Who's Really the BOSS?

There may be errors in spelling, grammar, and accuracy in this machine-generated transcript.

Rachel Dillon: Welcome to Who's Really the Boss podcast. I'm Rachel Dillon, and along with my husband, Marcus Dillon, we share the joys and challenges of leading a $3 million accounting firm together. From team structure to growth strategies, we share our leadership successes and failures so you can avoid the mistakes we have made and grow a valuable accounting firm. Welcome back [00:00:30] to another episode of Who's Really the Boss podcast.

Marcus Dillon: Hey, thanks for having me back.

Rachel Dillon: Today we have a special guest with us. We have Fletcher Winbush from discovered AI.

Fletcher Wimbush: Thanks for having me, guys.

Rachel Dillon: And Fletcher, we are excited to have you here. Um, I want you to give a self intro, and that may give a little clue as to why we're so excited about the conversation that we're about to have.

Fletcher Wimbush: Yeah, well, our worlds collided many years ago and ran maybe some parallel paths, [00:01:00] and I don't know what it's been like maybe ten plus years that I've been working with small CPA and public accounting firms. Um, and, uh, it sort of fell into this world a little bit. And I, uh, had a relationship with a CPA, and that was great and learned a lot. And then I fell into your world. And then, uh, yeah, we've reconvened here, um, maybe a couple of years ago and started collaborating more. But yeah, I've spent ten plus years helping small accounting firms solve their talent problems. And, uh, [00:01:30] that's carved out a pretty unique niche. I, and frankly, don't know of anybody else who really has put such a level of focus in the sector. As much as my team and I have over the years. You know, there's lots of accounting recruiters and people out there. But you know, this, like we like hyper focus in this world because of you guys.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah. No it's good. And Fletcher, I'm going to just go a little bit deeper. I know that, uh, we've used your technology and your testing in the past, and I think that's [00:02:00] one part of your story that we can hopefully unpack today. But then even, you know here recently how you've served collective firms and just everything from testing and platform all the way through full placement, um, is honestly, you know, a really good service to provide to our friends and our industry. So we're excited to have you here. Uh, I know that Rachel is going to try to keep us on track as best we can. Um, so I think that was a great intro.

Fletcher Wimbush: So many things [00:02:30] we can talk about.

Rachel Dillon: Yeah. So before we get to all of those things, because we could, I think we could probably do like three episodes for sure. Um, but before we get any further, will you share the best piece of advice you've ever received?

Fletcher Wimbush: Um, well, in the hiring realm, the best piece of advice is hire. You know, hire for integrity, motivation and intelligence. Uh, if the person lacks the first thing, then the other two will kill you. So. And that's Warren Buffett said that. So, [00:03:00] um, you know, I, I it's my guiding light. It's in the signature of my email. And, uh, it's something that before I heard that quote and I knew anything about Warren Buffett, I had been taught by my father and kind of ingrained in my mind. And when such a smart guy said something like that, I stole the quote.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah, that's another spin on on hungry, humble and smart, which I know a lot of other people use as well. So that's really good. Yeah.

Rachel Dillon: So integrity is really important to us at Dillon Business Advisors [00:03:30] as well. And so we describe integrity as doing the right thing because it's the right thing to do. And what we found is any mistakes or accidents that are made that need to be cleaned up later, if they are made because they were the right thing to do, that's much easier. If things were made, um, maybe under a different motivation. Those mistakes and accidents aren't always easy to clean up and often lead to fractured relationships, [00:04:00] um, along the way. So definitely feel you on that.

Fletcher Wimbush: I love that definition too. You know that you've taken the time to define it and to get really clear about that, because, you know, anything like that might be subjective. What I think is integrity and what you think is might. But I think the definition is spot on, right? You know, another way to think about it is like, would you do that to your mother? Or, you know, would you treat your mother that way, you know, or, you know, best friend, right. Uh, so, [00:04:30] yeah.

Marcus Dillon: I think another couple of ways that I've heard integrity. And we're just we can talk about integrity all day, it appears. But, uh, is would you. You know, it's the right call when nobody else is watching. And then the way to pass it through the integrity test is the Wall Street Journal test. If this were to show up, published on the front page of the Wall Street Journal tomorrow. Are you okay with that? What that means. And so I think those are a few different ways to kind of test yourself, because, you know, you serve a lot of CPAs [00:05:00] and we probably all know that integrity is, you know, plastered throughout their mission, vision, values and probably on their website a few different times.

Fletcher Wimbush: So yeah, and I think it's important jumping off point to the talent, uh, conversation because one component of talent acquisition, uh, conversation, especially for small CPA firms who are going to particularly have a challenge of acquiring the best talent out there, like the most qualified pedigree when I say that. So, you know, uh, is, you know, [00:05:30] we may find ourselves in a situation where we're maybe not we're having to develop talent, we're having to hire maybe offshore, or we're having to hire younger talent or folks that maybe took a less traditional path to get into the accounting and finance world. And when I see this all the time as talking to the talent pool that's out there, we see these people inside of firms and, you know, eventually they're making a move for whatever reason, and they're not licensed. And but they've been doing it for ten years and they've been doing the work and they know how to do the [00:06:00] work. And their story always is that they started as like the admin or whatever, or some entry level role as a bookkeeper. And then they grew within the organization. But what they all had is high integrity in order to for that to happen, you don't have a ten year relationship with somebody who has low integrity. Right.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah, you would hope not.

Fletcher Wimbush: You'd hope not. There's always exceptions to every rule.

