We're both accountants, run our own firms, both have coaching businesses, both help people move to Dubai. Are you copying me or am I copying you? It's collaboration over competitions. He came to me and said, "I want to do 4 day week. I want to have Wednesdays off." I was like, "It doesn't affect the clients and it doesn't affect the team. It doesn't affect me. No issues." Obviously, you can't necessarily always do everything to keep everyone happy, but if you are seen to be trying to at least accommodate individual people's goals within what you're doing, I think that will help you retain people. Definitely. In the early years, I I panic hired and and there was no thought process behind it. I just needed people. So, I made many hiring bad hiring decisions that were just giving people a chance. For example, just, oh, I'll give this person a chance. They want a job. They want a job. And the minute you can get people to take work off of you, like everything changes. Absolutely. Jerry. Hi. Hi. So, we're here in Dubai. We are. We meet more here than we do in the town that we live in, which is fair, isn't it? Yes. Even though we have children at the same school. Absolutely. We live down the road. We still see each other here. Exactly. It's uncanny how kind of similar our lives are, which is very random. We um Yeah. Like I say, we live in the same school, kids town, Phum. Kids go to the same school. We're both accountants, run our own firms, both have coaching businesses, both help people move to Dubai. Literally, we're doing the exact same thing. Very strange. Are you copying me or am I copying you? Who knows? Bit of both. So, and people will think, why on earth are you two sitting in front of each other recording a podcast? Surely you are competitors in every sense of the word. But, you know, we're not. It's it's there's enough work to go around for everybody. So much. It's collaboration over competition, isn't it? 100%. Yeah. And I say that all the time like for me, you know, there is so much work to go around. I mean, you and I, it's never been a thought in my mind that like Resa does the same thing I do, like you're a competitor. I would never think like that. I always think we share ideas and we help each other and like why would we not? Because there's more work for me and you. There's too much work for me and you like we you know, so it would never be an issue. Absolutely. So Jerry, what I thought we'd do today in this session is to talk more about the the team that we have, the team that we have, our approach to people, to uh managing people, to attracting people to work for us, to leading teams because we're fortunate now that we have businesses that can operate virtually without us. We're here in Dubai. Our businesses are still operating back home. and we're still growing the various businesses that we have. So I think it be useful just to share our journey which hopefully will be of use to others in terms of you know we've done the mistakes we've done things the wrong way we've hired wrong we have made lots of mistakes so I think passing that down to others might be useful so if we just begin with to get a picture of what does your team look like at the moment and and then we can just throw things between each other rather than be a one-way conversation we can just you know talk about each other's setups and then and then take it from Sure. So, um, our team at the moment is quite lean actually, uh, intentionally. So, we did have quite a few more people than we have now. And over the last couple of years, I've kind of reduced that down or or it's organically reduced down and I haven't replaced people. Um, and that's because really of of AI and tech or due to AI and tech. So we are investing a lot in AI and tech and trying to automate as much of the kind of manual stuff as possible. Um but I'm sure we'll probably touch on that later. But just in terms of the team that we have now, uh I replaced myself effectively uh with an operations manager who kind of oversees the team and the business in the UK. Uh and then we have client managers who look after a portfolio of clients and they also have a pod. So they'll have an accountant that works in their pod and also they'll either have a bookkeeper or kind of a shared bookkeeper or accounts assistant at the bottom and then we have an admin person. Right. Okay. And so what does that So you've got operations manager Sam isn't it at the top and then how many pods have you got? Two pods. Two pods. So we just recruited a new client manager who were just waiting to join. uh he's joining us in a month, two months maybe. Uh he's on a three-month notice period. So he's coming. So he's going to head up the second pod. So we are definitely a little bit too lean at the moment. Uh which is we're we're muddling through and the team are cracking on as as they always do. They're amazing. But um yeah, we we're waiting for a couple of new people to start. One of those is the client managers. So two pods at the moment and building a third pod this year. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Good. And so because you've got various businesses like I have, is there a crossover in terms of the people doing work for one or more businesses or do you have a separate team working on say the AI coaching business and the Dubai business? What does that setup look like? Yeah, so certainly the Dubai one there is a crossover. We did have more people on the ground in Dubai and now we just have kind of support admin support staff. it hasn't worked out for one reason or another. Um, and I've always kind of fallen back on my trusted, qualified, experienced UK team that are just, you know, the quality is so so high in the UK. Um, so they are doing all of the Dubai work. It it won't be a forever thing, but it's certainly for the moment working quite well, having everyone together. So even if they are doing bits of Dubai stuff or UK stuff and there is a crossover the skills are transferable. Um I'm sure you agree the skills are definitely if you can do if you can do UK accounting and tax you can absolutely do Dubai accounting and tax. Yeah. Yeah. So you touched on we've made mistakes in the past in terms of you know hiring mistakes. So what what kind of what does that look like? What would you say are your your biggest hiring mistakes that you wish someone had told you about many moons ago that would have prevented you from making those? Gosh, how long have we got? So, I think in the early years I I panic hired and and there was no um thought process behind it. I just needed people and I was so embedded in the business and the day-to-day and doing all of the work that I couldn't even think past who would be the right person. So I made many hiring bad hiring decisions that were just giving people a chance. For example, just oh I give this person a chance. They want a job. They want a job. And it was wrong for so many reasons. They weren't technically skilled. They weren't the right personality fit. They weren't um at the level I need them at. and they needed so much training that then that even dragged me down further. So I think once I hired someone