Earmark Podcast | Earn Free Accounting CPE

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Blake Oliver: [00:00:24] Welcome to the webinar. We'll get started shortly. Before we begin, here's how to earn CPE credit. [00:00:30] Unlike traditional CPE webinars, there are no polling questions or attendance checks during the presentation. Instead, you will demonstrate your knowledge by taking a brief multiple choice quiz in the earmark app, search for the free earmark app from the App Store or Google Play Store, or scan the QR code on the screen. Open the app and create an account. Be sure to use a valid email address, because we'll email you your CPE certificates from the home screen. Scroll down to find the course. You can [00:01:00] also tap the magnifying glass icon to search for the course. Tap on the course artwork, then the enroll button. On the course tab. You'll find the recording and quiz questions. If you don't see the quiz yet, don't worry, we'll email you when the quiz is available. Complete the quiz to earn your CPE certificate. If you have questions or need help, email us anytime at support at earmark Cpcomm. Now on to the webinar. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to earmark. [00:01:30] I'm your host, Blake Oliver, joined today by Allen Whitman. Allen Whitman is a seasoned executive and highly recognized leader, known for his ability to inspire and navigate people around bold ideas and uncomfortable change. During his nearly decade long tenure as chairman and chief executive officer of Baker Tilly, US, the CPA and accounting firm grew revenue by three times, went global for the first time while expanding into 15 new domestic markets and successfully completed over 20 [00:02:00] mergers and acquisitions in a matter of a few years. So I'm very eager to talk to you, Allen, today about what you did at Baker Tilly and how you think we can improve CPA firms based on your experience. Welcome to the show.

Alan Whitman: [00:02:12] Thanks, Blake. Thanks for having me and looking forward to the conversation.

Blake Oliver: [00:02:15] So let's dig right into it. You were the CEO of Baker Tilly for years. I assume that you started there. Like, did you work your way up at Baker Tilly?

Alan Whitman: [00:02:27] No, I started off in [00:02:30] the big eight, six, five, four. Okay. As a tax guy by background. Left the big four at the time and became and then joined Baker Tilly. It was a named something else prior to it becoming Baker Tilly. And that was in 2003. And I was immediately asked to build an international platform. And neither my predecessor nor I knew what that was. We just said, we'll figure it out. We did. And then one thing led to another, and I was elected to be the the next CEO, uh, in [00:03:00] the fall of 2014 and began leading the firm in summer of 15.

Blake Oliver: [00:03:06] Ferm grew a ridiculous amount during that time. That must have been quite a wild ride. Um, you mentioned the revenue in your bio, but like in terms of headcount, where was Baker Tilly when you started? Where did it go?

Alan Whitman: [00:03:20] Yeah. You know, like I, I want to say it was something like 17 or 1800 people grew to, grew to 6400 people when I retired. [00:03:30] Uh, uh, on many continents around the world, the largest concentration of individuals was here in the United States. But it or and it grew tremendously.

Blake Oliver: [00:03:42] So now you are a consultant. You're helping other firms to what you call break the mold. You've trademarked this term. Break the mold. So, so this is interesting to me because you had a lot of success at Baker Tilly. And I assume, like most other big firms, Baker Tilly is operating on a traditional model. [00:04:00] But you're saying that CPA firms can't do that or shouldn't do that. They should break the mold. What do you mean by break the mold?

Speaker3: [00:04:07] Well, look.

Alan Whitman: [00:04:09] Every good organization listens to what's happening outside of their four walls. And we all know that over the last couple of years, everything's changed, whether it was because of Covid or or just the onslaught of new expectations by from employees, from from team members. And, you know, it's interesting all of this was [00:04:30] happening. We just didn't realize it. It was happening gradually over time. And then Covid came about and suddenly we have a whole new way of thinking, way of working, etc.. And as I looked at Baker Tilly and and frankly, the entire profession and really professional services at large, I realized that we were simply incrementally changing the organizations and and we were still running the organizations the way it was done ten, 20, 40 [00:05:00] years ago. And in order to keep pace with the change in people's mindset and the influences of the economy and technology organizations, in order to be relevant and sustainable long into the future, need to think about a different operating model. And otherwise we're going to gradually erode our relevance in the in the marketplace, in the profession and in the economy.

Blake Oliver: [00:05:25] So when you say a different operating model, what does that look like?