Marcus Dillon: But yeah, because you said that that's one that's the most important trade out of those three traits. How do you [00:06:30] test for that or look for that during the hiring process?

Fletcher Wimbush: Yeah. Well there's a couple of really great techniques. I mean, one, assessment tools, as you guys mentioned, that's kind of where my world began as a like a little kid. My dad made me take all these assessment tests. Um, and then I sort of, as a teenager fell in love with the concept, but, uh, attitude and integrity is the most predictive thing in the assessments and is weighed the most heavily in when we're scoring candidates. Right. And so it's [00:07:00] lumped into one, you know, one bucket. So you know attitude things like, you know you're half glass full you know, uh, or empty or you uh, you know, are you hyper critical or are you more of a supportive type of feeling person. Right. Uh, but then when you get to honesty, honesty is everything we talked about when we defined, uh, integrity. Do what? Do the right thing when nobody's looking. You know, your your motives, right? You know, all these kinds of things that we were [00:07:30] defining it as. And, you know, an interesting way to determine, uh, honesty. And we can do a little test here. And I had a funny story. Two days ago, I had a prospect call me up and was like, hey, I'm interested in your integrity test. We have some other integrity tests for frontline workers. Blue collar workers. Uh, it's different than the ones we use with the CPA firms. And he's like, well, how do you guys know? Like whether somebody's being honest with you or not? So we're going to do a little role play here, guys. So you're on the spot. So, uh, Marcus and [00:08:00] uh, and Rachel, um, have you ever told a white lie or have you told one maybe recently?

Rachel Dillon: Oh, I'm sure.

Fletcher Wimbush: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Have you ever, like, hurt somebody's feelings?

Marcus Dillon: Yeah. Yeah, it depends on the the day and time for sure.

Fletcher Wimbush: Yeah, yeah. And, you know, have you ever made a, like, major mistake in your career at work.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah.

Rachel Dillon: Yes.

Fletcher Wimbush: And then my favorite one is you guys ever drive above the speed limit.

Marcus Dillon: Yes. [00:08:30]

Fletcher Wimbush: Yeah. Okay.

Rachel Dillon: So Marcus, more so than me. Just just so we make that clear.

Fletcher Wimbush: In my house, it's the other way around. Uh, my wife's always, like, drive faster. I'm like, I'm already going 85, like, you know, um, no. So if you guys had told me no to those questions, what would I now know about you?

Marcus Dillon: You're you're not truthful. You're not always honest.

Fletcher Wimbush: Yeah, you're not being honest with me. Now, I don't know about what. I mean, I know in those questions you're not being honest with me about those particular things. And maybe [00:09:00] you're the person who's brutally honest with everybody. You never tell a white lie. I gotta I think I got a husband and wife here, right? Like Marcus, you always tell her she looks great, right? You know, not to use these, you know, but, uh, whether you like the outfit or not, right. You know, um, but, like, that's.

Marcus Dillon: Because the the consequences on the other side of that are not always the best. So you always have to make sure that the compliments are always above board.

Fletcher Wimbush: And that's appropriate to be complimentary and to be supportive. And if she likes that [00:09:30] outfit then you know, good for her, right? You know like, yeah, I think it looks great too, you know. Um, so uh, but that's a common example, right? We've all been in relationships, you know, probably say, you know, nice things to our friends. We don't want to tell them. We don't want to be mean to them and be like, I don't like your haircut or whatever, right? You know, um, so but the point is, is, is, you know, I might not you're not being probably honest with me. Maybe again, you're one of those people. You don't drive above the speed limit ever. But if [00:10:00] consistently. I've asked you guys a bunch of questions, and I did this with a guy, and he he answered like four out of five, like, no, I don't do that. Or and went on to justify, well, I don't really drive over the speed limit, but you know, like sometimes I, you know, like, you know, I'm like, dude, you're a liar. I don't, I just and I'm pretty blunt guy, right? I'm like, I don't see us having a relationship, a working relationship together because what we do is not aligned with you. Right? [00:10:30] Like, even if you like what I do, like, there's going to be a problem if we work together. Sure. Right. Yeah. I'm sorry. Uh, but somebody's willing to to tell you those things, right? You don't know what else they're willing to lie about or where else, or however else they're willing to, you know, have their own motive that might cause a problem and then fracture a relationship, right?

Marcus Dillon: Yeah. No. And it's an extension of you as the owner or the leader, and that person's in your care, and they're either going to maybe, you [00:11:00] know, lie or embellish the truth to make themselves look better or cover something up that they made a mistake on. So, uh, yeah, coming straight out of the gate. Integrity, honesty. That's I mean, that's a core trait that you can't you can't skip.

Fletcher Wimbush: Yeah. You can coach people with integrity. Right? So if they lack the skills and the experience, uh, those people, they're coachable. Right? They'll be like, oh, yeah, I don't know that. Can you help me? How do I learn that? Oh, I made a mistake. Or [00:11:30] when you bring the mistake to them like, oh, I didn't realize that. How do I get better? Right. That kind of goes back to Rachel, your definition that you defined. Right? You can fix mistakes that were, you know, uh, not done with an ulterior motive behind them, right out of maybe, uh, uh, Unaware, right? You know they didn't know better or lack the skill or lack the awareness that this thing was supposed to be done a certain way. Right. Again. And those people are going to receive that. Well, they're going to receive feedback. Well, they're not going to [00:12:00] be defensive, argumentative. They're not going to lie or, you know, keep covering it up. And you know that nobody likes to deal with those people.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah. Well, I would be lying if I said we got it right every time, especially when it comes to hiring. And so, Rachel, I know we've evolved our hiring process quite a bit and relied on, uh, people that are much better at it than we are. Um, you know, the days of posting directly onto LinkedIn or indeed are well beyond us. And I think speaking [00:12:30] for most of our peers and friends in this industry, it seems like everybody's got a role to fill within their firm. And there's just it's the hardest part of the job, it seems some of the days. So, Rachel, you want to touch on, you know what intrigued us with Fletcher and kind of go from there.