who was a skilled kind of qualified experienced person that could do the work, I realized how beneficial that was to me cuz they could take work off my off of me. And the minute you can get people to take work off of you, like everything changes. You either have more time to do more meaningful stuff or you have more free time, family time, whatever you want it to be. Um, so I think panic hiring and just hiring at the wrong level, the wrong people was definitely a big mistake I made lots of times. Um, I'm still making bad hiring decisions now though. I feel like I don't I don't know if that's just me or it's just bad luck, but I feel like it seems like such a good idea or I meet somebody who I think is an absolute great fit and then it just doesn't work out. Yeah. So, I don't know if that's ever gonna stop. Um, I don't know if there's ever going to be a perfect hiring process that's always going to work out because people obviously have their own lives and they have their own agendas and that may not always fit with your business and what you're doing. Um, but yeah, I don't I just I don't know if it's me. Is it me? Are you still making bad hiring decisions? Um, I I guess so. I mean, well, funnily enough, I had had a message yesterday from um one of my senior managers who kind of heads up the capture division now to say someone we just hired literally a month ago was not really working out. Whereas on paper, the perfect candidate went through our whole process. We thought we had it down to a tea in terms of right we know now don't hire how much I'm same as you hired cheap in the past cuz you think right okay you can't you don't really have much money and therefore you think you just get take someone in an apprentice or someone junior but that doesn't help you because you end up having to spend time coaching them overseeing them babysitting them and it means that you don't have time anyway then you add more work to your plate so my best advice is soon as you can hire someone that can actually come come in and hit the ground running work off you like you say to then free you up to do this the higher leverage stuff and so but this was someone that you know fantastic on paper really good personality fit had interviews with two or three of our team as well you know we've got core values done all of that kind of stuff hired on attitude and on paper straight A's seem qualified all the rest of it but it's not working out and after a month he's wondering what is she doing and I've told her to do this and it's still not happening so that might have to determination, but I guess you know it's never going to be perfect and it's always going to be evolving. I think what I've learned is the the importance of having the kind of core values in place so you make sure that you are aligned at least on the on the culture on core values in terms of how you work rather than just looking at skill set and then having at least a few touch points. So not just you interviewing but getting some of the team to interview them to see how they would gel ex uh as well. So yeah, but there's always going to be some people that fall through the cracks, isn't there? And we go again. Yeah, we've had the exact just what you've mentioned there, exact same thing happened to us recently. And it's just I kind of go like where did I go wrong with that? I can't but also I do think interestingly and and and you've said it as well then is that the sooner that you realize that it's better for all parties the sooner that you realize whereas in the in the past the mistakes I've made is kind of I've given people a chance over and over and over again because I almost don't want to accept that all the effort we went to to hire this person exactly is for nothing and that is absolutely not the right thing to do and I've realized now we make decisions quicker because you know they say like higher fast fire higher slow. Yeah. Sorry. That's exactly what it is. Um and that's so true because we honestly when I look back at some of the people that you know it wasn't right for them. It wasn't right for us. It wasn't right for them and it's it's actually the fair thing to do is to part ways. Absolutely. But you don't feel like you're being fair. you feel like being fair is giving this person a chance and and you know it's like the LinkedIn post I put on the other day that you commented on about having high standards and I think and and and you mentioned as well core values and we're the exact same. We have really really strong core values. We have very high standards and it's not it's not easy to work for Smooth and I say this publicly and I say this in interviews, you know, I'm not I don't want to be misleading like we're not an easy company to work for because we are a growing practice. We've got Dubai stuff going on, UK stuff going on, new clients flooding in. Like it's not kind of what I was used to when I was employed was kind of the very every day is very similar. You go to work, do your time sheet, you come home. Like that's not what smooth is. So it's and some of the people we're taking on are from that environment. They're from that kind of very um sy you know environment practice and we're just not like that. So I think I try to be you know Sammy said to me in one interview he's like you're a little bit kind of off like put sort of trying to put them off and I'm like I do I do in a way try and put people off a little bit in interview because I don't want to be like you know it's all like wonderful kind of skipping through meadows because Smooth is is not a necessarily an easy company to work for but the flip side of that is the complete 100% flexibility on where people work when they work, you know, and treating them like grown-ups, you know, enhanced pay and enhanced benefits and enhanced annual leave and and all of the things that as an employer I possibly can give people. I want to do that, but in exchange for that, people have got to work hard, you know, it's not it's not easy working at Smooth. So I we do have high standards and and I think that that is not for everyone and there are people that absolutely suit the 9 to5 from the office you know limited flexibility but they like that they like that routine of very very very structured but there are people like the team I have now who absolutely love that they manage their workload and their work day and they get to decide how and when they work and that level of trust and maturity. They they prefer that. That's what they want. You know, I've got people that start work at 7 every day because they want to leave early. Yeah. You know, I've got people that don't come in until don't come in or don't start work till 10:00, 11:00 cuz they want to go to the gym every morning. I've got people do a school run every day at 3:00 cuz that's what suits them. Like, you know, and you don't get that with a more of a structured environment. decide what it about the the standards required because you don't want to misrepresent it like you say and there are and there are lots of companies out there that that some people are suitable for and you know don't want to some people set up for