The Wize Way

Episode 86: Ready for 2024! Setting your goals for the new year

• Wize Mentoring for Accountants and Bookkeepers • Season 1 • Episode 86

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In this week's episode of The Wize Guys Podcast, we gear up for 2024 with a special episode on goal-setting and mindset shifts! 

Join Jamie Johns as he delves into the crucial aspects of setting goals with your team for the upcoming year with Kristy Fairbairn. Discover the key traits leaders can cultivate within themselves in 2023 to make a positive impact on their teams. From shedding old mindsets to embracing new perspectives, this episode provides essential guidance on navigating the challenges of the new year. 

Tune in to gain valuable insights that will empower you to lead with purpose and influence your team positively in the year ahead!

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1. Download our famous Wize Freedom Strategy Map for FREE - Find out the 96 projects every firm owner must implement to build a $5M+ firm that can run without them - Download here

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3. Book a 1:1 Wize Discovery Session – Spend 30mins with our Wize CEO, Jamie Johns, a $7M firm owner who is ready to give you his entire business plan to build a firm that can run without you – Find out more here

Jamie Johns:

You've got to master leading yourself. So that's about self-discipline, that's about experience, that's about controlling your feelings. So you've got to lead yourself.

Brenton Ward:

From Wize Mentoring is The Wize Guys Podcast, a show about accounting and bookkeeping practice owners and the many stories, lessons, and tips from their experience of transitioning from a time-pull practice to a business that runs without them. I hope you enjoy and subscribe.

Kristy Fairbairn:

Today's topic is scale. We are looking at all things scale and it's a really great way to take a fresh mindset. So look at setting your goals for the new year, what mindset to leave behind, and what to take along. So, Jamie, I know that you're a great action- taker and a great end- in- mind planner, so I'm really excited to talk about this topic with you today.

Jamie Johns:

That's good, Kristy.

Kristy Fairbairn:

Yeah, it's going to be exciting being in the hot seat today without any so let's kick off, Jamie, and New Year is usually a time for fresh starts. However, we also have the option to keep on trading the same water, since there might be things that have been really effective this year for us. What are your thoughts on that?

Jamie Johns:

Yeah, look, I think it's a cliche, isn't it the New Year's resolution, isn't it? We always hear that, and actually, I was watching TV the other day for a moment and I saw this movie called Groundhog Day. I don't know if anyone's seen Groundhog Day, but this particular chat wakes up and it's the same day every day. And I think all of us can feel like that. Sometimes you think it's the same day every day, but that's where your goals come into it, and particularly your strategic goals. So part of being Wize Mentoring is, to begin with the end in mind, and so it's easy to get, I think, caught in the day- to- day of taking the next phone call, doing the next tax return, lodging the next bazaar or doing your bookkeeping. And it's so easy to get caught in doing what I would call those Quad One activities. And there's a lot of material in the wise vault around the Quad Activities. Kristy and I'd have to probably say the single biggest impact that I had on myself was the explanation of the Quad One activities versus the Quad 2 activities. Of course, Ed introduced that to me many years ago and with the Quad Activities for those who are here, if you haven't already done that exercise. It's really so important to write down everything you do. So everything you do every day, every week, every month, and even there'll be certain tasks that you do quarterly, six-monthly, and then annually. And so I think when I'd done that, I had about 50 different tasks that I did. And then I remember working with Ed and he said to me look, you need to classify all the tasks that you do between Quad One and Quad Two, and Quad One was urgent and important and Quad Two was not urgent but important. So the important thing to give this a bit of context is, if you want to reach the vision for your firm and for your life, you've got to try and move into Quad Two activities. They're not urgent and important. And we've got that e-book that is available for free. Anyone can grab that e-book.

Jamie Johns:

My mission then, Kristy, became to get rid of my Quad One activities and move into my Quad Two activities because I knew that when I did that, I was moving towards my goals. I knew I was moving towards my goals, so they were really central to improving my firm and growing the firm to where it is today, perhaps I could talk about this stuff all day, but there are certain activities. It's sort of like a universal law. You know what you focus on, what you focus your energy on. We've all probably heard of that philosophy if you like, but it simply is true.

