Humanise The Numbers - for ambitious accountants in practice (Paul Shrimpling)

What does it take for a firm, even a specialist niche firm, to grow substantially, year-on-year, for over a decade? 

In this podcast discussion with Rob Whittall of Dyke Yaxley, USA, Rob shares the insights, ideas and strategies that have helped him grow his firm and build two teams, one in the US and one in the UK. He will also share how his specialist firm helps UK and US businesses, as well as individuals, navigate the complexities of tax across the two countries. 

Join me at humanisethenumbers.online and hear how Rob has grown a really elegant, professional firm, a firm of which he is rightly very proud.

When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Rob and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast. 

How do you transform your firm’s accounts production workflow so that you free up people's time whilst simultaneously building stronger, more meaningful, more valuable relationships with your clients? 

In this Humanise The Numbers podcast with Vipul Sheth of AdvanceTrack Outsourcing, you'll hear Vipul share insights from the many dozens of firms with which he and his team work, specifically around the magic of one or two profound shifts, or profound little changes, in the way you look at and tackle production workflow, so that you and your firm can free up time for your people and still build stronger relationships with your clients.

I hope you'll enjoy the discussion I had with Vipul as much as I did, and I truly hope that you take on board the messages that he shares.  I'm convinced, and I know because of the experience I have with other firms, that what he's talking about makes absolute sense and will deliver the results that you want for yourself and for your firm.

 When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Vipul and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast. 

It strikes me that one of the most valuable conversations you can have with a business-owner client concerns the exit from their business. When are they going to close it or sell it? How much do they want for it? And how much personally do they want to extract from the business as a result of that? A highly valuable conversation, but one with which many accountants are not entirely comfortable.

Join me on this podcast discussion with Cliff Spolander of Business Optics.  Cliff is a serial entrepreneur, having started, bought, sold and, on occasion, just simply closed 12 different businesses, and who is now helping business owners with their exit planning.

You'll hear Cliff share his insights and the thoughts, processes, strategies and conversations that drove real value into the hearts and minds of his clients and to his businesses, and that you, your team, your firm can use to deliver value for your own clients. 

Please join me at humanisethenumbers.online or go to your favourite podcast source – Spotify, Apple or whatever – and have a listen to what Cliff has to say about exit planning.

When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Cliff and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast. 

What must it be like to spend 21 years in a firm of accountants, going through the ranks, then deciding to leave and join a technology company?

In this podcast discussion with Paul Lodder of Dext, Paul shares some amazingly valuable insights into his experiences, both in the accounting firm and at Dext, insights which I believe can profoundly influence the way you install and implement technology in your firm. But as the name of our podcast platform suggests, Paul’s insights can also help you Humanise The Numbers in such a way that your firm is capable of winning the game with your team – recruiting and keeping good people – and winning the game with your clients as well, so that you deliver ever greater value and enjoy ever greater profits.

Please join me at humanisethenumbers.online for this invaluable discussion with Paul Lodder.

When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Paul and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast. 

Don't you think it pays to have a clear picture about what your firm will look like in the future, say, in five years’ time? Your firm of the future? 

In this podcast discussion with Sian Lloyd and Rebecca Johnson from the Cardiff-based firm Lewis Ballard, you'll hear them share how they’ve created a future-focused, advisory-focused, genuinely caring approach to running an accountancy practice, where there's a real human connection between the team and between the team and their clients. They also discuss what they're doing to advance their firm’s value in the eyes of their customers, by getting better at advisory work and at that future focus.

So why not seek out some inspiration for your firm of the future from Sian and Rebecca on this humanisethenumbers.online podcast? I believe you'll be pleasantly surprised by what was a light-hearted discussion, but one with a serious context. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Sian and Rebecca and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast. 

Occasionally I struggle to work out how best to help an accountant or an accountancy firm connect with the real value that they deliver to their clients, especially their business-owner clients.

In this podcast discussion with Stephen Pell, you'll hear Stephen and I unpack the emotional part of the value equation, drawing on Stephen’s knowledge and expertise in his work with music artists.

Stephen and his team of 15 people serve artists primarily in the UK, expanding into the US. And he does a brilliant job of demonstrating how to set up and run a niche accounting firm. But he also has many insights for all accountants, specifically around the importance of building an emotional connection with clients.

So please join me and Stephen at humanisethenumbers.online or on your favourite podcast platform – Apple, Spotify or others – and see what you make of Stephen’s valuable insights.

When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Stephen and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast. 

How does your accountancy firm earn the right to achieve and be comfortable with prices that are three, four, five times or more higher than you would normally charge a typical client? 

In this podcast, which was a great pleasure and privilege to make, we have Ron Baker discussing pricing, the subscription model, niche marketing and positioning, strategy and purpose. I hope you'll take the time to listen to the insights, the valuable gems, that are included in this podcast.

Why not join Ron and I at humanisethenumbers.online or on your favourite podcast platform to discover and take advantage of the insights and valuable strategies that Ron is suggesting could pay off for you and for your firm, for your team and, by the way, for your clients as well.

When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Ron and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast. 

How do you stay ahead of the game? This is a bit of a generic question, but more specifically, how do you continue to stay ahead of your clients’ expectations? What are they expecting from you, your team and your firm, and how do you stay ahead of that, so that you can constantly deliver value, as well as a magical, rather than miserable, experience to your clients?

Well, on this HumaniseTheNumbers podcast discussion with Charlotte Zacharia of the accountancy firm Z², you'll hear Charlotte share her powerful insights into how clients’ perceptions and expectations have changed and how she and her firm have responded to that. Her observations can perhaps influence the way you think about the way your firm serves your clients. 

So why not join Charlotte and I on this HumaniseTheNumbers.Online podcast discussion and see what you think of Charlotte's views and how you can apply those powerful insights to your firm.

When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Charlotte and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast. 

How do you as a leader or manager of an accounting firm connect in a deeper, more meaningful way with your team? How do you ensure that this connection has a positive impact on the way in which team members behave and on their motivation, their drive and their willingness to see your firm succeed? How will this influence the amount and quality of the work they do and the level of care they show for that work?

There’s also a question to be addressed regarding how you connect in a deeper way with your clients, so that they want to work with you more often and take more action based on the insights, guidance and advice you can share with them.

In my conversation with Karen Eber, you'll hear about the importance of the power of stories in connecting in a deep and emotional way with your team, and in a deep and emotional way with your clients, so that you get the results you and your firm deserve. 

Karen talks about how there is power in both data and stories, but connecting data – the numbers – with stories results in greater power and a deeper connection that will make a positive difference to every meeting you have with team members, either one-on-one or as a group, as well as every meeting you have with clients. 

So why not join Karen and I on this HumaniseTheNumbers.online podcast, or go to your favourite podcast platform – Apple, Spotify, Google – and hunt out the podcast discussion with Karen Eber.

When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Karen and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast. 

How do you and your managers hold accountability conversations that work really well? By really well, I mean that they work out for both the manager and for the person they’re working with – holding them to account. Never an easy conversation.

On this podcast with Graeme Tennick, you'll hear Graeme share his commitment to his own accountability, as well as how open and transparent he is with his team. He allows them to see that he’s being accountable himself and thus earns the right to hold others in his team to account. I push Graeme on the actual process of accountability, and I think he handles it very well.

But this podcast isn’t just about accountability, it’s about how you work with your clients in a 360-degree, future-focused and past-focused way. You do, of course, deal with the annual accounts, but you’re actually holding conversations with your clients, which they see as being of greater value because they're future-focused. 

Graeme shares brilliantly how he holds those conversations with clients.

There are other great, valuable insights in this podcast, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Graeme brings his Northeastern sense of humour, which makes for an entertaining conversation. So go to HumaniseTheNumbers.online or to your favourite podcast source and seek out Humanise The Numbers and the podcast with Graeme Tennick.

When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Graeme and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast. 

How you and your firm deliver great value to your clients is a common theme in the HumaniseTheNumbers podcast series. 

In this discussion with Phil Hobden, now of Wolters Kluwer, I was able to unpack Phil's experiences as a business owner, as well as an employee and leader of education at Capitalise and, previously, at Futrli. 

He shares some amazing insights. The discussion twisted and turned from value for clients and value for team members and how much they're part of a virtual circle. When we, as leaders of our respective businesses, get that value equation right – make it clear, demonstrate it well – we put our firms on that positive path towards reaching our business goals. 

I hope you'll join me and Phil on a fast-moving, action-packed and, I think, content- and value-packed podcast at HumaniseTheNumbers.online.

When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Phil and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast.

How do you create, build and nurture a high-growth accountancy firm? In this podcast discussion with the head of DJH Mitten Clarke, Scott Heath, you'll hear him share a number of detailed insights into how he’s developed his high-growth firm, a firm that’s gone from 30 to 70 people and, in the last two years or so, from 70 to 275 people, in four offices. 

But what stands out most from this discussion with Scott are the principles behind healthy growth, not just growth for the sake of it – growth in which everyone can take great pride and growth that is sponsoring the future success of the firm, as well as generating great financial results now.

I hope you'll be tempted to go to this HumaniseTheNumbers.online podcast and dive into all the little details around the importance of culture and values in underpinning rock-solid high growth in an accountancy firm. I hope you enjoy this discussion with Scott Heath as much as I did.
When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Scott
and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast.

It can often feel like a particularly growly challenge to work out how to successfully promote and market your accountancy firm. So it pays, don't you think, to listen in to a marketing expert. In this podcast, you'll hear from Zoe Paradine, Head of Marketing in the UK for UHY Hacker Young. Zoe shares her experience of 20 years of marketing for her own firm and, more importantly, her insights on what's key to successful marketing. 

Zoe discusses the need to “make time” – carving out time each week, without fail, to successfully market your firm. She also signposts how to spend that time – building and nurturing lists and building content. 

If you are up for learning ways to successfully market your accountancy firm, I think you'll find this podcast exceptionally valuable.

Please go to humanisethenumbers.online or your favourite podcast platform, including Apple and Spotify, to access the podcast. I hope you enjoy this discussion with Zoe as much as I did.
When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Zoe and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast.

Occasionally, on our HumaniseTheNumbers podcasts, we're privileged to welcome a guest who has deep, personal experience in a profoundly important aspect of business that is directly relevant to you, your firm and your clients. With John Warrillow, we've got that, plus we've got his extensive research into how to successfully sell a business. 

He's the author of three books – Built to Sell, The Automatic Customer and The Art of Selling Your Business – and in this podcast, John shares insights which can help you change the conversation, become fluent in the conversation – not just the manager of a business conversation, but the owner of a business conversation. These are two distinct and different conversational styles with different questions, different content. 

When you listen to John, you'll receive insights into some of the eight key drivers for improving and increasing the value of your firm. But I think, more importantly, these insights can help you drive or support a conversation with your customers, your clients, so that they can improve the capital value of their businesses as well.

Please join John and I on one of the, I think, most impactful podcasts we have seen, and there have been quite a few of those. I hope you enjoy this discussion with John as much as I did.

When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for John and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast.

On this HumaniseTheNumbers podcast, you’ll hear from David Gilroy – entrepreneur, business owner, marketeer and, more specifically, website expert. 

