Who's Really the BOSS?

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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.

Rachel Dillon: Welcome back to another episode [00:00:30] of Who's Really the Boss podcast.

Marcus Dillon: Hey, thanks for having me back.

Rachel Dillon: Let's do a Kinley and Avery update before we go into our actual episode. I'll start with Kinley. She's first born and I don't have any favorites. I just talked to her the most recently today. So, um, Kinley is doing good. She is officially initiated into her Chi Omega sorority. Heard from some friends that we really got off easy [00:01:00] on her dues and so that's really good. And we are looking forward to seeing her over spring break. Um, coming up right as we're recording this. And so we are headed skiing with the girls and that'll be exciting. So I think that's really her her main update right now. She still has not found a way to have like an actual job and is still making money on baking things or painting things or sewing things [00:01:30] for people. So right now she's just doing like odd and end jobs, thankfully using her talents to make a little extra money. Um, but we are looking forward to her having something a little more stable coming up after this semester.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah, we'll have to, uh, I think we'll have to also share about the boy and how he reached out to me. I think that would be funny.

Rachel Dillon: Okay, well, let's just go there. Okay. So, um, which shout out because he may be [00:02:00] listening to this podcast episode, but I doubt Kinley has a friend there who reached out and scheduled time to talk with you about our recent M&A deal with the accounting firm, and so that's really cool. He is a business student and looking to go into finance and or accounting. Um, probably more leaning towards the finance side as he's looking at internships and things, but was interested and then just made that connection, expanded [00:02:30] his network a little bit and met with you before. Uh, yeah. More more than he talks to Kinley. So I think he talks to you now more.

Marcus Dillon: Than he asked me a question about his homework to, um, you know, like what? What's the biggest, uh, challenge for small businesses? And I was like, is your professor asking you this? Do I need to get credit at Baylor for this? But, yeah, like, was super impressed. Maybe something works out. Uh, graduating in four years with a, you know, double in finance and accounting wants [00:03:00] to go M&A because that's like finance is so much more fun, I guess, in the terms of how it's talked about in college. So accounting is not. Um, and then the other thing that came out of that conversation, I mean, he's what, 20 years old and he's like, I love real estate too. I own the condo and get rent from my, you know, friends who live here with me. And I'm like, dude, that's awesome. Like little, [00:03:30] uh, investor, entrepreneur. So yeah, it's kind of cool.

Rachel Dillon: He's killing it. So that's awesome. So Kinley is surrounding herself with really great people there as well. So that's fun to learn about. All right. Avery update.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah. So, Avery, uh, finished high school, um, swim season. No tears were shed. I don't think, because we have a lot of swim, you know, in front of us, but, you know, finish her high school career. Well, I think, she got a second place medal and a third place medal [00:04:00] at state. So really good. And it was their first year to be in A6A conference in Texas. So really good, talented folks swimming against her. So couldn't be more proud of that. And then, you know, we had the very next weekend was a national meet in Nashville, Tennessee that we went to. And the kids still dropping time in various races. And it's kind of cool because right now, if you follow swim, I'm sure we'll talk about it next year if we're still on the air. Right. But big 12 [00:04:30] and SEC and everything is building to NCAA swim meet. And so last weekend, big 12 was on, which is the conference that she'll be swimming in next year. And she would have placed, you know, in um, I don't know if she would have podium with her time this year if she would have been swimming already, but she would definitely been in finals. And then even the fastest heat of finals on a lot of her races. So super excited to watch her continue to swim. Um, try not [00:05:00] to make her whole life about swim, but it's, you know, kind of one of those things where it's just a lot of what she does, a lot of what she spends time on. Um, she also has, like prom coming up, which I think finding the right prom dress has been, you know, it's been interesting. I guess.

Rachel Dillon: We have. We have ordered and returned, I think two now. Um, we have talked through, what, tens, dozens? I don't even know. We've talked through a lot, but we've purchased and [00:05:30] returned to. And today the newest development with prom plans is that they want to go to our lake house, um, for prom, which is two hours away from prom. We are invited. We are invited. We are need to be the chaperons there. That's the good news. Um, and so now it's a debate on. Do they drive themselves the night of prom, meaning they'll be arriving like midnight or after. And [00:06:00] that is still to be discussed, because I don't know how comfortable I am with 10 or 12 teenagers driving super late at night for two hours. So yeah. Anyway, more more to come on that. But yeah, prom is big for her right now as well too. So.

