The Wize Way

Episode 156: How to Set Up Your Accounting Firm's Meeting Rhythm

• Wize Mentoring for Accountants and Bookkeepers • Season 2 • Episode 156

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TIME and FOCUS ~ are two important factors for work productivity. Now, how to achieve both without losing the other?  

In today's episode of The Wize Way for Accountants & Bookkeepers, Brenton Ward and Jamie Johns break down why daily huddles are the secret weapon of high-performing accounting and bookkeeping firms. 

Jamie shares how a simple 15-minute meeting can unblock bottlenecks, keep teams aligned, and improve client satisfaction — without wasting time. He also explains why the real cost isn’t in running a huddle — it’s in skipping it. 

If your firm struggles with inefficiencies, missed priorities, or slow turnaround times, this episode is a must-listen.

Tune in to learn:
 ✅ The key elements of an effective daily huddle
 ✅ Common mistakes firms make—and how to fix them
 ✅ How this simple habit can transform your business

Listen now and start building the habits that drive success!

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PS: Whenever you’re ready… here are the fastest 4 ways we can help you fix and grow your accounting firm:

1. Take the Wize Accountants Scale Scorecard – Find out your potential to scale and the next steps you should follow – Start Your Scorecard

2. 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

2. Need to Hire right now? Book a 1:1 FREE discovery call with our WizeTalent hiring coaches to help find your next team member the Wize Way – Click Here

4. 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

Brenton Ward:

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

Brenton Ward:

Why most meetings don't work in businesses and how to change that. But, as I said, we're going to focus on the daily huddle in the weekly tactical today. But, Jamie, just to kind of recap on the importance of having a meeting structure in place. What are some of the

Jamie Johns:

Yeah, I mean, there are some points there on the onl y screen there, Brenton, but, um, important? know, a couple of them come to mind. It is even in terms of the daily huddle, just the amount of emails and text messages and other forms of communication, that that it would reduce, uh, would be phenomenal if we didn't catch up, at least sort of you know, every day. So you know, the thing is, what I like to call about the meetings is it's sort of the pulse of the business, and I think Vern talks about that too. To some extent, it's almost like the lifeblood or the pulse and the rhythm of the business. The faster the pulse and the faster the communication and overcoming those barriers, the faster the right information will get to the right people. And not only that, it's a massive, a massive.

Jamie Johns:

Why is alignment? You know, like, how do you get five or seven people in a team aligned and then say you've got multiple teams? And then you know, like even senior client managers and executive team above that, the key to it is getting alignment and everyone on the same page. You know what system we are using? Are we using the system the right way? Are we using the right checklist? So there are so many benefits to having the right meetings and also running the meetings right.

Jamie Johns:

And I think it was Peter Drucker who said, you know, management is doing right things, but leadership management is doing things right and leadership is doing right things, but leadership management is doing things right and leadership is doing right things. So this is really about leadership is going to your teams and saying, look, we haven't got this meeting. I think we need to have this meeting, and here's why. And then, you know, overcoming people rolling their eyes and saying, Oh, not another meeting. Well, the leadership you'll instill, these meetings will bring all the benefits that I've just said. And you know, alignment saves time, it saves money, better service, everyone's kept in the loop, everyone's on the same page. You know it goes on and on with the benefits.

Brenton Ward:

Absolutely, as you mentioned there about Peter Drucker, and you know, leadership versus management. This also comes back to one of the main principles from The E-myth, Michael Gerber's book, which Ed and I often refer to. But it's all about systemisation, and if we create a system around each of these meeting structures, we increase the chances of them being implemented into the fabric of the business and into the culture.

Jamie Johns:

It also fits into the ethos Brenton that it always says create extraordinary systems so that you don't need extraordinary people, and it just goes in alignment with that as well.

Brenton Ward:

Yeah, absolutely so let's dive into the daily huddle and before we talk about some of the specifics, Jamie, I just want to get a bit of a feel from everyone listening in who is currently running a daily huddle with their team or teams on a daily basis at the moment in your firm. If you can say yes or no in the chat box, that would be great. We should have.

Jamie Johns:

we should have 31 yeses. That's what I'm hoping.

Brenton Ward:

Yeah, so a few no's, a lot of yeses, yes, but we need improvement from Craig.

Jamie Johns:

The answers are coming through. It's great.

Brenton Ward:

Yeah, that's good. Okay, so a mixed bag there. So, for all the yeses, what I'm hoping for you is that you're able to fine-tune this process. For all the no's, they're going to be yeses by the end of next week. This is just so crucial, this daily huddle to your firm, and you know we've been implementing, been watching firms implement this over the last 10 years, and it's seriously one of the things out of everything that we coach on, looking back firms, you know, sit there and go. I don't know how we ran our business without this meeting structure in place beforehand. So, Jamie, let's talk about the daily huddle in the context of an accounting and keeping firm. Talk to us about the meeting format and then the importance of this meeting.