However, David doesn't work within or provide for the accountancy profession. He builds websites (now over 400 websites) for the legal profession, for lawyers and solicitors. But David’s attention to detail, his obsession with the numbers that really matter when marketing your firm, and his business as well – I think you’ll appreciate his insights, knowledge and guidance on how we should be working better, harder and stronger to capture the numbers that matter so that we can market our businesses in a much more successful way.

Please go to HumaniseTheNumbers.online or to your favourite podcast platform and look up the David Gilroy podcast. I believe you’ll get something of real value from the discussion.
When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for David and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast.

It's clear from our conversations with virtually every firm with which we work that recruiting high-quality team members, though it's always been tough, is now tougher than ever before. Those same firms are also looking for ways to work better with their individual employees, within their teams and across the firm as well.

In this podcast, you're going to hear from Elaine Godley. I've known Elaine for decades, and Elaine has helped me, my business and other firms with which we work to identify how to get the best out of our people, as well as how to bring some science to recruiting the right people, so that they match perfectly, or as closely as possible, to the job that you need them to do.

Why not join this podcast at HumaniseTheNumbers.online and listen to Elaine's deep and profound insights into blending a team so that they’re more productive, enjoy their work more and have a greater sense of mental, physical and emotional wellbeing. This kind of team is a result of effectively matching job, person and roles and responsibilities together.

I believe these are valuable insights which could really benefit your firm. I hope you enjoy the podcast with Elaine as much as I did. 
When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Elaine and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast.

It can often feel like pushing water uphill when it comes to getting your team to embrace the necessary changes to secure the future success of your firm. In our 20 years of working with accountancy firms, we’ve experienced this more often than not.

However, there are ways and means, techniques and processes that you can use to help your team want to change, to embrace change, so that it’s your team, and not you, which takes the lead in driving change. You can leverage and scale change in such a way that, not only do you secure a future firm, you get a firm that can thrive because there’s a whole team driving these initiatives.

This podcast was recorded with David Hassall, one of the founders of XU Magazine and an owner of a reasonably substantial accountancy firm as well. David shares some really powerful insights about recruitment, along with how to build stronger relationships with clients and how you get your team to embrace necessary change.

So why not join David and I on this humanisethenumbers.online podcast or at your favourite podcast platform and get these amazing insights from David Hassall.

When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for David and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast.

How does an accountancy firm’s leadership team – the whole team – radically change the use of software, processes and systems within their firm?

That’s a big question to unpack, but in this humanisethenumbers.online podcast discussion between myself and Eriona Bajrakurtaj, you'll hear how she has transformed the behaviour and performance of the people, as well as the effectiveness of the systems and processes, in her 19-person, 1600-client firm. 

She and her team moved a thousand clients from one way of bookkeeping to another in just six months – a thousand clients in six months! This is a podcast definitely worth listening to if you are wondering how to approach change in your firm. 

Listen in to hear Eriona describe her journey – starting as a 13-year-old bookkeeper in her father's accounting firm to transforming that firm later in life as Managing Director. 

I hope you enjoy this podcast with Eriona as much as I did, and I hope you can take from the discussion insights that will help you humanise the numbers in your own firm.
When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Eriona and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast. 

If there are two things that ultimately, fundamentally influence the success of your accounting firm, it's your firm's ability to retain and recruit the right people and build your team and to recruit and retain the right clients. 

So, it was a real pleasure to welcome Andrew Jordan of Connect 4 onto a podcast discussion where we actually unpacked, thanks to Andrew's experiences at BDO, his experiences of establishing Fathom in the UK (the KPI reporting tool, Fathom), and his experiences of founding and growing Connect 4 in the UK. 

Andrew shares some brilliant insights into building client relationships and therefore building the loyalty clients have for your firm, their willingness to stay, to buy additional services and also recommend you and your firm, but also how your approach to client relationships has a serious impact on your ability to retain and therefore probably recruit new high quality team members. 

So why not join Andrew and I on this humanisethenumbers.online podcast and see what you can take from it and apply it to your firm, so that you can help transform and grow the success of your firm.
 
When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Andrew and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast. 

How do you and your firm win younger, dynamic clients with a long lifetime value (because of their age), if you are able to do a brilliant job of looking after their businesses? 

As a firm, you and your client portfolio have almost certainly got clients who started young with a small business and then grew them into substantial businesses. So, how do you tap into that younger audience? 

In this podcast discussion with Sam Mitcham, you’ll learn how Sam, though in the early stages of building a successful accounting firm, demonstrated energy and enthusiasm in winning the 200 clients she's already got, despite only setting the business up a couple of years ago. Discover her methodology of appealing to and attracting younger business owners. 

Why not join Sam and I on this humanisethenumbers.online podcast discussion, or go to your favourite podcast platform and locate it there, and you'll hear Sam share her insights into the use of social media and marketing, as well as a number of other profoundly powerful insights on how to grow and, at times, hold back from growth when it really matters. I hope you enjoy this podcast with Sam as much as I did.
 
When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Sam and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast. 

How do you set work and life boundaries, not just for yourself, but for your team as well, so that they are fully engaged, enthusiastic and driven to bringing success to you, your firm, your clients? 

And it’s not just about those boundaries. Advisory is becoming more important, more relevant, more valuable to your clients, so how do you move your firm forward in the volatile and complex world in which we’re all now living? 

In this podcast discussion with Amy Vetter, a qualified accountant (CPA) from the US, you’ll hear her share her zeal and commitment for internal marketing, what she calls internal education, between departments and between team members.

Something else I found fascinating about this discussion with Amy was her focus on mindset, and she has a real go at me around an error I made in terms of the way I'm interacting with one of my team members. All credit to her for doing that!

Whether you want to pursue an advisory strategy or dive into outsourcing offshoring, or if you want a new piece of technology embedding in the firm, without that long-term, ongoing commitment to educating your team, you’ll likely encounter resistance. With internal education, you’ll secure more and more buy in, more and more success and, as a result, humanise the numbers in your firm in a better way so that you get the results you want for your firm. 

Why not join Amy and I on this podcast discussion at humanisethenumbers.online. You can also find it on your favourite podcast platform.

I hope you enjoy the conversation with Amy as much as I did.

When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Amy and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast. 

There’s no doubting the quality and strength and depth of the relationships you have with your best business-owner clients. 

But someone will pip the quality of those relationships when they get involved in discussing, planning and executing the sale of your clients’ businesses.

On this humanisethenumbers.online podcast discussion, you’ll hear from Andy Denny and Liz Jackson – both directors at an organisation called BCMS, a specialist M&A provider helping business owners turning over anywhere between £10 and 100 million, sometimes a little bit less, sometimes a little bit more – and how they get really deep, really strong connections with business owners over a six- to twelve-month window. 

In this discussion they share insights, ideas and some really valuable points about how building a stronger human connection with your existing team, with your clients, has a profound impact on the way they do business, and impacts the team and how they get engaged with what they’re doing. This applies to your firm of accountants too.

Two different types of relationship, but the insights and the points are relevant to their business and relevant, I believe, to your accountancy business too. 

I hope you get value and I hope you enjoy this discussion between Liz Jackson, Andy Denny and myself on this humanisethenumbers.online podcast. If you've got any thoughts or any questions on what you hear or if you can watch the video version, please get in touch.

When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Liz and Andy and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast. 

What is it that you and your firm have to do to make the shift from compliance only to compliance plus advisory, where advisory is generating significant high-value fees from work that you enjoy and which, by the way, your team enjoy as well? 

In this HumaniseTheNumbers.online podcast discussion with Joe Sole of the 8-person firm Sole Associates, you will hear Joe unpack some of the detail, not just on what he does, but on how he engages with his team and how he engages with his clients, so that he's creating a systemic, time-efficient approach to high-value conversations with his clients. 

And not just for Joe to conduct those high-value client conversations, but for his team to also take the steps necessary to have high-value, advisory-style conversations, using brilliant numbers and so on to help those conversations flow without fear and uncertainty sitting within those so-called “compliance accountants”.

So please join Joe and I for a high-value, Humanise The Numbers discussion at HumaniseTheNumbers.online or go to your favourite podcast platform to listen in. 

I hope you enjoy this two-part discussion with Joe Sole of Sole Associates.

When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Joe and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast.

What is it that you and your firm have to do to make the shift from compliance only to compliance plus advisory, where advisory is generating significant high-value fees from work that you enjoy and which, by the way, your team enjoy as well? 

In this HumaniseTheNumbers.online podcast discussion with Joe Sole of the 8-person firm Sole Associates, you will hear Joe unpack some of the detail, not just on what he does, but on how he engages with his team and how he engages with his clients, so that he's creating a systemic, time-efficient approach to high-value conversations with his clients. 

And not just for Joe to conduct those high-value client conversations, but for his team to also take the steps necessary to have high-value, advisory-style conversations, using brilliant numbers and so on to help those conversations flow without fear and uncertainty sitting within those so-called “compliance accountants”.

So please join Joe and I for a high-value, Humanise The Numbers discussion at HumaniseTheNumbers.online or go to your favourite podcast platform to listen in. 

I hope you enjoy this two-part discussion with Joe Sole of Sole Associates.

Once on the episode page for Joe, please scroll down to find his contact information and additional resources mentioned in the podcast.  

Would you, as a leader or manager of an accounting firm, sit up and listen to the UK General Manager of a corporate business and how they’ve interacted with the accounting firms serving them? 

In this humanisethenumbers.online podcast, you'll meet a qualified accountant and experienced General Manager of a UK corporation and hear her interpretation of the relationships between business owner, business leader and accountant. 

Gaye Prime has been that General Manager and is a qualified accountant, and she explores a couple of topics – education and interpretation – in different ways; both are clearly connected. You’ll be able to see that if you are better at educating your team, better at interpreting what’s going on in your business from their perspective, you’re going to get deeper engagement with your team members.  And the same approach would apply to your clients. 

That education/interpretation theme crops up several times in this discussion with Gaye Prime, and these insights are extremely valuable for anyone in practice, or anyone in business, for that matter. 

Please join this discussion with Gaye Prime and me at your favourite podcast platform, or go to humanisethenumbers.online.

I hope you enjoy this discussion as much as I did.

 Once on the episode page for Gaye, please scroll down to find his contact information and additional resources mentioned in the podcast.  

It was a great privilege to spend an hour in deep conversation with Glenn Collins, Interim Head of ACCA. Glenn has 23 years of history with ACCA, supporting firms like yours. It was great to get Glenn’s views on high-growth accountancy firms, on the importance of the POD approach to high-growth accountancy firms, and the importance of strategy and anchoring to core purpose, the real meaning behind everything you're doing in your firm.

But Glenn also has views on accountants seeing themselves slightly differently, as a broader service provider than “just accountancy”, as important as accountancy is. He points to one or two ways, one or two insights, that can signpost many more ways that you and your firm can deliver greater value to your clients. 

So if you are interested in hearing more, join me and Glenn Collins from ACCA on this humanisethenumbers.online podcast on your favourite podcast platform. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Once on the episode page for Glenn, please scroll down to find his contact information and additional resources mentioned in the podcast.  

