1:Start somewhere yeah, I'll just pose the question anyway how do we help me, how help you? How do we help, more importantly, the accountants in a sensitive client meeting? Yeah, feel less fear, be more comfortable in the ambiguity of we don't know where this meeting's going yeah, just it's not getting comfortable with ambiguity.
Speaker 2:It's getting comfortable with saying one sentence of I don't know the answer to that. I'll get back to you in the next hour or two and that's what you practice. I don't know the answer to it. There is nothing wrong with not knowing answers. That's the bit they practice, and if you can practice that one sentence I don't know the answer to that, but I'll get back to you that's and and that doesn't take long to learn.
Speaker 1:It doesn't take long to learn see people will listen to that, amanda, and I think they'll just skirt past it. So I'm just going to, if I can, bolt something onto that, because I think that's really valuable. There was um an associate anthropological research piece about people pushing in queues.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And so if you've got an audience I've done this a few times and go anyone experienced being in a queue and someone's pushed it and you know a vast majority of people have experienced that at some point and how many of you actually say something and get them to the back of the queue and about half the hands stay up and I go did you really? Did you really anyway? No, no, not really, because they talked it through in their heads but they didn't actually tackle the person. Yeah, so this study had some plants in these queues. Someone pushed in, someone stepped out and went excuse me, uh, madam, um, you may not realize this, but we've been queuing for ages and, um, it'd be really polite and fair if you actually joined the back of the queue rather than shoving in. And this lady just shot off to the back.
Speaker 1:Um, this, the plant with the script, left the queue, someone else joined, pushed in and everyone in the queue's going. What did that bloke say? And then someone stepped out and said almost word for word, that script and managed another person to the back to the back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's the power of a little script like you've just shared exactly? You know it's a really good question. I don't know the answer, but what I will do is get back to you once I've got back to the office exactly or once you've got off the call, or whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it doesn't diminish the fact that they are still the expert in the room and they're still being paid for advice. You're still going to get that advice and so many people don't expect the answer. All people don't expect the answer.
Speaker 3:If.
Speaker 2:I ask you a question, Paul, about what were the three C's, and you couldn't remember the third one. You'd be like, oh, actually I can't remember, I'll get back to you. I'll be like that's fine, you still introduced me to the concept.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I did. Yesterday I shared three. I can't remember even what the three things were, but I've got them in my notes and I remember two of them and I have got to get back to these people because I made a promise that I would there you go, you're welcome, I've reminded you.
Speaker 3:No, thank you.
Speaker 1:Kate's got it on my to-do list. There's no way I can get away from it because she was in the room as well. But I think just to again re-emphasise if you've got a complex maths sum and a accountant will pick up a calculator and do the maths, yeah. If you've got a complex question, that comes out of it or a simple question for that matter that comes out of the client's mouth.
Speaker 1:Um, the equivalent to the calculator tool is the script. You know what? That's a brilliant question. I'm not entirely sure. Don't want to give you, um, a guess, I'll find out. Get back to you, yeah, or have a conversation about actually that's quite a lumpy piece of work which we can go and do for you. If it's really certain, then you're into a cross selling conversation, yeah, but the script is just like a calculator, it's a tool and it gets a bad press scripting because of all the tele marketers. Who is scripting? People have this thing against scripts, but there's a time and a place and I think you're absolutely right to flag that up.
Speaker 2:And this is a helpful script. But there's a time and a place and I think you're absolutely right to flag that up. And this is a helpful script. Like some scripts are driven from ego and money. Actually, you care about the person in front of you, so you don't want to give them a wrong answer.
Speaker 1:You care. You're committed to help. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I'll be curious about the answer myself and I'll come up to you Exactly and then, when you get asked that question again, you might have the the answer, if you've remembered. Brilliant, so we've covered a fair amount of ground. But in a deep space, in that listening interaction between accountant and clients, of everything we've discussed today, amanda, what's what stood out for you as being of significant value that you'll take away from this podcast discussion?
Speaker 2:Yeah, for me, I help accountants offer more advisory and they say to me all the time, how do I do advisory, how do I do advisory? And I help them put together a model and I help them see what they're an expert at. But maybe, just maybe, we need to go deeper as a profession as a whole and just start with those three Cs and for me that's where it starts, that's where it finishes and that's where the whole thing throughout the middle should be Humanise the numbers. It's like get rid of the numbers mate and just be a human.