mediocrity and that's fine but when you're going for excellence and you're pushing and you're growing then you need people who are aligned with that and are also going uh kind of graph but by the same token they're going to be able to work in a in a culture which gives them that autonomy and that flexibility to work when where and how they want. So let's talk about a little bit about that actually because we both operate similar structures in terms of that complete um results only work environment as it's called. When did you first come across it and what made you move uh move across to that way of working? I came across it. I think I saw it in some of the Facebook groups I was in. Some accountants were talking about it and I was like, "Oh, what is this? How how on earth does that work?" You know, like cuz I'd never had time sheets, but I did have people working set hours. So, I couldn't imagine how you could just take that away. But I was very curious about it. Then I started coaching with um Simon Chaplain and I coached with Simon for about a year and he has been operating it for a very long time. And it was something that I said to him, look, I really want to implement this in my firm. So, I think this was maybe like four years ago, four or five years ago. Um, and he kind of helped me with how to get it to work and answered all the questions I had and the team had about how it would work. And we we kind of built up to it for about 6 months getting KPIs in place first. And then and I read the book, you know, um why work sucks and how to fix it, which is where the people that kind of created the results only working environment that where they write about it all and and how it came about. And I read that and I was like, yes, this is what I want to do because I always wanted flexibility when I was employed. You know, I've got children. I want to be able to be at everything that is important to me as a parent with the kids. And if I want that, I assume other people, even if they don't have kids, are going to want that level of flexibility. And I want to be able to offer that. So, how can I make it happen? And yeah, that's what we did. Basically, we just started with that and built KPIs for about 6 months. Once we were happy that everyone understood the KPIs and how they were working, then we just did it and we've never looked back. Absolutely. How long have you been doing it? Yeah. So I remember coming across it in 2018 I think it was I read the book similar sort of thing and we were still doing we were doing time sheets at the time. Yeah. And I know shock horror gosh I did not know you were an I was an ex time sheet and funny thing is when I bought the practice back in 2008 there were no time sheets. I was the one who introduced them. You introduced Mr. Anti. So I but I'd come from PWC where you did time sheets. So it's the thing to do because that's what the big firms do and that's you know the right thing to do and then I came across a book and I thought what have I been doing and in 2018 I thought right yeah this this is definitely the way to go and what I had to do before I implemented it cuz I knew we had cuz it's all it's not just about create you know completely getting rid of all the rules but it's all about making sure you got the right people on board as well. So that gave me a chance to actually assess. I've got a couple of people here that fit tolerating them and even though they're good at what they do, they're a bit toxic to the work environment. So I thought before I do this, I need to make the hard decisions and get rid of two people and then the start of 2019 I believe we implemented it or the end of 2018 something like that. So this was pre- pandemic. Yeah. So it was quite alien concept that you just get rid of time sheets, you get rid of working hours, you say you work when, where, and how you want as long as the work gets done. And people think that, oh my god, didn't everyone just like stop working and start at midnight and finish at 5:00 a.m. You know, people think your whole team just gets up and walks out. Exactly. Just move to the Bahamas and start working from there. It doesn't happen. In fact, my team, you know, people are like rules and they like some sort of rigidity. They just said they just said we just what we're going to do is cuz they said well you know work means we need to have somebody manning the phones between usual 9 to5 for clients. So there were some people who like to work early so they said I'm going to start at 7:00 and leave at 2:00 and I'll you know start a bit later and and finish um finish later so we have cover for the phones and things like that. So they just slightly adjusted to suit their ways of working. So it doesn't happen that everyone just completely goes leaves the office and we still have an office then. It was pre- pandemic so it was used to people coming to the office and it just meant people skip the um skip the traffic in the morning. They didn't have to sit there for an hour so they could come in at 10:00 and that definitely helped to boost morale and then slowly slowly the pandemic hit everyone went home and then most people haven't come back so they're still at home but it's fine because now it's not about presentism. It's not about clocking hours on a time sheet. It's about what are you producing? What's your output? what's your responsibility cuz anyone can make up on a time sheet but you can't make up work measure the work rather than the time on the time sheet so that was 2018 2019 and yeah and I looked back and it is a big I find when I am interviewing it's a common thing that you hear candidates saying that we get I don't like the micromanagement we have to come to the office even though there's no point us being there and these are like not junior people these are senior people who you should be able to trust cuz they're doing a lot for you. So, someone we recently hired came from a a regional firm and managing a portfolio of like 300,000 but was still told, "No, you need to come to the office. You need to show an example for the juniors." And so, so they're basically driving out really good people that otherwise are, you know, doing a lot of work and kind of managing the practice for them. So, it definitely helps to attract the best talent having a culture where you're more focused on the work rather than the type. 100% it does. I mean, we've just interviewed um someone recently and you know she's doing 8 till 6 from the office with no flexibility. Wow. And she's you know super senior and you know it it's just absolutely wild to me that that even exists. Like I can't believe it. And you know we're getting these people approaching us. You know it's not coming from recruiters. It's coming from people going you know I've seen what you're doing and I would absolutely love to work for your company. like they're, you know, and like you say, they're driving out these incredible people. Absolutely. Um, which is just crazy to me. Yeah. Yeah. And if you think about it, I mean, you our biggest constraint so I mean we both run groups of accountants and I constantly hear from people that they're I mean the