Alan Whitman: [00:05:28] Well, traditionally [00:05:30] professional services firms are hourly rate times hours equals revenue. Build a revenue. Collect the revenue. And as you know, technology we were talking before the show began. You do quite a bit of discussions on the effects of technology on, on on organizations. And so technology is has allowed us to see our organizations differently. And so rather than running the firm linearly, ours rate. Revenue, etc. we also need to think about is [00:06:00] the input what is driving the value or the engine? Is that really what's driving the engine, or is that what should be driving the engine? Or is the outcomes and the value that somebody drives or brings to a to a client, a customer? What drives the organization? And as I grew up in this profession, it was simply hours, hours, hours. And I started thinking, is it really the hours that are important? Or is it again, what what am I producing? What's [00:06:30] the project? What's the solution? And I think if anybody steps back outside of the CFOs office or outside of maybe the operating, uh, discussion, they'll agree that it's about what is produced, what is delivered that's most important, not what is put into the into the into the machine are the ingredients the important thing of the cake or is how the cake comes out, how the cake tastes, ordering another cake, etc.. Uh, and so [00:07:00] again, I think that the firms that are able to shift from a production mindset to an outcomes and a value mindset will break the mold and will be far ahead of those that don't.

Blake Oliver: [00:07:16] But none of the big firms do this. Did Baker Tilly do this?

Alan Whitman: [00:07:20] We were starting that process when I was at the latter part of my tenure with the organization. I had a lot of interest in doing it. It's a bold step. It's a [00:07:30] nerve wracking step because people would say, well, how are you going to account for everything? How are you going to make sure projects are moving along appropriately? How are you going to do all this stuff that we've we've grown so accustomed to, which all have to do with the internal part of the organization versus the external part. Are we more interested in the accounting of everything? Is that what we're telling ourselves versus we're more interested in what what how people are developing, how people how the product that comes out [00:08:00] to the market. Let me give you an example. So so I was a tax debt. Excuse me? I was a tax guy. I learned how to do individual tax returns, corporate tax returns. You know organizational tax returns what have you. I don't know how many I performed, I don't know how many I built or completed, but it was in the hundreds. Because every year I'd get the old email where you got to have 55 chargeable hours next week and through April 15th. Never did we [00:08:30] really say you have to get this many projects done. We just said ours because we said if you get the hours done then the projects happen. Okay, I'll buy that. But I must have done.

Alan Whitman: [00:08:41] Let's just say I did 350 individual tax returns over my career. Did I really need the last, I don't know, 200? Was I really learning anything or was I just there to to be the machine because I had to generate hours into the PNL to [00:09:00] generate profits? Et cetera. Et cetera. I wasn't growing after after the the first 150. Now, you know, uh, so what value was that to me as a professional trying to develop myself? Uh, so if you if we take a different view on. Okay, one should I have done those extra 200, could there have been somebody else? Or maybe we should be focusing on what I deliver, what the outcomes of my effort versus versus the hours that we're in. I, as a young associate or a senior, [00:09:30] I'm probably going to have a more fruitful and more enjoyable upbringing in the profession. And. I'll be able to take on more, actually more valuable, maybe even higher valued, you know, billable projects. And I'll, I'll achieve more in my career. So look, it's it's both from a, from an individual perspective and the career development perspective as it is from I just think we're missing the force of the trees. We're focused on the inputs. Is is the business model [00:10:00] for a professional services firm. Just charge hours. Bill hours put hours in the system or as the business model to deliver value to its clients.

Blake Oliver: [00:10:10] I wonder if part of the problem is that the whole firm is set up to roll up these billable hours and utilization targets and realization metrics to some sort of central reporting system. I never saw it when I was in public accounting, but I imagined that the managing partner was sitting there [00:10:30] with the other folks, running the firm, looking at each team and evaluating each team based on this every month.

Alan Whitman: [00:10:39] Well, and more than that, excuse me for interrupting for a second. Yes, I did, I did see it. I saw the reports. And so let's just think about that for a second. So I'm sitting here on a Monday or Tuesday, let's say. And what report am I looking at? I'm looking at what happened last week. Last week's gone. And now I got a. Rejigger the system, and I've got to [00:11:00] change the future. Well, maybe I should be focusing on tomorrow and the next day and the next month, etc.. I'm always looking at reports that are in the past. Now, that is that is an earmark or that's a that's a telltale sign of financial statements. They're always in the past rather than looking looking towards the future. And yes, there's this big engine and we are, by and large, looking at, uh, those production reports. You know, it's interesting you asked me or you made the comment, which I agree, Alan. None of the large firms are doing it. [00:11:30] You're you're right. Interestingly, I, I'm lucky enough to have a friend who's very, very high up, like in the upper echelon of one of the big four firms. And we and we meet and it's interesting how what they're focusing on at, you know, $20 billion of revenue and what what Baker Tilly was when I was the CEO at 1,000,000,002 or whatever it was, it's virtually it's basically the same stuff. Yeah. And we talk about this and we both said the, the firm that goes to an outcomes based business model versus a production model [00:12:00] will win. The question is who's going to jump off the the ledge. You know who's going to take that chance.