Marcus Dillon: Well, I kind of like that idea, just because that means that I get to go to the lake house. Um, but, you know, uh, it's it's fine, so it's fine.

Rachel Dillon: Yeah. It'll be fun. Okay. Today's episode, [00:06:30] I would love for us to talk through, because this has to be at the top of most accounting firm minds right now is where is the bottleneck in our firm? Where is the bottleneck? So we're recording.

Marcus Dillon: This. Like where is the bottleneck?

Rachel Dillon: That is.

Marcus Dillon: A.

Rachel Dillon: Question for all of us all the time. Right. Because it it probably just moves like the target just moves. And then you get to move to that next area [00:07:00] of improvement. Right. So once you've corrected one area then you go to the next area and start to improve there. And so just being that we're recording here in March, it's a busy time for most accounting firms and figuring out where is that bottleneck. And so I think I think you will have the same answer as me. But what is the most common bottleneck in accounting [00:07:30] firms? Let's say 3 million and under.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah, it's got to be the owner, like whatever the owner needs to be involved in. And the only way that owners solve for the bottleneck is they work more, you know. So your car is the first one in the parking lot. It's the last one to leave. If you're virtual, you're the first one booted up. And in teams, you're the last one and you're always on two, right? Like you're always waiting for someone to ping you. Because if you're if you're like me, you don't want to slow [00:08:00] that person down. You want the trains to keep running. You want your team to keep being proactive. And as a result, you're always on like you're always available to answer questions. So my vote and I don't know if it's right, but it's the owner I think.

Rachel Dillon: So I really I feel like that that's common in most places. And I think that, you know, we call it the bottleneck. But I think most owners are trying to be kind and trying to be [00:08:30] respectful of their team and trying to be helpful to the team and the clients. And so they just think, if I just do more or if I just do it faster, it helps everyone else out. But that's not necessarily what we've experienced to be a solution to that problem.

Marcus Dillon: No. Yeah. And even though we talk a lot about delegation and building team, there's the right way to do that. And there's the wrong way to do that. And [00:09:00] this is super fresh, as many of you all know, that have like followed us, like we just recently acquired another firm in another city. Um, and that question I asked myself all the time, like, where's the bottleneck? Because as a team of about 20 people now, some people have capacity, some people have zero capacity or like just have way more work than they know what to do with. And so whenever [00:09:30] you have this like holistic view of your whole business, all your team, like your main job as a leader is to be like asking that question of like, where is the bottleneck? Where's the bottleneck today? Where's it going to be tomorrow, where's it going to be next week? And once you can get proactive on that, like then we can start to either structure team or bring in team members. And it's a constant evolution of, you know, what your business needs. What are your business had five years ago is not what [00:10:00] it needs tomorrow. So I love this conversation. Love team structure. Love team members. So it's good.

Rachel Dillon: So we grew Dylan business advisors to was it 16 or 17 maybe 18 team members where every I mean really every team member really reported to you?

Marcus Dillon: Yeah.

Rachel Dillon: And every project definitely passed through [00:10:30] you before it went out the door. And so what I think our team size was around 1617.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah. It was that was 15. And it's feeling a little bit fresh right now because I'm stepping into a role to help with Saint Louis where everything has to go back through me, right? You know, it's like delivery of the results of the tax return or of the financial or whatever the deliverable is like. I can't right now, today, I can't [00:11:00] pass that off to somebody else because a few different reasons. We want to get the clients comfortable there, let them know that we're real people. And I had a great conversation. Uh, I called an individual this week and he was so surprised as soon as he heard my name, he's like, Marcus, Dylan, you're the guy, you're the owner. And I'm like, dude, I'm. I'm just cranking out tax returns right now. That's all I'm doing. Like. And you're you're the guy that's in my call. So it was it was kind of, uh, it [00:11:30] was kind of eye opening. It was fun. It was interesting that he stopped me in my tracks and been like, why are you calling me? And I'm like, why am I calling you? Because this is what you're used to. Is is why? And don't expect it next year. Like if you're still in care of DBA, it's likely going to be a team member that calls and goes over these results with you.