Rachel Dillon: Yeah. So when Fletcher and I talked and were planning out kind of this episode and, you know, should we meet? Should we talk and share with other accounting professionals? Um, Fletcher actually [00:13:00] brought the idea of the interviewing techniques to select the best candidate every time. And that becomes really important when you've selected a few that were not quite up to par, um, in any area. Right. And so that is very intriguing to think like consistently hire the best. And I think we can all gather from this when we talk about best, we're talking about quality of person and then [00:13:30] also quality of output that they will be able to do within your team and for your clients. And so, uh, really want to hit there. But even that kind of want to back up. Fletcher, if you'll share with us just a little bit on what is the hiring landscape kind of looking like right now?

Fletcher Wimbush: Yeah, well, that's the bad news, unfortunately. Right. And, uh, you know, it's rough. That's the bottom line, right? Um, you know, for, I [00:14:00] don't know, 20 plus years they've been producing less accountants out of college universities. And, you know, it's always probably been a problem, but it's continued to accelerate. They produce less. But then, you know, these younger professionals, they don't stay in the public accounting profession. They they do. They'll go into small midsize large firms and eventually 4 or 5, six, seven, even, even sometimes later in their career exit and go into industry. [00:14:30] And so the public accounting sector itself is just a brain drain. And you guys all know that it's not a mystery. You go to the conferences and you see each other and you talk. You're all the same generation and have the same listen to the same music, watch the same movies, and your kids are all the same age now, right? You know, so. But which is cool. But who's going to take over your firm or how are you going to scale your business if you can't, you know, keep and retain. So that's the downside. So we've got you've got to become the employer of choice. We've got to rethink again we [00:15:00] the days of posting a job ad and phenomenal people banging at your door, wanting a job, willing to do whatever it takes to work for you.

Fletcher Wimbush: They do not exist in this sector at all, period. Right now. You can change that. So you can really put the effort in to make yourself the an employer of choice. Um, and you can be more attractive to the market out there. And um, that that's kind of where it begins. So I would say there is [00:15:30] a small sliver of hope that the numbers are going up a tad, uh, where there are more kids coming in. And this is purely speculative, but we're seeing that the tech industry sort of collapsing itself in a sense of like 20 plus years of kids not going into accounting and engineering. And they went into tech or software engineering? Uh, not physical engineering. And now all of a sudden, there's a glut of talent in that space. And AI and market forces are now making [00:16:00] those devaluing those jobs quite a bit. And I think some kids are starting to get the memo, like, hey, there's a talent deficit here. Now when there's supply and demand problem, what does that mean? The people going into your industry are going to get paid more. And if you don't move, if you don't keep up with that, you're going to be challenged. So that's not an easy pill to swallow. You're going to have to pay people more.

Marcus Dillon: It's not at all. And that's that's a shift that people should be paying attention to. And, um, you know, speaking from experience, a lot of people in that [00:16:30] 50, 60 plus demographic that you pointed out there just head down trying to get work out the door. Right. Production mindset and looking for somebody to hire to help them with that production. They're maybe not being as strategic as one would like. And then they wake up one day and there's there's no second chair or third chair leaders around them, which is a scary spot to be in. So our hope is that listeners obviously are tuning in today to, uh, understand what they should be doing to become an employer of choice, to [00:17:00] start to investigate and work themselves out of certain roles and elevate and delegate, um, to that. So that being said, how do you become an employer of choice?

Fletcher Wimbush: Yeah. So there's three ingredients. It's, uh, you know, personal and professional growth. Um, as human beings, again, we can throw asterisks on this. We all want to grow. Every single one of us. I'd be categorical about it. You can give me the example of your deadbeat cousin, but I don't care. We all want as human beings, it's in our DNA to evolve and [00:17:30] to to grow. And since we spend a lot of our lives being productive at work, we want to grow professionally and but ultimately, personally is is huge, right? We want our families to grow. We want to have them have a better quality of life. Our kids, our extended families. We want them to have a better quality of life, and we want to grow there and and money. Right? We need money to operate in a capitalistic society. And so that's a key component of of that. So those are the three things. So you [00:18:00] have to have all three of those ingredients. And I think there's a lot of talk with gurus about culture culture. And that's absolutely crucial. But culture doesn't mean you get to give somebody a 30% discount on what you pay them. Like, I'm sorry, I gotta I gotta pay bills, sure.

Fletcher Wimbush: And 30% a lot or, you know, and that's sometimes a lot where it heads. So you can maybe not be at the upper upper echelons of comp and offer better personal [00:18:30] and professional growth. You may also lose those people and you need to also have a plan. I have a client who he was very intentional about this. He's like, here are your three paths. Like, you can come work for me, we're going to develop you. We're going to train you. We're going to teach you how to be really successful. And if at some point you want to go out on your own, we're going to support you to do that. Just flat out let. But let's have that conversation ongoing. Or you can become a sort of a technical leader like, you know, maybe not client facing. We have that need in our firms. [00:19:00] And then you have the other path of becoming a revenue generator, a client facing side of it. Right. And here are the paths. And here's how we're going to develop you to reach each one of those. And it's just very transparent. And that's true whether or not you're transparent about it by the way.