Blake Oliver: [00:12:06] Well. And what partnership cohort is going to vote to do this? To take this risk isn't part of the problem that firms are more profitable than they've ever been under the traditional model. So then the argument is why change? Why? Why do anything differently?

Alan Whitman: [00:12:24] Uh, without question, Blake, people are very content and complacent in where they are. Why change [00:12:30] anything? Because, you know, what's gotten us here is going to get us. There is what is what they come back with. You know what's wrong with the current system, you know, and as a as a visionary CEO, as I like to think I am, I'm looking ten, 15 years down the, down the road and I'm listening to the people. I'm listening to all of the 6400 or, you know, or some large contingent. They want something different. Look, there is no denying the the facts bear out that [00:13:00] there are less students at university going into the accounting field and less. Account counting majors taking sitting for the CPA exam. Mhm. So there's something that needs to be addressed. Now a lot of people are thinking it's, you know, the 150 hours to get to be to sit for the CPA exam. That may be true. I believe that it's the archaic way the CPA firms and the professional services CPA firms operate. Because the [00:13:30] students are just they want something different.

Blake Oliver: [00:13:32] That was definitely the case for me. I did the extra credits to get my CPA. It didn't deter me. I found it to be really annoying and and pointless, and I could see why folks who don't have the financial resources especially would choose a different business major. Like why spend an extra year in college if you can do it in four or in three, right? Talking about ROI there.

Alan Whitman: [00:13:56] Okay, fair. So why are we why do we have do [00:14:00] we have a shortage in doctors? Do we have a shortage in lawyers? Do we have a shortage in shortage in other professions that have a certificate or certificate process or or a certification process? Mm. I don't really think we do.

Blake Oliver: [00:14:14] They make more money though.

Speaker3: [00:14:17] Um.

Blake Oliver: [00:14:18] I mean, at the beginning, at the.

Speaker3: [00:14:20] Well, a.

Alan Whitman: [00:14:20] Doctor makes more money at the beginning. Excuse me for everything. And they've got, you know, 300, $400,000 worth of debt. So I don't know the, the economics of it are, are different, I frankly think and I've [00:14:30] been very vocal about this, that the, the operating model of CPA firms is archaic and it's not fancy. Yeah. It's just not it's not exciting.

Blake Oliver: [00:14:38] Yeah. And that was so, so for me I was a manager at a top 25 firm. And you know, I tried I came in there and I lasted about a year before I gave up. I tried to make things change. I even proposed a model where my team would not bill for time and we wouldn't fill out time sheets and. [00:15:00] It couldn't go through. It couldn't happen because we all had to roll up into this archaic hourly reporting system. I kind of tried to hack it by saying, well, we'll just put in like default hours, but the firm just couldn't do it, you know? And it didn't seem like there was any appetite in the firm to do anything more than grow 10% per year, which is still a lot. Right? I mean, in an accounting firm, that's a lot. But in a, in a tech company, that's pathetic. So I went into tech, you know, I gave up and I'm a CPA, [00:15:30] you know.

Speaker3: [00:15:30] But and you get to.

Alan Whitman: [00:15:31] Wear t shirts every day and you probably couldn't wear a t shirt back when you were a.

Speaker3: [00:15:34] Manager. And I work.

Blake Oliver: [00:15:35] From home, and now all the accounting firms are working from home, too. It seems like, um, but yeah, it's just like, I just don't think it's going to happen with the big firms, like, you know, your, your, your friend at the big four, your colleague, they're like, there's no chance that big four are going to change their business model. It's too risky, right?

Alan Whitman: [00:15:53] Probably not. I think it what'll happen is it'll come from the bottom. The smaller firms that can build a firm from scratch. Yeah, they can build it in their own. [00:16:00] You know, there's a firm. I don't know their name. There's a firm that that that is all virtual. And they put a surcharge on the fee if the client wants them to come to their to their facility in person. Yeah. I mean, that's cool, right? That's that's cool. You know, we're a virtual firm. You're going to get the same value of work. I don't need to be next to you. If you want to see me, it's going to I'm going to charge more.

Speaker3: [00:16:23] Uh, you know.