Rachel Dillon: Yeah. So what are some what are some reasons that accounting firms end up in [00:12:00] this situation where the owner is the the end of every line, whether it's a people line or a project line. How do accounting firm owner, how do accounting firms end up like that?

Marcus Dillon: Um, I think we can go really deep and dark here. And I think part of it is, uh, you don't you can't rely on anybody other than yourself. You believe that fallacy that [00:12:30] everything has to be done by you because you do it better than everybody else? I think part of it is that. And, um, why would I train somebody? Why would I take the time to train somebody and then they do it wrong, or they take twice as long as me. Like there's all these excuses that we build into our our reasoning for this. And, you know, once you're able to take a step back and really think about, you know, where is my time best spent? What what am [00:13:00] I going to feel good about at the end of the day? Maybe at the end of my career where I spent my most time. Is it going to be clicking boxes and double checking things? It could be delivering results of tax returns and interacting with, you know, humans and, you know, impacting others. But it's probably not going to be the grind of the puzzle. And I think so many of us fall back into this puzzle. Right. Like debits, equal credits. Like it [00:13:30] has to work out of everything in life that's uncertain. Accounting has to equal and has to work. And so like, I think if you just go back to like what gives you comfort and knowing that accounting has to equal out and has to balance maybe some people just want to feel like secure in that little puzzle that they do and not break outside of where life can get messy. And part of that is just, you know, whether it's [00:14:00] comfort, whether it's disbelief that anybody can do it is better than you. Um, I both of those are completely false. You know, I think we're called to so much more. I think elevating others, including our own team members, is part of why they're in our care to begin with, you know? And so, um, but, yeah, I think it's it's those two for a lot of people.

Rachel Dillon: Yeah. And I think too, um, and I'll just go super surface level. Simple. Uh, one reason that [00:14:30] it ends up there is because really, the owners just don't know who to delegate it to and how to empower that person. It may feel like everyone's busy, or it may feel like the people that you have around. You don't have the appropriate skill set to do some of the things, or maybe it's even just the experience. Like they have the skill set, they're very capable, but it would just be better if somebody with a little bit more experience than them, [00:15:00] um, could just kind of review it or check it. So I think first is really looking at who is available in your team, like who is already there and what can be delegated. And we always say this is a mindset shift for a lot of people. Delegate to elevate, not delegate because you don't like doing the work or because you don't want to work, or you're tired of being the first one there and the last one gone. [00:15:30] That's not the purpose. The purpose is really to elevate that next person and start developing them as even a leader within the team, but definitely within their area of what they're working on.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah. And I think the piece there is, um, you know, there's this theory, the law of the lid. So, like, because you're, um, because of your leadership skills, maybe your organization can only ever grow to the level that you feel comfortable with. And even [00:16:00] if you think about, like, your the work that you do, the work that you delegate, the work that you allow others to do, it's because like of your comfort level. So bringing other people into this conversation, surrounding yourself with other people, like outside of your organization that are trying and experimenting and like doing different things is a real big, uh, recommendation. But I also go just back to, um, you know, whenever you assess, like someone's skill set [00:16:30] like that, they've been placed in your care as a team member. You know, they are likely better at some things than you are as an owner. So you have to figure out what those things are. And part of what we've done over the years is we've we've hired, um, and accumulated a great team of people that came from a variety of backgrounds. Some came from accounting and tax and were technically trained, but some [00:17:00] came from other industries, some came from education, some came from, you know, just people that we met along the way. And, you know, there are people that are great on the phone and they're great with clients and they, you know, really just love the interaction with people.

