The Wize Way

Episode 162: The Habits of a High-Performing Senior Client Manager

• Wize Mentoring for Accountants and Bookkeepers • Season 2 • Episode 162

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In this episode of The Wize Way Podcast for Accountants and Bookkeepers, Brenton Ward sits down with Jamie Johns to unpack one of the most pivotal roles in any accounting or bookkeeping firm: the Senior Client Manager (SCM).

Jamie reveals why the SCM is often the hardest role to hire—and the most powerful when done right. They explore how the right SCM can free up the owner’s time, create team leverage, and drive firm growth. From defining the difference between an entrepreneur and an intrapreneur to outlining leadership responsibilities, recruitment tips, and daily habits, this episode is packed with real-world advice for firm owners ready to scale.

Whether you're acting as the SCM, looking to hire one, or struggling to let go—this episode will show you how to build a stronger, more productive firm by finding the right person for this key role.

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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:

to get right in the team structure. So when we start thinking about high- performing habits of senior client managers, we have to kind of go back to the whole team structure itself. Talk to us about, you know, scaling the business successfully and why this role is so important to that.

Jamie Johns:

Yeah, thanks, Brent. Look at my research and study, and you know, working with Ed over the years, it's really a middle management level. So, in any organisation or any firm, middle management can be one of the hardest roles to fill. And the reason is, I think it's just because of the skill set that you need, particularly in an accounting or bookkeeping firm, that you need in order to manage the clients.

Jamie Johns:

And the most critical if you sort of had to give it context, important skill to have in terms of, you know, the senior client manager role is managing clients' expectations, and it's, you know, in that sense it's quite a few sort of pointers. You know, one that you'd mention is, you know, first seek to understand before being understood. So you've got to be a great listener. Um, you've really got to be a great listener. You, you've got a, you know, under promise and over- deliver, that's another critical, absolute critical one is under-promise and over-deliver, and everyone knows what that means. You know the worst thing you can do is over-promise and under-deliver. So you know, we'll touch on some of those things in, you know, in today's session.

Jamie Johns:

But there's a couple of critical ones, Brenton, and particularly is just managing clients' expectations, because if you don't manage the client's expectations when it comes to fees, when it comes to when the job's going to be done, how the how the job's going to process, whether it's bookkeeping or or tax or whatever it may be, if you're not managing the cost expectations, you will lose the clients. And you know everyone listening would have experience with a few complaints, for example. Now you know you've got a fee complaint, how do you deal with that? Why did that occur in the first place? You know, did you communicate, did you effectively communicate up front in the sales process what the fee is, when the work's going to be done?

Jamie Johns:

Yeah, so these, these sorts of things are absolutely critical. Brenton, that when you're looking to hire senior client managers, some.

Brenton Ward:

You know some of these skills, particularly managing the client expectations, is the is the main point so we'll have a good combination of people listening in who either are a senior client manager themselves, are looking to find the right senior client manager or have the right senior client manager on board and want to know how to nurture that role and really get the most out of that role and help develop that person person. But I want to go one step, one level higher before we get into some of the nuts and bolts of that stuff, because you know you wouldn't be able to do what you're doing now certainly with wise and everything like that if you didn't nail down getting this role right and really sort of putting laser focus into um, putting the time and energy and developing these roles. So talk to me a little about the impact that this role has on you as a CEO and the owner in your ability to, you know, fulfil what we promised, which is to have the business run without you.

Jamie Johns:

Yeah, it's, you know it's one of the single biggest decisions you'll make is to implement a senior client manager, and that's purely because of all the communication traffic and the production traffic that's done on a firm. And once you structure that ideal team and you put in a senior client manager to look after all that communication traffic, it simply frees up the owner's time. So in my case, for example, it just literally freed up my time. Instead of you know, working in the business, I could work on it. And when you say we'll work on it, what, what is that? You know, working on it is putting, essentially, the quad two activities that we always speak about in Dr. Stephen Covey's book.

Jamie Johns:

You know it's not urgent, but it's important, whereas if you don't do that, you're going to, you're going to live in in urgent, important, which is putting out fires all the time yeah and so, once you fill, to fill these roles, it allows the owner to put in systems, procedures, policies, it allows you to recruit correctly for the teams that you have to build and ultimately, once you've got your foundations in place, then it allows you to look at acquisitions and buy a parcel of fees. And you know, it's great to be part of a firm that's growing. In a growing firm, there's an opportunity for everyone. Essentially, there's an opportunity for everyone. Essentially, there's an opportunity. There are more challenges, there are essentially more challenges and rewards. So to be part of a firm that's dynamic, that's moving, that's growing, that's a really interesting place to be for any team member or employee.

Jamie Johns:

So, it's always great, not to sort of, you know, just to stay still where you're at, and particularly to have that bigger vision. And you know I'm always communicating with all of our staff at some point or another about what our vision is, where our goals are, what we need to get to, but then also taking an active interest in each individual person's career path and their goals as well, and essentially, where are they best, in their flow as well. And so, you know, a lot of that's just sort of like leadership, and that was what I learnt from Ned over the years.

Brenton Ward:

Yeah, let's talk a little bit then about sort of demystifying some of the issues around this role, because there's a lot of concern and fear when it comes to certainly this role being a leadership role, being a client-facing role. When recruiting or developing the person who fills the seat, there's a lot of concern. You know the person walking away with client fees, or you know the client's not happy dealing with this person, and not the owner anymore. So give it de-myth this for us, because you've done this over the last couple of years.