Blake Oliver: [00:16:24] I want to pause for a moment and welcome all of our live stream viewers. We are recording live today [00:16:30] on the Earmark Webinars platform. Liz says billable hours never made sense to me. The only useful metric which I didn't always get was the money my efforts brought in the door. That's right. Um, Jeff. Welcome, Sasha. Welcome. Adam. Welcome as well. Boring accountant says the accounting industry can collapse like the housing market. Self-policing organizations routinely fail to Self-govern Ernst and Young find 100 million for cheating on ethics [00:17:00] exams. Says it all. What do you think about that, Alan? There's been a lot of commentary about ethics in the accounting profession, especially with the big firms. We've just seen, in the case of BF Borgers, with the 1500 audits they did that were completely fraudulent, that it's possible to just get away with outright audit failures. You're not even doing the work papers, you're just making them up as you go. And you don't get caught unless you happen to audit, you know, Trump's [00:17:30] social media company. Like, where is this a bigger problem than just our business model as a profession? Or is the business model responsible for what's happening now in the news?

Alan Whitman: [00:17:42] Well, the last question I actually haven't thought about my observation of on this topic is, look, there are bad people throughout the world. We just know that there are people that are trying to get ahead in ways that are not legal or ethical, what have you. And those people in some instances happen to be in this profession, just [00:18:00] like they happen to be everywhere. So do I think that there is a systemic issue in the in the CPA profession? No, I don't knowing what my former firm, the firm I used to lead put into quality and and risk and and and adherence to to the, the standards, I know that a lot of firms are doing that. You're right. The one apple the one bad apple in the bunch shouldn't ruin it for everybody. It's unfortunately not going to this is [00:18:30] not the last one that will happen. Just like we see it in the news on in tech companies. We see it in financial company. It's unfortunately with as many people, many, many people trying to get ahead. It's going to happen. But do I think it's systemic in the CPA profession? I do not, and I don't think one has to do with the other.

Blake Oliver: [00:18:47] So going back to this, you know, billable hours thing, like you're advising a firm and let's say they do want to get away from this. Like how do they actually change their model? Like what do they need to change about their business model in [00:19:00] order to, um, you know, stop worrying about inputs and start worrying about outputs?

Speaker3: [00:19:05] So, yeah.

Alan Whitman: [00:19:06] Let me let me just give one caveat to begin with. And look, nothing is nothing is everything. And by that I mean not every part of the organization can go to this new model if you if you will just break the mold model. Uh, there are some projects that are, that are priced as our you know, I'm going to buy five hours from you. I want you to I want you to do something for five hours. Well, you got to you [00:19:30] got to record hours. But those things, those projects that are more fixed fee like an audit or like a large tax return, uh, you price it based on hours and and then let's get the work done and let's, let's, let's perform really good project management activities to make sure things are moving forward. Uh, so how do you get started? Run a pilot. Look, you've got one partner or one senior professional who knows what she or he has to. Deliver [00:20:00] in a period of 3 or 4 months, January to to April. I'm an audit partner and I know I've got to deliver to clients, you know, ten audits, you know, each at 100,000. That's $1 million. I know that, I know what my world is. All right. And so let's work on we don't need the billable hours to go into it. As long as I'm staying close to the, the the production and the and the and the work in process, actually, the only thing I need is I need [00:20:30] out of scope hours. I need to know when you're doing something that wasn't in the scope, so I can build extra for that. Outside of that, I need to know how you're doing, which means I got to connect with you on maybe every other day basis to see how things are going along. And lo and behold, maybe things get done sooner than I thought.

Blake Oliver: [00:20:46] So I never did audit. I never, uh, you know, and I never I think most auditors never actually see how an audit gets priced out. But my understanding is that they're basically fixed fees. Right. You make calculate it based, you calculate it based on some estimate of ours. [00:21:00] But then in the end it's just here's the price. We're going to do it. And especially if you already did it last year, you just it's based on the price from last year. Right. So by large. Yeah. So why are we worrying about all the hours that have nothing to do with what's in the scope. Right. We already agreed to do this. We're just going to get it done.

Speaker3: [00:21:17] Well, because.

Alan Whitman: [00:21:18] They're concerned that we're not going to capture all the hours, maybe the out of scope hours, but hint, hint, we normally do don't. And even if we do capture them, we don't bill them as much as we should. We're a little sheepish because we don't have good communication with, [00:21:30] with with clients. And this is not just the CPA world. This is lots of lots of people and customer service. And second, I think the firms need to are comfortable with how are they going to accrue revenue, you know, percentage of completion, you know, if there's 25% of the hours in the in the system, that means we're 25% done. You know, that's kind of a fallacy because there's write offs, there's inefficiencies, etc.. You know, talking to the people on how how far they're getting along are really looking in the file is a better indication than how many hours it took. So again, it goes [00:22:00] back to Blake. What you said is, well, we got to put it in the system so we can run the report so we know what our revenue is in January. And oh my gosh, I've got a big write off in April. So I really didn't record. I recorded too much revenue in January because I got this write off in April. Well, maybe I should have paid more attention to the project than the hours that were in the system.