Marcus Dillon: Sure. Yeah that's good. So employer of choice doesn't necessarily mean remote hybrid or in-office kind of setting. And I think that was a question that that we had for you. Given the current landscape, [00:19:30] how important is remote hybrid or in-person even today?

Fletcher Wimbush: Well, Covid was just, you know, screwed all of us up, you know? So let's just, you know, it is brutal. So, look, I think by, by and large, we're starting to see the swing. So COVID everybody I want I want to be remote. I want to be remote. You know, uh, I think you guys run primarily remote operation. Uh, we went fully remote. There's huge upsides and downsides to going that [00:20:00] way. There really are. I don't know, I mean, I think we do it pretty well in my organization. Sure, there are parts that it's like it's just not great. And there, you know, we'll work to improve that. But we will miss that. Like in-person collaboration component of being overhearing each other in the office and being able to have hallway conversations, go out to lunch together like that's just not going to be there, period. Like just doesn't exist. I mean, again, we have hacks and little things, tricks that we do to try to mitigate that. Um, the good news is I think [00:20:30] we're starting to see the talent say, you know, I want to be back in the office. I'm sick and tired of my spouse and my kids and my, you know, working out of my garage or whatever, right? You know, um, but, you know, there's still, uh, a subset of the talent who really wants to be remote. Um, so, you know, I think it's something you have to just be very intentional about. You got to lean all the way in, like, maybe you guys, and maybe you could tell, tell, tell the audience. I'd love to hear your take. Like you, I think, am I correct? You guys have kind of leaned all the way in right on the remote [00:21:00] side.

Marcus Dillon: We've leaned in, but we still have office space and, you know, even acquisitions and acquiring people that are still in office together with the desire to go remote or hybrid. And so, Rachel, I know that you've got us you've got some insight on that as well given your role.

Fletcher Wimbush: So you got both.

Rachel Dillon: Yes.

Fletcher Wimbush: In office people and remote.

Rachel Dillon: Yeah we do. And I will say, you know, traditional starting out still a business and brand [00:21:30] team are majority remote team members during or right after Covid. We had team members who since we were remote, actually moved states. So they moved cities or moved states, and we were able to retain them. They were able to retain their position. Um, because we are remote with the firm acquisitions that we have done, they have primarily been in office. And so to keep consistency for the clients, at least for the beginning of the [00:22:00] relationships, we have committed to keeping their offices open. And so what that means is what does hybrid or remote look like for this really in-person first environment. And so that's what we are currently working through. When I am looking to fill a position, most people want the flexibility. If it's not going to be fully remote, they want hybrid for a specified amount of days. Yeah. [00:22:30] Um, so not just you have the ability if you needed to, but you would only be required to come in office, you know, one day a week, two days a week, something set that they can kind of plan around and figure out what does their schedule look like.

Fletcher Wimbush: And that goes and that goes back to what I'm talking about, this consistency and message and intentionality. And I think that's one of the challenges, right. Sometimes people are too fuzzy about this stuff. Well yeah, we'll let you be hybrid, but there's not clear definition. [00:23:00] Right.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah.

Rachel Dillon: Yeah, I think I think yes. Because that one side of the equation has something in mind of what they interpret that and think that means. And then the other side of the equation has something completely different as to what does that actually mean. Um, and so I know just with the people that I've been talking to, they if they don't feel whatever has been communicated as clear, thankfully they will ask and we can walk through exactly what does that mean, even [00:23:30] from something as simple as, uh, we have flexible working hours? Well, what does flexible working hours mean to you? What does it mean for, you know, me working. And so even that is something that we had to get super clear on with new team members or new prospective team members of. We do have flexible working hours, but not during our core working hours Monday through Thursday 10 to 2. Like there is really no flexibility there unless you're taking [00:24:00] PTO. Um, everything else is start and end time is pretty flexible.

Fletcher Wimbush: Yeah, yeah. So that's good stuff. And I think the younger people, by and large want to come back to the office. And then the challenge is it is the more experienced people that tend to want to not be in A and I, the story always is like what you just said, hey, you know, we had these tenured members, Covid happened, they went remote, they moved out of state and they've been great and it works fine. But you guys had a history with those people. And I have that same story, right? So [00:24:30] onboarding new people into a fully remote environment just takes a tremendous amount of structured communication and intentionality in how you do that. And when we, you know, are this fully in house in in office operation or we're in hybrid, this is really difficult, right? Because now we get to live in both worlds and you the communication breaks down. That's what it is. It's the communication lines really are weak and why it doesn't work very well for many people. [00:25:00] Um, so you got to get really structured in those communication channels and frequencies like the cadence, I guess maybe better term for that. Right. Um, and just very, very intentional about that because otherwise. Yeah, it's problematic.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah. We've learned through experimentation and failure, you know, to where we're at today and having great people. And to Rachel's point, someone may say that they're ready for a remote environment or that that they've worked [00:25:30] in a remote environment before, and then they come over to somebody like us that we give a lot of flexibility, but we also, um, you know, demand things in exchange for that flexibility. And showing up is half the battle nowadays. And, um, some people are just better in an office environment. We don't know that until on the other side of hiring them and then going through their 30, 60, 90 day assessment to really make sure that during that onboarding and that team member, [00:26:00] that they are moving along to the right path to be successful long term with that role. So it's.

