Humanise The Numbers - for ambitious accountants in practice

When you dive into a deep conversation with a person who has worked in a village accountancy practice, someone who has also been part of a national firm and who has worked within an organisation to establish a new office, improving the fees by £100k per month, you know you're likely to have a decent podcast discussion. In this conversation with Stuart Hurst of Cloud 10, a business in startup...

It's not often you get the chance to chew the fat with someone who's worked with Ford, with Tata, with Levi’s, as well as with numerous other high-end, well-known, well-recognised international brands, and be able to talk to them about what ‘brand’ and accountants have to do with each other.  And what Philippa does brilliantly on this podcast is to unpack two or three deep, key insights...

It's not every day you get the opportunity to interview the Global Chief Technology Officer of one of the landmark suppliers to the accounting profession.   In this podcast discussion with Aaron Harris from Sage, we explored a few issues around using AI in the accounting profession. We, perhaps surprisingly, opened up a very human conversation on this topic, exploring the idea that the succes...

When you listen in to a conversation with a leader of an accounting business with over 100 people, and you hear how seriously they take investment in their team now so that it delivers a return in 12, 18, 24 or even 36 months, it's well worth considering what’s being said.  So, when Rebecca Mihalic of the Australian firm businessDEPOT talks about taking team members along to client meetings,...

It's simply brilliant when you can spend some time with a chartered accountant, one who spent 17 years with EY down in Australia before becoming an owner-managed business buying accountancy services.  Craig believes that an accountant does a brilliant job, a better job, if they're 80% human and 20% accountant when working with their owner-managed business clients.  This podcast discussio...

It's not every day you get to interview an accountant who's also a retailer and a podcaster, and in this discussion with Andrew Van De Beek from Australia – Andrew runs a twenty-person accountancy business in Victoria – the discussion turns almost into a philosophical debate, but with real, practical outcomes. Andrew is committed to the concept of the business of relationships, with a co...

When someone says to me that the numbers are the outputs, and it's the team, it's the humans, that are the inputs, you can imagine I'm all ears.  In this podcast discussion with Nicky Clough of Insight Training, you'll hear Nicky unpack and expand on those thoughts. Yes, accountants are obsessed with the numbers, quite rightly so, because that's their area of expertise, bu...

If your firm is making good use of technology, and embracing new technology as well, if you are building the knowledge and skill of your team and building deeper relationships with your clients, you'll know that you’re on track for the ambitious future you have in mind for your firm, your team and your clients.  In this podcast with Nicki Savill of Moore Kingston Smith, Nicki spends a good de...

Sometimes the work we do is a real privilege, especially when we are able to have a deep discussion about what it means to humanise the numbers with someone who's qualified as a chartered accountant, has loved his time in practice, put his hands up for everything he could possibly put his hand up for, but who moved on (because he didn't like the geography) into Sage to do a tech support...

You’d probably agree that, if you get to a place where you have a strong collaborative relationship with a client and you're doing what you can to educate them and to protect the best interests of their business, you're going to be building a deep relationship, a loyal, long-standing relationship, with that particular client. And it was those three factors – collaboration, education and...

Have you ever wondered how you can build greater capacity into your firm so that you free up your people to do more of the higher-value work?  In this podcast discussion with Dave and Andy from FD Intelligence, we unpack the value, the power, the simplicity, arguably, of introducing robot process automation into your firm in a deeper way. If you're not already working with it, you should take...

Do you know that feeling you get when you meet someone who's excited about, and who clearly loves, what they're doing, someone who is completely engaged as a leader in running their accounting firm? That joy and enthusiasm is infectious!  In this podcast discussion with Jessica Pillow of Pillow May Accountancy, you'll hopefully experience what I did when talking with Jessica – a sen...

How do you take the customer’s viewpoint of your accounting firm’s service offering from a 'would-like' to a 'must-have' perspective, as when you get to 'must-have' they're more likely to buy more and to pay more because the perceived value is potentially higher?  We welcome on this podcast discussion Vangelis Kyriazis, the co-founder and CEO of Syft, builders of...

The key question – how do you and your firm make a difference? – makes a difference in the conversations you have with your current team members when it comes to connecting them up with the real meaning behind what you're doing.  Making a difference and communicating that will also help you connect with potential future employees so that they're more likely to join your firm rather than...

If you or a loved one is unfortunate enough to need a medical or surgical procedure, chances are you'd prefer, for example, to have a kidney transplant specialist, if you needed a kidney transplant, rather than consulting with a general practitioner or even a general surgeon.  On this podcast, Reza Hooda talks about the fact that your business clients would prefer to work with a specialist in...

As we approached our 100th edition of the Humanise The Numbers podcast, we found choosing someone to invite as the guest a bit challenging. But then we thought, what if we could make a global impact by having the right standard of guest, one that could inspire you, your firm, your team, your clients, maybe, to transform the numbers that really matter in your firm and across your clients’ businesse...

It's easy for us to assume you want a more successful firm. You also probably want a more enjoyable place to work. I guess the big question is, which comes first – a more enjoyable firm or a more successful, more profitable firm?  On this Humanise The Numbers podcast with the Managing Partner of UHY Hacker Young in London and Nottingham, Subarna Banerjee, you'll hear Subarna dive deep in...

When you start to unpack the value and the importance of your team being connected with the vision and the future goals of your business, you know you're in a position to acquire some insight and to deliver actions and decisions that will support the future success of your firm.  On this podcast discussion with Ashley Leeds, a man with 16 years’ experience in working with accounting firms – f...

What happens when you put two business leaders, both of whom serve the leadership and management teams of accounting firms, into a podcast discussion? Well, you end up with a bit of a fireside chat, a very candid fireside chat, that unpacks a number of key issues influencing the success of accountancy firms.  In this Humanise The Numbers podcast discussion with Paul Richmond of theGrogroup, you&ap...

It's not surprising that I'd be so excited about welcoming two of the leaders of the fastest growing tech company in the UK and, according to Deloitte's, the third fastest growing tech company of all time, Allica Bank.  On this Humanise the Numbers podcast, we welcome Conrad Ford and Sophie Hossack, who share powerful insights, valuable ideas and principles around growth – and they...

One of the deepest, most valuable, conversations you can have with your business owner/business leader clients is in regard to the future of the business without them. It's about exit planning and succession, about preparing the business for their exit, whether it's an internal or external sale, and about whether the management team will continue in their footsteps.  But how do you have...

It’s stating the blatantly obvious that, when you and your team build the knowledge, the skills and the habits that result in a deeper, more trusting, more valuable relationship with your clients, you'll end up with a more successful firm.  That success comes because deeper relationships with clients mean that they’ll stay with you longer, they’ll be more loyal, they’ll buy more services from...

If you've led a six-person accounting firm with a turnover of £250,000 and built it over the years into a £1.5-million firm with 22 people, you'd rightly feel a sense of pride and satisfaction in what you'd achieved.  You might, though, be running out of energy, passion and ambition for your people, your clients and the business.  Well, that's not the case with Simon Chaplin of...

If you are brilliant or remarkable or just getting better at leading and managing your team, personalising and humanising how you work with them, and you’re brilliant or remarkable or getting better at working with your clients, then you’re going to have a more successful firm. It's stating the blatantly obvious. Also, if you are leading and managing change in your firm – because change is in...

When a business leader that has 3000 team members and works across several countries, several continents, even, shares their insights on what’s working within the accountancy profession and how to make their business more successful, I’m all ears. It was a great privilege and a great honour to have Elona Mortimer-Zhika, CEO of Iris, join me on the Humanise the Numbers podcast to share her insights...