There are a few landmark moments in the life and journey of every business, and we’ve just passed through one of those moments at Remarkable Practice. I'm proud to say we now welcome Douglas Aitken as a fellow shareholder and director of the business and, because of that landmark moment, it felt appropriate that we bring Douglas onto the humanisethenumbers.online podcast, so that you get the opportunity to hear some of the deep insights that Douglas is experiencing from working with firms just like yours, leadership teams just like yours.

It also creates an interesting environment for Douglas and me to chew the fat and see if we can unpack some joint insights that have had a profound impact on us, and hopefully you, and which therefore helps both us and you transform the numbers that matter, so that we can enjoy and feel pride in our work and achieve greater profit and capital value growth.

So if you are up for listening to Douglas and me having a little bit of conflict, uncovering and unpacking a few insights on how to build deeper, stronger connections with your team so that they stay with you and enable you to earn the right to recruit more high-quality people and earn you the right to win more high-value clients, then you'll have a valuable 60 minutes with us on this podcast. 

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did. I hope Douglas did as well and that he’s not wondering why he did it in the first place, but I don't think he will be.

Go to www.humanisethenumbers.online or to your favourite podcast platform, because everything we do is about sharing knowledge and building that knowledge into skill and the skill into the habits that ultimately help you transform your results. I think you'll find this of great interest and value, and also very practical around some very simple core questioning and listening skills. Enjoy the podcast.
Once on the episode page for Doug, please scroll down to find his contact information and additional resources mentioned in the podcast.  

It's not often that you come across a leader of an accounting firm who has built strategic health into their practice, with crystal clarity on a shared vision, crystal clarity on a core purpose and crystal clarity around the values related to how the firm behaves and the standards they uphold across the firm.

In this podcast discussion with Steve Price, of the Manchester firm Inspire, Steve openly admits that they’re a work in progress and that they’re on their journey to being a better firm, but they have so many good things already in place. 

I loved this conversational debate with Steve because we covered quite a bit of ground, but it was his commitment to his clients, to his team and to the development of the team and the systems which enable his firm to be less reliant on him that stood out for me. 

If you like the idea of creating a firm that’s less reliant on you, a firm where the team are genuinely and wholeheartedly engaged in what they’re doing, then I heartedly recommend you go to humanisethenumbers.online and dive into the podcast with Steve Price. It’s a cracker.
Once on the episode page for Steve, please scroll down to find his contact information and additional resources mentioned in the podcast.  

How do you change, even as a sole practitioner, the tone of the work in your firm so that you become increasingly valuable to your clients, so that your clients are willing to pay more money for what you do with them and for them? 

In this podcast discussion with Michael Hemme of MDH, an accountancy firm in Croydon, you’ll hear Michael share what he’s doing to build what he calls “soft” skills. I call them hard, because I think that the human skills, the conversation skills, come less naturally to accountants because of the way they’re trained and because of their focus on the numbers. 

But those human skills, those conversation skills, ultimately determine your true value in your clients’ hearts and minds, and Michael seems wholeheartedly committed to building the knowledge and skills of his team so that they can have more high-value conversations with his clients.

It's a really worthwhile conversation on many levels, including his willingness to actually dig out some ancient history – he talks about a Dale Carnegie book, which is the best part of 50 years old, and on which I relied in my early formative years in business, and he uses the insights and the principles of great conversation that were the same 50 years ago as they are today. 

He then works with his team on developing those skills so that he builds stronger relationships or, rather, his team build stronger relationships with his clients. Clients become more loyal, they’re more likely to recommend the firm and they’re more likely and happier to pay more as well.

If you are tempted to listen to what Michael’s got to say in more detail, please go to humanisethenumbers.online or to your favourite podcast platform and look out for that podcast with Michael Hemme.
Once on the episode page for Michael, please scroll down to find his contact information and additional resources mentioned in the podcast.  

It takes something special, don’t you think, to start up a brand-new accountancy firm just a couple of months after the start of a global pandemic. 

It’s what Sharon Hirsch of Argus did in May 2020, and on this HumaniseTheNumbers podcast discussion with Sharon, you’ll hear her share a number of valuable insights:  the KPIs that matter most, what her emotional charges are and what it is that’s driving her to do what she’s doing for her 74 clients, some of whom are paying between £1,500 and £2,500 per month. 

She also shares how important it is for her to have a future perspective, to deliver genuine value to her clients and for her and her team to make a real difference.

I hope you're tempted to check out this podcast discussion – there are some really important lessons to learn, and I could feel the passion that Sharon has for her business, for her team and for the importance of client relationships. 

So please go to www.humanisethenumbers.online or to your favourite podcast platform and check out this discussion with Sharon Hirsch.
Once on the episode page for Sharon, please scroll down to find her contact information and additional resources mentioned in the podcast.  

One of your firm’s greatest challenges and, arguably, one of the areas of greatest reward, comes from the 'how to' of getting the best out of your people, out of your team. 

One argument says that we should build social capital, building stronger connections between ourselves and our team and between team members, so that they feel a greater sense of camaraderie. But the challenge with that is we could burn lots of time, and time is money. Why do that, when we could get our team actually doing some work and making the firm some money? 

It's with great pride that I was able to get a ‘yes’ from Margaret Heffernan to join the HumaniseTheNumbers.online podcast. Margaret shares her experiences of working with multiple leaders of substantial businesses, and setting up her own businesses over time, as well as her insights into the value of social capital, building those stronger connections, so that a team are better engaged and more enthusiastic, and, as a natural consequence, will deliver better and higher quality work, and deliver it faster, generating a true bottom line improvement in results across the firm. 

So why not, if you want to get more from your team, with your team, join Margaret and me at www.humanisethenumbers.online, or on your favourite podcast platform.

I'm certain you'll get some real insights, real value, from the nuggets that Margaret shares. I'll see you there.
 Once on the episode page for Margaret, please scroll down to find her contact information and additional resources mentioned in the podcast.  

As a leader of an accountancy firm, or as a leader of a department, you’ll get to a stage where you wonder:  how on earth do I further improve the EBITDA or profitability of my firm or department? How do I improve its capital value?

Which is why I was just delighted that Sam Edwards, of the firm Strategy&, an advisory firm to businesses acquiring or selling other businesses, said yes to joining us on the HumaniseTheNumbers.online podcast. 

In the discussion with Sam, he’s very candid, very open, about the strategies, the processes and the principles behind building EBITDA and profitability from the standpoint of private equity firms buying into accountancy firms.

He's been involved in 12 deals in recent times, and he brings a real practicality to appreciating and understanding the drivers that deliver EBITDA and capital value growth. 

So I hope you’ll join Sam and me and go to www.humanisethenumbers.online or your favourite podcast platform to check out this valuable and worthwhile discussion with Sam Edwards.
Once on the episode page for Sam, please scroll down to find his contact information and additional resources mentioned in the podcast.  

What do you think it takes to run a fast-growing, leading technology business with 350 people across the UK?

In this podcast discussion with the UK General Manager of Intuit QuickBooks, Jolawn Victor, you'll hear Jolawn share a wide range of insights into what it takes, not only to run and lead QuickBooks in the UK, but also to run and lead a successful accounting business, drawing on her own and her team’s experience of working with many accounting firms.

It was a wide-ranging discussion with Jolawn, one I thoroughly enjoyed because of her open, transparent, candid approach to the discussion and her willingness to share insights on how to power prosperity, not just across the UK accounting profession, but on a global scale as well.

So why not join Jolawn and I on this humanisethenumbers.online podcast. Or, if you wish, go to your favourite podcast platform and you’ll find us there.

Once on the episode page for Jolawn, please scroll down to find her contact information and additional resources mentioned in the podcast.  

Your firm, like every firm, isn’t perfect. Your firm, like every firm, has team members who want to progress their careers and get better. And as they get better, your firm will get better too. 

The old adage that, if you don't grow your people, you won't grow your practice, is as plain and obvious as the nose on everyone's face. 

It was a real privilege to welcome Paul Barnes from the accountancy firm MAP onto the Humanise The Numbers podcast and hear lots of practical, valuable insights that Paul has picked up over his 10 years since starting MAP.

What was remarkable was how open Paul was about the challenges, frustrations and difficulties that he, as a fairly well-recognised accountancy firm leader within the UK, has faced.

It's just brilliant when someone is vulnerable and open and transparent about challenges, but also very open about what it is that makes a good, or a great, arguably, accountancy firm work.

Paul has built a firm with just 120 clients and 26 team members, and does an exceptional job of ensuring that each of his clients, either monthly or quarterly, is receiving deep, crystal-clear insight into the financial merits or otherwise of their business. 

I believe everyone in the profession would benefit from the insights that Paul shares on this podcast. I found it so inspiring that someone would be so open and so practical in what you do to make an accountancy firm successful. 

I hope you go to www.humanisethenumbers.online or to your favourite podcast platform and listen in as Paul Barnes shares his insights.  Once on the episode page for Paul, please scroll down to find his contact information and additional resources mentioned in the podcast. 

What do you think it takes, in a relatively short five-year window, to grow a team of 14 people and to win 800 clients? 

Well, in this Humanise The Numbers podcast discussion with Johann Goree of OnPoint Accounting – with four offices, two in Scotland and two in England – you’ll hear Johann share how he has adopted a human approach to running an efficient firm that embraces and welcomes innovation and change. 

So why not join Johann and I on this humanisethenumbers.online podcast or go to your favourite podcast platform if you wish? I'll look forward to seeing you there.
Once on the episode page for Johann, please scroll down to find his contact information and additional resources mentioned in the podcast.

It’s a rare privilege to have a conversation with someone who has nearly 20 years’ experience of working with in excess of 2,500 accounting firms, someone who is willing to share deep insights about their experiences of the profession and how it’s changed over the years, as well as what’s needed, what’s necessary – now – to run a successful growing accountancy firm, someone who is currently in the process himself of setting up the UK operation of a – relatively new to the UK – business, albeit very quickly having won almost a thousand accounting firms.

So why not join Ian Cooper and I on this humanisethenumbers.online podcast. If you wish, go to your favourite podcast platform and I'll see you there.
Once on the episode page for Ian, please scroll down to find his contact information and additional resources mentioned in the podcast.  

Have you ever wondered if, in your firm, you could be doing more in the environmental, sustainability space? Could the environmental message result in you winning new high-grade clients? Could it help you retain people or maybe even recruit new people?

In this podcast discussion with Peter Ellington, you’ll hear his candid, open and quite revealing insights, insights based on the research he’s done into the environmental space. 

He’s now building educational programs with the ACCA, and with ICAEW, and is growing his 800-client accounting firm on the back of his work in and around environmental sustainability. 

By the way, these are insights that you can apply to your firm as well, which could make you and your team feel a greater sense of pride and which could make a big and lasting difference. 

Listen to this Humanise The Numbers podcast here or go to your favourite podcast platform to listen and subscribe.

Please scroll down once on Peter's podcast episode page to find his contact information and additional, downloadable resources mentioned in this podcast.
Once on the episode page for Peter, please scroll down to find his contact information and additional resources mentioned in the podcast.  