Fletcher Wimbush: Great. It's a great interview question. You know, how would you want to be onboarded into into a new role? Yeah, super open ended. Uh, where did you have a great, you know, onboarding experience in the past and where did you not? Another great interview question. I love those in those questions are universal. So you could say that about any topic. Um, who was your what was your favorite job? [00:26:30] What was the thing that you liked doing the most in that last role, right? Those are some really, uh, strategic interview questions because the person will say, well, I love doing the audits. I'm hiring you to prepare taxes. Truth came out right. Give people the opportunity to be honest with you, because a lot of people want to point the finger and say, like they lied. You know, like, oftentimes [00:27:00] we're begging them to lie. We're sort of forcing them to lie to us. Do you like doing taxes? I love doing taxes. Well, of course you're going to tell you that, like, it's not a fair question and it's not fair for you to evaluate them on that, right? I want a job, I need a job, or I'm interested, for whatever reason, in working for you. Right. And you ask a loaded question like that, you're always going to get a loaded answer in response. So a better way of asking that is [00:27:30] the format that I gave you.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah. No. It's good.

Rachel Dillon: That's good. Okay. Along those same lines, let's go through the interviewing techniques to help us consistently select. So those are some great questions. We thankfully use a few of those which helps like confirm or affirm that we're doing maybe something right in our hiring process. Probably got them from straight from you, Fletcher. So, um, what are some interviewing techniques that [00:28:00] will help us select the best candidate every time? We don't have to go through that 90 days or longer of pain before figuring it out.

Fletcher Wimbush: Yeah. Well, there's from an assessment perspective, I'll just break this down as quickly as possible. But um, so structured interviews paired with candidate scorecards. So candidate scorecard would be extracted from your job analysis. And you know, you got to go through this exercise. But we'll talk about that later. And I'll give you guys a GPT and I'll give you some guidance on how to [00:28:30] do a proper job analysis. You can share with the audience. You got to do that exercise. Don't half ass it. Okay, so from there you identify here are the quality skills, experiences, attributes that my candidate needs. And from there, everything you do in the interview process should be structured to help you evaluate the candidate for that. That is moves the needle increases predictiveness by 20 to 35%, roughly there in terms of your ability to predict. So if you're 50 over 50 then that might improve you [00:29:00] to like 60 to 70%, uh, you know, accuracy right there alone. I'm going to and I'm going to talk through a structured interview one possible. So it's structured interview is not it could be a series of ten or 12 or 20 behavioral based interview questions. Um, but I'll give you a structure as well here at some point.

Fletcher Wimbush: And then, uh, job knowledge tests particularly important, I think, in your guys's sector. And so that could be a more of like multiple choice. It could be like a [00:29:30] take home project, or it could be like, bring them into the office and have them review and prepare a tax return. Or write a memo to a client and give notes to a junior if they're a more experienced person in a little like talk, talk through like, why did you, you know, take that strategy or you know, what did you see or whatever. Right. So that's that's also probably like number 2 or 3 on the most predictive side of things, uh, cognitive ability. That's right up there in the top six, 5 or 6 things and that [00:30:00] and those each move the needle like 10 to 20%, uh, statistically. And then integrity is right up there also that tend to kind of 30% needle mover in terms of predictiveness. And so I want to try to cover all of those things, um, in so with some assessments and some working interviews, some interactions. So those are kind of tools that you can use that are maybe not interview questions necessarily, but part or part [00:30:30] of it. But I have really two major interview questions that I ask people that this is how you get to like a really simple, universally applicable, uh, structured interview.

Fletcher Wimbush: So number one, uh, in your most recent role or in your career, what was your most significant achievement? And whatever the answer to that is tells you a lot about that person, right? Um, you know, if it was like I [00:31:00] had a 98% efficiency rate at my last firm and was the top biller, right? Versus like, everybody liked me. I'm glad everybody liked you. That's just an entry fee for me. Like everybody better like you, right? You know, otherwise you don't work here. I can't you can't be a part of my, you know, culture, my team. Right? So you'll get some very interesting answers. I like to break that down by role. So in in And so if I go through, I like [00:31:30] I want to back up. I missed a part here, but uh, the best like long in-depth interview is what we'll call a career performance history interview. And I'll take you back. You know, Marcus, we can do a little quick mini role play, but I you you went to high school, you graduated. You went straight to college, I assume. Or is that accurate?

Marcus Dillon: I did, yeah. Okay.

Fletcher Wimbush: Yeah. Cool out of. Where'd you go? Just out of curiosity.

Marcus Dillon: Texas State.

Fletcher Wimbush: Nice.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah. In Texas. Yeah.

Fletcher Wimbush: Cool. And you graduated. What'd you do after that?

Marcus Dillon: Uh, went [00:32:00] to Big Four. Interned while I was in college, and then went to E-y straight after college.

Fletcher Wimbush: Okay. How long? How long did you spend at E-y?

Marcus Dillon: Uh, two years.

Fletcher Wimbush: Okay. What'd you do after that?

Marcus Dillon: Uh, I actually went to work in a smaller firm because of a family friend that worked there and got to learn both small firm audit and small firm tax.

Fletcher Wimbush: Yeah. And how long did you work there?

Marcus Dillon: Six years. Before going out on my own and acquiring a book of business and. Yeah.

Fletcher Wimbush: Awesome. And [00:32:30] so now I can say that small firm, what was the name of it? Or you can make it up if you don't want to share.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah, yeah. Uh, John Jones. John Jones and company. Right? Yeah.

Fletcher Wimbush: Cool. And so, uh, during your time there, you know, uh, what would you say your most significant accomplishment was?

Marcus Dillon: Survival.

Fletcher Wimbush: Okay, tell me more about that. What do you mean by that?