Jamie Johns:

And then over time, as I got rid of my Quad One activities, it gave me the ability to be less busy. It was sort of a dichotomy if you like. The more I worked in Quad Two activities, the less busy I became. But what happened was the firm grew. It was quite weird that, simply, when you hire people we always talk about hiring people as a balance sheet, plain order, and expense, so you should see hiring people as an investment. But when you hire people, when you delegate correctly, when you make policies and procedures and simply work on your firm, that area expands and your time as the owner, as the leader, whether it's as a client manager or a firm owner, that area just expands and it's amazing. And then I do remember on that journey and I always tell the story I woke up one day and I thought, oh, what am I gonna do today? So if you guys wake up one morning and say what am I gonna do today, you know you're on the right path.

Kristy Fairbairn:

Look. I think it's great particularly this time of year, for those diligently doing their Quad Sheet to look back on it and look and reflect on the things that you've successfully delegated or the things that you've started to create an SOP for. You've got a policy in place to be transitioning that out and really acknowledging where you've come from and where you're heading in the New Year. It's surprising and I often find, as the firm owners, when we wear all the hats, doing a task can often take longer than it can when it's delegated to a team member because they're not pulled in as many directions as us or distracted by as many things. So it really does free up our time exponentially without loading up the team. So the more you can delegate out, the better, isn't it? The more time you can spend in Quad 2, it really gives you a compounded effect of further return.

Jamie Johns:

And another way to look at it, Kristy, is we always talk about it Wize as the seven divisions. So ultimately, your big- picture goal is to get to a certain amount of revenue, and that is still my goal these days. Its goal, accounts, is to get to a certain amount of revenue. And then for you as the leader, as a CEO or a partner or the owner or whatever, is to do certain things. And one of the definitions that we go on as of a business or a firm is a commercial, profitable enterprise that runs without an owner. And that's the ultimate goal.

Jamie Johns:

And it might seem far away to some of you, but it certainly is 100% possible. It's just that you have to be very persistent, very consistent, and go on that journey. And with all those tasks that we just spoke about, Kristy, you can classify them into divisions 7, 6, 5, and 4, and that's another thing that I did. I classified them into those divisions and you've got on the screen there. About habits, what you don't want to fall into the habit is just like a little task that takes five or 10 minutes. That's every day, and you'll say to yourself oh, it's just quicker if I do it myself.

Kristy Fairbairn:

Yeah, absolutely. I always think of Tim with those kind of tasks. He often will say death by a thousand cuts, that's it.

Brenton Ward:

Those one or two-minute tasks.

Kristy Fairbairn:

They will quickly eat out all of your time without you realizing.

Jamie Johns:

And it's five minutes every day for the rest of your career too, like that adds up. So, in terms of goal-setting, I think time management quadrants, which I've also learned from Dr Stephen Covey out of The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People I would bring everyone back to over the Christmas break is to review and update all the things that they do and then recommit again to what you need to remove from the Quad One activities. And if you recommit to that heading into 2024, you'll certainly be on the path to achieving your goals.

Kristy Fairbairn:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And on those goals, Jamie, what are some of the important goals you set with your team?

Jamie Johns:

It comes back to the very basics, Kristy. It comes back to keeping the Fab Five in the right direction. So, from a maintaining point of view, is to keep trying to get each of the teams to hit their KPIs in the Fab Five. And so that's your revenue, your profitability, you lock up your sales and then you're in PS. So at a basic level, it's keep those going. A little bit more detail to that. The most important thing is making sure that you have your teams built and structured with capacity. I talk about this all the time at Sky Accountants these days we've got five teams of various sizes and the only way for those teams to have the ability to achieve their KPIs, to achieve their goals, is to make sure they have the right team structure. So finders, minders, and grinders and then in a deeper, narrow team, and then making sure each team has capacity. They are just absolute, fundamental things so that your firm can grow. They're at a really basic level.

Jamie Johns:

At a strategic level, it's more headed by myself and say our executive team around well, how can we improve our marketing? How can we improve our organic growth? Is it time for another tuck-in, for example? So we have what we call raffle shot letters that we send out to firms in the area with people looking to retire or do they have succession plans. So that's really headed by me and it's important to understand that those types of activities can take a couple of years. So developing those relationships, if you're looking to buy a small parcel of fees, you can buy a small parcel of fees from $100,000 to $1,000,000, depending on where you're at in your journey. So those types of activities are very strategic, Kristy. For myself, they do take a couple of years, often a couple of years to achieve those types of goals, particularly if you're looking at an acquisition.