It’s fascinating when you get the opportunity to hear the powerful and valuable insights from the leader of a large finance team, responsible for the financial reporting of a £250 million turnover business, who then decides to drop that and start her own accounting business, grow it quickly, organically, and then begin to acquire other firms in order to accelerate the growth of the firm. 

Well, that’s Julie Wilkinson of Wilkinson Accountancy Solutions. She joins us on this humanisethenumbers.online podcast discussion and shares valuable observations around marketing, around how capacity comes before growth and around the challenges and processes needed to ensure that the systems are right in a high-growth business, as well as the importance of having a strategic reset every 13 weeks with the whole of the team. 

Fascinating conversation, useful insights. I hope you’ll join me at humanisethenumbers.online and check out my discussion with Julie Wilkinson.
Please also scroll down this episode page for Julies contact information and the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in the podcast.

One of the challenges or, arguably, one of the opportunities facing your firm, facing the profession, is the march of technology. 

But more importantly, as technology takes over more of the technical work of accountancy and bookkeeping, there’s a real need to invest more time, more energy, and more money, even, in the development of human skills, the skills that help you work better together as a team and that enable you to work better with your clients. 

And with that in mind, it made sense to invite Alexandra Bond Burnett onto the humanisethenumbers.online podcast, so that we could tap into Alexandra’s experience, knowledge and insight from her work at drama school, her work in the finance world and her work as a coach, trainer and speaker for professional service firms. We discuss what it means to look at precision in a different way and the challenges that brings to accountants who want to get everything right in a world of ambiguity around people skills, the client skills.

So, if you want to improve your firm’s capabilities, knowledge, insight and human skills that enable you to build a better, stronger team and enable you to build better relationships with clients so that they stay with you longer, are more loyal, who refer you, who are happy to pay decent fees and actually want to buy more from you, why not join me on this Humanise The Numbers podcast with Alexandra. I'll look forward to seeing you there. 

When you are on Alexandra's episode page please scroll down to see her contact information and additional, downloadable resources mentioned in the podcast. 

When we started the Humanise the Numbers podcast, it was a bit of an experiment to see if there was any life in talking with leaders of accounting firms and some of the top advisors to the profession from around the world. 

And now, two years on, it's no longer an experiment, because I consider it a privilege to be able to have deep, meaningful, valuable conversations with leaders in the profession. 

And it's not surprising, is it, when you come across a great leader of a great firm, that they'd want to focus on reducing the grunt work, they'd want to have a real systems approach to support reducing the grunt work. They'd want to recruit and support the right people and at the same time build in accountability so that high performance can be measured. 

And that's exactly what Lucy Cohen at Mazuma is doing. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this conversation with Lucy, especially the value of the small comments that Lucy makes throughout the discussion. 

And if you've followed what we do at Remarkable Practice and my obsession with KPIs (Key Predictive Indicators, not just Key Performance Indicators), I was very keen to understand Lucy's approach to measuring the performance of the team and how she brings that to bear, so that their 35-strong team have a sense of achievement and deliver a great result across their 3000 clients.  This is a really interesting team member-to-client ratio, and they actually measure the number of calls that take place between clients and team members – approximately 750 calls a week.

It's definitely worth your while to check out this Humanise The Numbers podcast with Lucy Cohen from Mazuma. 
Please scroll down when you are on the episode page to find Lucys contact information and the additional resources mentioned in the podcast.

How good are you and your leadership team, and your managers generally, at holding people to account for their behaviour and their results? 

It's one of the sticky, challenging, thorny aspects of leading and managing people, leading and managing accountancy firms. In this podcast discussion with Des O'Neill of the CPD Store, you'll hear Des and I unpack the detail behind determining the boundaries you should put in place and how you do that, as well as what standards you set, minimum and aspirational, in order to make expectations clearer, so that accountability is easier? 

And that's only one of many subjects Des and I touch on in and around the ‘humanise the numbers’ topic – humanising for the team, humanising for your clients – so that you are certain to get something of real value that you can directly apply to your firm, with your team and with your clients. 

I hope you enjoy this humanise the numbers podcast discussion with Des O'Neill as much as I did. 

Please scroll down the episode page for the contact information for Des and additional, downloadable resources mentioned in this podcast.

When you get the opportunity to meet a leader, one that's been at the forefront of influencing and managing change across the whole profession because of his involvement in Xero, you grab it with both hands. 

It's a great honour to have welcomed Gary Turner, ex-UK lead at Xero, onto the Humanise The Numbers podcast to discuss growth, leading and managing change, the successful implementation of technology and how the balance between the importance of the team and the importance of clients plays out in every business, not just in accountancy firms. 

I'm absolutely certain you'll get something of deep and meaningful value from this discussion with Gary. I look forward to seeing you at the humanisenumbers.online podcast. 

Or if you prefer, go to your favourite podcast platform. I'll see you there.

Please scroll down on this episode page for the contact information for Gary and the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in this podcast.

It's not every day that you get to have a deep and valuable conversation with someone who's deliberately, consciously, ambitiously looking to shift the profession towards the place it used to hold in the hearts and minds of its clients. 

And that's why I felt so excited, so privileged, to be able to spend some time with Will Farnell on the Humanise The Numbers podcast, talking with Will about the insights he has captured in his book, The Human Firm.

Will is very open, very keen to be clear regarding his first book, The Digital Firm, which was about his experiences around how he got his firm to a place where they were the first 100% cloud-based accounting firm, and how those insights have driven him to realise that it's more about the humanity within the firm, around your clients and your team, that matters. 

This is why I was so enamoured and so up for a conversation with Will, where he shares deep and meaningful insights about his progression from an offline to a completely cloud-based firm by 2009, and how those experiences have continued to influence his progression towards being a firm (of 75 people) that's committed to the humanity of what's going on in his business, from his team's perspective and from his clients’ perspective. 

I hope you'll join Will and I on this humanise the numbers podcast. You can go to Spotify or Apple or your favourite podcast platform if you wish, but please take time out and have a listen to Will Farnell. I'm sure you'll get some real value from it.

When on the podcast page, please scroll to the bottom to see Will's contact information and to access the additional resources mentioned in the podcast.  

Nearly every time I ask the question ‘what matters most to clients?’ –  technical work, the speed with which the work's done or the relationship work – and whether I'm with an individual accountant, a leadership team within an accountancy firm or presenting to an audience of accountants, the answer that almost always comes back is that it's the relationship work that the clients value the most.

In a profession that leans more towards introversion than extroversion, it makes sense to dive into what is it accountants could and should do to build stronger relationships with their clients.

It was great to have Amanda C. Watts on the podcast to unpack her experiences and to share her understanding as a self-confessed introvert on how and what accountants can do to build stronger relationships through asking better questions and listening more, as well as the deeper, practical skills of making that come to life. 

If you can see that relationship building is a primary source of value for your clients, and that improving the knowledge and skills in that space would pay off for you, your team and your firm, why not join Amanda and me on this podcast.

I hope you enjoy this Humanise The Numbers podcast as much as I did, please scroll down the episode page page for the contact information for Amanda and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in this podcast.

What does it take to grow an accounting business from its initial two founders to 40 people in five years? Great question.

What does it take to grow an accounting business which generates average fees per client of £30,000? Another great question. 

What does it take to grow an accountancy business where its people absolutely love working and where the clients respect and love the work that the firm's doing for them? 

I had the great privilege of spending an hour on a podcast discussion with Alastair Barlow, co-founder of flinder. Alastair unpacked many things, but he talked specifically about the determination to systematise the business so that it's not reliant on Alastair and it's not reliant on his co-founder, Luke. 

And standards – the power and the importance of standards and expectations show up big time in this discussion. Last but not least, the determination to uphold those standards across the firm comes through really strongly. 

I hope you take time out to listen to this profoundly valuable conversation with Alastair and that you enjoy it as much as I did. Please join me on this Humanise The Numbers podcast or you can go to your favourite podcast platform. I look forward to seeing you there.

When on the episode page, please scroll down to the bottom to see Alastair's contact information and to access the additional resources mentioned in the podcast. 

It can't be easy, can it, to grow a firm from one person to 18 in just three years and to take your client numbers from 50 to 700 within the same time frame? 

Well, that's exactly what Rachel Harris of the accountancy firm striveX has achieved. 

And one of the reasons for the success of that journey is down to Rachel's 'team first' approach. 

Even though she's gone from 50 to 700 clients, the focus is 'team first'. And she unpacks on this Humanise the Numbers podcast the five strategies, the five processes, that make her firm, striveX, a ‘team first’ business that's delivered the growth, the results, that she's now experiencing.

I hope you enjoy this conversation with arguably one of the most vocal people on social media, Rachel Harris. You will see the depth in the way she manages and leads her business around her team. 

Please go to www.humanisethenumbers.online or to your favourite podcast platform. I'll see you there.

Scroll down on this episode page for the contact information for Rachel and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in this podcast.

I found it profoundly, remarkably, valuable to enter into a podcast discussion with someone who has a really broad perspective across the profession – someone who spent 15 years in practice, someone who has worked at technology companies such as Xero and Dext and who works now with literally hundreds of leaders and managers of accounting firms, someone who can signpost what the best firms are doing compared with the other firms in the industry when it comes to brilliantly connecting with their team to get the best from them, brilliantly connecting with their clients so that they can make a big difference, feel pride in their work and generate great profits for the firm. 

But also doing something special around – and Katie uses a phrase on this podcast discussion about ‘choosing your ending’, which I thought was brilliant – connecting with vision and goals. What are the goals and vision of your people, of each individual within your firm? 

She talks about personalisation as well, connecting with the ending in mind, the vision of your clients, having a conversation with them about the future of their business and, actually, about the future of the firm as a whole. 

I'm sure you'll find this podcast both entertaining and valuable, listening in to what Katie's got to say about the accountancy profession and how it can have a positive and meaningful impact on you and your firm. 

So please go to www.humanisethenumbers online or to your favourite podcast platform and look out for Katie Hawking. 

Scroll down when on this episode page for the contact information for Katie and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in this podcast.

Don't you agree that it would be profoundly useful if you could get a sideways view of what's going on in the accounting profession, a sideways view from a fellow financial professional, but through a different lens? On this Humanise the Numbers podcast discussion with Claire Evans, you'll get the perspective of someone from the financial services industry. 

Claire's worked in that industry for a long time. She has trained a lot of financial services people and is training accountants now on both personal and business cash flow and how to bolt the two together. And she talks profoundly, deeply, about the need, the value, of a long-lasting, meaningful relationship with a real future focus. 

You’ll hear Claire unpack her five-stage framework for running a brilliant client meeting, as well as many other powerful insights.

I hope you enjoy this discussion with Claire as much as I did. 

Please scroll down this episode page for the contact information for Claire and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in this podcast.

It can't be easy to transform an accountancy firm from one that's charging clients about £200 a month to one that's charging clients in excess of £1000 pounds a month. 

It can't be easy to grow from scratch an offshoring team out in the Philippines – from zero to ten in just twelve months. 

And it can't be easy to approach every one of your 30 team members across two locations and ensure that every one of them gets what they want out of working in your practice, on a really personal level. 