Jamie Johns:

Yeah, so essentially, when I'm in my own shoes, when I transition all the clients, and you know, people have to remember that I started my own firm. You know, just by myself, from the garage, pretty much the same as Ed, and you know. So a lot of the clients were friends, they were family, and you know, after some time, you really get to know the clients at that, you know quite detailed level. And so you know, my approach was that you know, if the firm was going to grow, then I had to change my thinking. That was the first point. And secondly, I had to sort of change my actions and put the foundations in place so that I could grow the firm. And you know, essentially what that happened is once I'd found the right people, the senior client managers, who had the right characteristics, had the right skills, I essentially then introduced every client to that senior client manager and slowly but surely handed those clients over. And you know, in that process I honoured the no bypass policy, and you know, essentially I didn't, once I'd introduced the client to that person, I didn't bypass that senior client manager. If the client rang me. I would often circle the client back into a three-way conference call, and I would say, Hey, Joe, I've got such and such on the line. Now, just say it's Rick, what do you think? So always circle the senior client manager back into the process, and the same as emails. Now, just to finish that, you know it's the same as the adoption curve.

Jamie Johns:

Some of the clients you know, Ed would call them rubber cup clients that were loosely easygoing, and they were early adopters, and they would go across to the senior client manager without a problem. Then you sort of had your middle adopters, where you might just need to circle them back to the senior client manager a second or a third time, and then you had your late adopters. So some of the late adopters, um, essentially, um, might have been quite fearful that. You know, I haven't got Jamie anymore. You know, and, and you know there was probably one, one or two percent of the clients, well, if I can't have you, I can't have um, you know, I'll go somewhere else.

Jamie Johns:

Now you will get some of those clients. There'll be a very small percentage. But the question you have to ask as a firm owner, you know, am I going to, you know, create my whole destiny and the outcomes of the growth of my firm based on two percent of the client base. And you know, I remember asking Ed that question, and again, it always comes back to the 80- 20 rule.

Jamie Johns:

So yeah, that's the journey you'll take on, and you'll have your rubber cup clients or your early adopters, and you'll have your crystal glass clients who just won't want any change, and that's just because of the way they are. So that gives you a bit of an idea of the exact experience I had and the practicality. But the worst thing you can do is find a senior client manager and then, out of bad habit, bypass them. What we mean by bypassing them is speaking to the client and instructing the client on what to do. The same applies to Brenton, where you speak to the senior client manager's team and tell them what to do without telling the senior client manager. So you know.

Brenton Ward:

There's a lot of sort of personal restraint that has to go on there, because I mean, certainly from his perspective, having been set in their ways and having been in control or attempting to be in control of the firm, you know, to that point it's a fairly big behavior shift to, to move into that territory and it's there's a big chance for a trust there as well. Yeah, did you find that hard yourself?

Jamie Johns:

I didn't, because I think of the pain that I went through in the earlier years. Um, you know, of working six and at some point seven, you know, seven days a week. I'd had a young family, and just staying the same wasn't an option for me. I just didn't. There were two things for me. One was the trauma of just doing 70- 80 hours a week.

Jamie Johns:

And the other side of the coin was I always had a big picture, a bit like your slide there with the guy looking at the mountains and the lake. I'd always had a bigger picture of what I wanted to do, but I didn't know how to get there. So I was really driven by, you know, obviously, the pain, and I just didn't want to, you know, do the next 30- 40 years and, and you know, get to 55 and 60 and end up just doing the same thing. That was just my thought process, and I did have a bigger picture as well, Brenton. But you know I'd had a lot of coaches, I guess in the time, but no, I couldn't get anyone to show me how to achieve the outcomes that I wanted until I met Ed, yeah.

Brenton Ward:

Yeah. So, Jamie, let's have a look at you know, I think we don't need to harp on this too much now. Like most people I can see in the list, and most of the regulars here will know the deep and narrow team structure fairly deeply by now. But did you want to just quickly touch on the importance of where the senior client manager fits into the structure, and then we'll move on to recruitment?

Jamie Johns:

Yeah, so you know, just a couple of things to point on is number one is like when you're creating these ideal teams, you know it's very important that one person is responsible for the clients. That's the critical thing. If you look at your own experience right in dealing with organisations, or you know when you're buying a car, or you know you've got a buying experience, then there's nothing worse than having two or three people all chiming in to your experience and not knowing who to go through. So you know, I keep coming back to you know just having one person who's accountable for the client. That's essentially why this is so important. In the ideal team structure, Brenton. Now, someone has to be responsible for the client, not three people.

Jamie Johns:

And the other point to that is you know Ed always goes on about it, and you know we went through all this is not sharing staff across teams, not sharing staff across. You know senior client managers. Well, a lot of firms will do that, even the bigger firms, where you'll end up working for you know three or four different managers, or you'll end up working for two different partners. And then you know there's no clarity around reporting lines, there's no clarity about responsibility. When you look at this, when you build these teams and you look at these teams, you know, they're mean, clean, productive teams, and the reporting lines are very direct and there's leverage in them.

Jamie Johns:

So everyone learns and, in terms of the senior client manager, you know, must have a high level of emotional intelligence or a high level of interpersonal skills. You know, know how to manage client expectations, know how to manage client complaints. You know we all get complaints, but everyone does, or across the world, in our industry; however, the important point is how you deal with a complaint. You know. Do you deal with a complaint and blast on or not email, which is the worst thing you can do? So you know it's taking a measured response. Managing clients' expectations is absolutely key.