Kristy Fairbairn:

So yeah, I think too. On that, Jamie. It's a really good point. We've got plenty of resources in the Wize Hub and the Wize Vault to help people set their goals and know what actions they need to take. If you've got your capacity planner up to date, you can see the total capacity with the current firm size you've got. If you fill out your growth plan, you can see what activities you need to do. If you're in line for a tuck-in in the new year, have you started that process and really been guided by it? So sometimes we can feel like setting goals or New Year's resolutions they're just things that you throw out there. But the great thing about Wize is we've got resources to help you make it achievable.

Kristy Fairbairn:

would you suggest we're looking at in our WIS resources to help build out some clear action points?

Jamie Johns:

Yeah, I think the biggest thing and again I sort of talked with my client managers at Sky is just around the people. While we're in financial services be that bookkeeping or taxation services it's just all about the people. Kristy, I think if you can come back and really determine if you've got the right people and then the right people doing the right work, and then make sure you've got enough people. Now I know it's difficult in the current environment to find people, but I think you're really not going to grow unless you've got the right people. I've nearly had Sky cancel it close to 20 years now and started at the home office of all those years ago, and it's just been a journey of hiring people, keeping the right people, and becoming a better leader in myself.

Jamie Johns:

And the other week, I can't remember, we had a lot of clinics and workshops and different things. I think my topic is more than in the Pitstop Workshop, but my topic was on the tools for leadership, and Richard Branson said most businesses are people, they're just people. So if you can get that toolbox of leadership skills Ed has so many, doesn't he? Kristy that look and don't listen to the no bypass policy lose.

Kristy Fairbairn:

No blame culture.

Jamie Johns:

No blame culture. Lose the battle in the war If you can develop all those tools to help you be a better leader. I think that's a core and they might sound a little bit touchy or whatever, because they might be definitive goals, but one of the things you want to try and do and I think I improved over the years was reducing staff turnover. Back in the early days, I think I was a terrible leader. My staff turnover was terrible, and in more recent years it's been quite stable. It's stable to a degree and to understand too, that you go through cycles like with people, you tend to go through cycles, so your team at some point can be really strong, you can have the right people and then, for whatever reason, someone might move into the state, someone might just decide to have kids, and sometimes people get sick as well All sorts of reasons. So just step back, realize that things come in cycles, and keep the big picture in view. But I think the biggest thing, particularly for the wise firms and trying to get some advice from us is just to focus on your own leadership skills and focus on your people, because without the right people, it's really really hard to grow a course. So if you find the right people, try and keep the right people and use all the tools. There are some great sections in the WizeV ault, actually, on leadership. There are some really great sections and we even talk about the four stages of learning.

Jamie Johns:

If everyone's seen the four quadrants of learning, where you're and I must say I went through this you know the first one is unconscious incompetence. That's the first one, and then the next one, I think, is conscious incompetence. So you start being more self- aware around you know. Oh well, you know, you sort of become more aware of your actions and your words and your deeds are how they are, they affect the team, yeah. And you know again the other quadrants, but yeah, and then ultimately you want to become you know, I think it's unconscious competence where, where your habits are so good, you know you and you've got to gain that word habits there you know it's all about developing, getting rid of the old bad habits and introducing the new good habits.

Jamie Johns:

And what I find is that's just rhythm and routine. So you know, in my, in my world, the meetings are so, so important. So you know, my weekly meeting with my senior client managers, whatever meetings you have, it's just the rhythm and routine and the accountability of the meetings. They're the sort of things that really set the firm free and give people, give people direction, that then you know meetings, rhythms, and routines. It's a bit like that gym membership you know you've got to turn up and exactly what I was just thinking.

Kristy Fairbairn:

You know of the work that you put into your sprint training, that you didn't just rock up one day to a meet and run the fastest 100 for your age group. You had to put in the work. But you can also measure that success to, kind of, from that first event you did to what you could do now. So, using your FAB five to look back at your dashboard, seeing it's tracking its comparison to last year, to budget, all of those things are a great way to keep you on track, or no, we've come off track and need to focus on.

