Build to Enough

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Keila Hill-Trawick: Hello. You're listening to Build to Enough, a podcast for entrepreneurs who want to scale at their own pace. I'm your host, Keila Hill-Trawick, and I'll be your chief storyteller and cheerleader in a world that glorifies endless expansion. We're tuning out the noise and discussing the beauty of enough. Each episode will dive into inspiring stories, practical insights, and strategies to cultivate sustainable success on your [00:00:30] own terms. So whether you're a solopreneur, small business owner, or aspiring entrepreneur, get ready for a refreshing take on the entrepreneurial journey. This is build to enough.

Keila Hill-Trawick: Hello and welcome back to Build to Know. So today we are talking about slowdowns and this occurs at various points throughout the year. I think the most common version for accountants if you're doing taxes is after tax season. But really this could be the case for you at any point of the year. [00:01:00] Today, we're going to assume that your summer is your slow down time. And it's really a reminder that not every season is for pushing for a lot of accountants. Summer can be a time where there's less client delivery. There's fewer deadlines overall. Your clients are going on vacation, so they don't need you the same way. And so you've got more space on your calendar. And I want to reframe this time not as wasted time, um, especially if you want to be productive in a different way, but more valuable breathing room. [00:01:30] So all those projects and those things that we're thinking about when we're in our busiest periods, this is the time to actually execute on those, those slower months.

Keila Hill-Trawick: They give us time to like zoom out, assess where we are, and then make the tweaks that we need to because we know that those heavier seasons are coming and we're not going to have as much time to work on the business. So why does this matter? Well, the first thing is, like I said, we finally have time to work on the business. And all of that time that we're spending in [00:02:00] the weeds of client delivery and taking care of the team, this really gives us the opportunity to step back as the CEOs of our firms and say, what does the firm need in order to achieve sustainable growth? It's also a time for intentional reflection and resetting. You have time to think about what went right and what went wrong, so that you can start making decisions about what is essential and what can be cut for your version of success or growth in your business. Because instead of reacting, you get to strategically [00:02:30] respond to all that mess that might have happened earlier in the year. So what do I recommend that we think about in the summer? The first thing is review your mid-year goals and budget. If you're anything like me, you set things in January that you are not even thinking about by the time it comes to late spring early summer.

Keila Hill-Trawick: And so getting back to that, looking at, are you meeting your revenue and profit targets? Are expenses aligned with what you were projecting? We've got to look at our firms the same way we look at our clients [00:03:00] and say, is the money moving in the directions that we had hoped that it would? Then you want to assess your KPIs. What are your conversion rates looking like for discovery calls? Recalls. What's your average client value? How much are you getting paid on average by each client who engages you for service? How big is your team and how well are you using them? And then client retention and satisfaction. For a lot of accountants who are doing tax and even some that aren't, this might be a time for you to reflect on how [00:03:30] many people are staying with you, and are you satisfied with them? Are those the clients that you want to bring into this next season, whether that is the next actual season of the year or the next tax season? In order to make sure that you're serving the right clients for you and what you want for your firm. It's also a really good time to evaluate internal processes. So this is everything from the systems that you're using or the processes that you're sending your clients through. Did anything feel clunky? Was there anything that you thought was going to work perfectly [00:04:00] and inevitably did not? What are the things that you can already start looking at, adjusting for the near and long term future? Check on whether you're actually delivering what you promise.

Keila Hill-Trawick: Our monthly financials and bookkeeping happening on time? Were you sending out tax returns for review and meeting the deadlines? Do clients understand what's coming for them, and are you being proactive about what their next steps are? So many people come to us because they want an accountant that is more proactive and being able to [00:04:30] say, hey, we are going to tell you in advance of what you need to give us. What is coming is so helpful for clients, but it also puts the onus on you as the firm owner, to make sure that you've got processes in place to remind them in advance. Also, do you even have the right data in place to assess what's working and what's not? What are you tracking, and does what you're tracking allow you to make better business decisions? If they don't, you may want to get rid of those and focus on those items that really move the needle [00:05:00] in terms of where you want to be with the firm. All in all, you want to make sure that you're using the space to plan ahead. This is a time to think about refreshing your service offerings, even those new ones that you thought that were going to be great and they turned out not to be.