Brenton Ward:

Yeah, If one person is responsible for a client, does that not create a bottleneck for delivering work to the client or chasing information?

Jamie Johns:

No, that's a good question. No, so you know, Ed always refers to this, to the resource mix. And so, in terms of the resource mix, a really good senior client manager will know how to delegate. You know, one of the best descriptions of high-l evel delegation is in Dr Stephen Covey's book. Even there's, you know, stewardship delegation. How do you delegate? Don't abdicate.

Jamie Johns:

So, the key point is to have the work come in, obviously, but any time that a senior client manager does 100% of the job, it's the wrong way. So you have the less junior people on the team do the work, actually, do the bank rec, prepare the financial statements, and so you have to know how to delegate it. And a lot of senior client managers, if they can't let go, if they can't, if they're like a control freak, is another word for it, then you'll get blockages, and so it's the owner's job, like my job, to help remove the blockages. Production, so where is it being held up? And you know you do that by simply asking the team questions, what are you stuck on, you know, where do you need help, and you'll soon find out where.

Jamie Johns:

You know you have to be like a plumber, Ed says, and just remove the blockages to production, because we're not, we're not all the same, so different. You know, different people need to do different work. So whether that's the, you know, the finder, the minder, or the grinder, all equally as important as one another. But what you do is get complementary, they all have complementary skills, and you get synergy out of that, and the synergy equals one plus one. And you know I always go on about it, but you know, there's the highest level of maturity and teamwork is interdependence. When you engage people in dialogue and you debate and discuss to get the best outcome, that's when you'll get absolute synergy, and that's what these teams are all about. Because you know there's synergy. And that's what these teams are all about, because you know there's dependence, which is where people are just dependent on one another.

Brenton Ward:

There's independence, which is sort of just like your sole trader. But then there's interdependence, and it's the highest level of maturity working to a goal with other people, and that's what I always loved and always wanted to achieve. Yeah, and just in terms of the question, Jamie, there's also the difference between the production traffic and the communication traffic, and it's not so much that the grinding team isn't able to communicate with the client directly, certainly if it's chasing information or whatever that may be.

Jamie Johns:

Doing the production work.

Brenton Ward:

Yeah, but there is a way of making sure that the senior client manager stays in the loop if other team members are going to speak to clients. How do you guys normally manage that?

Jamie Johns:

Yeah, pretty easy, Brenton. So, essentially, like a lot of the production work these days. You know, given technology is just Brenton. So, essentially, like a lot of the production work these days. You know, given that technology is just done with email. It's done with, you know, products like Karbon, you know, all sorts of different products. So you know, often it's just the senior client manager being in the loop, and that's you know, essentially it can be just a CC on an email because you know, the production work by its nature itself is just well, give me the information and I can do the job.

Jamie Johns:

You know, when you need to advise the client of something, that's a different level of communication. That's like telling the client, well, you need to do x, y, and z, whereas the production work, whether it's bookkeeping or tax, it's just over and over. It's year in, year out, year in, year out, and it's more. I need this information, or I need to allocate this transaction somewhere. So as long as the senior client manager is over the communication and we're aware of the relationship, then you're fine.

Brenton Ward:

Perfect. Are you a senior client manager yourself? Are you an owner and acting as a senior client manager currently? Are you recruiting for a senior client manager, or do you have senior client managers in place? This next part, about how to identify a really good senior client manager when we move into that recruitment phase, is going to be really important for a lot of people listening in. So there's this conversation around the personality profile of a senior client manager and the difference between hiring an entrepreneur versus hiring an entrepreneur. Talk to us a little bit about this and why it's important for this role.

Jamie Johns:

Yeah, it's absolutely critical. I mean, in the traditional sense, an entrepreneur is someone who starts their own business from scratch, and they're willing to take on a lot of risk in the process of doing that. And anyone knows who's started their own business from scratch and they're willing to take on, you know, a lot of risk in the process of doing that. And anyone who's started their own firm knows that it is simply not a bed of roses, as they say, you've got to take on often an enormous amount of risk. And you know, a lot of people say to me, well, the barriers to entry in accounting and bookkeeping are fairly low. Now, you know they can. They can tend to be in the early days, but there are always barriers to growth, and you know what people tend to forget is that it can grow out of control quite quickly, and it can be an enormous responsibility. You know, advising people of their financial affairs, whether that's, you know, doing their bookkeeping, their payroll, their liability around fair work, their liability around just complying with the laws in this day and age, is massive. So an entrepreneur at heart is someone who takes, I would have to say, risks, and they're almost like the mentality of go it alone. I don't care, I'm going to go it alone. You know I don't care, I'm going to go it alone. And they might have an idea of you know, like I just want more freedom and I want more choices.

Jamie Johns:

And so when you're talking to a senior client manager, you'll often get a feel whether they're someone who can take on that level of risk, and what their long-term career goals are.

Jamie Johns:

I would simply ask them, and at times I've said to my senior core managers, ones that I've hired well, why don't you just go out on your own and start your own business? You should just ask people that straight question, face-to-face, and they will tell you one reason or another that they do want to or they don't want to. And I had one case where a chap did say that he wanted to go out on his own one day, and he didn't get the job straight away. As simple as that. I've had another case where other senior client managers have said no, look, I just am not prepared for that level of risk. I'd rather come to work with you, help you, give your systems, your procedures, your policies, the support that you're going to give me, and we'll help one another. And so you soon get the feeling that those types of people are entrepreneurs, you know, and they don't.