Marcus Dillon: I would just I would just say serving clients. Ups and downs through the deadlines. Always making sure that returns went out on time and that clients were properly [00:33:00] served.

Fletcher Wimbush: Yeah. So tell me more about what you sow. Right. Tell me more, tell me more. How'd you do that? Who else was involved? Uh, you know, how'd you learn to do those things? How did you figure it out? Right. Uh, what was the timeline? When did this happen? So that's very relevant. When you ask a question like this, at some point, you want to understand. Did this happen 30 years ago or has this happened last week? Right. Um, but now I'm also forcing the timeline by picking out that one point in your career. [00:33:30] Right? And so I want you to just dig into the weeds there. Um, okay. So that's a really great way. Again, that is not telling you what I want to hear. I'm just letting you tell me what you're most proud of. Right. And that's very telling again, because what you don't say are things that you're not good at. You don't like doing. You never don't have experience. I don't know which of those categories it falls into, but it will be one of those categories, right? The things that you get excited talking about are the things that you're [00:34:00] good at. Yeah. So now I know what I'm buying. And if that doesn't match what I need, like you tell me all about how great you were at audits, and I need a tax professional. I said, well, that's that's amazing. Uh, I really appreciate your time. I'm not going to be the right home for you. Like, I need to find help. You find a place where you can just be stellar at audits, right? You know. Yeah. So, uh, also, there's, you know, you'll find a lot of just character stuff comes out, right? Like, again, you know, the more you do this, the more you'll be able to compare [00:34:30] people. At first it may be difficult to say like, well, that sounds great, but is it really? You know, everything will sound great. Um, the other thing I can ask is like, who was the partner that you reported to there? Marcus at John Jones.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah, apparently John Jones, uh, the guy with the name on the door. Right. Yeah.

Fletcher Wimbush: Well, okay. But but I'm not going to make an assumption there. I don't know, like, another partner could have been, you know, uh, John Doe or, you know, but, um. Yeah. Great. You know, uh, if we were to [00:35:00] move forward in the process, could you get could you call John and check up with them and catch up and get him to agree to talk to me for a few minutes?

Marcus Dillon: Yeah. For sure.

Fletcher Wimbush: Okay, cool. What do you think you'll say about you and the time you two spent working together?

Marcus Dillon: Oh, uh, I'm sure he would have some great things to say as far as how we serve clients together. But then, um, you know, was upset that I did leave because he had goals for me as a partner in his own [00:35:30] firm, and then that didn't align with our family goals to go out on our own. So I think, I think that's, uh, that's kind of where we're at, you know, and I feel really nervous, like. Yeah, like I'm, I don't think Rachel's going to hire me for the job.

Fletcher Wimbush: You know?

Rachel Dillon: So I'm like, laughing. I'm like, he's answering those questions all wrong. Like, his biggest accomplishment was going from an auditor to taking over their tax practice as tax manager. Right. So he not only learned tax but then took over and [00:36:00] led the whole tax department. So I'm like, you already failed Marcus. I would have already answered your interview questions better.

Fletcher Wimbush: And that's a great point, Rachel. Now we're on the fly here. And you know, I'm putting Marcus on the spot here. I'm grilling him. Right. You know, um, look, you know, I don't you don't I'm not necessarily. The goal is not necessarily to, like, grill or like, blindside your candidate. Now, we've skipped all the, like, pleasantries. Hopefully, you know you want to set a tone here, right? With the candidate. You want to make it friendly, and you can be. You can [00:36:30] give them grace, and you can ask these questions again and again, like again. If they give you kind of a weak answer like survival. Sorry, that's kind of a weak answer. Uh, but if you say, well, that I can appreciate that I've been through that. I mean, look, if you're a CPA, you all went through survival mode at some point in your career. Probably. Right? I can resonate with that. Um, but, you know, you can give them a second chance and say, well, you know, is there something else that you know, you're particularly proud of as it relates to your work? [00:37:00] You know, like, so you can you can help them in that, you know, along to you, you know, and you do want to be as friendly as possible and asking these questions. But you do need to stick to the guns.

Fletcher Wimbush: Like especially that reference question. Like I need a definitive answer. Will John talk to me or not? Yeah, because you'll give me every excuse in the book. It's like, well, he's retired. Well, I don't really care that he's retired. That's not relevant now if he's dead. Okay. All right. I can't talk to the guy, but then I can speak for, like, well, did he have another partner or another accounting [00:37:30] manager or tax manager I can start fish for like, the next best, you know, reference, but you know, it doesn't work there anymore. Hr has a policy against it doesn't is retired. None of those are reasons why you can't get in touch with John and ask him to talk to me for a few minutes to, to vouch for you, right. That's an integrity thing, by the way. So that's a measure of integrity, right? If John doesn't like you or think that you were shady or not ethical or just bad, or like it could be you're a bad [00:38:00] employee or had bad integrity, or it could be that you were not very good at your job. It could be both of those things. And this actually just happened with one of, uh, a firm that we're talking to. They wanted to hire an admin, and they were like, she's really great, this and that, and she's got experience working for a tax firm.