That's what Robert Fiford of djca accountants has done and, in this Humanise The Numbers podcast, he shares how he's done it. I found this discussion wide-ranging, only because Robert has so many insights to share. 

I hope you enjoy this discussion as much as I did and I hope you can take away one, two, three, or possibly even six or seven, high-value elements of this podcast.  Please go to www.humanisethenumbers.online or to your favourite podcast platform. I'll see you there.

Scroll down this episode page for the contact information for Robert and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in this podcast.

When a business leader that has 3000 team members and works across several countries, several continents, even, shares their insights on what’s working within the accountancy profession and how to make their business more successful, I’m all ears.

It was a great privilege and a great honour to have Elona Mortimer-Zhika, CEO of Iris, join me on the Humanise the Numbers podcast to share her insights on how important, how valuable, humanising the numbers is from her perspective. 

Dive into this podcast discussion and you may realise that you're already doing certain things well. You may also realise and appreciate the ways and means of improving one or two things that you're already doing. You’ll almost certainly go, ‘mmmmm, not even kickstarted that one – let's get into that because it can have a big impact on our team, our clients and the success of the firm.’

So I hope you'll join me and Elona on this podcast at www.humanisethenumbers.online or go to your favourite podcast platform and you'll find the Humanise The Numbers podcast series there. 

Please scroll down this episode page for the contact information for Elona and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in this podcast.

If you are brilliant or remarkable or just getting better at leading and managing your team, personalising and humanising how you work with them, and you’re brilliant or remarkable or getting better at working with your clients, then you’re going to have a more successful firm. It's stating the blatantly obvious. Also, if you are leading and managing change in your firm – because change is inevitable, the speed of change is increasing and a key skill is adapting and adopting the changes that are hitting the profession – then improve your leading and managing change skills and you will build a stronger, better, more resilient and highly thriving accountancy firm. I've just described three key themes that show up in a podcast discussion with Daniel Hood, who is the editor-in-chief of Accounting Today from the USA. This podcast gives us a USA perspective, an overview, on the accounting profession abroad. What Dan does brilliantly is unpack how important personalising things are for your team and your clients, how leading and managing change is a key skill in which to invest time, effort and energy and, generally, how humanising things pays off big for accounting firms. There’s lots to take from Dan's insights. I hope you enjoy this discussion as much as I did with Dan, so please go to www.humanisethenumbers.online or go to your favourite podcast platform and seek out the Humanise The Numbers podcast. 

Once on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Daniel and the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in this podcast.

If you've led a six-person accounting firm with a turnover of £250,000 and built it over the years into a £1.5-million firm with 22 people, you'd rightly feel a sense of pride and satisfaction in what you'd achieved. 

You might, though, be running out of energy, passion and ambition for your people, your clients and the business. 

Well, that's not the case with Simon Chaplin of Greenstones. Listen to this podcast discussion with Simon and you won't be able to help yourself in terms of buying into the passion he has for his team, his clients and the core purpose of his firm. There are huge lessons to be found within this discussion with Simon. 

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. It's easy for me to say that because I've known Simon for a long time, but it's the sheer commitment to the humanity within his firm that I enjoy so much in our discussion. I hope you do too. 

Go to www.humanisethenumbers.online or to your favourite podcast platform and look out for this podcast discussion with Simon Chaplin.

Please scroll down this episode page for the contact information for Simon and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in this podcast.

It’s stating the blatantly obvious that, when you and your team build the knowledge, the skills and the habits that result in a deeper, more trusting, more valuable relationship with your clients, you'll end up with a more successful firm. 

That success comes because deeper relationships with clients mean that they’ll stay with you longer, they’ll be more loyal, they’ll buy more services from you, they’ll be more willing to pay higher fees, and yes, they’ll recommend you to their friends in business as well. 

On this Humanise The Numbers podcast with Darren Glanville, the country manager for Fathom, you'll hear Darren unpack and share his insights on how, when you and your team drop into learning mode, you will end up building stronger, deeper, more trusting, more valuable relationships with your clients. 

Learning mode's about being curious, and what I loved about the conversation with Darren was this blend of questions, conversations and curiosity about the past, present and future, and how this leads to stronger, better, deeper, more trusting conversations and better, deeper relationships with clients. 

By checking out this podcast with Darren, you'll tap into his experience of working with accountants over many years. But you'll also be signposted to the knowledge, the skills and the habits needed to enhance the quality of the relationships you and your team have with your clients. 

So why not go to www.humanisethnumbers.online or to your favourite podcast platform for this Humanise The Numbers podcast with Darren Glanville.

Scroll down the podcast episode page for the contact information for Darren and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in this podcast.

One of the deepest, most valuable, conversations you can have with your business owner/business leader clients is in regard to the future of the business without them. It's about exit planning and succession, about preparing the business for their exit, whether it's an internal or external sale, and about whether the management team will continue in their footsteps. 

But how do you have those conversations? What questions do you ask? On what topics do you want to zero in and focus so that your clients get real value from that conversation? 

On this humanisethenumbers.online podcast discussion with Christine Nicholson, she unpacks her 30 years of experience, allowing you to take away a number of key insights that will stimulate great conversations with your clients, as well as within your own firm, so that you can prepare your accountancy firm for a better future without you as a manager and leader. 

Scroll down this episode page for the contact information for Christine and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in this podcast.

It's not surprising that I'd be so excited about welcoming two of the leaders of the fastest growing tech company in the UK and, according to Deloitte's, the third fastest growing tech company of all time, Allica Bank. 

On this Humanise the Numbers podcast, we welcome Conrad Ford and Sophie Hossack, who share powerful insights, valuable ideas and principles around growth – and they should know, given the rate of growth they're experiencing at the moment. 

If you want to hear Sophie and Conrad unpack some of the principles behind their rapid growth and how it connects and is relevant to you and your accounting firm, then please go to www.humanisethenumbers.online or go to your favourite podcast platform. 

I hope you enjoy this podcast as much as I have, and I hope you'll take one or two of the insights and turn them into decision-making and action across your firm. I look forward to seeing you there.

Scroll down this podcast’s episode page for the contact information for Conrad and Sophie and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in this podcast.

What happens when you put two business leaders, both of whom serve the leadership and management teams of accounting firms, into a podcast discussion? Well, you end up with a bit of a fireside chat, a very candid fireside chat, that unpacks a number of key issues influencing the success of accountancy firms. 

In this Humanise The Numbers podcast discussion with Paul Richmond of theGrogroup, you'll hear Paul and I chewing the fat, but also diving deep into topics such as client grading, exiting clients, KPIs and building a leadership team that really drives the future of an accountancy firm forward. 

If you're interested in seeing two competitors – I don't necessarily see us that way, and I don't think Paul does either – not bashing heads, really, but sharing thoughts and ideas on how to transform the results of accounting firms, please go to www.humanisethenumbers online, or go to your favourite podcast platform. I look forward to seeing you there.

Scroll down this podcast’s episode page for the contact information for Paul and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in this podcast.

Do you know that feeling you get when you meet someone who's excited about, and who clearly loves, what they're doing, someone who is completely engaged as a leader in running their accounting firm? That joy and enthusiasm is infectious! 

In this podcast discussion with Jessica Pillow of Pillow May Accountancy, you'll hopefully experience what I did when talking with Jessica – a sense that she loves what she's doing and loves how her firm works, delivering exactly what she wants from leading and running an accountancy business. 

Now don't get me wrong – Jessica shares some really powerful insights around KPIs, around core purpose and around how that core purpose works for her clients, her team and herself in a deep way. 

There's something of real value in this podcast discussion. But as much as anything, I hope you get what I got, which was a sense of joy and excitement in talking with someone who loves what they're doing, on a daily basis. 

I hope you enjoy this podcast as much as I certainly did. You can find it at humanisethenumbers.online, or you can go to your favourite podcast platform and look out for Jessica Pillow. 

Please scroll down this episode page for the contact information for Jessica and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in this podcast.

When you start to unpack the value and the importance of your team being connected with the vision and the future goals of your business, you know you're in a position to acquire some insight and to deliver actions and decisions that will support the future success of your firm. 

On this podcast discussion with Ashley Leeds, a man with 16 years’ experience in working with accounting firms – from QuickBooks to Digita and in other organisations – as well as from the perspective of his work in coaching, we unpack exactly that. 

How do we better connect our team to the goals and vision of the business? How do we better connect our team to what matters to them as well, their personal goals? And what do we do to better tap into deeper and stronger levels of motivation, drive and enthusiasm, giving our team members the responsibility to help us develop the business as well? 

Please go to www.humanisethenumbers.online or go to your favourite podcast platform and seek out Ashley Leeds on the Humanise The Numbers podcast. I look forward to seeing you there. 

Scroll down this episode page for the contact information for Ashley and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in this podcast.

As we approached our 100th edition of the Humanise The Numbers podcast, we found choosing someone to invite as the guest a bit challenging. But then we thought, what if we could make a global impact by having the right standard of guest, one that could inspire you, your firm, your team, your clients, maybe, to transform the numbers that really matter in your firm and across your clients’ businesses? 

And that's why we brought in Mr. Steve Pipe, with whom I had the great privilege of working during the first five years of my career supporting ambitious accountants. Steve speaks in a deep and meaningful way about core purpose and values, about engaging your team, about making a difference on a level that is inspiring, but also challenging, and in a way that’s quite practical. 

I hope you'll take time out to hear the message that Steve shares and that you’ll take some action off the back of it – this will benefit your team and the commercial results of your firm and it could have a profound and positive impact on your clients as well. And that work could then go on to have a global impact. 

So please go to www.humanisethenumbers.online to find the podcast with Mr. Steve Pipe, Chartered Accountant, or go to your favourite podcast platform. I hope you find this conversation as stimulating and valuable as my team and I have.

Scroll down this episode page for the contact information for Steve and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in this podcast.

It's easy for us to assume you want a more successful firm. You also probably want a more enjoyable place to work. I guess the big question is, which comes first – a more enjoyable firm or a more successful, more profitable firm? 

On this Humanise The Numbers podcast with the Managing Partner of UHY Hacker Young in London and Nottingham, Subarna Banerjee, you'll hear Subarna dive deep into his team-first approach – an approach that's led to the commercial results that they've enjoyed in recent times. You’ll also hear about his deep commitment to a core purpose and a set of values that aren't just corporate wall art, aren't just corporate BS, but real, alive and making a difference for his team and, at the same time, informing their decisions around their customers. 

If you're seeking out ways and means of building a more successful firm, consider checking out what Subarna has to say about a team-first approach, as opposed to one that is commercial-first, and see how, if you do that in an authentic way, you can build a more successful firm. 

Please go to www.humanisethenumbers.online or go to your favourite podcast platform and seek out the Humanise the Numbers podcast with Subarna Banerjee. I look forward to seeing you there. 

Scroll down this episode page for the contact information for Subarna and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in this podcast.

If you or a loved one is unfortunate enough to need a medical or surgical procedure, chances are you'd prefer, for example, to have a kidney transplant specialist, if you needed a kidney transplant, rather than consulting with a general practitioner or even a general surgeon. 