one big problem is how do we win clients, right? And the other one is the second one is how do we get good people? So really they're just two big problems that we have, right? How do we get clients and how do we get good people? Yeah. The solution to both is kind of marketing, right? So, you need to be good at marketing for your client, get new clients and good at marketing to get good people. Marketing to get good people is about talking about your culture and how you are and being inviting and kind of thinking about what are the motivations of good candidates. What do they want? What are their problems? What are they, you know, what makes them want to come and work for an employer? What motivates them? psych that's inviting, that's attractive, that you get reach out to see what it's like to come and work at your place compared to where they are now. Yeah. And that's that's exactly right. And you know, not only you saving recruitment fees cuz you're getting people kind of approaching you, but I think it's attracting the right people. I mean, like I said earlier, definitely not always getting it right and clearly not. Um, but you know, I think that it can be a bit of a shock to someone coming from a rigid time sheet 9 to5 to a results work, you know, results based working pattern. Um, and it takes a little bit of time of getting used to it because it's not about, well, I've done my hours today, you know, so I'm off. Absolutely. You know, it's not. And to try and get someone to understand that like it es and flows, you know, obviously we're accountants. we have peaks and troughs in the year. Sometimes you're going to need to put put in some extra hours. That's just the way it works. Like, you know, it's not you can't have that kind of mindset that like, you know, if you've got a deadline coming up, work's got to be done. You know, you've got to hit your KPIs. And if you're going to have a two week holiday, you've got to plan ahead because you still got to hit your KPI. And that can be hard for people. But my team love it. They work so well under it. So, it's it's about getting the right people that want to have that kind of flexibility in their back pocket. You know, if if you have a poorly child and you need to go, no one likes having to speak to their manager and go, "Oh, is it okay if I leave, you know, 2 hours early? I'll make the hours up the rest of the week." Which is kind of conversations I used to have. And of course, it was always fine to go and get the poorly child, but you know, my team don't I don't know where they are when they work. I don't know who's going to be in the office, not in the office. I don't know who's available on the phone. I I don't need to know any of those things. So, you know, they have it in their back pocket that if there's a poly child, if they need to get their car from the garage, if you know, whatever, they just do it. Yeah. You know, so that peace of mind, I think, is worth a lot to people, you know, to take that stress away that if you are a parent or if you know, we had one lady that um she'd always wanted to get a dog. Her and her um fianceé always wanted to get a puppy. couldn't do it. They both worked all day from the office. And then she started working for us and she was like, "We can get a puppy cuz now I can be at home and I can walk the dog and I can" and I was like, "Wow, I never even thought about even that kind of thing that it would change." And it's changed their life cuz that's absolutely what they wanted more than anything and they absolutely adore their puppy. And you know, I was like, "Wow, just by having this flexibility, you can make that kind of move as well." So I think it can be a shock but once people get used to it they realize the the huge benefits that come with this complete flexibility. Exactly. you know because I don't think people always believe us that when we say complete flexibility we mean as long as you know we have the kind of like you commented on LinkedIn post the few rules but the high standards and that's exactly what it is like obviously we are still open 9 to5 clients don't know any different no we still have you know you still have to reply to phone calls and emails in a certain amount of time and you know all of that has to be met but but then the rest of it you do it as you please absolutely you know Yeah. So how do you inculcate those standards? What are the what are the what are some of the KPIs that they are assessed on to make so you can be comfortable that yes I don't need to know where they are and what they are doing because I know at the end of the day the work is going to get done. So what are some of the KPIs that you are using and they are self assessing against to ensure that everything is getting done the way it needs to get done. So we have um mainly we have quality and quantity KPIs. So quality will be um the quality of the work they're doing i.e. mistakes you know they can't make mistakes in work and they will be measured upon that. So whether it's payroll, bookkeeping, accounts, tax, you know it has to be to a a high level and a high standard and that I would argue is the most important KPIs that they have. People tend to focus on the numbers i.e. the volume of output they're doing which would be their um quantity KPIs which is either the financial value of the work i.e. I've done a set of accounts. We charge the client £2,000. Therefore, I get that £2,000 towards my KPI and they've got to hit a target of whatever it is, £10,000, 15, whatever it is. Um, people tend to focus on those ones, I find, but we try and push, you know, that they have to hit the quality ones. And naturally, if people focus more on the quality, they will hit the quantity because they won't have back and forth and review and things like that. Um, but yeah, they're the kind of two main ones. So quantity being the the value of the work they're doing. They have a set amount every month and turnaround times also come into quantity as well. So they have to get certain things done. So jobs have to be started within a certain number of days of of being available to be started have to be out to the client with queries within a certain amount of time. Have to be finished and out the door or submitted within a certain amount of time. So they have various ones like that. And actually, you know, the amount of accountants I speak to when I discuss this whole KPI thing with them and they say to me about how we how we creating KPIs and what KPI should we have and I'm like, okay, well, if you take ex person, I don't know, let's just make up a name, Adam, right? Adam works for your firm and he's an accountant and so he's doing accounts every day. What's your return on Adam? Because as a firm, you may know that your turnover is X and your profit is X, but how do you not know that you've got like three people carrying the business and one that's just doing hardly anything, right? So, what's the return? They're like, oh, well, don't know. Like, they they have no idea what the return is on Adam. And I'm like, that's really important because to me, everyone needs to pull their weight. And you can't hide from the