Fletcher Wimbush: And I was like, well, you need to call. You need to talk to the reference. I don't really care. And they're like, well, the guy gave me kind of a bad reference one time and and they said, he said something that made me think the person was good, and we hired him and didn't turn out to be good. So I don't [00:38:30] really trust the guy. And I was like, well, maybe you're asking it all wrong. So when you get the guy on the phone, yeah, you softball. John, tell me about Marcus. You know, how how you know, how was it? And he's going to say generally nice things probably if he's willing to get on the phone, he's going to say nice things. Uh, sure. Now, if he's not willing to get on the phone, I know that's everything I need to know. Like he doesn't like you. I don't know why, but he doesn't like you enough to do that. And if the last five of your bosses or three of your bosses are all unwilling to get on the phone, that's [00:39:00] a track record. That's all I need to know. I can forgive one. Maybe. Right. But, you know, multiple are unwilling to go to bat and spend five minutes saying nice things about you.

Fletcher Wimbush: Like, that's scary, guys. Okay, so but then I get on the phone, you icebreaker. Hey, Marcus, you know, tell me about Rachel. Like, you know, how has she been as a teammate, you know, you're going to say some nice things and it'll be pretty washy probably. Well, on a scale of 1 to 10 on, out of all the other people you've had working for you, all the [00:39:30] tax people that have come through your firm you worked with, how would you rate, you know, uh, her performance overall? Right. And so the client did this with the admin. And so it started out fairly nice, friendly comments. And the guy's like a six. Oh, okay. Well, why? Tell me more. Right. Why give him six? And the truth comes out. Whoa. All of a sudden. So that quantification piece, that sort of like boxing people into sort of, [00:40:00] like, really quantify something is very subjective, ultimately. Right. Can really put the put the kind of the truth serum into that, that conversation. I'm going to ask the same question of you. You know, I'm going to say, you know, how do you think John's going to rate your performance? And you two should be within like a point of each other. It should be a pretty similar story, right?

Marcus Dillon: Ultimately, yeah.

Fletcher Wimbush: And I'll tell you, for the good people, it is good.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah. So so you dig in on the interview questions. How many people is it ideal to [00:40:30] have in an interview setting with a candidate?

Fletcher Wimbush: All the stakeholders need to be involved. I mean, I would bring them all into, you know, the latter, the last two steps. So I do phone screen. Phone screen is not a just pleasantries thing. Like let's talk some. Let's get to some important information. In 30 minutes, I can find out a lot about you. And generally I'm asking for your first reference in that first 30 minutes. So okay, that's my first litmus test. Like if I try to get a reference from your previous employer and I'm [00:41:00] asking you about that and you're ducking and dodging and telling me no, or, you know, not being elusive to that question. I already know I got a bit of a problem on my hands, and that's five minutes into meeting you. I asked that question within five minutes of meeting. Almost. Okay, so after I get through pleasantries and the tell me what you did there some basic stuff, right? I'll just jump right in and be like, okay, uh, then you assessments I typically like to do, and then I do a deep dive interview that takes like 2 to 3 hours. Guys, I'm [00:41:30] going to do one with a client this afternoon for them. I'm going to help facilitate that meeting. But it takes to go through that career history and to do it properly and to really dig into all that nitty gritty, to really understand what you did at John Jones and how you progressed from being an auditor to a tax manager, and why you liked you so much, and how that led you to opening your own firm. I mean, like, that's a long conversation to get because I want to get into every detail there. Who? Why? What? When? How? What was the impact? What how did that help [00:42:00] the firm? How did that prepare you to be your own owner? I mean, I don't know the answer.

Fletcher Wimbush: All these little micro questions that are stem from that kind of one line of line of conversation. Right. Okay. Um, and then typically I do what I recommend is a working interview that's half to full day And that's a good opportunity for people to meet maybe the lesser influencers in the decision making process. Uh, you can have a meet and greet, little chat, little this or that, but in that in depth interview like the one I'm going to conduct later this afternoon, [00:42:30] I tell clients like, I'm not, I will not do this for you. You're paying me to do this, but I will not do it for you unless you bring all the stakeholders into the conversation, because you guys got to see it from the horse's mouth. Like, yes, I'll facilitate, I'll make it happen. But I am not going to translate my feelings. I'll tell you my feelings, but you guys got to make up your own mind based on the observations there, so that makes it really efficient too. So if, say there's three partners and they all want to be involved and they're all stakeholders, imagine trying to schedule [00:43:00] three in-depth interviews for a candidate like now you're yeah, you know, seven steps, eight steps into the process for it. Everybody's impossible to get scheduled. So you're not you're going to lose your candidates if you if you do it that way. Yeah. And if you do a group interview, do your best to set the candidate. Ease. Like be friendly. Like, even if you decide halfway through. You don't like this person. Be nice.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah, well, in today's today's environment, what is the pace of all these different? You know, from first [00:43:30] phone call to that last interview? In an ideal world, how long is that? Five day a week? Two weeks? Five days. Okay, that's pretty specific.

Fletcher Wimbush: Uh, what I would like to see, I'd say realistically, two weeks, you know, but it can be done. So Monday I can do a phone screen with you. Tuesday you can complete the assessment. Wednesday you can do come in and do a career history interview with me for 2 to 3 hours Thursday. I can speak to your references. Friday I can have you in for a working interview and Monday I can have an offer to you.

Marcus Dillon: Okay, that's boom, boom boom. That's [00:44:00] good.

Fletcher Wimbush: And that's how fast it should take. And again, realistically with scheduling and people are all busy and time of year like for this time of year is kind of a dicey time of year to be hiring because deadlines and things, um, you know, two weeks is probably more, realistic, a fair, you know, but no more. If it goes over two weeks, you're you're that candidate's good. You just your odds of capturing that candidate go down precipitously. You just lost your candidate.