Marcus Dillon: And then you have other people on the team which would die, like they would crawl under their desk if, you know, the phone rang or if someone walked into their office, even though it'd be weird if they walk [00:17:30] into their home office. But, uh, yeah. And I think you play up to the strengths what people are going to feel comfortable with, like what they naturally gravitate to. And so the way that we've gotten to know what people are great at is by assessing our team throughout the years and getting to know one another better. And um, so whenever you ask that question, my my next question, instead of answering your question, which I don't answer your questions a lot of times is where do you start? And I think where you start [00:18:00] is with who you already have. And so with who you already have. Like what's the skill sets that make up that team? How are those people naturally wired? What are they good at? And then you start aligning people to tasks which are naturally, which they're naturally probably good at and gifted at. So, um, that's a very long answer, but that's kind of full circle of like, where do you start? And, you know, I think we've done a really good job of that over the years. [00:18:30]

Rachel Dillon: Yeah. So I mentioned that we were definitely, um, definitely had a bottleneck within the team. It really was to a point where there weren't any more hours in the day that we could give. We were working all of the hours that we could work, all of the days of the week that were available. And so that bottleneck really looked like full capacity. There was there was no way to take on new work because you and [00:19:00] me, because I was helping on the back end of tax administration, um, were at full capacity and couldn't give any more time. And so what we really looked at was, okay, we have like this web like organization structure of the firm, and it has the owner in the middle. And then all of these spokes where every single person, no matter what responsibilities they were handling, just pointed to you. And we started looking [00:19:30] at, okay, what if we got really specific on what roles are needed. Who is best qualified to do that role based on the responsibilities that they would have? And then we started putting that in a structure where we could share some of those review type responsibilities, where we could share some of the more complex production type responsibilities. [00:20:00] And it wasn't all just going to be in one person. The other thing was taking some of those administrative responsibilities as well, and making sure that a person who could handle those would then be in charge.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah, and I think you do have to step back from your business. The best place to start. You mentioned that web put together an org chart, you know, as as elementary as that seems like if you need to go to your website and look at who all [00:20:30] is on your team, if that's updated, pull payroll to see who all you pay if you forgot anybody. But but yeah, an org chart is very helpful to just have like a baseline and know where you're starting. And then as you start to adapt, develop, you know, different roles, maybe different skill sets, I think that's where you as like just like a coach does with any team, like how are you going to build the lineup? How are you going to evaluate [00:21:00] who the best point person is for any given role? And by knowing who's on your team, you know, you kind of have to get creative in that.

Rachel Dillon: So so talk through a little bit about we reorganized our team and it was because we were full capacity. We couldn't take on new clients. We had people calling that wanted to be clients, but it was very difficult to say yes and feel confident [00:21:30] that we were going to serve them well because of our lack of capacity. So really talk through team of three and how that structure was born for DBA.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah, and hopefully I can even answer the question of where's the bottleneck today in DBA or where could it be? Because that's the other thing. Like I know where if there was a bottleneck at this position, it would really impact all levels of team. So we thought about it. [00:22:00] We we had a variety of different services. We had tax and accounting. We had some attest services. And you know, no one person was involved in all three. We kind of had these silos set up, which is no different than firms I've worked in and I've had friends work in. So what happened in those silos stayed in those silos. And a lot of the knowledge that related to the same clients that were in all three silos never got holistically applied to the client. An example of that [00:22:30] is, you know, we made an S Corp election on a client and had somebody Different that was doing the business returns, that was doing the individuals. And so when a person picked up the individual return weeks later, they didn't pick up the new W-2 for the S corporation. That was done in planning and all this advisement. And then we had to amend the return. We caught it. But still, it's like once something like that happens, it starts. It starts you down this path of like, this can't be the best way possible. So [00:23:00] we essentially needed to bust the silos. And for our client base, given the size that we wanted to be, we knew that we could bring all the silos together and create a team that does payroll and bookkeeping, accounting and tax and advisory.

