Episode 216: The Vision, Mission, and Values System for Accounting Firm Owners

Kristy Fairbairn wrote her vision, mission, and values early in her business journey. She pinned them above her desk and told nobody. Not her team, not her clients. For years, they changed nothing about how the firm ran. 

In this episode, Kristy walks through what she does differently now, and how those three statements became the filter for who she hires, which clients she takes on, and when she makes her next hire. 

✅ The difference between vision, mission, and values, and why owners collapse all three into one vague paragraph 

✅ The fill-in-the-blanks prompt for writing a mission that is specific enough to act on 

✅ Why a vision that feels comfortable is a vision that is too small 

✅ How one value, balance, screens job candidates before the interview even starts 

✅ The link between your values and your capacity planner, and how to spot a team member who has fallen out of alignment 

✅ Where your eulogy exercise fits, and why your business values and personal values should not be different 

If you have never done this work, start with one statement this week. If you did it years ago and have not looked at it since, this is your prompt to open the document again.

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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. Download our famous Wize Freedom Map for FREE - Find out the 101 projects every firm owner must implement to build a $5M+ firm that can run without them - Download here 

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3. Work with Jamie and our mentors for 8 weeks - Build a custom business plan for your firm - Apply here

Transcript

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Welcome And The Freedom Goal

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Wild Swipe. One more time. Freedom. And a bit of your host. And each week, we deep dive into the real story, proven strategy, battle tested tools. Just like you. Our wise mentors want to share their journey of how they've scaled and optimised their way to freedom. So you can too. If you're stuck in the grind or you're ready to scale smarter, this is your blueprint. Let's get into the episode.

Why Vision Mission Values Matter

SPEAKER_00 0:38

A particular topic today, which is building a mission, vision and values system that actually changes how your business runs, not just words on a wall. So vision, mission, and values are really important, but they can sometimes be overlooked because they can be a big, big thinking, big, big picture stuff, and it can feel challenging and it's not what we're used to in our day-to-day life where we're used to getting the work done and delivering good service for our clients, but they really help us align and bring our team together. It's important that you can describe what you do, but it's even more critical, and less people have it, to say why it matters that you want to operate your business the way you do. Your vision, mission, and values help close that gap together. When they're aligned, decisions get easier and culture gets consistent. When they're not, the team feels the friction, even if they can't name it. One of the questions in our career wheel for our team members is do they feel that they align to the values of the firm? If they don't know what those values are, how could they possibly know if they align to them? It's also important when you're meeting with new clients to know does the way that they're asking you to operate align to your values or does it not?

Alignment Removes Friction In Teams

SPEAKER_00 2:05

When we think about Dr. Stephen Covey's habit two, he says all things are created twice, first mentally, then physically. Every business gets built twice. Once the vision in your mind, mentally, then physically, the version you're actually living in, and making sure those two align. And that's where your vision, mission, and values help make sure the first creation deliberately drives the second instead of drifting. So often we see firm owners who fallen in to running a firm because they didn't like the way previous businesses were being operated, but they don't really stop to think about their own vision and mission, what makes them different. And when we look at our vision, that's the long-term aspirational, that's the destination. Where are we going? It wants to be really big and tangible. It's almost like you're never actually going to achieve that vision, but it's it's big enough that it drives you forward. And then the mission is the present, it's the operational, it's the daily function of your business, your team, your clients, who you are. And you want to think about what do we do for who and why? And then the values that gives you the constant and the situational. Gives you the guardrails, and then you look at how do we behave in getting there? Who do we need to be as team members, as firm owners, as leaders, to be in alignment with our values? Has anyone here ever worked with a team member or had a team member who's felt misaligned or a client who's felt misaligned to your