Blake Oliver: [00:22:19] That's a great point, is just look at the work papers. Right? Like what percentage of the work papers are complete compared to last year is a much better estimate of where you are in the project versus the [00:22:30] hours that have been built. Because I could be I could be just really slow and build a lot of hours to one work paper.

Alan Whitman: [00:22:36] Well, and some would say, well then we won't know if Blake is really good at what he does. If he doesn't put the hours in, we won't know, you know? Yeah, well, no, we know exactly if you're if Blake is able to do it or not, because we know how long it takes him. We know what it should take. And so you don't need the hours. Nobody. Nobody's going to come to you and give you a review and say you spent 45 extra hours on this. It's, hey, you're not getting things done. I mean, you.

Speaker3: [00:22:58] Know, well, the.

Blake Oliver: [00:22:59] Thing that really annoyed [00:23:00] me is that I'm really good at automating. I've automated my own job many times. Right. That's how I've built businesses. And under the hourly model, if I automate my job, I build fewer hours and I'm less of a high performer, you know? So like the lazy, I'm the lazy accountant who automates my job, and that's how I'm perceived. But the hard worker who just grinds away and doesn't add any value beyond that is rewarded. And I just find that to be like, totally absurd.

Alan Whitman: [00:23:28] Somebody said to me once, [00:23:30] you know, Alan, nobody gets rich by doing all the work or doing more work. Quantity is not the is not the is not the goal here. It's quality and and replication and automation. Like you said you can get more done through automation. Yeah. You know you can you can make you can have a bigger reach. Uh and so look I think in that case where you said we've got fixed fee audits, each $100,000, the only hours that need to be put into some system are the out of scope hours. So we can go back to the client and say [00:24:00] it wasn't 100,000, it was 105,000 because you didn't do X, Y, or Z.

Blake Oliver: [00:24:04] And reward the staff for billing the out of scope hours because, you know, give them a piece of that because then they have incentive to record those as opposed to just eating them, which is what happens.

Alan Whitman: [00:24:16] Right? And again, there are a number of instances where hours that the investment of time is what is the the metric that's being valued. But that's [00:24:30] that's not everything. That's the that's the point.

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Speaker3: [00:24:33] Um.

Blake Oliver: [00:24:34] So we started talking about young accountants, how folks like me don't want to work under the traditional model as much anymore. Um, the education issue, the 150 hour rule, that sort of thing. Um, let's, let's skip the 150 hour rule, because I talk about that a lot. And I'm I know that my listeners are probably tired of it. So, um, let's just talk about, like, assuming, you know, we've already got these CPAs in the firm, right? [00:25:00] How do we retain them better? How do we how would you know? How do you keep somebody like me who left at the manager level and decided, you know, I don't want to stick around until, you know, for 15 years to make partner. Um, and I don't want to be locked in until I'm 65.

Alan Whitman: [00:25:19] It's a great question and it's a difficult exercise. Regardless of the specific answer. I think the general. Point is, we need [00:25:30] to be intentional about your development. We need to get to your level, Blake, and look at what your wants are and how we can best put you in the right on the in the right seat on the bus. You know, you said you're a great automator. Seemed like a smart guy. Well, if you want to automate, maybe we take you into another part of the organization to help us automate our system. And you'll still be in the in the in the CPA profession. You'll still be at the firm and you'll be helping us automate which is which, which is a [00:26:00] opportunity, responsibility that that fits your desires rather than just fit you into a system. Um, you know, let's listen. I grew up as a tax guy, and I'm sure people that worked with me knew that I was there, but that wasn't my calling. And so when I got the opportunity to build the international platform, it was like freedom. And I had been in the profession for, uh, 15 years. So I'd been through the, through the, through the mill. And [00:26:30] then I get this opportunity to build something from scratch.

Blake Oliver: [00:26:32] How did that happen? Like, who gave you that opportunity? Did you have a mentor that led you this way?

Speaker3: [00:26:37] Yeah. So I.