Keila Hill-Trawick: Do you want to keep doing that? Does it need small tweaks, or should it be put on the back burner until you can really give it more attention? Is your pricing right? Did you feel like you made what you expected to make, or what you were hoping to make based on the work that you delivered? And this will also help to set the stage for how [00:05:30] you prep for marketing for the remainder of the year. There may be trainings or documentations that you can do, but all of those are going to be internal. In order to make for a better service that you can market externally to future clients. How do we do it at Little Fish? Well, first we kind of treat our summer like a business strategy retreat. This is where all of those sandbox items that we've been collecting throughout the year and have been thinking about to improve processes or improve client delivery. [00:06:00] This is our chance to look at the big picture and prioritize what we can actually execute on during the summer. We dig into what the season taught us. What do we learn during tax season? What systems need to be cleaned up? What felt hard? I asked the team on a regular basis, what are things that we implemented that were supposed to make your job easier and just don't? This is our chance to reflect on those, but also potentially choose a new service or software opportunity to make that better for us.

Keila Hill-Trawick: I [00:06:30] will say that some of our most pivotal and impactful changes at the company have been developed and implemented during our slow seasons. Those times that we weren't rushing to get something done allowed us to really reimagine what little fish could look like for both us and our clients. It also allows for the team to have the bandwidth to step outside of their day to day, and creatively come up with solutions. It can be hard sometimes, as the owner, feeling like you're the only one that's making all these decisions and figuring out what's [00:07:00] next and when. Everybody has space to breathe. They also have the opportunity to give insight on what they think is important, not just in their role, but for your company as a whole. We've also used these slow periods to make adjustments to pricing and reassess our services. Many of our service level changes, our pricing changes, our overhauls, including our biggest overhaul to date, which was moving to a lot of, um, holistic year round services versus kind of a buffet [00:07:30] that happened during a slow season. That happened after a time of me saying, I don't really like the way that this is set up, and I think that I could do this better for both me and our team. So we didn't feel like we were constantly on a hamster wheel, but because we had that time, we could strategically think about how do we want to approach it? What's our timeline for implementing it? How are we prioritizing each of those steps along the way? And that is really hard to do when your hands are in the mud.

Keila Hill-Trawick: Also, it's not all work. So [00:08:00] in addition to these kind of expected slow seasons, think about where you can break anyway, where it wouldn't naturally fall. For example, at Little Fish, we take breaks three times a year, we have a spring break, we have a summer break, and we have a winter break where we close and we get to come down from the roller coaster of those busy seasons to really just stop. Personally, before we jump into how we can make the company better. You have to put your oxygen mask on first. And we're all human beings to begin with. And so coming out [00:08:30] of a busy season, running right into reflection can be really difficult. Anytime that you can provide time for you and your team to just stop, breathe, step back as an individual before they jump in to being able to do that for the company. You're offering kind of a bonus to everybody who works with you. Remember, slowness isn't a threat. It's really a gift if you use it, right. In addition to how we do it for little fish, we also guide our clients through a mid-year review.

Keila Hill-Trawick: We're talking financials, goals, [00:09:00] team capacity because we want to be proactive about how we're going to refocus for the second half of the year. As you know, the middle of the year is a really good checkpoint to see what's working and where we might need to make adjustments for them. But it's also a good time to discuss any major shifts in the business that they know about that maybe we're not sure of that will impact the rest of the year. So we're doing the same thing that we do for our firms. We're analyzing what worked and what didn't so that we can help clients refine their workflows. But also we want to realign KPIs [00:09:30] again. Those things that we set at the beginning of the year may not align with actual performance, and we want to adjust those plans or budgets if needed, so that they're more realistic based on what's going on with the business. Remember, you want to be proactive. The opportunities that you have in the slower seasons to really ensure that clients feel prepared when things speed up helps so that they're not feeling panicked. Um. And you. We have a partnership obligation to make sure that that is always the case. It's also an [00:10:00] opportunity for us and our clients to reach out to customers, maybe even meet some in person that you don't have time to do when you're in the midst of everything. So what does all this mean? First thing is, the summer slowdown is not a setback.

Keila Hill-Trawick: It may feel like, yeah, revenue is down or we're doing less work and it is slower, but it's really put in place for you to set up what's next for you. You get to put all of these processes and improvements, and sometimes even experiments in place that won't break things [00:10:30] the way that it will in busy season. So don't waste the space. Use it to make meaningful shifts. You want to take this time when you're listening during your slow season, to just sit down with yourself and just take one day. Review all of your goals, your KPIs, all of your team structures, and just identify 1 to 2 processes that you want to streamline before fall. This way, you've got a whole period to really work through while you're not as busy, so that when everything gets to be a little bit faster, [00:11:00] you can appreciate the time that you took to slow down. That's it for today. I will talk to you again in a couple weeks. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Build to Enough. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, rate and share the love with your fellow entrepreneur friends, and make sure to sign up for the Build to Enough newsletter. The link is in the show notes. Stay tuned for more episodes as we continue to redefine success one intentional step at a time.