KPIs. And that's something that actually I really love about them. They're so black and white. you know there's no kind of gray areas with the KPIs. Either you are meeting them or you are not. Yeah. And they have to be met. That's it. You know, and what happens if they don't? What happens in your firm if they don't? Well, the thing is I have a different approach. I I I kind of know I think I've heard of Simon's method. He has he has a lot of KPIs. There's a big spreadsheet and there's a lot of time that goes into actually doing those KPIs. My approach is slightly different. So what we do is we I have this ladder of accountability to say you are you as a manager senior manager you are first and foremost responsible to the client then you're responsible to your colleagues then you're responsible to me but I know if clients are happy colleagues are happy then ultimately I'll be happy as well. Yeah. So for me it's about because I built quite a quite a topheavy team and therefore it's the so the one thing I do measure or we kind of allocate in terms of uh portfolio is that you've got you need to be managing a portfolio equal to let's anywhere between three and six times your salary depending on your level of seniority. So if you're a junior, you might be just being three times, but if you're a senior manager, you'll be six times because you'll have a couple of other people as well uh that you are looking after. And so therefore, it's not we don't have all these KPIs for quality or quantity or anything like that. I just know that I am not involved in any client relationships anymore. So I'm not getting client calls, I'm not getting client emails, anything like that. Every new client that comes in has a home. So the phil philosophy is every client should have a home. They should have a direct contact, a lead and a secondary contact. So actually we've just restructured it. Before I used to have kind of four or five client managers. They would have the portfolio. They would do everything on those clients. So they would do all of the work, the bookkeeping, the accounts, everything, everything. Yeah. And they would have support staff underneath them. But ultimately they would be responsible. So I know in terms of allocation right managers are doing X amount and therefore this person is saturated and any new client I come in will go to the next client manager cuz they are are a bit low compared to the the benchmark that we have set but we've recently restructured cuz we've got to a team about 15 or 16. So now we have kind of two teams and we've moved to the so there's one compliance team headed up with by a team leader who is now responsible for 1 2 3 4 five people underneath them and they're responsible for all the compliance work. So this is all the year- end stuff the payrolls and the tax returns PLMDs all that kind of thing. And then the other team headed up by by Brendan is like the the client services team. So that is all client facing. They do the bookkeeping, they do the VAT returns, requests, etc. And then the year- end work gets passed on. So, it's kind of going back to quite a traditional model. Yes, it is. Yeah. But actually, it suits the skill set that I have. So, I have some people who are really senior and have been doing year- end accounts for like 40 years and they're very good at that. very good at tax returns and therefore it just made sense for us with the skill sets that I had to have a separate compliance team and then build a like a business services client services team for the new growth that we are getting in in terms of the new clients and that seems to be working working well but there are no and then in terms of the numbers that I look at I will have for every quarter I'll have a different KPI based upon what we as a team need to work on so for example if it is this season it could be number of Google reviews and say turnaround time if we need to work on our turn turnaround times and that we will measure every month and it's brought up in a team meeting and we're constantly looking at it and whatever gets measured gets man managed right so so it'll be a teamwide KPI as opposed to individual KPIs but my senior managers are responsible for performance of the juniors so they're the ones that need to make sure that the output they're getting from the juniors is what's necessary and what is expected of someone at that level because they are the ones who are assessed on kind of the return on their team now. So their salary plus the salary of everyone underneath them. You need to be delivering four, five, six times based upon where you are. So I've got like a I've created a like a team and pay matrix. So different levels, what the expectations are and what the pay scale is. So they know, okay, I'm here at the moment. I'm a team leader. If I want to get to associate director, this is what I need to be doing. These are the output targets I need to be hitting. So kind of moving to that model, it's a lot more transparent because when you start when you start hiring now at like more senior people, they're coming in with high salaries and you got to, you know, re reassess everybody and therefore it just makes sense to make everything transparent to say, well, look, this person is getting this because that's what they're doing and if you want it, then you need to be hitting X, Y, and Z. Yeah. And I think that's really really important the clarity piece like you know the team can see exactly what level they're at, what's expected of them and if they want to move up what they need to be doing. And I think that's so important because years ago I never really had that. I never had and it's not about having a real like structure. It's not about having I don't like kind of a real rigid structure. But I what I think is important is just clarity over what's expected. like you know if someone joins us or my existing team kind of this is what I expect of you like in exchange for your salary right and the next person up or the next level up is getting paid x amount and and this is what is expected of them so if you can demonstrate to me that you can do that then absolutely we can have a conversation you know it's very black and white it's not kind of there's no favoritism there's no it's literally this is what is happening and where you need if you want and if you don't want to move up then you you stay where you are and that's fine you know and Actually, I also have a tax uh department now, which I forgot to mention earlier. So, interesting. It it um joged my memory because of what you just said about the fact that you've changed things slightly. And I think it's really important like to have an open mind. I think you and I, as much as we kind of preach like no time sheets and flexible working and stuff, like the reason that we run our firms the way we do is because we've always had an open mind. And I'm I'm interested in better ways of doing things all the time. Like I don't have all the answers. And just because one thing worked for my firm doesn't mean it has to stay that way. Just because, you know, I've always done these KPIs. So therefore, you know, we only measure stuff