Jamie Johns:

They don't want to take the risk of sprinting. They're more team players, and they're more comfortable having you know people around them towards a common goal, and so you need to just have the upfront conversation with people around you, know what they prefer. Do they like working in a team? Do they like taking on risks? How do you feel about going out on your own? Would you ever do that? Just have the open conversations, you know, none of us can hide who we are.

Brenton Ward:

We really can't, and I hope that answers your question a little bit, more specifically, there's I guess there's no real clean cutcut list of questions, jamie that you would ask a potential candidate to try and determine if they're an entrepreneur or not, it's more of that conversation.

Jamie Johns:

It is. It's exactly what I just said. Just ask them. You know, when you're hiring a senior partner, just ask them up front. You know what your goal is, what would you like to do with your career path? That's exactly what I've done. And you know what you would like to do with your career path? That's exactly what I've done. And you know, you soon get a feeling for whether people want to work in a team environment. And what we call interdependence. An entrepreneur is a different type of person. Again, I can tell you, and um, you know it's. You know, as Ed said, it's. You're dealing with humans, right? So it's not an exact science. So, it's not an exact science. It's not an exact science, but you follow a pattern, and you can soon make a pretty informed decision about the person that you're hiring.

Brenton Ward:

One of the natural tendencies we make is that we think we should be hiring someone similar to ourselves, which is normally a trap, isn't it? I mean, certainly for a lot of the firms we work with, who the owners are quite entrepreneurial themselves, like by virtue of landing on our doorstep. They're a business owner versus being a practitioner, and they want to be a business owner, so hiring someone who's very similar to yourself is normally a path you can try to steer away from. Absolutely great point.

Jamie Johns:

Yeah, I mean, what you want to hire for are complementary skills. Now, if you find someone who's a pretty good fit for a senior client manager, often you can mentor them and coach them and shape them into that role, provided they've got, in this particular role, a high level of interpersonal skills, because you know they'll be dealing with clients all day, every day, from every walk of life, from different industries, from different backgrounds. So, you know that the high level of interpersonal skills is an absolute classic. But the biggest trap you can make is trying to hire someone the same as you, because then you don't get the synergy, you don't get the complementary skills. That's exactly right.

Brenton Ward:

So, Jamie, a lot of owners slash senior client managers are wearing both hats at the moment and listening in. At what point in the journey should be the trigger to really start thinking about hiring a senior client manager? Do we bring it back to the capacity plan, or what are some of the suggestions you have around?

Jamie Johns:

Yeah, look, it's the same in the world over, Brenton. It's really about bringing it back to the level of fees you've got and your capacity plan, and you know, at a really high level, you always come back to. Only 4% of businesses or firms turn over more than a million dollars. So it's really what I call the, the danger zone, or the, the challenge zone between around 600 000 and a million dollars in fees and past that around those points is where, unless you build your team with a senior client manager or you know what ed calls stable terminals, you know key people in that team or I love what he says called the stable terminals then you're really going to find it challenging in terms of your time. It's just, it's just the volume of traffic, and you know, I always sort of wonder whether you like the guy or not, Elon Musk.

Jamie Johns:

He talks about first principles. You know, first principles in an accounting firm, bookkeeping firm, is you've only got 480 minutes in a day. That's all you've got right. So if you just keep pouring more clients, more and more clients into your firm, you're just going to get busier and busier, and you won't service them. So it's easy to grow a firm, keep the clients you got, and bring more on, but you've only got 480 minutes. So what's your first constraint? It's time. Every account I've spoken to in every country now has just got no time when they're trying to grow their firm. So, how do you do that? You need leverage, you need to delegate, you need to find the right person who can deal with the communication traffic and then you build the team that can do the production traffic, which is, you know, which is ideally the offshore team, and you just get such a great complementary skills working together and then, as Ed says, your firm you know your firm runs beautifully. Then you've got the right people in the right seats, and you know you've. You've got a win-win.

Brenton Ward:

Everyone knows what the KPIs are, and away you go. So we've got a good sort of list of roles and responsibilities there. We've pulled this straight from the job description template, which is in step five in the Wize Vault for you to download. But are there any points you want to highlight there, specifically around Andrew's question there, Jamie, about the age profile of the senior client manager, I mean, by virtue of required experience, there's going to be a certain age there, but any feedback on the age profile for them?

Jamie Johns:

Yeah, in terms of the profile, I mean from a technical level, you want to have the basics under your belt, and you know I still think to this day. You know, I went out and started my own firm when I was 34, and you know I was still pretty right. I think you know, 10 years in I finally sort of knew what I was doing, if I could put it that way, because you know, particularly in the Australian tax environment and it's probably similar to the US and Canada or wherever else, but there's just so much to learn to. You know offer tax advisory and business services, so you know you'd want something of those things at a minimum. You know, offer tax advisory and business services, so you know you'd want something of the thing at a minimum.

Jamie Johns:

You know, five years of core business services and tax experience, and anywhere on top of that, you had, you know, additional experience in managing staff, even better. You know you're just going to stand out amongst the crowd if you've got, if you've had direct reports yourself before. You know, I was your typical entrepreneur. You know, I'd never managed any staff or anything, I just went out on my own. And you know, mind you, we learnt the hard way and made a lot of mistakes.