Marcus Dillon: And so we applied that team to the team of three. And each client has a team of three that does each of those services. Now not everybody is a monthly advisory client or anything like that. Maybe only an [00:23:30] annual client. And they are fully served by a client service manager, a client controller, and a client CFO. Throughout the year, and they're supported with the rest of the DBA team. So and that could be administrative positions. That could be like director level positions, which help overview and may jump in and help advise on tax or different things that are going on. But then the other, the other kind of benefit in this structure, once you develop the roles is [00:24:00] other csms, other controllers, other CFOs, you're learning together and your client benefits. So you're kind of working together within this larger organization, and clients are on the receiving end of that internal team member, improving them, getting smarter, them growing them, doing more personal development. And that that happens because they're working alongside their peers that are very similar in their role. And we see it all the time in teams. [00:24:30] It's like, hey, who knows how to do this within QuickBooks. And it's usually, let's say a CSM post that question. Another CSM will chime in like, hey, let's jump on a call real quick. I'll show you how to do that. And like that's the that's the goodness. Once you start to develop roles and then once you start to develop structure within a team.

Rachel Dillon: Yeah. And so by implementing the team of three structure where we have a dedicated person for bookkeeping, payroll, sales [00:25:00] tax, a dedicated person that supports the client service manager and provide tax preparation and tax projections, and then a client CFO who supports both of those team members and the client with business advisory, business strategy and looking at overall tax plan there as well. Um, then we were able to really start finding efficiencies for those, um, roles and [00:25:30] being very specific on What are the responsibilities for those? Um, for each of those team members to do for each client?

Marcus Dillon: Yeah. Um, having that team in place, um, and even going through the new firm. Right. The new firm that did not have that in place. And remembering back pre pre team of three in DBA is very helpful right now. Um so I think it helps [00:26:00] to see where improvements can be made on these group of clients that were now kind of getting into the DBA structure. Obviously supporting team members once they have a defined role, um, they know what success looks like in that role. They know what responsibilities are in their care for a client, and then they also know who supports them. Right? So they don't have to come to a partner level for everything. And so I think those are the things that [00:26:30] we're starting to realize again. Or it was reminders with here this recent acquisition and I'm that's what I'm hopeful for. That's what I'm excited about is like the once we get this this service team to care for clients and provide the level of service that we've seen in DBA the last 4 or 5 years and has such high marks with high NPS scores. I can't wait to see the other side of that. Now. There's work to get that in place, [00:27:00] and that's where a lot of our friends that hear us talking about this structure and talk about these roles, they have questions about how do you start, how do you get this in place.

Marcus Dillon: And and so we started with that CSM role. I remember whenever you look back at like the org chart where everybody reported to me, um, what we started to do was move these csms or these roles to where they serve the clients, like you said, bookkeeping, accounting, payroll and [00:27:30] sales tax, the things that really need to get done, you know, in the present, they're the ones that are working through the file on an ongoing basis, talking with clients about like missing items. What was this charge for? And while an owner or a leader can be doing that, it's so much easier to delegate that. So that's the position we started in. And then from from there, I actually for a while for a season, for most of the clients, I actually sat in the client controller role and [00:28:00] the client CFO role. And a lot of people ask like, how can we do this? How can we move into this? So when I, when I was sitting in those two roles and just doing everything, reviewing whatever the accountant or the CSM sent to me, then it was all Marcus from then on out, right? Like going over the results of the accounting, doing the tax return, going over the results of the tax return and advisory, and what opportunities exist in the business.

Marcus Dillon: So that next step after we got the Csms really built out was that [00:28:30] client controller role. Who else could be involved in reviewing the accounting, helping prepare the tax return and then delivering those results to the clients? And then I got to elevate a little bit over the whole kind of pod structure, if you will, because as we added team members, it just naturally filled out into this triangle of service or, you know, really team of three model, um, to where I was able to move into a more business advisory and tax advisory [00:29:00] role with majority of the clients. Now, the last step was having other people that we identified, given their skill set and their ability just to serve clients who also could be brought into that client CFO role, you know, to help lead team members and help lead clients. Um, that's that's the last part of the equation. Um, so don't jump ahead. I think that's how we started. That's what we learned as being the most successful way to implement this team of three.