Defining Vision Mission And Values

SPEAKER_00 3:48

values? I have. And it was a real ick, but I didn't know it initially. And then it was like a light bulb moment of I looked at my value statements again and I thought, oh, you don't align with this. It's it's why it doesn't feel natural, it doesn't feel in flow. But when it comes to identifying your vision, you want to ask yourself if we got everything right, what would our firm and our clients' lives look like in 10 years? What problem, if solved at scale, would make you feel like the work was done? What would clients say about their lives because your firm existed? The vision should feel slightly uncomfortable. Too easy means it's not big enough. Then when we chunk it down into the mission, the actual delivery, you want to get specific. What do we do for who and why does it matter today? So here's a little prompt for you all who hasn't done this yet. We help blank who achieve what by doing how. So we help business owners, professional service providers, if you want to get really specific into your niche, achieve what? Is it achieve growth and scalability? Is it freedom? Is it financial freedom? Is it to choose their own adventure? What is it that you help them achieve? And how do you do that? By doing what? Another way to look at it is what would be lost if your firm closed tomorrow, if you're clients, what would the market lose because you weren't there delivering your service? I find it really important the way that my team does business is we're very heart-driven. It's important for us that the clients know that we love them. And how do we do that? Our team work on how to show that. My production manager, when she interviews bookkeeper candidates, she asks them, How would you show clients you love them? Because that's who we are at our core. That's how we deliver our service. That's not for everyone, but I know for me, and I can tell that with team members, when they're not showing love and care to the clients, there's something out of alignment for them. And then we dig a bit deeper. Is there something going on for them? Are they a bit bored, a bit complacent? But it's very evident for me when a team member has fallen out of love with the way that we do our work. So we constantly revisit this. I know some firms

Values Show Up In Client Work

SPEAKER_00 6:19

would speak about their values in their daily huddles, maybe once a week, and ask the team how will you represent, how will you honour these values today? What's your plan to ensure that these values are threaded through everything? Or what's a win that aligns to our values? It's a really great way to bring it forward and present to the team. We also include our vision, mission, and value statements in our employee welcome guide so that every new person knows from the outset why we're here, why my firm is here to change the lives of the clients we work with and to see just how big we want to take that mission and then who we need to be to be delivering that mission.

Make Values Visible Every Day

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Yeah, look, I'm I'm certainly guilty of, I was very excited when this concept was introduced to me early on in my business journey. And so I went about creating my vision, my mission, my values. I had my vision and mission statement up on my notice board as a reminder. I didn't tell anyone. I didn't tell my team about it, I didn't tell my clients about it. I just knew it. And I realized that that's not really helpful. That's not how you actually implement the mission to achieving the vision if you don't bring anyone along for the journey. So it's really important that you get clear on it. And I know some firms have also worked on it with their team members. If you've had team members for a while, it can be really good to get their take on things because you want everyone to be aligned. But it is, it's that most important thing of don't just write it for the sake of writing it and tick it off the freedom map. Actually live and breathe it. Make sure that it's part of your DNA. Make sure it is the compass to the way that your firm operates. And you can revisit it. Maybe you don't change a word for years, but maybe you do. I know that I've found that my business has evolved a lot over the last nine years. I've evolved a lot as a leader, thank goodness, because I wasn't so great at the beginning, let me tell you. I needed to grow and evolve, but it's helped me get more clarity. It's understanding the way we want to work with our clients now and what we bring to them and increasing our mission. And for me, I was always taught to be very specific. So in the mission, it's this number of clients we want to help by a date. And then that date, of course, needs to

From Private Notes To Shared Compass

SPEAKER_00 8:42

change because time catches up with us, and I don't ever want to catch it and feel like I'm done. I I want to be here for a long time in my business. But it's the more specific you can get with this, the more the more achievable. You know, it's like creating a SMART goal. If you don't have clarity around the specificity, the measurability and things with your goals, then they're kind of just dreams. And look, I even find we're in the midst of growing again. Thank you, all those new clients that found us over the new financial year closing and beginning. A little bit hectic, but it means that we need new team members. And, you know, I know to an extent that people are very good at writing to the brief, but I see an element of authenticity as well. And the candidates who really stand out for me are the ones who refer to our values and how they align to them. And one of our most important values is balance, because I know in the early days of my business, I did not have work-life balance. I sacrificed life for my business, and I thought that that was the healthy way to grow something, to grow financial freedom and opportunities for my family. But it meant that I didn't spend a lot of time with my children when they were young. And thankfully, I learned that you don't have to live that way. You can have more without doing more, and you can create freedom and balance. So it's really important for us to create balance for our clients. It's part of what we do in taking the pressure off them to give them time back with their family so they're not doing their admin and accounts at the end of the day. We do that for them. But it also flows into the way I treat my team. I want them to have balance. I don't want my team to feel like they can't sign off at the end of the day. I also don't want clock watches. I feel like that's an integrity issue. I don't want someone signing off at 459.3. I think that's just a bit gross. But I want team members who feel that they can leave the workday behind at the end of it. I want them to feel like if they have important activities at school for their children,