Alan Whitman: [00:26:38] I joined at the time, the name of the firm was Virchow Krause. And we were in Wisconsin. We were in Minneapolis, Minnesota and Michigan. And as I was joining the firm, I talked a lot with the CEO and all I could do was talk about international, international, international. And so I don't know if he really thought I knew what I was doing [00:27:00] or if he just wanted to shut me up to stop, you know, put me someplace to actually use to talk to somebody else. But he was listening. Tim, Tim Christian, who was my predecessor, great, great leader in and of himself. He took the firm from 30 million, something like that, to 475. Build it, you know, on his back with all of his partners. Great, great leader. He saw something in me that I was not prone to, sitting behind a desk and doing it the old fashioned way. And so, unbeknownst to me, he began talking to the [00:27:30] board, and he came up to me one month to the day after I started with the firm and said, it's yours if you want it. And I'm like, what is mine? And he said this international thing. And I said to him, okay, what's that? He goes, I have no idea. You'll figure it out. And so he took a chance on me, and I've taken a chance on many people that knew nothing about or didn't have the technical experience. And it worked out for the firm. It worked out for me, and it worked out for him. And so he took a chance to intentionally [00:28:00] put me in a spot that he believed the firm needed to to have somebody leading. And he didn't have it all figured out because because I didn't have it all figured out. And to me, a true leader is somebody that looks at somebody's innate skills rather than their technical skills. And gives them an opportunity. And I've done that. I've done that dozens of times since, you know, I pass it along, I pay it forward.

Blake Oliver: [00:28:25] We have a question from Adam here in the live stream. Adam says, curious [00:28:30] about what Alan would say to smaller firms. All advisory that are growing and how to navigate the next five years. Thinking about the business model, technology and the pressure of private equity in the accounting market. What does he think of CAS client advisory as a tax guy?

Alan Whitman: [00:28:48] Well, I'm going to say I was a tax guy, but I get the point of that and I get the point of the question. I loved CAS, I think CAS is awesome. I think CAS is repeatable. It's automatable. [00:29:00] It is huge value. It fits. It fits or feeds a need solves a need a pain point for. Smaller. And frankly, I've seen it in larger companies whereby it's not a core competency of what they do. So outsource that to a group that whose core competency it is. So I love I love cars and I love all advisory firms. I think that that is a huge there's [00:29:30] a huge opportunity for all advisory firms to build something very unique. Uh, you know, how to look, how to navigate the next five years. Look, you've got to build systems, you've got to build engines to be relevant and sustainable. Scale is critical. Building scale. You don't need to be all things to all people. You know, you need to build scale in a few things to be known for those things scale. As I like to say. Well, the scale gives you a lot of stuff, but [00:30:00] the two most important things that scale gives you is financial capital earnings to redeploy or to deploy back into the company through rewards or investment, etc.. And it gives you the second thing it gives you is intellectual capital. More good thinkers around the table to start new opportunities. So don't be all things to all people. Don't have. Don't don't dabble in something. Go deep in something. You know, the old mile wide, inch deep. You need to go. Miles [00:30:30] deep in a couple of things and then keep adding, but quickly find a way to build scale.

Blake Oliver: [00:30:35] So what's an example of something at Baker Tilly where you went deep?

Speaker3: [00:30:40] Uh.

Alan Whitman: [00:30:42] So I remember our public sector practice. Traditionally an audit practice. And we found a couple of advisory practices. And I was talking to the leader and a second leader, and the leader couldn't figure out which one [00:31:00] to go after. I like both of them. I'm like, well, you can't have both. You got to pick one. Well, they're complimentary, etc., etc. and so the light bulb went off in my head. I said, you know what one was? One was, you know, twice as big as the other.

Blake Oliver: [00:31:12] What were the two options?

Alan Whitman: [00:31:14] Uh, one was it. It was all municipal advisory. So let's think of corporate finance in the public sector space. Okay. Um, and one did it was one, one aspect, one part of it, and one was it the other. And so they were very complementary. And [00:31:30] I just said, listen, if we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this big go, go get both of them.

Speaker3: [00:31:35] Just go get both of them.

Alan Whitman: [00:31:36] And we did. And it. Immediately changed the trajectory of the practice because we had multiple skills. We we we were not just A11 trick pony, if you will. We had many tricks, and it enabled the advisory practice to grow and the audit practice to grow. We could compete with anybody in the, in the, in the, in the country if we if we did, [00:32:00] if they did the audit, we could take the advisory. If they did the advisory, we take the audit. So it really was made a multidisciplinary practice. Um, I there was another one.

Blake Oliver: [00:32:08] So just to make sure I understand, you were served the client or the customer was cities and you could go to any city and you could solve either problem they had, which was going to be it was going to be either the audit or the advisory, depending on who they had.

Speaker3: [00:32:22] Exactly. It took it.