Jamie Johns:

Yeah, well, I'm going to sort of probably give two different perspectives, post and pre-COVID. But you know, before everyone was working from home, or even you know, even beside that, you know, for example, at our office we really had three or four locations. You know we've got some of the marketing team in Sydney, we've got our offshore team in the Philippines, and then you know we've got the offices in Ballarat and Gisborne. So essentially, you know, if you're in the same office, it's great to stand up to sort of bring a bit of urgency and, I guess, seriousness to the meeting and not, you know, not just sort of like everyone's sitting at a desk. So if you are in the office, I think it's a good thing if you can, and I've witnessed these other firms doing this, standing up, getting around, and going around. You know the other thing is with. You know Zoom and Teams and all that sort of thing, and multiple offices and different, you know, working remotely and working from home. Then it's just a matter of you know obviously jumping in your scheduled time. And a really critical point, Brenton, to the system is not to sort of get bogged down in the technology. I've seen a lot of firms where they will probably share the screen, their job management system, but they sort of get bogged down in the technology side of it, because in this particular meeting, you really don't want it any longer than 15 minutes.

Jamie Johns:

And it's those classic three questions that you've probably got on the slides here somewhere. I've seen, you know, and it's very quick, you know. So each person needs to say, well, you know, what am I working on? What is the list of jobs I'm working on? The top six. Out of that top six, what do I want to finish today? What is my metric? What is my goal for the day? And then, what am I stuck on? It's three very basic questions. Now, in that process, the priorities will filter to the top because, as we do, we always have like, oh you know, Joan Smith rang up yesterday and they need their tax done because they need a loan, they're buying a business. Now, you know there's always that allows for that priority to filter to the top, and everyone else in that team instantly knows that that becomes a priority.

Jamie Johns:

This is the power of the daily huddle, so it's not meant to be long-winded discussions about how do I do this and some story about the client, how they had a flat tyre and all that sort of stuff. We've seen all that. So whoever's chairing the meeting, Brenton has to be a little bit ruthless. And so, Brenton, yep, your time's up. That's all we need to know. You know, because you'll get people who try and sabotage the meeting, and then it ends up being half an hour. That's what it's not designed for.

Jamie Johns:

So whoever's leading the meeting needs to be quite articulate in making sure that people stick to the timeframes and they stick to the topic and they don't, you know, go off to the side. You know, talking about other stuff. So it's essentially those three questions. You know, what are my six top jobs that I'm working on? What am I going to get done today? What do I need done today? It is about today. And then what am I stuck on? And it's like you know, Rex, I'm stuck on this. Can we catch up on our routine catch- up at 2 o'clock today to work out my queries?

Brenton Ward:

So, before we get into a few more of those specifics of the agenda, because I want to walk through step by step and so everyone's crystal clear on what each of the elements of this meeting is and you know we're often challenged on this meeting, jamie, in terms of, certainly, the nature of accountants and bookkeepers, we're charging time. If we've got a team of four people and we're taking 15 minutes a day out of each person's time, that's an hour a day that we're not charging for, over a year, that could be $2,000. You know, there is an argument to say that we're losing time here and that the team could be charging out. But what's your normal response to that view on this meeting?

Jamie Johns:

The normal response is that it's just all the other communication that it cuts out, Brenton, and the lack of communication as well. You know, I think it's about. It's not about perfection, it's about improvement. You know, I spoke to a firm this morning from Canada, and they were sort of doing their daily huddle on Slack. Now that was working for them, you know.

Jamie Johns:

So, as long as the system is efficient and it achieves the outcomes or the goals of the meeting. What are the outcomes? It's to remove blockages to production. It's making sure the main jobs get the priority that they deserve. So, you know, I think a lot of this stuff, like Ed said, it's not an exact science, but providing you're doing it and you've got 80% of it right and it works and achieves the goals, which is filtering the priorities to the top and ultimately servicing your clients. So you know, while people might suddenly get hung up on the cost of having the daily huddle, consider the cost of not doing it right, and the truth of that will be in your growth, it'll be in your net promoter score and it'll be your ability to keep the clients and to win more. So you know, it's just focus on focus on the outputs. That is the critical thing, but if you don't have the daily huddle and things start falling down, well, you're going to know where to point the problem to.

Brenton Ward:

But yeah, yeah, okay, 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 accountant's 20- hour workweek playbook. We've included a link in the show notes below. See you on the next episode.