Jamie Johns:

So you know, in terms of recruiting the senior client manager, yeah, go for that, go for that, five plus core years of experience. But then also, you know, any additional experience, you know, five, five plus, if they've managed people before, is absolutely, you know, just great to have. And you know, I can think of a couple of firms right now that have hired people like that. You know they've hired people where they've had direct reports before, where they're not progressing in their firm, that they're at the partners are fighting and you know you've got this second layer of managers or accountants ready to come through and they're often fantastic people to hire and you can give them the direction that they deserve.

Brenton Ward:

Okay, any other of those dot points there that you really wanted to hone in on.

Jamie Johns:

Other than you know, the biggest thing you've got to be able to do is leadership, and leadership is just teamwork. So you know, having the ability to lead your own team, because what you don't want to do as a senior client manager, if you're watching or even a firm owner, is really have a high turnover of team members. It's so disruptive. So a really big part of this whole process is being able to not just lead your clients and keep your clients, but you've got to be a good leader. You've got to be able to, um, maintain a solid, loyal team, because you know it's just so much disruption. When a team member leaves and comes in, you know people don't leave firms. It's an old cliche saying, but people don't leave their firms, they leave their manager, right? So you know, be a good manager and work out what it takes. Work out what it takes to lead your team, to keep the team solid, so that they're there year in, year out, and so that they're rewarded on a win-win basis.

Brenton Ward:

Brilliant, perfect. Let's talk about recruitment, Jamie, and just some of the tips. Now, we are going to get to some of the habits of the day-to-day of really high- performing senior client managers. So, we will get there in a sec. But just talking about some of those hurdles that we want to take candidates over, Jamie, to to really make sure that we've got a great senior client manager that we're bringing into the firm, whether we're hiring internally or externally, yeah, look, I think the cliche goes Brenton, hire slow and fire fast, like when you're hiring and looking for people to sit in this seat on the bus.

Jamie Johns:

Just do it slowly, and the walls are there for a reason. And you know, I can think of a bookkeeping firm recently where they were hiring a senior client manager and the chap reached out to me and showed me the emails from the candidate who was looking to be a senior client manager, the emails from the candidate who was looking to be a senior client manager. And when you read the emails back, it said oh, why did I have to do these tests? You know? Why did I have to do these tests? Effectively, the emails are saying I'm too good to do these account tests or these aptitude tests for this position. You know, it was quite blunt. Oh, you didn't make me aware I had to do these tests. And the person involved was so close to hiring it and so enthusiastic to get a senior client manager and while they did, really in the end they did quite well on the test the person was was quite concerned about the other two and that's where they reached out to me and I had a look and gave them a bit of advice and I essentially said avoid that person. When you read the emails and the way they handled the communication, it was just rude. It was just absolutely rude.

Jamie Johns:

So I just want to say that you know, while you might find the smartest person on the block, that is absolutely secondary to attitude, because if that person is dealing with you in that manner, with a negative attitude on too good for this, you can expect the same thing when they're dealing with your clients. If a complaint occurs or whatever, they're going to be quite blunt and abrupt. So I don't care how smart someone is if they don't have the right attitude. You can't train attitude because, um, the way they're dealing with you in the whole selection process and the interview criteria will be the way that they are in the business. So attitude is it's again it's that you cannot train attitude and the the the more hurdles, the more walls that you put in front of a senior client manager who's looking to go for that position essentially almost the better because you want the best and the cost of a mishire, the cost of not hiring the right person after they get in there for three months or whatever is massive. It's, it's absolutely massive. So we all know the time, the money, and the emotional heartache it takes when you hire the wrong person. So just want to emphasize that as well.

Jamie Johns:

Brenton, you know your second point. There's aptitude. Yeah, do your account test, do your test, like Ed says. You know, can they actually do the work, and can they do it in a certain amount of time? So, yes, you must do. You know you must do the aptitude test.

Brenton Ward:

One, Jamie, you know to say cut costs, whatever it may be. A couple of hundred dollars for the account test, certainly for this role. It's easier to go. Well, you know they've got the years of experience there. Do they really need to be doing a technical test? Or, you know, personality test, whatever it may be, and they just cut around that corner. Do we still come back and follow the process for this role, or can we cut corners where we think the candidate is well qualified enough to fly past that part of the check?

Jamie Johns:

Yeah, you just got to follow the process, Brenton. The process works, you know, and the problem is, when we're hiring, we're often biased towards one person or another. Just because you like one particular person's personality doesn't actually mean they can do the work. So you might interview someone and they might have a great smile, and you know, they might be fantastic just on the surface, but what's the point of that, and just saying, yeah, well, hi, they seem like a nice person when they can't actually do the work? So, you know, you've just got to follow the process. And the best business people are non-emotional people. You know, while you're there to run a business and not to hire friends, you know, put the business first, and their relationships are protected. So you've just got to follow the process because I keep coming back to it; if you don't follow the process, you'll bring your own biases into the process.

Jamie Johns:

And a fish can't see water. And that's a classic one, and you know the last one there is the career history, which Ed says, look at the, look at a history of promotions, the history of promotions where someone's had the same job and consistently got promoted. You know, every, whatever time frame might be a year. It just shows a history of productivity, of good results and good outcomes, whereas where you've got a job hopper, someone who just gets from one job to the other, it's quite easy to sell yourself into the next job. And so that you know, they couldn't stress their career history form or the history of promotions to siphon out what I would call the job hoppers.