Alan Whitman: [00:32:24] Made a one service industry specialty into a multi service industry specialty. [00:32:30] Um, you know, and there was there's a number of them. One of the things, Blake, that. That CPA firms need to understand. Like any organization, it's a business. And traditionally, in my view, it's made up of partners, books of business. And that that's no surprise. It's and and the firms that are that are aware of and able to shift from it being a partner book of business driven organization [00:33:00] to an organization that is executed and divided up by by client books of business will win. And what does that allow you to do? It allows you to to build businesses within a business. And so I remember when, you know, I don't know what this what year, this 2021 when I would talk to some of the leaders and I would and Baker Tilly and these leaders were, were and still are fabulous. And I would talk to them and say, listen, I need you to build a business. [00:33:30] You need to build $100 million business in this billion dollar business to have a seat at the table or to be to be reckoned with. You know, it doesn't mean that the 30 million isn't important, but we need to build scale because we're growing so fast. You need to be part of that growth.

Alan Whitman: [00:33:49] And so I had many conversations with with leaders to say, what are we going to do to build a business? How are we going to build to $100 million scale? And now a number isn't [00:34:00] the end goal, but it is indicative of building something of scale, which will allow you to have intellectual capital and financial capital. And so I would say, all right, you want to be 100 million by the year, whatever, three years from now or four years from now, what are the transformational steps you need to take to get there? Build a business within the business of Baker Tilly. And and when I saw something that was growing at 20%. I immediately said, well, it's not 100 million that we've got to go to. We've got to build a platform to get to 300 million. And really, it was pushing the leaders to think [00:34:30] more broadly, to think of this as a business, both organic growth, acquisitive growth, building, building the skills through people development, etc.. And once you shift from thinking that this is solely a business of accumulating partners, books of business, which I understand is very important to know, I'm building a business made up of senior leaders that are serving clients, that you've shifted the paradigm dramatically and [00:35:00] you've really matured the organization.

Blake Oliver: [00:35:02] In the small, firm space. We talk a lot about productizing our services, and it sounds a lot like what you're talking about. You're just doing it a bigger scale. Yeah, where you've got multiple partners working together to bring in a client and serve that client, you know, as opposed to it just being owned by one partner. You can you can only serve. You can only do so much when it's one partner owns that client, right? [00:35:30]

Alan Whitman: [00:35:30] Right. And look, the smaller you are, the harder it is to scale, because there's so many that the partner can't get to everything. Right. So you do either have to automate to your point earlier, or you have to productize where you're not dependent upon the the clicking of the clock. You know, you know, listen, every hour that passes, you lost an opportunity to make to make revenue or you, you, you made as much revenue as you could. And that was it. I was just talking with the board chair of a $100 million advisory firm, [00:36:00] and we sat for 30 minutes talking about Productizing.

Speaker3: [00:36:05] And and building.

Alan Whitman: [00:36:07] Products where they traditionally were and hours based or time materials based organization. And I said, I love this because you can you can expand that and you can get that out in the marketplace exponentially as a product versus deploying people that can only do so much every every click of a minute, click of an hour. [00:36:30]

Blake Oliver: [00:36:31] We have a question from Don Mills. How long was it from the time you were handed international to the time you were running the area the way you envisioned?

Alan Whitman: [00:36:42] Great question, Don. So I was handed the reins to build International in December of 20 of oh three, January of of oh four. I did it for about 8 or 9 years. And it was it was a it was a push because because we were doing things differently. We were doing things with people over in, in, [00:37:00] in Europe, my first country desk platform was with Israel. And, you know, people in the Midwest, you know, see what's on CNN. And it's unfortunate that we're going, you know, we have the same situation now. But they were really nervous about that. But it was a fabulous country desk platform. And then the Germans and the Chinese, etc.. So I did that for about eight years. And then I came back to be the managing partner of the Michigan practice for for about four years. And then I was in [00:37:30] a bus on my way to an evening event at a partner meeting, and a long time partner leaned over and said, you should put your name in the hat to become our next CEO. And of course, I laughed because I was from a small, I was from a small market, and I had only been with the firm for so many years, a few years comparatively. And she looked at me. Linh looked at me and said, no, you really should put your name in. A lot of people trust you because you're building something on behalf of the firm, not just your book of business. And that goes a long way with us. People trust you and they like what you've built. And so I did, and one thing led to another, and I was the CEO. So [00:38:00] it was two 2003. Well, 2004 to 2015, 11 years.

Blake Oliver: [00:38:06] What was the most what was the most difficult part about Building international?

Alan Whitman: [00:38:14] It wasn't a service specifically. I wasn't just building international tax services. I was building a mindset about being able to attract internationally active. Operating [00:38:30] companies. So it was less tangible.

Speaker3: [00:38:33] Than.

Alan Whitman: [00:38:34] It was.

Speaker3: [00:38:37] Tangible.

Alan Whitman: [00:38:38] Sorry.

Speaker3: [00:38:39] So so.

