How To Keep Your Team Focused While You’re Not In The Office
September 29, 2020
How To Change The Pattern Of Doing Too Much Yourself Without Losing Your Sense Of Control
October 27, 2020
Fireside Leadership Chat with Scott Kay of Integrity Plus Accounting
We cover:
1) Why you need forgive yourself more!
2) How he delegates to his remote team and what tools he uses
3) What’s working for him in keeping and retaining key customers
Tell us about yourself:
I started my business integrity plus accounting four years ago, full time. I’ve had my own clients for ten years, being an accountant for 16, joined a middle tier accounting firm straight out of school.
I have always wanted to be wealthy and had a business that works for me, but also, I was able to provide for my family and be with my family. My daughter is three and three quarters at the moment and the blessing of having my own business has never been able to spend a lot more time with my daughter and my wife than I believe I would have been able to if I was in an office nine to five or eight to six or whatever, whatever it is.
Well, also, you may be able to make more money by focusing less, but I think that family and health and your values and doing really what you want to do. There are a lot more important than making money because money can be lost and gone back and you can always make more money, but you can’t make more time and you can’t make more precious moments.
The one thing I would say, the one thing we can’t buy with money is time. It’s the only thing we’ve got a finite amount of, so thinking about how you spend it is a great thing. So today we’re really having a discussion, you and I, but for the benefit of the other guys that are in the group. And, you know, the questions I’ve been asking are really about what’s working with you for you as a leader, what’s working for you individually, what’s working within you in terms of how you’re leading the team and then what’s working for integrity, plus the accounting firm in terms of how you guys are positioned in the market.
And I think that’s really challenging. So what’s working for me is just to realise that I’m just human and to forgive myself and realize that every day is just a new day to live. And sometimes there are just some days that it’s going to be worse than others and that you’re not going to feel successful and to forgive myself when I’m maybe a bit curse with my wife or daughter or team. I think particularly with Covid-19. This is just not as much outlets, there’s not as much social outlet is not the release valve has a little bit, they turned off. So there’s so many more ways to connect and that just giving someone a hug like that, that’s been kind of taken a bit and the joy. So, I think that’s had a massive impact on the world that hasn’t been seen and may not be seen for years. So, realizing that the people are more likely to be irritable and require more certainty in a changing world. Yet that’s been working for me and how I approach my life, my family, my team and my business.
So, it sounds like you’ve kind of. Lowered expectations, but I don’t think lower is the right word. You just changed your expectations.
I think you can still have high expectations of what you can do and what you can achieve, the realising that because I’m not a full perfectionist,
I have ADHD tendencies, probably like a lot of business owners that I’m chasing shiny objects. I have an ability to hyper focus and deep focus on something and get everything out of the way. Do that thing and only when that thing is done and then even spend more time on it if I love it. And on the on the flip side of that, I sometimes get to something three months later and it’s cost me a hundred dollars in late fees and then like if I just paid this or cancel the subscription three months ago, this literally took four minutes from the time of clicking the email and canceling or sending that email.
Are you saying you can have high performance? With flexibility, is that what you’re saying? And balance, is that kind of the message?
I think that you’ve got to forgive yourself and do what works for you. And that can be a lifelong journey, and once you work out what works for you, you just stick to it.
That’s awesome. So, let’s just summarize.That last element was small wins, which was related to kind of define your own version of high. Right. So, forgive yourself. Don’t be so hard on yourself. But there are times when you can use small individual wins that make you more effective. That’s your own version of high performance. Yet in relation to the pandemic, your main message is we’re all human, right? There’s been some things it’s harder to give hugs because we can’t talk to each other. And, you know, some days are really worse than others. So just. To be so hard on yourself. Yeah, that’s kind of your main message, right? Yeah. All right.
So, talk to me about the team at Integrity Plus Accounting. You know, what’s really helped you in as a team leader this year?
Having the right people. I’ve had some outsourced employees in India, and that has worked really well, and I’ve got one in particular that is my right-hand man now and just the ability to delegate and that’s all I want to do, want to really stand in my way on why? Because I’m not empowering him to do more.
What’s working for you to delegate things? Well, really well to that team.
I love tech tools. Voxer is if you haven’t had but that is absolutely awesome. I use voice messages for Linkedin, Facebook messenger, Whatsapp if I need to. Voxer is a tool for the team I find is fantastic because I can just send them an email and then hold one button and speak into it for the fifty seconds it takes me to explain the job, what is required, what potholes they’re going to fall into. Sometimes I do that at the same time as verbally explaining it to my staff on a zoom call.
You’re expecting the right people on the team and you sound like you’ve had some lessons around the last little bit of time but right now it’s working for you and for you it’s about having that right hand man said that when you give an outcome to someone in a task that you can delegate and trust they’re going to get it right, because it frees you up to do more important things or to grow the business or be more strategic.
That’s why you have a team. That’s why I work with teams, because it allows you to work to your strengths, have more freedom in the business to do the stuff that you love. And the fact that you have been able to use these tech tools to work smarter means that that team is going to keep aligned and focused and keep allowing you to do that.
What Scott’s doing around recording himself is an amazing way to build to delegate to the team because they can see what you do and then you can provide the training to them and, you know, use obviously Voxer for that but you can also use a tool called Loom.
Yeah so I use loom for the videos, and that’s when I’m doing something that is a repeatable task, but I use it for a client. Voxer is the explanation, the up to two minute explanation of the steps that are involved in that task that would be specific to the client.
Right, that’s been amazing information. So specific and detailed around what you do I think it’d be useful for the guys in the group, especially the ones who have got a small team.
In terms of at the strategy level and the types of customers you’re targeting, have you pivoted and changed this year? And what’s working for you?
I have just focused on providing a better service, and more hands on of my time with my larger customers. And I’ve focused on delegating. The chasing up of work, often with accounting and tax clients and missing information you know they’ll send you an initial information or you’ll have a zero or QuickBooks file and then you can work from that but then there’s queries, out of that. So my team now do the queries. And then I talk to the client with the strategy and where to move forward and what we need to do from here. I haven’t niched down into a particular type of business. Yeah, and I just in providing that better service to clients I’ve been receiving a lot more client referrals when they refer their friend or business partner or work colleague gratitude.
Essentially what you’re doing is focusing on client experience, and building better relationships with them to generate referral business in a year when everyone’s a little bit more under resourced and a bit stressed. It’s been amazing talking with you.
Leave me a comment or Get in Touch
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Talk to you soon!
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