On this podcast, Reza Hooda talks about the fact that your business clients would prefer to work with a specialist in their field, their market, their sector, rather than with a generalist. But Reza also makes the point that, ultimately, your business owner clients would much prefer to work with someone who knows them personally in a deep way. The marketers would call it Segment Size One – there's only one person, one business owner, in that segment. 

As Reza points out, your job as an accountant in a meeting with your clients is to help them see their business in a light that removes some of their concerns, worries and fears about its future, which is why I think this wide-ranging discussion with Reza is such a valuable podcast. 

I hope you'll take time out to go to humanisethenumbers.online or to your favourite podcast platform and check out this discussion with Reza Hooda. 

Please scroll down this episode page for the contact information for Reza and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in this podcast.

The key question – how do you and your firm make a difference? – makes a difference in the conversations you have with your current team members when it comes to connecting them up with the real meaning behind what you're doing. 

Making a difference and communicating that will also help you connect with potential future employees so that they're more likely to join your firm rather than another, ultimately making a difference to the business owner clients that you currently work with, as well as to future prospective clients. 

If these future prospective clients are able to see that you can really make a difference to them and their business, they’re more likely, obviously, to want to work with you and your firm. 

In this podcast with Mark Walker of VFD Pro, Mark unpacks his experience as a senior financial professional, including his time as a board-level finance officer at Carnival Cruises and his work with The Co-Op, as well as with a number of SMEs.  He has built a product, a tool, that's shown him, his client accountancy firms and their clients how they can make a difference by better connecting. Yes, there is a conversation around the future of their business, and yes, around the finances, but also around the whole business, so that there's a stronger relationship. 

That's why I think this podcast discussion is so important. I hope you'll take time out to go to humanisethenumbers.online or to your favourite podcast platform to find this podcast with Mark Walker. I’m sure you’ll find it really valuable. 

Please scroll down this episode page for the contact information for Mark and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in this podcast.

How do you take the customer’s viewpoint of your accounting firm’s service offering from a 'would-like' to a 'must-have' perspective, as when you get to 'must-have' they're more likely to buy more and to pay more because the perceived value is potentially higher? 

We welcome on this podcast discussion Vangelis Kyriazis, the co-founder and CEO of Syft, builders of a KPI reporting product, now with 150,000 business customers worldwide and working through 3,000 accountancy firms. 

Vangelis is a chartered accountant who's unpacked what it takes to hold essentially two conversations, the operational conversation about the operations of your client's business and the financial services conversation. Not operations OR finance, but both, because when you do, you build a deeper relationship. Build a deeper relationship and your clients stay loyal for longer, they buy more from you, they recommend you more and are probably more open to higher prices as well. 

Please join me on this podcast discussion at humanisethenumbers.online or at your favourite podcast platform and see how Vangelis can influence your thinking the way he's influenced mine when it comes to deep operational conversations and financial conversations that build those deeper relationships. 

Please scroll down this episode page for the contact information for Vangelis and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in this podcast.

You’d probably agree that, if you get to a place where you have a strong collaborative relationship with a client and you're doing what you can to educate them and to protect the best interests of their business, you're going to be building a deep relationship, a loyal, long-standing relationship, with that particular client.

And it was those three factors – collaboration, education and protection – that stood out as the valuable elements of this discussion with Mike Dean of Whisper Claims, as he talks about R&D Tax, something I wasn’t expecting would show up on the Humanise the Numbers podcast. 

But Mike talks a lot of sense with regard to collaboration, protection and education in the R&D Tax space, a sector in which there is a high degree of uncertainty and, maybe, a sense of wariness, because of what's taken place in recent times. 

If you’ve got clients who are wondering about or who are interested in R&D Tax, but you’re nervous about it, why not check out this humanisethenumbers.online podcast.

Go to your favourite podcast platform and seek out Humanise The Numbers and Mike Dean, and I’m sure you'll get some valuable insights from the discussion. 

Please scroll down this episode page for the contact information for Mike and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in this podcast.

Have you ever wondered how you can build greater capacity into your firm so that you free up your people to do more of the higher-value work? 

In this podcast discussion with Dave and Andy from FD Intelligence, we unpack the value, the power, the simplicity, arguably, of introducing robot process automation into your firm in a deeper way. If you're not already working with it, you should take this deadly seriously. 

I think this is a profoundly valuable discussion with both Dave and Andy because of the time freedom that it can potentially bring to every accountancy firm – time freedom that enables people to think, enables people to deliver greater customer care and, as a result, builds a greater, more valuable firm. I hope you enjoy and value this discussion as much as I did. 

Please go to www.humanisethenumbers.online or go to your favourite podcast platform and look out for the podcast with Dave Clough and Andy Guy. 

Scroll down this podcast’s episode page for the contact information for Dave and Andy and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in this podcast.

When someone says to me that the numbers are the outputs, and it's the team, it's the humans, that are the inputs, you can imagine I'm all ears. 

In this podcast discussion with Nicky Clough of Insight Training, you'll hear Nicky unpack and expand on those thoughts. Yes, accountants are obsessed with the numbers, quite rightly so, because that's their area of expertise, but maybe we should also be obsessed with the humans in our firms, the people, and what we do to build their knowledge and skills. 

Nicky talks about the importance of building self-awareness as, when there's a higher degree of self-awareness, there's the willingness, the motivation, the ability, even, to build knowledge and skill.

I hope you get something of real value from this discussion with Nicky Clough – I certainly did. And you can get the full podcast at humanisethenumbers.online or you can go to your favourite podcast platform and seek out Humanise The Numbers and Nicky Clough.

Please scroll down this episode page for the contact information for Nicky and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in this podcast.

If your firm is making good use of technology, and embracing new technology as well, if you are building the knowledge and skill of your team and building deeper relationships with your clients, you'll know that you’re on track for the ambitious future you have in mind for your firm, your team and your clients. 

In this podcast with Nicki Savill of Moore Kingston Smith, Nicki spends a good deal of time talking about how to build deeper relationships with clients and how to build a stronger sense of human connection across the team as, ultimately, it is the team's knowledge and skills that deliver for your clients. 

It's a powerful discussion. Nicki's very open and candid about what they do and how they do it, as well as about the metrics they use around face-to-face meetings, face-to-face interactions with the team – these are far more human than when using Teams or Zoom.

You'll hear Nicki describe how important, how impactful, those handshake, face-to-face discussions are with both team and clients. I hope you enjoy this discussion with Nicki as much as I did. The time absolutely flew by and I think you'll get something of significant value from the insights that Nicki shares. 

You can get the full podcast at humanisethenumbers.online, or you can go to your favourite podcast platform and seek out Humanise The Numbers and Nicki Savill.

Please scroll down this episode page for the contact information for Nicki and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in this podcast.

Sometimes the work we do is a real privilege, especially when we are able to have a deep discussion about what it means to humanise the numbers with someone who's qualified as a chartered accountant, has loved his time in practice, put his hands up for everything he could possibly put his hand up for, but who moved on (because he didn't like the geography) into Sage to do a tech support role, then into sales with Wolters Kluwer, ending up as Managing Director of UK and Ireland.

That person is Neil Parsons.

In this podcast, we discuss the relevance of the right numbers for the right person in the context of the strategic key results of the business. And building those bridges and ensuring that there's a metronomic cadence to communicating the right numbers to the right people in the right way is as relevant to clients as it is to team members. 

And that's what struck me in this podcast – everything we talked about was as relevant to clients as it was to team members. I hope you find this podcast discussion with Neil as valuable, informative and insightful as I did. 

Please scroll down the episode page for this humanise the numbers podcast for the contact information for Neil and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in the podcast.

It's not every day you get to interview an accountant who's also a retailer and a podcaster, and in this discussion with Andrew Van De Beek from Australia – Andrew runs a twenty-person accountancy business in Victoria – the discussion turns almost into a philosophical debate, but with real, practical outcomes.

Andrew is committed to the concept of the business of relationships, with a core focus, a core purpose, around building businesses and helping owner-managed business leaders build organisations that stand the test of time. 

We spent time talking about process and people. We spent a bit of time talking about purpose and profitability as well. But it was the depth of the conversation, the detail of the insight, that stood out for me. 

I thoroughly enjoyed speaking to Andrew. I hope you enjoy this podcast as much as I did. 

Go to your favourite podcast platform or go to humanisethenumbers.online and seek out the podcast with Andrew Van de Beek.

Please scroll down the podcast’s episode page for the contact information for Andrew and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in the podcast.

When you listen in to a conversation with a leader of an accounting business with over 100 people, and you hear how seriously they take investment in their team now so that it delivers a return in 12, 18, 24 or even 36 months, it's well worth considering what’s being said. 

So, when Rebecca Mihalic of the Australian firm businessDEPOT talks about taking team members along to client meetings, not as a piece of furniture (to use her language), but as active participants in the meeting, using the tools of the meeting to enable them to contribute in a valuable, meaningful way, you can see how Rebecca is growing her team to deliver a result for her personally. She can cascade client relationship work to others, work that otherwise might not happen. 

It's a valuable discussion. There's a phrase towards the end of the discussion where Rebecca talks about creating a safe space to fail and a safe space to win as being one of the fundamental concepts that she uses when leading and managing her team. 

You’ll find many helpful insights in this discussion with Rebecca. I hope you'll go to your favourite podcast platform, whether it be iTunes or Spotify or another platform, or join us at humanisethenumbers.online and look for this podcast discussion with Rebecca Milahic. 

Please scroll down the episode page for this podcast for the contact information for Rebecca and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in the podcast.

It's simply brilliant when you can spend some time with a chartered accountant, one who spent 17 years with EY down in Australia before becoming an owner-managed business buying accountancy services. 

Craig believes that an accountant does a brilliant job, a better job, if they're 80% human and 20% accountant when working with their owner-managed business clients. 

This podcast discussion is with Craig McKell, from our very good friend AdvanceTrack. Craig is working in the profession again and is now the General Manager of Asia Pacific for AdvanceTrack. 

He's amazed at the challenges the profession faces from a talent-shortage perspective. He shares a brilliant insight around the fact that you don't have to fall far from the corporate world of accountancy to make a real difference with real people – owner-managed businesses. 

It's worth going to this podcast to understand what you do, for example, with three names. What could you do with three names so that you're more human than you are an accountant (80% human, 20% accountant)? 

You’ll find great value in this podcast as we discuss the 80/20 rule according to Craig McKell. 

I hope you enjoy this practical, passionate podcast with Craig McKell of AdvanceTrack. 

All you need to do is go to your favourite podcast platform or join us at humanisethenumbers.online and seek out the podcast with Craig McKell.

Please scroll down the podcast’s episode page for the contact information for Craig and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in this podcast.

It's not often you get the chance to chew the fat with someone who's worked with Ford, with Tata, with Levi’s, as well as with numerous other high-end, well-known, well-recognised international brands, and be able to talk to them about what ‘brand’ and accountants have to do with each other. 

And what Philippa does brilliantly on this podcast is to unpack two or three deep, key insights that can help you and your firm connect with the messaging around your firm's brand, to underpin the future success of your marketing, of your client loyalty and, arguably, the loyalty of your team. 

So why not go to www.humanisethenumbers.online and look for the podcast with Philippa Haynes or go to your favourite podcast platform. I hope you take some real value from this podcast, which is principally about marketing, but which also encompasses a discussion around ‘brand promise’. 