that isn't needs to be improved in a firm. I don't measure stuff for the sake of it. So there's not absolutely nothing that gets measured that we're doing really well at because what is the point of that? I'm not, you know, it's absolute waste of time. So like for example, we've just created a tax team because or tax department. It's only one person at the moment, but um we did never had anybody that just did tax returns, PLMDs, you know, tax reports. But we've actually so the team just used to do them, you know, in their pods. Whoever was in that client pod would do the tax returns and that was fine. And actually someone approached us um for the job and said you know been doing this for another firm and and looking for a new role. And I looked at it and I thought, you know, what I know we've never done this before, but I feel like that's not a bad idea to have someone so that the team can actually focus on all of our kind of compliance stuff, accounts and and all of the clients they look after in terms of companies and we could actually start building out a personal tax team because where we've expanded into Dubai, you know, our personal tax have really gone up, our all of our tax consultancy stuff's gone up. So having someone dedicated to do that would be quite a good idea. So anyway, long story short, we interviewed him, he joined us. Um he's absolutely great and we've started the new tax year with someone now that just does tax returns. And I'm like, don't know why I didn't do that before. And I see that that will grow and we'll probably take on, you know, once he's in a position where he's settled and everything's and we've grown that the tax returns even further, we'll probably get another person in that he can train or or look after. M um but it's about having an open mind because when I suggested this to u my manager he was like okay interesting you know we've not we've not done that before you know can we afford it and all the usual conversations about the budget and does it fit and stuff and I'm like well it's different you know and I absolutely can say that we can afford it because I know how much we bill in tax reports tax returns P1Ds and I know that we can make a good return on one dedicated person doing that and I know that they'd easily be able to do what we have so we can still top them up so I see that it does work. But if we just looked at the figures in isolation, no, we don't have the budget for a random additional person that we had never like considered needing. But now I'm like, well, now I've got more capacity now. So now I don't necessarily need the next semi- senior or junior or whatever because the person that was doing tax returns has now got loads more times. Do you know, you know what I mean? So, I think it's about having an open mind about, you know, your business and and what you have always been doing like you with changing your structure and how you're doing it now. You know, we kind of moved away from the pod system for the last couple of years and haven't really done it. And now we've brought it back and now we've just hired a new client manager and we've just offered another client manager. So, we'll have we will be quite a bit more topheavy than we've ever been. Yeah. But I think that that's the right thing for my business at this stage and the growth that we're trying to achieve. And having good experienced people that can hit the ground running like you said is worth its weight in gold. And they're not necessarily easy to find in the UK. It's it's a it's a tough thing. Every every account I speak to says that they can't find good people. Yeah. You know, so it's like how do you overcome that? Yes. Marketing and everything, your firm and trying to be seen to be a good firm to work for. But it's still tricky. It is, you know. Yeah, definitely. So, I just think having open an open mind is so important and if if new things come along or a new way of doing things comes along that's better for my firm, then that's what I'll do. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. It has to evolve and we're all learning. I mean everything that I'm doing is I' look at other people and I watch what people are doing in other industries and with teams of hundreds and thousands and what are they saying and what are they doing and then try and take some of those learnings and apply it to our you know our small firm and everything evolves and ultimately it's about you know the the people that you have so try and get trying to get the best out of the people that you have in terms of you know how can you retain your high performers how can you maximize everyone's potential make sure that they're motivated in the work that they are doing. And one of the first business books I ever read was a book called Drive by Dan Pink. Okay? And he talks about the the the three drivers of of employee motivation which are autonomy, mastery and purpose. So we are motivated when we are autonomous. So we we are able to manage our own time, our own workload, having control over that. So the whole kind of results only work environment gives you that autonomy to be able to work when and how you want. The second one is mastery. So when you are when you're working in your zone of genius like we all have strengths and weaknesses. We have some things that we are good at, some things we're not good at. When you are doing something that you are good at, it feels like flow. When work feels like play and if you can get if you can identify for your people what is that zone of genius and get them to do more of that in their working day, automatically we're motivated to do more of it. And the last one is purpose. So we like to be attached to something much bigger than ourselves that what we are doing is adding value somewhere. It doesn't have to be saving the world but it could be you know you're making someone's life easier. You're helping an entrepreneur get that financial freedom that they want for their family or whatever it is but making sure that you're not you're attaching some sort of purpose bigger purpose to your team and giving them that vision and telling them what that is. Um and that kind of helps to to attract people to also retain people and and get the best out of people. There's a lot of things I've learned about people that I didn't know that I've tried to kind of implement over the years and um yeah, it's it's an evolving journey. It's it's a journey over destination, right? Absolutely it is. And and you know, it's every day. You know, I don't you know, I I had a conversation yesterday where I made a made a hiring decision and it's a bit left field and you know, again, it's it may not work out, but it it's it's always a calculated risk. It has to be a calculated risk when you employ another person for your team. When you're a small business, every new person has an impact. It's not like having a thousand people where you can kind of people can come and go and it's, you know, the business not really going to be affected. It absolutely will be at our level because we have a small team. All of our it's a very personable service. You know, our clients, we hold