Rachel Dillon: Yeah. [00:29:30] And so let's talk through what did we see immediately from putting the let's say client service manager role into place. What um, kind of what benefits or even what challenges did we run into, but what were the benefits of putting those people in a specific role with specific responsibilities and clients that they were going to work on [00:30:00] every single month, not just whoever they saw? Was the next project up?

Marcus Dillon: Yeah. Um, I think the two big benefits there is the clients start to develop a relationship with that person like that becomes their person on the team so they know who to go to for things whenever a situation arises at a client and that helps, you know, save a little bit of time for a partner or a leader. Because if the client doesn't know who to talk to, they're going to ask for you as [00:30:30] the partner or leader. So that was nice. Like they were their first point of contact on on most everything. And then the other big part of that that we realized is the work got done right. Like the accounting got touched and it got updated and all the bank feeds got cleared, bank accounts got reconciled, payroll got ran. There was never an emergency. And then sales tax got filed timely. So I would say between those two client relationships and actually getting the work done, those were the [00:31:00] the benefits, the challenges that come on the other side are capacity. Every client is just a little bit different. Their volume is a little bit different. Even if they're in the same industry. Personalities are different. People need a little bit more than others. So capacity comes into play and you still have to to recognize capacity limitations in each team member level.

Marcus Dillon: So we talked about, you know, being at capacity or extended. And as an owner, [00:31:30] I think we typically think there's 24 hours in a day, and that's not the right way to think about it, especially whenever you're thinking about team members. And so it's a lot easier to think in terms of capacity for me to think about team members, because I know that that CSM, given all they've got going on in life, they've given DBA six hours a day. And I know that I've only got those six hours. So we need to make the most of that time [00:32:00] across the team. And how can they serve the right amount of clients? How can they, you know, support the rest of the team, including me, in that six hours? And I think that's the difference. Whenever you start to dissect and start allocating work across team and across team members, versus just relying on you as the owner and knowing that you can just work a little bit later, you can wake up a little bit earlier. You can never sleep, whatever that is. Uh, because, you know, 24 [00:32:30] hours in a day, that's not healthy. That's not the best way to think about it.

Rachel Dillon: Yeah. So we definitely saw a decrease in, um, phone calls or emails coming specifically to you for those types of questions. Um, and maybe all questions, because they got comfortable with that person and just started asking them all of their questions if it was related to bookkeeping or payroll or tax or, you know, whatever it might be, that they got really comfortable with that. [00:33:00] Um, so that's yeah, that's something really good to highlight. And then the other part of that that that work was getting done, there was no we accidentally, you know, like we got 2 or 3 months behind. But it's okay. They're not really looking at it very often. We'll get them caught up when it's needed. Um, that was coming in, but it was all still coming to really one person. So multiple people are doing work, that's then coming to one person. So created a little bit of a bottleneck [00:33:30] again. And that's how we kind of saw a need for this can't be just a one person or AA1 level like a team of two necessarily that the team of three would be really beneficial.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah. And then the other piece there, you know, people every business is going to have, you know, team members transition and onboarding and offboarding. So whenever you have more than just a, you know, two man team, um, [00:34:00] it helps with that consistency in service. And so with that team of three model, if you have a team member leave, you've still got majority of the team likely in place to help continue to serve the client. That controller may be doing CSM work. If there's a CSM that is out on leave or, you know, finds a new opportunity and the same thing. If a controller is that person, the CSM is doing everything and working directly with the CFO to make sure that everything goes out on time. If that [00:34:30] is the case and there's not the immediate capacity available on the team just to re reassign um, team members within roles. So but yeah, just having that consistency, that's definitely a benefit of a team of three. And when I look at, you know, how DBA runs on a day to day basis now compared to other firms including the one that we're, you know, integrating right now into DBA? I just think back to like, why why are we doing it any different? And I think [00:35:00] clients have told us through different ways that it's a better service and they feel fully served from a profitability and efficiency standpoint. It's great because instead of a lot of tasks being done at the higher, uh, billing and cost levels, you're able to spread that out.