Please scroll down the episode page for this podcast for the contact information for Philippa and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in the podcast.

When you dive into a deep conversation with a person who has worked in a village accountancy practice, someone who has also been part of a national firm and who has worked within an organisation to establish a new office, improving the fees by £100k per month, you know you're likely to have a decent podcast discussion.

In this conversation with Stuart Hurst of Cloud 10, a business in startup phase, we start unpacking what a startup does to not only build revenue, but also to build capital value by installing good structure and process. Stuart’s got a real eye on scaling the business without putting undue stress on him as a business leader. 

Don't get me wrong – any startup has its own challenges, and significant opportunities as well, and Stuart shares some of those on this podcast. When you've got a podcast called Humanise The Numbers, it's great to have a deep, meaningful, personal conversation to tie the numbers to the humanity of what's going on in an accounting firm. 

I hope you enjoy this podcast and find it as valuable, insightful and practical as both Stuart and I tried to make it. If you want to hear more, please go to www.humanisethenumbers.online or to your favourite podcast platform. 

Please scroll down the episode page for this podcast for the contact information for Stuart and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in the podcast.

It's not every day you get the opportunity to interview the Global Chief Technology Officer of one of the landmark suppliers to the accounting profession. 

 In this podcast discussion with Aaron Harris from Sage, we explored a few issues around using AI in the accounting profession. We, perhaps surprisingly, opened up a very human conversation on this topic, exploring the idea that the success of your firm in using AI to support your clients and work better with your team is founded on trust.  

There is much scepticism around the use of AI in the accountancy profession, but it is important to work out how to build a high-trust environment within which AI can work. 

Bearing in mind that Bill Gates recently said that the use of AI is profoundly more impactful than any other single thing in the history of Microsoft, it’s something we have to take seriously. It’s not something that we need to be fearful of, but it is something that requires a foundation of trust. 

 So why not check out this profoundly valuable podcast discussion with Aaron Harris.  

All you need to do is go to your favourite podcast platform and hunt out Aaron Harris, or go to www.humanisethenumbers.online. 

When your clients feel at home, they tend to want to stay at home. That's a statement by James Butterworth, a tech and advisory specialist from the VIP team at Croner-i.

In this podcast discussion, I was surprised by how this conversation moved to a place where we discussed how a better understanding of the client and what they want, as well as tax law and the way you manage your clients' tax affairs, is what ultimately humanises the numbers. 

This is a fascinating conversation with James which essentially confirms that the better you are at being curious about what's in the best interests of your clients, you build stronger relationships that ensure that clients are more likely to stay with you. If it's a prospect, they are more likely to join your firm because you take a proactive approach to your clients’ tax affairs using the support of a specialist. 

This is far from a sales pitch from James – it's more a ‘what can you do in general practice to make more of tax when working with your clients?’ It was an unexpected, enjoyable and valuable conversation with James. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. 

You can get access to the full podcast discussion on your favourite podcast platform or go to www.humanisethenumbers.online.

Please scroll down the podcast’s episode page for the contact information for James and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in this podcast.

There’s something very remarkable about the work accountants can do to transform the lives of their business owner clients, transform the results of their business, and feel a sense of pride, satisfaction and passion for the work they do. 

On this podcast discussion with Andrew Botham – accountant, business owner, guide, consultant, whatever label you want to give him – Andrew tells a handful of stories about how, with two or three numbers – not numbers that show up in the balance sheet or the P&L, but a handful of numbers – you can help business owners see sense and make decisions that turn a business that's generating £300k worth of profit per annum into a business that's generating £927k in net profit every month. 

This is because, as accountants, they help the business owner zero in on a handful of KPIs, ask a handful of questions and encourage the business owner to make a handful of key decisions. I've worked with Andrew in the past, and it was a delight to have him on the podcast to unpack his simple, effective ways and means of running client discussions, helping business owners transform their results. 

You can access the full podcast at Spotify, iTunes or your favourite podcast platform, or you can find it at www.humanisethenumbers.online. 

Please scroll down the episode page for this podcast for the contact information for Andrew and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in the podcast.

What must it feel like to leave a promising, high-flying career with a leading firm and start up your own firm – to hand your notice in and, six months later, kick-start your accountancy firm with one client?

Well, that's exactly what Kat Wellum-Kent has done. She set up Fractional Finance and has grown that to a business with a fairly clear vision of building a £5 million turnover business in just five years. She already has clients paying her, yes, £400 a month, but also clients paying her £7500 a month. 

On this podcast, you'll hear Kat share her insights around fairness for the team and the vision based around how this will play out for her clients and the capital value that she's going to help them grow. She shares the importance of building a vision board and having good reasons for why you're doing what you're doing, so that in those moments where it gets tough, you can have a quick check-in on your vision board and say, yeah, I'm on the right path. 

Why not go to this podcast discussion with Kat Wellum-Kent to hear those deep insights and see how they might apply to your established firm, or your startup firm, or the firm that you've got in your mind's eye that you're looking to set up in the not-too-distant future. I'm certain you'll get great value and enjoy the discussion we have together. 

Go to www.humanisethenumbers.online or to your favourite podcast platform and you'll find Kat Wellum-Kent sharing her deep, meaningful insights.

Please scroll down the podcast’s episode page for the contact information for Kat and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in the podcast.

I recently had the great privilege to spend an hour with a business leader who had sold their business just a few days before, after 22 years. 

That business started in their bedroom, and they built it up over time to just short of a million-pound turnover – a modest-sized business, but what an insight into client care and how you create a business that works brilliantly with three grades of client, establishing enough capital value to enable it to be sold for a substantial sum. 

I hope you'll take time out to listen to this deep and meaningful, highly valuable conversation with Tracy Irwin. She signposts specifics that you and your firm can employ to build that value equation in your clients' minds, allow you to better look after your team so that they deliver exceptionally for your clients and then to ‘live happily ever after’, as the saying goes. 

I thoroughly enjoyed and found the discussion with Tracy profoundly insightful. Go to your favourite podcast platform or to www.humanisethenumbers.online and please scroll down the podcast’s episode page for the contact information for Tracy and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in the podcast.

Nikki and Nigel are rightly proud of the high levels of enthusiasm and motivation their team demonstrate on a daily basis in their firm. They face challenges like all firms face challenges but with their team fully on board with their vision and values, going to work is no chore.

So what are they doing exactly, to create a working environment that creates enthusiasm and zeal in their team? A zeal that is helping them grow quickly and grow profitably!

Check out this Humanise The Numbers podcast and listen to the insights, skills and habits that are creating their success and can help you achieve the similar success...

When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Nicki and Nigel and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast.  

Because both Will and Peter are leading high-growth digital accountancy practices it's enlightening to listen to what they have to say!

In this discussion Peter and Will share their insights, key skills and structures that support the growth of their firms, the development of their people and the very strong relationships they have with their clients.

The discussion starts on the topic of book keeping but soon morphs into an even more important debate about client relationship work, team skills development and more.
Listen to this Humanise The Numbers podcast here.
When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Will and Peter and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast. 

How would one of your favorite business owner clients feel if they were approached by another accountancy firm that was genuinely wholeheartedly committed to building a better future for them and their business.

I've just interviewed that accountancy firm they're called Wood and Disney.

I've interviewed Brendon Howlett one of the owner directors of Wood and Disney. 
And he shared what's behind the firm's corporate focus...

Building Better Futures, which...

 I'm fairly certain applies to the team, just as much as it applies to the clients and Brendon shares some insight, some knowledge around what and how they make the most of that central purpose, how it influences their conversations with their clients and the impact that has on client loyalty and the ability of that central purpose.

That commitment to building better futures brings them new clients, especially given the challenges we've had in recent months with the coronavirus issues and so forth.

So tune in here at humanisethenumbers.online and you'll be able to access the podcast interview between Brendon and I, as well as a handful of other podcast interviews. 

And, when you've had a chance to listen to it's about 30 minutes with Brendon, I'd really appreciate you dropping me a line. Let me know what you thought and what you've got out of that podcast interview. 

Hope you enjoy it.  When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Brendon and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast. 

In this podcast you'll hear how Mark and his team take seriously, deadly seriously, the five behavioral values they hold true in their firm.

It's impressive for one core reason.

Mark and his team have worked remotely for years. It's not just something that they've created over the recent months thanks to the pandemic.

They worked remotely for a long time. They've got this tight knit coalesced, highly motivated team, partly because they genuinely wholeheartedly live the five behavioral values and Mark shares, what and how they do that on this podcast interview..

There's also one other thing that stands out well in the interview and the discussion with Mark.

His team's commitment to the weekly rhythm so there's 52 opportunities a year to be successful.  Not 12 (if you're rolling a monthly rhythm).

So why not dive into that interview? And you'll be able to access Mark talking in detail about the what and the hows and the why's around Telford accountants.

Hope you enjoy this Humanise The Numbers podcast.
When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Mark and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast. 

I'd be surprised if any accountant, any accountancy firm wouldn't want to work with high-growth, ambitious entrepreneurial business owners.

And that's exactly what Steve Timmis at Sempar Accountants is doing.

In fact. Steve and his team are doing it so well that they're growing fees by between 30% and 50% per annum in recent years and despite only starting the firm in 2016 they will be touching maybe over achieving on fees of a million pounds in 2021.

What's fascinating though, is that Steve puts right at the centre of the growth in fees the team culture they've created within the firm.

So why not join me and Steve on this podcast interview at Humanisethenumbers.online and hear what Steve has to say about what he does and what his team do and how they do it to achieve the sort of growth that they're achieving.

And please, if you get the opportunity, drop me a line and let me know what you think of the lessons you learned from Steve. It's a brilliant discussion. Mostly because Steve is very open and very candid about what they're doing and how they're doing in his firm. 

I hope you enjoy the podcast.  When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Steve and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast.  

In this Humanise The Numbers podcast interview with Sean Farnell from the six office firm Burgis and Bullock Chartered Accountants in the Midlands,  you'll hear Sean sharing his insights and what and how they ensure enough points of contact between the management team and the production team and the impact, the positive impact it has on their firm.

You'll also hear how lockdown has brought about great improvements in the productivity of their firm.

When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Sean and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast.  

It's a challenging question to ask you how committed you are to the mental well-being of your team.

During tumultuous and trying times it's an important question, and I'm sure you're doing everything you can to facilitate, assist support your team so that they thrive as well as supporting your clients so that they thrive too.

In this Humanise The Numbers podcast discussion with Martin Horton of Rivington Accountants, you'll hear Martin share one or two ways that he's helping his clients thrive. 

But what stands out is his commitment and levels of support, monthly support around the mental wellbeing of his team at an important time.
When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Martin and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast. 

Most firms of accountants are working on the transition from being entirely compliance-oriented firms of accountants, to firms that are doing both compliance and advisory. 

Some have got a really healthy advisory part to their practices and have that compliance work taking place as well, but very few firms are advisory only, but Rob Boll in his firm of 30 people called Evoke is dedicated entirely to advisory work. They use a framework and they use the word SCOPE to describe that framework. 