their hands and it's it's all of that. So, you know, you make a calculated risk when you employ someone, but also we've been in a game kind of long enough to hopefully see who are right and and and do as much as we possibly can in that leadup to hiring to get to make the right choice. And like the one I decided yesterday, you know, hopefully they they'll accept the job and and that will um that'll be great. But it but if it doesn't work out with people, you need to have a way of identifying that as soon as possible and make the tough decisions as soon as possible cuz I think that I just wish I had made decisions earlier in my business. It would have saved me a lot of uh stress and money. So, you know, but you have it. It sounds really cutthroat, but it's not. It's it's best for everybody, I think. You know. Yeah. It just goes back to higher, slow, fire, fast, and because we just Yeah. we feel we feel bad initially and therefore you just drag it out, drag it out. But we're not doing them any favors by doing so. If it's not the right environment for them now, it's it's never going to be. Yeah. Um so, oh yeah, what I was going to say the and a lot of people, you know, they procrastinate about making a hire decision because it's a big decision and it is when you're hiring someone, you know, big salary, 30, 40, 50, 60 grand. It's a big commitment as a small business. But something that someone told me that kind of really stuck is that when you're hiring someone, don't think about their annual salary because then you're it's a big decision and it weighs on your mind and you might procrastinate and take longer and maybe not take make that move. But just think about 3 months of the salary. How much is that? Cuz really within 3 months you'll get a good feel whether they're a good fit for you or not. So that's the investment you're going to make and that's the risk that you are taking cuz worst comes to worse you can call it a day. So don't think 60 grand, just think, you know, a quarter of that. So 15 grand is your investment. If it doesn't work out, then fair enough, you can you can part ways. And that just because ultimately to if you want to grow and scale a firm, you need to bring in people. You need to know how to attract people and then retain people and maximize their potential. So the quicker you get people in is the quicker you can get out of doing the stuff that you don't want to do because you want to focus on the more higher leverage things. Yeah. What I want to talk about now is the because we give a lot of trust to our teams and a lot of people will say to me, "But aren't you worried that they're going to run away with your client?" Yes. Yes. They've got all this trust that you are not talking to clients. You're you don't have client relationships. Some clients don't even know me. I don't know them. Yeah. Isn't that risk that they're going to take your clients and run away? What's your answer to that? I'm interested to your your answer on this one. Um, yes, of course it's a risk, but it's it's a choice. You know, I have a choice. And funny enough, I met with um my old boss a few months ago for lunch and he still, you know, manages his client portfolio. He's still the one that talks to them all day every day and he's, you know, we have this conversation. He was like, "Yeah, but if I pass it on, you know, they might leave with the clients and aren't you worried about that?" And I was like, "Look, what? Of course that's a risk. Of course it is, right? However, I have a choice. either I am tied to my business and I have no freedom of time which for me is my old was always my ultimate goal and something that was very passionate about achieving um or I have a team that runs the business and looks after the clients and then potentially they leave and and they take some clients with them. Now if my business is that uh fragile that a person leaving taking some clients with them you know my business goes under then I have a much bigger problem I think than the risk that they might do that that is that means my business is so fragile that it can't really sustain some clients leaving and I don't want to have a business that's that fragile. So I think it's the way that I deal with that that risk cuz it is a risk is a accepting that it may happen b trying to ensure that I'm not relyant on any one person in any set of clients you know or or an amount of clients and and c trying to make smooth a place that people want to work at and stay at so that they don't want to leave you know um despite all of that it may still Um, and if it does, it does. I'd have to deal with that. But I think I've grown the practice from zero clients to where we are now. Um, done all the marketing myself, you know, been at the helm on my own from day one. So, if clients leave, like I will replace them. Yeah. Exactly. So we you know we we you and I have always always gone on and on and on about marketing and how and and we've we are not marketers we are accountants but we have learned as much as we possibly can about marketing. We have absorbed as much information we can about marketing and we have dedicated our time to marketing our practices in one way or another and because of that we have a steady stream of of leads coming in all the time. Right? And when you've got a steady steady stream of leads coming in, you can cope with pretty much anything. Yeah. And that's what I always say. I'm not worried about anything really. I would be worried if I lost my pipeline. Absolutely. That would be my worry. Not people leaving, taking clients and stuff. So yeah, bit of a long-winded answer, but that's kind of how I feel about that. What about you? Yeah, I was going to answer that, but just cuz you made that point about marketing. It's so true. It's like I call it the big domino. Like that is the number one problem. If you can knock down that big domino of getting that pipeline, that steady stream of inquiries without relying on referrals, all your other problems go away. So all the problems that you have in your practice about not having enough time or everyone being overworked and not getting enough profit or not having enough cash flow, it's all solved if you can if you can knock down that big domino of having that steady stream of clients. Cuz we have a fantastic business model. Let's face it, we've got what we do is a legal requirement for most businesses when they come in. as long as you don't make a pig zero of it, they're not going to leave. So you've got clients that will come in and stay with you for years. Whereas other, you know, other business, other service industries, they've got to fight every day to get new clients cuz it's transactional. Come in, they buy, I've got to go again to And that's why a lot of a lot of counters, they they get complacent. They don't because they're relying on referrals. They don't feel they need to go and learn about marketing to win work because it just falls in their lap. But soon they realize that actually, yeah, I've taken all these clients. I don't want these clients. I want other type of clients. and they're trying to raise their prices because they realize they