Marcus Dillon: You're able to bring others in. And that's not dirty to talk about profitability. It's just it's it's a business, right. And so you do things and you try to make [00:35:30] it as profitable as it can be within, you know, within reason. So allocating work to different levels that could handle it, um, was a huge win from an efficiency and effectiveness standpoint. And, you know, a few years back we got so, you know, effective. And we continue to to be after clients are in care for for a while. Um, you just start to build up efficiencies and effectiveness and you start to build capacity naturally within team. We looked up [00:36:00] and I think you mentioned like 16 or 17 people. We were able to do that same work with only 12 to 13 people. And so then it was, you know, hey, what what can we do with this excess capacity? Do we need this excess capacity or can we release these team members to go find their new adventure. And essentially that's what we had to make the hard call to do. So I would say it's just an evolution. And what we saw [00:36:30] in developing and kind of embracing this team of three model is more profitability, more owner time, more leader time to do other things and focus on aspects of the business that really move the needle more than just production work.

Rachel Dillon: Yeah. And so what that really looked like prior to putting those client service managers in their place and the whole team of three structure in their in their spot, we had team members who could very well [00:37:00] put together a tax projection, could do an advisory meeting with clients, you know, at a much different price point, categorizing transactions because they happen to have availability and there was work that needed to get done. And so by really putting in these roles and responsibilities, we were able to fix that where each person was at their appropriate place to do whatever responsibility that [00:37:30] that might be. You mentioned how we started and put in the layer of client service managers. Talk through how you transitioned from being like the controller to having multiple controllers. What was the how were we able to start to delegate that on something that's so critical and crucial that it's accurate and of good quality before it goes out?

Marcus Dillon: Well, from an accounting standpoint, the controllers are reviewing work [00:38:00] that a CSM is in care of. Right. And I was the one reviewing that. So I was helping correct and improve, you know, where there needed to be improvements in the csm's work or workflows process. So by the time those existing clients and those existing csm's had a controller come into place, the review was, I don't want to say easy, but it was easier than just starting from [00:38:30] from scratch, right? Because you already had one set of eyes on it. You already had a dedicated, you know, highly qualified person that was doing that work. So you would hope that the review just kind of moves from it moved from me to somebody that was probably reviewing it a little bit better and leading those csm's a little bit better than I had time to do. So um, really, that also just elevated the role of controller as, um, you know, being the point person for [00:39:00] Csms, helping review accounting, taking point on the tax return. And so delegating that role of tax, you know, really preparation was was big. And we have software and technology that gets majority of that into the tax program. But controllers then would, you know, facilitate use that program to review. What ended up in the tax program? Make sure it aligns with what they know to be true for their clients, [00:39:30] and based on how their csms are working, and also aligns with the more business and tax advisory conversations that maybe a CFO is having with those clients throughout the year.

Rachel Dillon: Yeah, and we even started looking at, because we have other CPAs on the team who sit in that controller role, but started looking at the complexity of the clients of who they would prepare and review. So starting with maybe least complex [00:40:00] or less complex clients to give them confidence to do, you maybe weren't reviewing them very closely anyway before they were going out. And so just putting some processes, we have some different checklists that we go off of. But documenting some things and then allowing them to prepare and review or to review each other within that controller role versus the owner has to review every single thing before it goes out the door. [00:40:30] Um, most likely there are some clients within your care that don't necessarily have to have 2 or 3 sets of review before they go out to the client.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah. No. That's right. And um, I had mentioned earlier, you know, I was the bottleneck at one time. Um, I don't think, you know, backing up from outside the Saint Louis acquisition, everything like that. I don't think that I'm the bottleneck still. You know, I think if I look where the biggest bottleneck [00:41:00] could be within the organization, it is that client controller level because they're right in the middle of everything. Right? So if they get bogged down and they can't get catch up with their review, then they can't do tax, then they can't can advise a client. They can't help do tax projections. So what we're committed to doing because we know controllers could be that, you know, that part of the organization that has a real big tendency to be a bottleneck is we're [00:41:30] continuing to build out the team below the controller. And so what we're building out is that tax team, because we have all the the necessary, like I guess, however, I would say we have all of the confidence that the accounting is being done accurately and done correctly by the Csms controllers don't have that same resource like they do for accounting in a CSM [00:42:00] for tax. And so now what we're going and investing in is that tax team that can support the controllers to kind of give them more options than just working in a tax program all alone. And we think that by them, by allowing them to delegate to others on the tax team, then that also helps free them up to do higher level work.