Jamie Johns:

Yeah, that's a really good point, Kristy, a really really important point. So you know, if you have your meetings and that's the rhythm and routine those good habits make sure in that process of your meetings is to measure you know how people are performing, you know, shouldn't be, it shouldn't just be every six months, you know. So, yes, have a formal appraisal of each team member every six months. That's important, but realistically it should be sort of weekly that you're measuring how everyone's going. You know how the firm's going and you know what's that old saying what you don't measure, or what you measure, you can manage.

Jamie Johns:

So, you know, if I think about the absolute fundamentals of being a leader, particularly in a, you know, in a firm, it's looking at productivity, you know. So for me, if a team's not performing and you're leading into, look at productivity, you know. That's just one basic one on one. Make sure people in your firm are reaching their productivity targets and if they're not, you know you need to have that discussion with them in a non-blame way to try and help them achieve their productivity targets. That's the first thing you know.

Jamie Johns:

The second thing is your write-offs, you know, and so if you've got a lot of write-offs on your team. You need to try and work out why. So if you know why, there are those accountants. So I think write-off secrets, you know, applies to both bookkeepers and accountants. Grab a copy of that e-book if you haven't already read that you know. And then if you measure those two things and you slightly work with your team members towards reaching those KPIs, those goals, then the firm overall will go better. Yeah, so it's investing in people over and over and making sure you understand that with your staff they're either inexperienced or they may be unfortunately incompetent, as Edouard said. So you know, if they're inexperienced, it just means that they need more training, they need more help, they need more investing.

Kristy Fairbairn:

I think it's important too that in speaking about people and people are our business, they absolutely are but one of the things we want to do to support them and to protect ourselves is to really drill in on those systems and processes that we've got and ensuring that we've got extraordinary systems to support our people so that they can be in their flow and bring their best. But if their life changes, they want to go and do something else. Then you've at least got strong foundations to have someone else come in to the role without it being disruptive to your business. And I think it's a great opportunity, as we come into a quiet couple of weeks, to do a bit of housekeeping and look at your systems. What's been working this year, what hasn't, what do we not want to do next year? What do we want to change and improve, and work in collaboration with your team to continue refining those systems to allow us to do more? And I think it's important to have your systems to allow your people to be their best.

Jamie Johns:

Exactly. I think a lot of the achievement around that comes back from that routine of your meetings. That could be a refreshing thing that everyone can look at. What meetings am I having to bring people together to work together as a team? It's very easy to get tunnel vision, isn't it? I think in your career you can just think, well, I'll just do my job. But for every firm that wants to grow, it's often a high level of teamwork, getting people together, focusing on a goal, and working together towards a goal for that team.

Jamie Johns:

We do a lot of that at Sky with systems and processes to Kristy around. Why are we doing things this way? Someone says, yeah, I'm not sure what. We've done that like that for five years. It's always good to review the processes, develop more processes or policies, and check on the massive ones on the checklist. Checklists are just so, so important because what we do these days is quite complex, isn't it Really? There are so many things to remember people. It's a bit like riding a bike. It's very difficult to start. You might have a new virtual CFO job or a new accounting job and it takes a lot of effort to onboard them. But in that process, unless you do checklists it's really easy to slip up. It's really easy to miss something. It's so easy to miss something. So I'm a massive believer in checklists and then after a while, it just obviously becomes a habit because you've done the job five times. But that quality control with the checklist is just massive.

Kristy Fairbairn:

Yeah, it's so important, and, again, it's something you can measure. You can go back if the work hasn't come out the right way. In the technical review, you can have a look at the checklist and if everything was ticked and it's still not right, you can have a look, together with the team member at what you need to improve. Where can you change things so that it does come out correctly next time? And it's really fostering that interdependent relationship amongst your team, from the managers through to the grinders.

Jamie Johns:

Yes, it just helps people, like if you've got a policy procedure and you record it and then someone wants to know how to do that particular task, that's great leadership. This is how you do it, just watch. So yeah, it's all about investing in systems and processes, and the number one at the top is investing in people.

Kristy Fairbairn:

Absolutely All right. So, Jamie, what would you say is one action point you'd suggest taking for people coming into the New Year with fresh feelings?

Jamie Johns:

Easy. Okay, everyone, this is Dr. Johnsey, over the break right down, or, if you've already done it, just refresh your list. So I want you to write down every single task that you do. So here's the biggest step write down every task that you do. And then, once you've written down every task that you do these days, I want you to classify it between a quad one activity and a quad two activity. I'll give you three steps.