Brenton Ward:

Mick Ferris said couldn't agree more about following the process learned from my first hire, and I'm assuming won't do that again. Mick, you've done well with the last couple. There are a lot of firms that we work with. Andrew said I've got a solid senior production manager. How do I break it to him that he won't be promoted to a senior client manager, and how do we sell it to him that he'll be working in conjunction with the senior client manager instead?

Jamie Johns:

Yeah, great question. You've got to get down to their motives, and what I mean by that is, why do they want to be a senior client manager? Now, you know, Ed's had this case, I've had this case, and more often than not, it's that they think they can't earn as much as a senior client manager. So you've got to come back to their motive. Why do they want to be a senior client manager? So you've got to come back to their motive. Why do they want to be a senior client manager? You know, is it because of their earning capacity, perhaps? And you've just got to ask them why? Is it because of prestige? Or is it because of ego?

Jamie Johns:

Because our industry says, well, you know, you're at the pinnacle when you're a senior client manager, which isn't necessarily the case. The most critical thing, as I think you've just brought up on the screen, is getting people to work in their flow. And the thing is, if you put people in the wrong seat, you'll set them up for a fall. Because if you don't have, like, if you don't have the level of interpersonal skills to be a senior client manager, you'll just set yourself up for a fall. And what that means is, essentially, your KPIs will just your KPIs or your outputs will just reflect the same thing, and results don't lie.

Jamie Johns:

So the answer to that question is to find out why they want to be a senior client manager. What is it driving? Is it money? They think they can earn less, is it prestige, or what is it?

Jamie Johns:

And then, once you know what their motive is, you can influence them as their leader and as their mentor. You're essentially their mentor, and you know, and you can overcome that sort of thing with a bonus system. You know, you can have that team have a bonus system. If they hit X number of bidders, the bonus is shared. And so you know their earning capability isn't dwarfed just because of where they are in the seat on the bus. But yeah, ultimately, if you can't convince them, the fact is, ultimately, if you can't convince them that they're not, you know, material for a senior client manager, they will leave. But that's just the fact. You've got to do your best to try and keep them in that seat, and you know, after a while, they'll work that out anyway. I can guarantee you that after a while, when you show them the figures and how things work, particularly around the KPIs, they'll work out, I would say nine times out of ten.

Brenton Ward:

They'll work out that you know what I'm actually in the right seat where I am and, you know I love doing what I'm doing and I might necessarily like enjoy working with people yeah, and that's certainly some of the points in that conversation around what it takes to be a really good senior client manager is really honing in on the interpersonal skills and the ability to and the the drive and the passion to talk with clients and sit down with clients and and to have sales. And I think, by virtue of having or mentioning those things in that conversation, Jamie, do you think that plays to determining the personality profile? Because you know, by nature of senior production managers, normally someone that's quite happy to be behind the scenes running the show or in the background, and not necessarily, you know, have that drive to be sitting in front of clients and have those conversations.

Jamie Johns:

That's exactly right, Brenton. You want complementary skills. But you know, often the problem can be that someone thinks they're you know they need to be in a certain seat when they're not. So, as their leader, you need to know the person better than they know themselves. But if you get back to the motives, whether it's that they think they're not going to earn as much or whatever, once you know what their motives are, you're in a much better position to mentor them and influence them to make a decision around. You know, ultimately, what is their flow.

Jamie Johns:

The critical point is that people work in their flow. You know, I could do the grinding, but I wasn't good at it. You know my flow was just always. You know, meeting people and knowing how I could do something to help them. You know, in their business, and while I could do the grinding, I simply wasn't good at it. You know, I had other people who could do a job at a better quality than I could in half the time, you know. So it's about being self-aware and helping others be self-aware by showing them the results. Show them the results, and then you know that will influence their behaviour as well.

Brenton Ward:

And just in terms of influencing behaviour, normal to offer sales bonuses to senior client managers.

Jamie Johns:

Yeah, I can't say I've ever seen that. I think the better way to do it is to offer like a bonus system, like we've got in the WizeH ub around, a bit of firm- wide and then and then on a team basis as well. So yeah, I mean it's a. It's a very particular skill in selling. You know, accounts don't like to talk about it, but you know we're in such a good industry, both bookkeeping and accounting, that the government drives work to our door and provides that you know we give people a proposal or an estimate, and we offer good service. You know, returning emails and phone calls, you know, you'll tend just to grow. It's more of a point on how to keep clients as you keep growing and keep the service levels up. That's the biggest part. But you know, I haven't heard of bonus sales, bonuses in accounting.

Brenton Ward:

So I think, Jamie, it's a good segue into talking about some of the day-to-day habits for really good, high-performing senior client managers, because you know these guys do get very busy client managers, because you know these guys do get very busy as you're. You know, certainly over your last couple of years, as you've kind of gone off the tools, you've seen your client managers really roll their sleeves up and take these roles head-on. So, on a day-to-day basis, what are some of the habits that you try and instill and what are some of the habits that you try and instill and what are some of the habits that you encourage the guys to take on board themselves to really grasp this role and really, you know, make sure that all bases have been covered for clients, for team and KPIs, all that sort of stuff yeah, look, sorry, Brent, and probably the biggest thing is, just the daily huddle.