Rachel Dillon: Yeah. So we have added to our team of three to the to [00:42:30] the whole organization to DBA. We added a client service manager assistant to help with some of the weekly responsibilities that our client service managers do. And so what we are doing currently is adding a tax assistant in that same way. And we talked about restructuring or reorganizing a whole firm. Right. So that you can have specific roles and responsibilities that have dedicated workflows [00:43:00] and dedicated clients specific to the person so that they can build up efficiencies. Um, and so I would say for teams maybe that are very small, like teams that maybe have four people or less. Or maybe for owners who aren't ready to take that leap and reorganize or restructure, there are ways that you can still delegate things we mentioned earlier, like administrative tasks, those can also [00:43:30] be delegated out. So outsourced. What we did is probably not the advice we would give. We delegated some of those administrative responsibilities to the spouse. That's not a great plan. If you're increasing your capacity and want to spend that extra available time with your spouse, if you delegate things to them, then they have less capacity to spend time with you, so that might not be the best way to go. It [00:44:00] might be, um, if they have enough capacity to do that and take that on. But that's something to remember. So I know that we have firms and friends that Have outsourced their own, their accounting firm, accounting and payroll to a like a virtual assistant or an outsourced bookkeeper. We have a lot of firm owners who also are delegating out, like their emails and their scheduling [00:44:30] to a virtual assistant. So there are ways to increase capacity depending on where you feel you could start to create that capacity so that you are no longer the bottleneck. There are multiple ways to start making that happen within your firm.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah. I remember in one of my first mastermind groups, uh, our friend Jared was talking about, you know, different things and how he could create capacity [00:45:00] for himself as the partner and his wife worked in the firm. He's like, I think I'm going to delegate my email to her. And I'm like, that sounds like an awful idea. Like, you go on vacation, your email follows you assuming you take your spouse, right? You know, so, uh, let's think about this. You know, big picture and not maybe. And learn from. Learn from our our, uh, mistakes too. So.

Rachel Dillon: All right, so we covered, um, kind of delegating in. Two ways. [00:45:30] One, reorganize or restructure your team and how they're set up so that you can have dedicated roles, responsibilities. We talked about maybe outsourcing specific administrative or accounting tasks for the firm. If you're doing that as an owner and it's taking time away either from work or your family, right. There's only the same limited number of hours every day, but there are still a couple of other levers that we pulled to increase capacity and to [00:46:00] really free up the bottleneck that was happening at DBA. I think that that would be best saved for part two. So If I would say right now, if listeners are having a hard time thinking about, I'm too busy to even think about what are the roles I need to create and how do I put people into them, and how do I reassign clients and that sort of thing. Definitely listen to part two of this, and that will come out in a couple [00:46:30] of weeks, so that you can hear some other ideas that you may need to start in another place even before that.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah. And I think this will this episode will come out right before the tax deadline early April. Um, so if if you're listening to this currently and you're trying to just wrap up, like you said, like we're that's too big of a discussion, we can't really think through restructuring. What I would recommend you do today in the middle of trying to get through this tax season, [00:47:00] this tax deadline document what's painful. Just write it down like just grab a book, grab a notepad. And what has been painful the last few weeks. Where's pain exist today? What's in your way from ending this tax season? Well, and then once you've written that down, revisit it after tax season. And that's what we need to go tackle together. So I think those are the those are the recommendations. And like Rachel said we'll come back the second [00:47:30] time around and share a little bit more about the other levers that you can pull.

Rachel Dillon: This have been a great conversation. Um, thanks for leading. Thanks for sharing, and I'll see you on the next episode.

Rachel Dillon: Thanks for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed the conversation and want to learn more, be sure to visit collective CPA. You can schedule a meeting directly with me, Rachel by clicking on the Contact Us page. Be sure to subscribe, like, and share so you [00:48:00] don't miss any future episodes. We look forward to connecting with you soon!