Jamie Johns:

Christy, that's the next step, and then the third step everyone is, once you've written down every task that you do, classify them into the seven divisions. Okay, and if you can just do this on a spreadsheet, it's probably the easiest way to do it. Or we've got heaps of resources in the wise vol to get on the wise hub, or whatever. So that's exactly what I do. And then what do you know?

Jamie Johns:

The final thing, then, is to determine the easiest ones to remove. So you'll probably have some in division seven, some six, five, and four whatever is that for you going into 2023, you know, highlight those yellow ones and determine to remove yourself from those particular tasks, because that will mean that you're both growing professionally and career- wise and it'll help the firm grow as well, you know, and then some firms here to Christie might be the stage where they need an assistant client manager. Now that's a fantastic goal, that's a fantastic step and that's transformational, you know. So if you get to sort of that point which is division three in sales, you know, list all your clients and classify them from A, B, C, and D. With the C and D class clients, you can start handing those to an assistant, to an appropriate assistant client manager. That's a fantastic goal, you know, that's transformational. All the steps are transformational, some just have a bigger impact than others.

Kristy Fairbairn:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The thing I love about that task two, Jamie, is it's not just for firm owners. If you've got senior team members, if you've got a senior client manager, assistant client manager, or senior production manager, get them filling out a quad activity sheet as well so that you can start freeing them up more to have more capacity in their team to be able to expand on their own leadership skills. It doesn't just stop with the firm owners. It's a great one to take into the new year.

Jamie Johns:

That's a great point, and I'm on that with my senior client managers and assistant client managers, because, as you keep winning fees and getting new work, the jobs and tasks that those particular people do in that role, Kristy, they have to change as well.

Kristy Fairbairn:

Yeah.

Jamie Johns:

So it's all about change management, this, and it can be quite tricky because human beings don't like to change too much, you know. So sometimes we've got to let go of the old and delegate that work down. You know, another one of Ed's saying is to push the work down and build up the team. I used to have that quote on the wall. So push the work down and build up the team. So then you've got to lead.

Jamie Johns:

As you said, Kristy, you might be a senior accountant who's moving into a senior production manager role, or it might be someone who's a senior accountant and you've identified them and you've grown enough to promote them to an assistant client manager. So what they have to do is that quite activities as well. That's really important. What work are they doing? You know work should they start delegating down to the next team member that you've hired so they can let go of that work, so they can fill their role as a senior production manager or as an assistant client manager? Because you know, as soon as you're an assistant client manager, you're talking a lot with clients on a daily basis and then your productivity target drops as well because you've got to deal with sales and you've got to deal with queries. So it's a great point that you make, though not just the firm owner has to change and grow. Everyone in the firm has to change and grow, and that takes a lot of leadership.

Kristy Fairbairn:

Yeah, and on that point too, you know to bring some Ed into our meeting today. Well, he's not here with us in physical form. He has left us with a reminder of a quote and to encourage all WIS members to invite their team along. We're here to support you in your business growth by helping drip on your staff. Know that it helps them to hear from other people and have those third- party endorsements. We're part of your growth team here. But Ed says managers should be prepared to get training on how to manage because poor management causes an enormous amount of damage to all around them. I think that's a really important one to remember as we look at who we have in our existing team and help them foster their own growth too.

Jamie Johns:

That's right, you know, and you know. Coming back to that toolbox we spoke about earlier, Ed always says it is micro- train and don't micro- manage, because if you micro- manage people, they'll leave.

Kristy Fairbairn:

Yeah, absolutely Gosh. I often think about that when I'm trying to teach my kids something. You know, if I just try and manage it too much, that it won't be met kindly. But if we empower them, if we micro- train and give them the resources, then they will have the ability to do it.

Jamie Johns:

Yeah, micro- train, and that's again where you come into the videos, the SOPs, the checklist. Give someone all the tools and all the knowledge that they need to be successful and then get out of their way and then let you know, give them a gov, give them the tools and you know, most people will shine if you do that.

Kristy Fairbairn:

Yeah, absolutely music.

Brenton Ward:

Thanks for tuning in. If you liked this episode, please remember to subscribe and leave us a five-star review For more practical Wize tips on how to build a business that runs without you, head over to wizementoring. com/ podcast to download a free copy of The Accountants 20-Hour Workweek Playbook. We've included a link in the show notes below. See you in the next episode!