Speaker 1:Well, I was in dialogue yesterday with a managing partner of quite a large firm 300 plus people and they've been on a journey about making it more about the people and less about the work's got to get done. Yeah, the clients have got to be taken care of.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And we've got our people as well. Which is the lead? Where's the emphasis? What's the ranking of importance and his managing partner's going? No, it's dead clear, it's the team first, client second, work third. And so you just said you forget the numbers. Well, we've got to get the numbers work over the line and out the door and the company's house, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that's got to be done. That's the hygiene stuff. That, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that's got to be done. That's the hygiene stuff. That just has to be done. So there you go. All right, the work's going to get done. So are you team first or are you client first?
Speaker 2:as a leader, I'm team first. I'm team first too. I'm team first. We have to, and I actually was speaking at an event yesterday with Waters.
Speaker 1:Clear and it was all about tech and and it was all about tech and Phil.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you know Phil Hobden. Phil Hobden, yeah, he's been on the podcast.
Speaker 2:So Phil said to me he's like so how can we get the team to embrace more tech? When you buy a new business, you know, and you merge two businesses together and I'm like whoa, you don't want them to get into, buy into tech. You want to get them to buy into culture and vision and mission. And you've got to go deeper than that. Tech is just a tool. Like forget about the tech, like the business is going to break if you haven't got them into the vision and the mission and why they're doing what they're doing, and then we're into what's the level of team engagement.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:That's a whole other conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely I'm not having that one. No, I'm not being either.
Speaker 2:I've run all of my coins well.
Speaker 1:Thank you, that's very generous of you no, no, it's fine, I planned it that way, yeah, and I really appreciate that. You flagged up the fact that, uh, the engish three c's has got real. It's so simple, so it's like the apple falling on newton's head, isn't it? It's as obvious as the sun in the sky, yeah, um, but it's a really good framework to uh to share across the profession. Amanda, I've loved it today, really appreciate you taking time out, spending all your coins with myself and the Humanizer Numbers podcast. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day in the sun. Maybe join your daughter in the park for a glass of wine, maybe.
Speaker 2:I already asked.
Speaker 1:She won't have me. You're 18. That's not happening, is it? No, no, no, no, no. Very good, really appreciate it. Thank you very, very much thanks, paul you'll find more valuable discussions with the leaders of ambitious accounting firms. At humanize the numbersonline, you can also sign up to be notified each time a new podcast is made available. You're about to hear a short excerpt from a discussion with Will Farnell. If you like what you hear and want to go to the full podcast, go to humanizethenumbersonline or go to your favorite podcast platform it's all mindset.
Speaker 3:I mean we what we saw in covid was the proof, if ever we needed it, that we have the capacity and capability to do anything we want anything. So literally we have. We had large firms, small firms, going from 100% office-based working to 100% remote-based working in two days. Now, paul, you've worked with many multi-partner firms. Just imagine somebody comes to the board meeting of the partners and says I've had this great idea. I think that we should scrap the office and we should have everybody working at home. If that ever got approved, how long would it take, do you think? I mean I'd throw out, I don't know five years, maybe by the time they've decided, thought about how they manage the risk, how they make the risk, how they, how they make sure that productivity is maintained and everything else. And it happened in two days. So when there is a desire and and whether that's a a free choice desire or an imposed desire to make something happen, we showed we can do it. It so that means that if the driver is enough, then we can do anything. So all the things that we're talking about here, you could change your business. You could change the lives of your clients through delivering what you deliver to them in a different, better, more efficient, more effective, more valuable way. We can do that. We can make that decision if we want to do it, but then you get to.
Speaker 3:Well, what are the reasons that people are not doing it? Well, firstly, the pain isn't enough. Whilst everybody's still making okay money and they're paying a mortgage and they're sending the kids to private school, whatever it is, there's no drive, there's no burning platform for it to happen. Um, so what I try and get people to do is is that all of this change is in the interest of the clients. And I said at the beginning of the podcast every, every firm I've ever gone into, everyone really cares about the client. So why we're not thinking about the outcomes for the clients here, as a driver for us to say look, if we all genuinely care about the client, let's make sure that we position all of these changes in a way that we can clearly see what the benefit is, indirectly or directly on the client.