Jamie Johns:

It was as basic as that sounds; it's known. The daily huddle is three questions. It's you know what's your top priorities for today in the team environment, what are you going to get finished today, what are you getting done today, and what are you stuck on? If you don't have the daily huddle, the firm's, the team's priorities will not flip to the top. There's no direction for the team, and you know I've seen a lot of senior client managers over the years. Oh, I'm too busy to have a meeting, you know, and so all your focus is on yourself. You know it can't be about yourself. You've got to move away from being sort of, you know, client fanatical to being team fanatical, because it's the team that's going to help you deliver the service. The best senior client managers I see are on the phone literally all day or in appointments, just talking to clients.

Jamie Johns:

And clients absolutely love that communication piece. That's what they value. You know all the research says the clients actually value the communication with the accountant. You know the senior client manager. Yes, the work's important, but they don't often see all the work and what goes into that, and the hours that go into the background. It's always the pinhead in the conversation with the client. So, driving the daily huddle to get the work done, to create productivity, and to remove blockages to production. You know, if you have your daily huddle every day for 10 minutes and you've got the same job stuck there time and time again, you know you'll soon identify the problem. But you know it's like. I think your meetings are like your lifeblood in your business. They're like the pulse of the business. If you don't have your meetings, then you know your business can die. You can have a whole heap of people not knowing what they're doing.

Brenton Ward:

Yeah, and so you've got your daily huddle right, and that's typically one of the hardest meetings to instill into a business because everyone just hears I've got to have a meeting every single day. Certainly, senior client managers are so busy, and it's because it's such a short meeting, it's quite easy to go well, no, we just won't do it today. But for any daily huddle that isn't done, it's kind of like a tiny little crack in the system isn't done.

Jamie Johns:

It's kind of like a tiny little crack in the system. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, and the crack will get bigger, yeah, um. So yeah, the day leader is absolutely critical of just leading the team every day. What are the priorities? And, yeah, what are the priorities? And if you do have it, the priorities always go to the top.

Jamie Johns:

Because what happens is, you know we're talking to clients all the time, or team members are, or you know the senior client managers and you know sometimes they're buying a business, they're buying property, and all of a sudden, a particular job that might have been scheduled for a couple of months ago needs to be moved forward. And you know, one of the biggest complexities or one of the biggest barriers to growth is just communication, as we keep saying. So, if you can break down the communication and continually communicate, then you'll overcome the barriers to growth and you'll you'll keep the clients you've got, you'll get more referrals and you can take more work on and everyone benefits in yeah, in terms of other habits, now that that's the senior client managers habit to make sure that they're managing the team well and the team everything's filtering up to the top.

Brenton Ward:

What about the habits of making sure that the owners are interacting and communicating properly with senior client managers to make sure that the relationship is working properly as well?

Jamie Johns:

Yeah, the biggest piece there is just the no- bypass policy, and the senior client managers, you know, are limited to some extent. But you know the owners of the firm who are putting the senior client managers in place, they've just got to honour the no- bypass policy. Because if you bypass the senior client manager and go to the clients and instruct the clients what to do, or if you go to the team members and instruct the team members not to do, without bringing the senior client manager into it, the senior client manager is going to say, well, what do you want me to do? What's my role? Because all you're going to do, well, what do you want me to do? You know, what's my role? Because, because all you're going to do is undermine them.

Jamie Johns:

Right, and the critical point is for everyone to realize that mistakes will happen. So, it's really so critical that you create a non-blame environment, and you know, if you create this non-blame environment, then they'll be willing to come to you when things do stuff up, because you're there to support them. You know, if you create this non-blame environment, then they'll be willing to come to you when things do stuff up, because you're there to support them. You know you're not there to blame them, but if you create a blame environment, it just stifles everyone, and the communication stops. So, yeah, mistakes will happen, as they do in every business, and you know, I've seen it all.

Jamie Johns:

My fair share, I was never perfect either, but it's in that spirit of okay, here's the problem. How do we fix it next time? How do we stop that from happening next time? And it's that dogged mindset of being persistent and consistent, leading the team and being solutions- focused that's absolutely critical, and particularly being non-emotional about it as well. So, you know, whenever your emotions come into it, logic flows out the door. So always being, always be solutions- focused. How do we fix this so it doesn't happen again? You know? And wherever there's not a policy, if you don't have a policy, it creates a vacuum and a vacuum. A vacuum is just filled with anything. So you know, what procedure do we need to put in place to move forward with it?

Brenton Ward:

Sounds like, instilling habits around what communication mechanism senior client managers should be using to relay those messages is a really big and important part of the role because, as we know, email is easy, but it's not great.

Jamie Johns:

Yeah, I had one. The other day, Brent and I were talking to one of the firms in Sydney, and you know, they were really quizzing me about delegation. And you know, when we got down to it, the person said to me there was an owner of the firm. She said, oh, I'm so frustrated. And I said, boy, frustrated. She said, oh, I'm so frustrated. And I said, why are you frustrated? She said, well, they take too long to get the jobs done, and I just want to get them out the door. And I said, well, when you delegate, do you actually give them a budget in hours to get that job done? And the person said, no, I don't.