Balance As A Non Negotiable Value

SPEAKER_00 10:44

that of course they can attend to them. They can make up the time another time or dip into a bit of leave. Want them to know that I see them as whole beings, not just cogs in the the machine that is our business. And I really like it when I have potential candidates apply and reference the balance that they're seeking. And, you know, we often touch on it in the interviews where our um knew a team member who started a few months ago, previous place she worked in, she was always expected to do extra hours unpaid, and she felt like she just didn't have a life. She was constantly feeling chained to her desk, this burden that she felt in delivering the work because her employer wasn't open to bringing in additional resources. I'm always looking at my capacity planner to keep it at that sweet spot of how much work are my team generating currently? What are my growth goals? What's my monthly revenue going to be in a couple of months' time? What pressure will that put on my team? And how far can I push it so that we don't lose the essence of that values for my

Capacity Planning Protects Culture

SPEAKER_00 11:47

team? So, you know, just to bring it back a little bit to the WIEDE hub and the WIEDS framework too, that it's important to be using your capacity planner and your Fab Five. Look at the performance of your firm, look at the capacity of your team, look at your growth goals. When do you need to make that next hire so that you don't rock the boat of your team? Okay.

Vision Prompts And Mission Template

SPEAKER_00 12:08

All right. I hope that this little presentation has inspired you to either revisit and review your vision, mission, and value statements and make sure that you're shouting them out from the rooftops, or get started. Just start with one. And there is a section in your Wise Hub to be able to document these and put them in there. And sometimes, I'm going to assume optimistically that you've all written your eulogy as part of the ideal lifestyle document. Sometimes from there is where your vision, mission, and values will stem from. Because in writing your own eulogy, you're thinking what impact, what legacy do I want to leave on the world? What will people say about me in the professional sense? And then that helps create a vision. How do you want to be remembered? And then the mission, how will you achieve that? How many people do you need to help? What kind of people do you need to help? How will you help them? And then comes your values, and that can come from the way that your family speak about you or your friends would speak about you in your eulogy. It shows who you are at your essence. And sometimes people will say your business values can be different to your personal values. I think there needs to be alignment. I think it needs to be who you are at your core. Sure, you can frame the vision statements with your team's guidance and assistance because we want to be going on this journey together. But it does come down to the leadership, and that's the culture that you set in your firm. So I encourage you all to take on this action. Tick this off your Freedom Map project list. And I look forward to anyone who wants to share them with me, then you can shoot me an email or send them to Selena. I'd really love to champion you all in having this clarity because as Dr. Cubby talks about, begin with the end in mind, this is the most important part of that journey and the discovery of really understanding what you're doing it for. It's not just to have a better income, to have better stability, or you know, not have to answer to someone. There's got to be something else driving you to do this. You know, I have a client of mine who actually emailed me yesterday. He's throwing in the towel in his business. He's a solar electrician and he's found that he can actually just get a job working for someone, get paid just as much money, and not have to worry about the business. He doesn't have the heart for it. He's not in it, he's not clear of the impact that he's having. So I encourage you all to get really clear on why you've chosen to have your own firm, why you're

Review Subscribe And Keep Talking

SPEAKER_00 14:48

doing things differently.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of The Wise Way. If today's episode sparked an idea or helped you see things differently, please don't forget to leave us a review. And if you haven't subscribed to the podcast on your favourite platform yet, please go ahead and do that as well. Let's continue the conversation here through YouTube or any other social platform that you can find us on. And just remember, if you're not a subscriber of our weekly Friday tip newsletter, get that into your inbox every week going forward. Whether you're starting out or scaling up, you don't have to do it alone. Let's build a business that works for the wise way. See you in the next episode.