need to build a team and then yeah, they're in the in the stick. So yeah, definitely um echo echo the advice there. Go and learn marketing because it solves a lot of problems in terms of the risk of yeah people leaving because of all the trust we give them. Being a business is a risk. There's a risk if you do, it's a risk if you don't. M so the risk yes there is a risk that they might leave but there's also a risk that if you don't do that then you can't build and scale and grow the business that you want to give you the life that you want and we all go into business to to create a life for ourselves whether it be time freedom financial freedom you know whatever it is it was ultimately for some kind of freedom and you're not going to get that freedom if you have all client relationships and everyone is calling you on your mobile and you're getting all the client relationship emails and you're having to do all the meetings and you're the one that when you're on holiday and something goes wrong, it falls on your lap and you've got to sort it out. So, both are a risk. It's your choice which one to take. And in my view, it's more of a risk not to than it is to allow them to build those client relationships. And my view is that if you can if you can create a vision and a goal which allows your team's goals to fit within the bigger goals of what you want to achieve in terms of how you articulate your vision of where you want to take your practice, then there's no reason why you can't attract the best talent because their goals and so knowing what their goals are, where they want to get to and allowing them to fulfill that within your wider goals. Then if they can achieve everything that they want to and what they're motivated by within your wider goals, then hopefully the chances of them leaving is a lot less. Yeah, of course it is. And it's like my top manager, you know, he came to me a couple of months ago and said and and I've always known with him anyway that his um kind of goal is time. So it's not money. Yeah. I mean he he's paid very well but he's got two very young daughters and so for him you know and he says it frequently it's time and he came to me and said I want to do 4 day week I want to have Wednesdays off and I was like it doesn't affect the clients and it doesn't affect the team it doesn't affect me no issues he started doing that now so you know it's only very recently started and it's we've had a few teething problems and we are short staffed so it's it's not working as perfectly as it But the fact that I'm able to give him that is massive. Yeah. Because there's not many firms that would give their top manager a 4 day week. Yeah. You know, um but it's not about for him and it it shouldn't be, but we're short stuffed. But if we weren't short stuffed, it's not about for him having a volume of work. It's about him having responsibility. And responsibility should be able to be done from anywhere. Absolutely. At any time, you know, and then that is what we've been aiming for with him and and are getting closer and closer to all the time. So I agree with you, you know, try and try and fit their goals within your goals, you know, and and it always starts with mine because it's my business. So my goals ultimately drive what we're doing with Smooth. So I have my own goals over here and then I then it's like right, how can we get Smooth to achieve that? And then everybody within Smooth, they all have their own agendas and their own lives and what they're trying to achieve. So how can I make them happy? Obviously, you can't necessarily always do everything to keep everyone happy, but if you are seen to be trying to at least accommodate individual people's goals within what you're doing, I think that will help you retain people. Definitely. And again going back to the kind of the mastery and purpose point that when your team have direct relationship with clients and when they are kind of owning those client relationships they get a lot of satisfaction and motivation out of doing that because they're now responsible. They feel more responsible to the clients than they do to they would never let a client might let you down let a client down. And that in itself when they get the thanks from the client, the building that client relationship that is motivating for them and that's a huge driver in terms of allowing your best people to flourish and getting the best out of them because you know they want to get better in what they're doing and they feel they're adding value. And most accountants are wired like that. You know, good people, accountants, they want to help clients. They want to help them understand the numbers and look after the business and be there and answer them promptly and all that kind of thing. So you're actually allowing them to, you know, to flourish and and and be motivated in giving them access to that client relationship and letting them own it. So yeah, overall I think it um, you know, the pros outweigh the cons. Everything is a risk. It's your choice which which risk to take. Jerry, we have covered a lot of ground. I'm sure we could talk for another hour, but I've just had the um uh the the sign that we only have two minutes left, so we need to bring it to an end. Any final words that you want to add around any advice on people or even general advice on what what would you say is your your best advice to a practice owner? Your one piece of advice based on however long how long has it been for you now? 10 years of running your firm. Nine. Yeah. Nine years coming up. So practice on the camera. Just give me one piece of advice, Jerry. What would that be? Um it's probably going to be similar to yours, but marketing above everything else. everything else you can do. You're an accountant, you can do it in your sleep, right? Marketing, you are not doing enough. I guarantee you, no matter how much you are doing, you are not doing enough. I'm not doing enough. I do it every day. And I said this the other day on LinkedIn, you know, I literally do marketing from the minute I open my eyes. Um, I'm doing stuff, but I'm still not doing enough. You're not doing enough. So, get your marketing right, get your pipeline sorted, and like you said earlier, everything else will fall into place. You can cope with any problem. Definitely great advice. Yeah. And what I say is just um invest in yourself as a business owner. Go and learn. Like we don't know it all. I don't know it all. I'm still learning. I'm still listening to podcasts. I'm still reading books trying to find out what other people that have trodden the path before me have done because it's the shortcut. So when you're listening to stuff like this and you're reading the books and you're going the courses and joining the academy that's the shortcut and that's something that I wish I did a lot sooner because I would have wasted a lot of time and money doing the wrong things. Yeah, absolutely. I definitely agree with that. I'm always investing in myself. I always have and I always will. Um I think it's super important. Absolutely. Jerry, thank you very much for your time. Thank you for having journey back. Thanks.