Jamie Johns:

And I said, well, start doing that. You know, like that's part of good delegation. Here's a job. How many hours do I have to do it? When do you want it done by, and what tools and resources do I have to do it? You know, we've all seen an email where we've got an email or we've sent one that says, oh, Brenton, can you just do this job? You know, and it's open-ended, you know it's like abdication. It's like abdication. So you've got to put outcomes, and you've got to put every job that you delegate with a frame of reference, and the software that we've got these days is fantastic. We can put budgeted hours on jobs. We can say use these tools, use these templates to do the job, and I want the job by 5 o'clock on Friday. Perfect.

Brenton Ward:

And just one communication. With the current code environment and working from home, they've started doing their daily huddles, and she said it's working really well for everyone. If there's one thing that you can take away today, if you're not doing a daily huddle meeting, it is seriously one of the things that can dramatically change the firm for the better. It's. It's not easy to implement, but it is seriously one of the best things you could ever do, and Thomas has just agreed with that. 100% agree with getting the budget implemented. So we talked about habits there around communication rhythm. So the meeting rhythm there is like one of the most important pillars to this role being high-performing.

Brenton Ward:

But I want to finish on this whole busy versus productive and coming back to the quadrant of time in the quadrant, because this is where most senior client managers get stuck as to where their time is spent, either in Quad 1, typically Quad 1 versus Quad 2. But let's finish up on this topic of how to best manage the time quadrant.

Jamie Johns:

Yeah, it's absolutely. You know career-changing when you work, you know when you move from Quad 1 to Quad 2. Even if you run your eyes over the results of Quad 1, stress, burnout, crisis management, always putting out fires, never having time. This is directly from Dr Stephen Covey's Seven Habits book, and one of the books that changed Ed's career and life when he was building Shannon Naylor. When you look at the other side, you look, you know, balance sheet, value, calm, nine to five, profitable, good lifestyle, passive income. If you take a step back from that, what is that? Well, it's preventative activities. What are preventative activities? Following a system, following a procedure? Have you got a policy in place, you know? Have you got an internet, for example, like a wise hub, where it's got all the how-to do in one spot, where the team can find it? You know, and it's just like I used to tell people time time again over the years um, I used to have a sticker up the top corner of my computer screen and it used to say what am I doing now with a question mark, and I would think well, actually, the task that I'm doing right now, is that possible in my current role? Should I be delegating that, should or should I, you know, be doing it myself, and in the early days, be like, yeah, well, someone else can actually do this job, and that I've actually hired in the team, why am I doing it? And then I might say to myself, oh, it's quick if I do it myself and say no, hang on, you know, punch myself and say no, look, take the time, train whoever how to do that, and surely in the end you get to a point where you've delegated effectively and someone else does that job.

Jamie Johns:

And you know some of the things are there. You know relationship building, recognising new opportunities, and educating staff and clients. You know, training is they're just activities that release so much time, and then you actually empower other people to be better at their jobs as well. And you know you get this synergy rule of 33. You know you teach other people. You share with your colleagues. You teach other people, you share with your colleagues. And then you know the other thing is like you mentor people as well, and that's what you're doing. And the thing is, when you teach other people, you really have to know what you're doing. So I think, as a senior client manager, it's great if you can focus on, you know, the not urgent but important things, and a classic one of those is scheduling the work. You know, time and time again, particularly with the new senior client manager, I'll hand them and pick my timing until they schedule all the work with the practice manager, because when you schedule the work, the whole firm just runs so much smoothly, and it's a quad two activity.

Brenton Ward:

Yeah, quick insight into this, and then we might finish up yeah, look, just to final on this.

Jamie Johns:

This is absolutely critical, when you put senior client managers in place, or if you are a senior client manager, it's absolutely critical that you focus on outcomes and you focus on results. And I keep saying to people it's like if you enjoy sport, you know cricket, football, whatever it may be, everyone goes along and it's a game and we watch the scoreboard. If we don't have a scoreboard, if we don't focus on the outcomes, people don't get as emotionally involved in it, and what they'll tend to do, particularly in business, they'll focus on inputs, and inputs are all about efforts and how hard you're working. But the issue is is efforts and inputs don't always equal the outcomes or the results that we want. So, in order to win the game and, as we always say, everyone wants to be a winner, it's important for the leadership in the firm, as you've got senior client managers in place, to show them the scoreboard, and essentially that's what the Fab Five's about.

Jamie Johns:

I know at Sky Accountants, you know the senior client managers love looking at the scoreboard or discussing. You know how it comes. You know Paul's going so well, and you know, and they'll learn from one another, and so it's just so critical that you look at these five KPIs, so that you know you can, you can work out whether you're doing your job or not. You know, it's that simple, um. If you know that you're doing well in your job, it's fantastic.

Jamie Johns:

If you know that you're dropping the ball somewhere, you know that you're doing well in your job; it's fantastic. If you know that you're dropping the ball somewhere, you know you can work with the leader of the firm to fix it. You know, and so I come back to this, Brenton, you must look at revenue, profitability, lock-up, sales, and the NPS the five, the absolute five critical things that you can use as the scoreboard to focus on the outputs, to get the firm humming and create a healthy competition. That's the key. And you know, as I said, if we look at the scoreboard, everyone wants to be a winner, and then we can go in. And if we need to improve things or fix things in any one of those KPIs, we can.

Brenton Ward:

Excellent. Thank you so much, Jamie. Thank you and wish you all a great afternoon, evening, or morning, wherever you are.

Jamie Johns:

Thanks, Brenton and everyone. Keep implementing, just keep implementing.