In this discussion, this podcast with Rob, he shares the details around what SCOPE stands for and how effective, how useful, how valuable it is asking questions around that scope framework.  It's this that enables him and his team to have high-value advisory conversations with all of his business owner clients.

Go to humanisethenumbers.online and you'll find the podcast interview with  Rob. 

We believe you'll get a lot out ofthe nitty-gritty detail of how Rob interacts with his clients to ensure that he keeps his 30-person firm growing around exclusively advisory work.
 When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Rob and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast.  

Have you ever wondered how to get more production out of your production team?

What I mean by that is have you ever wondered how to better help your production team turn out more sets of accounts, more VAT returns, more management accounts in any given time, even if they're working remotely part of the time, or maybe even if they're working remotely all of the time.

In this podcast interview I'm talking with Kat Wellum Kent of multi-partner multi-office firm Monahans down in the Southwest of the UK and Kat with her 45-strong production team have started a number of initiatives to do just that.

 I really liked the buddy system that Kat talks about on the podcast, as well as the different career paths she creates depending on the natural preferences, natural tendencies, natural skills and personalities that go with her team.

So why not join me at humanisethenumbers.online and listen to this podcast with Kat Wellum Kent and you'll get a real insight into the great work Kats doing within Monahans.
When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Kats and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast. 

I'd be surprised if any accountant would disagree with the fact that client loyalty is the cornerstone of the fees, profits, and capital value of their firm.

Also very few firms would disagree or argue with the fact that the clients that feel loyal to your firm do so because of the quality of the relationship you have with them. 

Very few firms, it seems to me, and in my experience actually track and measure either the quantity or the quality of the client interaction, number of meetings, number of zoom meetings, number of calls etc.

On this Humanise The Numbers podcast, you'll hear David Belbin and I lock horns a little bit.

We talk about Arsene Wenger and about Mike Tyson, and why this is relevant to you and your firm. 
It's relevant, because David brings up a really valuable point I think.

One of his intentions, rather than where he's got to so far, is to build a client score card.

A way of tracking and measuring the effectiveness of the relationship between him and his clients, his team, and his clients.
Check out what David's got to say about the way he and his 24 person firm builds a human interaction with their clients.  How they do it in such a way that they're building the fundamental foundations of great client loyalty and therefore fees, profits and capital value for the future.

 When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for David and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast. 

On  this Humanise The Numbers podcast interview I’m talking to Coral Tolley-Fletcher and Jonathan Vowles of JVCA - based in Cranfield -and I have a sneaking suspicion I ambushed Coral and Jonathan a little around their views of the value that they and their firm deliver to their clients. 

And we have what I believe is a valuable conversation about the two types of value, the two aspects of value or pay off as I like to call it.

One being the, functional, factual, financial payoff that your client's experience of working with your firm and the other being the emotional payoff, you know, that sense of reassurance and certainty and confidence that everything's all right in the world that clients get from working with you, their accountant.

So why not join me, Carol and Jonathan on this Humanise The Numbers podcast at Humanisethenumbers.online and see what you make of those two elements of payoff or value functional and emotional. And hopefully you'll derive, get some value and take some action on the back of making more of the opportunity to talk value in two different ways with your clients.
When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Jonathan and Coral and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast. 

How do you explain to clients the value behind you charging them in excess of 2% of the turnover of their business? 

And how do you explain that a million pound turnover business can and should, and willingly will pay you £20,000  or more per annum for the work that you do with them.

Well, on this podcast interview with Luke Smith of his firm Purpose, you'll hear Luke describe in detail what he says, what he does, how he says it,  and how he does it to earn the right. to charging an average fee across all of of clients in excess of £20,000. 

So why not join me on this humanisethenumbers.online podcast and hear what Luke has to say about how he does a brilliant of of working with these clients, but also demonstrating the value that his firm delivers to his clients. 

I hope you enjoy the podcast.  When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Luke and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast. 

How come some accountants are really good at connecting with their business owner clients and other accountants are less good, less effective at building that personal connection with that business owner clients. 

On this podcast interview, you'll hear Luke Smith of Purpose -  this is part two of a two-part discussion I had with Luke recently. 

Myself and a bunch of other accountants actually grill Luke on this podcast and you'll hear Luke describe what it is his team are doing to ensure that there's a real connection in every year-end meeting between his team and his business owner clients.

So why not join me and a bunch of other accountants on this humanisethenumbers.online podcast and hear what Luke has got to say about how he and his team do great work to build that connection between his team and his clients.
When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Luke and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast.  

What would it be like knowing with absolute confidence in absolute certainty where you're taking your firm? What the vision of your firm is?

The goals that you've set for yourself.

Knowing with concrete certainty that you're going to get there.

In this discussion with Jo Drinkwater of Grant McKnight in the West Midlands, you'll see, hear, even feel Jo's confidence and certainty about the future of her business and her team and the work she's doing with her clients.

You'll get a sense of her zeal and enthusiasm and joy of running her relatively new business.

And hopefully be inspired by that energy and get something of real value from this discussion.

So please join me on this Humanise The Numbers podcast and meet Jo Drinkwater and feed off the enthusiasm and zeal she's got for the profession for her team and for her customers.

I hope you enjoy the podcast.  When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Jo and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast.  

How exactly do you build a stronger connection with each and every one of your team so that each and every one of them are more productive, generate a higher standard of work and ultimately deliver greater bottom line profits to you and your firm?

 On this HumaniseTheNumbers podcast discussion with Wayne Hockley from Anthony Russell, you'll hear Wayne describe in detail how they've moved their firm from a monthly rhythm for production workflow, to a weekly rhythm around production workflow.

 Plus how important it's been to drive more regular, daily, if not more than daily contact with each and every member of their team.

 That may sound inefficient but this approach by Wayne and Tony has delivered effective results and effective bottom line profits for their firm.
So why not join me on this podcast interview to hear the insights that Wayne has to share.
 When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Wayne and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast.  

How do you, as a firm end up with a culture where everyone within the firm holds everyone else to account for the standards of the work they do and the way they behave.?

It's not just a top down accountability.

It's top down, bottom up, side to side accountability because everyone has that drive and enthusiasm and verve for achieving performance standards and behavioral standards that everyone in the firm holds dear.

Join me on this podcast interview with Neil Ballard and Rachel Barry of Lewis Ballard, a 24-person, two-office firm in South Wales.
Neil and Rachel also happen to be father and daughter. 

Hear exactly how they have created this culture of accountability thanks to some monthly routines around team feedback.

Hear also about the impact 360-degree feedback has had on Neil, the managing director and how they connect in a stronger, deeper, more emotionally, valuable way with their clients because of their approach to a communication strategy, which I think you'll find fascinating.

So please join me, Neil and Rachel, on this HumaniseTheNumbers.Online podcast.

I look forward to hearing and hopefully reading your feedback on this fascinating and I think really valuable discussion.

 When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Neil and Rachel and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast.  

What do you think it would be like to grow an accountancy firm from 30 people strong to 200 people strong 4 offices, 18 partners, and still retain the feel and culture of the family firm you were 30 years ago when there was 30 people in the firm.

Nathan Keeley from Carpenter Box down in Sussex, joins me on this HumaniseTheNumbers.Online podcast and shares in quite intimate detail, a number of the things they've done and things they're doing to ensure that they've got that sense of collaboration within the team and the sense of collaboration too, with their clients.

Yes, they’ve been using technology but also looking at every role in every department in its own merits and building KPIs that suit each individual and each department in its own merits. I think you'll find a huge amount of value in what Nathan has shared in this podcast. And I hope you'll join me at HumaniseTheNumbers.online

And please, if you get the opportunity to give me your feedback, it'd be great to hear from you.  When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Nathan and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast.  

What one thing is the key to the future success of your accounting firm?

Don't you think actually it makes sense to get an outsider's perspective?

To answer that question, an outsider who absolutely loves the profession and has spent the last six years working with the profession I'm  joined by Zoe Lacey Cooper, the director head of events at Accountex the largest UK exhibition for the accounting profession.

Join me on this Humanise The Numbers podcast and hear Zoe sharing her insights and experiences that point to implementation as the one key thing.

To what extent have you, your colleagues, your firm been looking at the efficiency, the effectiveness, the productiveness of your accounts and tax teams whilst in the working from home locked down world we’ve been living in in recent times?

Certainly I've been experiencing a number of conversations with a number of firms around time sheets and  as a result I was stimulated by one of those firms to consider having a podcast discussion with several firms on the merits or otherwise of using time sheets.

One of those firms suggested wouldn't it be great if you got the world's expert, Ron Baker involved as well. 

And I thought’ that's a great idea. Let's ask him’, And I did,  And I'm pleased, proud, privileged to say that on this podcast, you'll hear from Ron Baker. 

You'll also hear from three very strong managing partners of accounting firms across the UK, one in the North two in the South.

You’ll hear each of them sharing their experiences of not working with time sheets, working with time sheets. 

And so we've created this podcast called the time sheet tussle, which I hope contributes to your thinking around the merits or otherwise of using time sheets and maybe other ways of driving the effectiveness, the efficiency, the productivity, and therefore, of course, the profitability of your firms.

So please join me the three managing partners and Ron Baker at humanisethenumbers.online.

 I hope you enjoy this very thought provoking podcast discussion.  When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Ron and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast.  

In this fascinating discussion I'm talking with Alison Blackler of 2minds.  Alison is a transformational mind coach, speaker and author - what that means is that she supports and helps people work with their minds to transform how they view themselves and the world around them.

As Alison says ' basically anywhere where there is a mind I can pop up and hopefully help them.'  

During the conversation we dive into the strategies, processes and frameworks that you and your team can put in place to manage the difficulties of change in your accountancy firm in a much more effective and personal, if not human way.

It's a revealing, candid and enormously insightful interview.  Do join me on this Humanise The Numbers podcast to hear what Alison has to say.

When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Alison and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast.  

What must it be like for the leadership team of an accountancy firm to be not a hundred percent confident, but seriously confident about the future stability of their firm.

You're about to hear from Suda Ratnam of 70 person, 11 partner firm Raffingers on the outskirts of London, share what they as a firm are doing to humanise the numbers in their firm based on their mentoring program for their team.

And also a quarterly review process with their team to ensure that everyone in the firm is on the track to progress, to be doing the best work they can do and to feel as though they're very much part of the progression of the firm.

So please, why not join me and Suda Ratnum at HumaniseTheNumbers.online for this podcast discussion that ultimately sees Raffingers invest in their people quite significantly, and fits very well with the message around 'If  you don't grow your people, you won't grow your practice'. But if you do grow your people, you will grow your practice fees, profits, capital value and cash. And also that sense of pride and enjoyment of running a humanised accountancy business.

When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Suda and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast.  

There are very few people who are recognized within the accounting profession, worldwide, us, UK, Europe, Australasia.

Paul Dunn is one of those individuals, he has served the accounting profession for several decades, CEO of B1G1 - Business for Good and he's won several awards.

On this podcast discussion, Paul shares his insights on the value of purpose and the value of values so that you can apply the success of them to your firm.

When on this episode page, please scroll down for the contact information for Paul and to find additional resources mentioned in the podcast.