Rachel Dillon: I would say that's true for us. Like just [00:44:30] experience wise people who are good have offers coming in. You know, I would say our average time is probably two weeks. Yeah. Um, but during that two weeks, they'll have other offers coming in. Uh, probably something for us to look for is if they don't have any other offers coming in during that two weeks, maybe we should, uh, continue asking more questions as to why they're not having additional offers or applying. Maybe they're not applying anywhere else, but.

Fletcher Wimbush: Yeah, don't be afraid [00:45:00] to ask them to in the interview process. Like, where else are you interviewing? Because the guy we're interviewing this afternoon, he's turned down three offers from three firms. Now, I know this just from I haven't talked to the guy yet, but I know this from the process and that's very telling. Like why? Why did you turn those down? But you know, we have we know why. And there's different things. It was like there's not a clear path to partnership there. You know, the work that they do is not interesting to me. I know there was a variety of different reasons there that, you know, again, that's that kind of like [00:45:30] what did you like most about your last role. Right. Like now the truth comes out, right. Now I know what I, if I, if I am going to be a match with this person, uh, what I need to do, like, what I need to do for them. Right. He's telling me that's good. And, you know, to accelerate the process, too. That's the other thing, I guess, like, oh, I think I need to make a decision by Wednesday. Like, let's get these steps done.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah, yeah. The the higher slow and fire fast. Right. But two weeks [00:46:00] you can that can be slow and you can slow yourself down enough to make really good decisions between each of those touch points. And I'm sure you, you have in that five day example, certain exit, you know, opportunities for a candidate. They're not moving forward unless that that conversation of the day went really well.

Fletcher Wimbush: Yeah, exactly. I mean, if I, you know, if I the, the phone screen goes well or, you know, and then they bomb the assessments, then I'm pulling the rip cord probably. Right. Yeah. Or if the phone screen [00:46:30] goes okay and I'm like, oh, and then they bomb this. I'm definitely pulling the rip cord. Right. So you're gathering evidence on your candidate's scorecard all along the way. So we go back to that candidate scorecard, and you may not be able to answer every question or definitively say they have that skill or that quality from your first interview or from assessments. But little by little, by the end, you better be able to clearly answer the question, do they? Are they are they rating where I need them to be at every step here? And uh, and again, if [00:47:00] too many red flags start to or yellow flags and red flags start to pile up, then that's when I pull the ripcord. You don't have to go through the whole process. If partway through, there's already a bunch of scary things going on.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah. No, it's really good. Um. And I know, I know, we're running up on time. I know you've got to jump to this interview here shortly, but before, as we wrap up, uh, you've talked a lot about your assessment. You've talked about your GPT, you've talked about all of this. I definitely want to leave listeners with the [00:47:30] ability to to take you up on some of those offers to explore what you have. Uh, we're very fortunate because within collective, our relationship with you, you provide that platform to collective members and just have worked with so many firms that we know. But if there is a listener out there that would like to learn more, how can they do that?

Fletcher Wimbush: Yeah. Well, I think first thing, everything everybody in your group knows you can come to me anytime for free, no cost. Like we'll have a conversation, an honest conversation about your situation, [00:48:00] and I'll give you the best, most unfettered, objective advice. And sometimes you might not like to hear it, but I will just give it to you, right? Because, look, I can't work with you or help you. If we're not in alignment with the problem and what the possible solutions are. If you're not willing to take the medicine, then I can't. I can't help you. Right. And that's okay. Like, not everybody's ready for it, but. So. But feel free to tap into me. I have the most unique name on earth. Thank you. Mom. Um, and so you can Google me. Uh, [00:48:30] and then you can find me on LinkedIn to reach out to me in those two places. Uh, Fletcher at discovered AI, which I'm sure will go in the show notes. And then the GPT is a free tool. It's on the GPT store. Uh, it's number one now. We're really proud of that. And, um, but, uh, that'll go in the show notes as well. I'll give you guys a link to share there, plus our e-learning. I think you can tap into that. And what else do I give you guys? I'll give you a link there with a coupon code that people can get to our e-learning, our fact driven hiring system. And so you can put your [00:49:00] staff and yourself through that. Don't just delegate recruiting. By the way, the only thing we didn't talk about, like especially in a small firm, is the owner. You're going to be very involved in this process. And if you try to delegate this to your admin, it's not going to work. Sure, it doesn't mean that they don't have a role in it to play in this process, but their role is going to be minor in this in terms of just facilitating and making things kind of move forward. But you are the one that needs to be, you know, probably doing a lot of those first calls with candidates. [00:49:30] You know.

Marcus Dillon: That's really important.

Rachel Dillon: That's really good. Fletcher, you mentioned your name. So I just have to share that before we actually ever met you, I just assumed Fletcher Winbush was like like a publishing company. Like two last names put together. Two words like that. This wasn't really a guy. Um, but you really are the guy. And we thank you for making yourself available. You have team members helping you as well so they, you know, can [00:50:00] be available to help. But, um, we have really benefited from discovered AI and your help. Our collective members have benefits, so we just want to share that and keep it going because hiring is not easy these days. Maybe it was at one time, um, but definitely not, uh, currently. So thank you again for being on the show. Thank you for being so open to share. Hopefully people had like ability to take notes, [00:50:30] but if not, you can always listen to this again. Or they can watch us over on YouTube at The Collective by DBA channel. So um, again, thank you for being here.

Fletcher Wimbush: Thanks for having me.

Rachel Dillon: Thanks for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed the conversation and want to learn more, be sure to visit collective. You can schedule a meeting directly with me, Rachel by clicking on the Contact Us page. Be sure to subscribe, like, and share [00:51:00] so you don't miss any future episodes. We look forward to connecting with you soon!