Blake Oliver: [00:38:39] Businesses with operations in the United States and Israel or any other country or.

Alan Whitman: [00:38:46] Foreign owned companies that had an operation here. And so I was I said that my my mission. And then my mission slash vision was to build Baker Tilly into a internationally savvy and [00:39:00] capable firm. So we had the technical assets, but we needed people to be savvy. We needed people to know and not be afraid of different cultures. We needed people to know that the risk of an international client can be mitigated if it's even heightened. And so we were, you know, it's easier to to manage or to serve a totally domestic manufacturer or service provider. It's more complicated. And so we needed to bring on more talent or different talent from other firms [00:39:30] that that were not afraid or actually had experience in that. And one by one, we built the we built the mindset shift. And I'm very proud and worked very closely with my predecessor, Tim, on changing the name of Virchow Krause. After 78 years or so, we took the global brand. And a lot of people were like, well, we're going to lose our clients. They're not going to know who we are. We lost nobody. In fact, it propelled us because we took on the brand of all of our all the firms around the world. [00:40:00]

Alan Whitman: [00:40:00] And, you know, I remember one example real quick, Blake. So we bid on jockey underwear and we were bidding on it as virtual craft. We had blue cards, and everybody else around the world had white cards, the Baker Tilly cards. And I remember specifically we were we were working with the Puerto Rican firm of the network that was a separate organization from Baker. Tilly and jockey could not get over the fact of what's the different card and the different brand. Oh it's nothing. We were seamless, which, you know, it's hard to explain when you have a different name. And we didn't get the work. Three [00:40:30] years later, after we got the we took the brand Baker Tilly and we didn't lose any clients. Jockey came back to us, which was, as you can imagine, a large company, one that we wanted. And we they didn't even ask about the brand. They didn't even ask about the network. They just presumed that we can do the work. And lo and behold, we got the work. And then we won. Won dozens and dozens and dozens of accounts just because we. Not just because, but we. It wasn't an inhibitor.

Blake Oliver: [00:40:57] We like to dismiss branding in [00:41:00] the accounting profession a lot, I think because, you know, we don't think it's that important. It doesn't matter. But it really does. And you aligned the brand with what you were doing, which was creating a seamless experience for the client globally.

Speaker3: [00:41:15] So I'm a.

Alan Whitman: [00:41:16] I'm a big believer in branding, even in the professional services and CPA world. We went through a lot of work, and in choosing an archetype and really building our message around that archetype, [00:41:30] not just for clients. Also for people inside the four walls. People want to. People want to associate with something. They want to know that they're part of a brand that makes a difference. It's not just clients, it's the people. And if the people are living the brand and the the purpose and the mission and the the values and the mission and vision, it's there's no there's no counting what they can do.

Blake Oliver: [00:41:52] I was talking with the CEO of the Illinois CPA society, uh, Jeffrey Brown, and he he pointed out we were talking about [00:42:00] the recruitment issues, the pipeline problem. And he he had a great insight, which is that he thinks that the problem isn't necessarily the hours, like you said, it's not necessarily, um, what you're doing. People are signing up to be accountants to do tax returns. Right? We know what we're getting into. I knew what I was getting into, um, but. He said. There's a difference between what the firms are saying when they're recruiting and then what the actual experience is when you get in the door. [00:42:30] And it's a big difference. And that is what's that's in his opinion. That's what's causing people to leave. What do you think?

Speaker3: [00:42:40] Well, I'm not.

Alan Whitman: [00:42:41] Going to argue with him. Uh, I don't know if it's a big difference. But look in the in the courting, in the courting time and the dating phase. It's fun. You're not in the you're you're not in you're not in the you're not in the mud. And then you get in the mud. You know.

Blake Oliver: [00:42:58] I the interns [00:43:00] get paid overtime, you know, as soon as you're not you're not an intern, you don't get paid the overtime anymore. And then, you know, they work the least. And, uh Big Four. Transparency. It's a great website where you get crowdsourced compensation data. Dominic, over at Big Four transparency did a study of all of his data points he's collected. And he found that as people move up the ranks, their hours increase. So you have interns working a normal schedule, right? But then once you get up to, like, senior manager, [00:43:30] director, partner, you're working closer to 50 hours. And actually the partners who replied to this study are working over 50 hours a week. They're working the most. And I just thought, that's completely backwards, right? Like if you move up, shouldn't you be enjoying a bit of the fruits of your labor? Like like I don't get it.

Alan Whitman: [00:43:50] Well, there's there's a ton embedded in there. One. On some level, it's their own fault because they're going to say, well, it's easier for me to get it done than give it to somebody else and train somebody. [00:44:00] Well, that's your own fault, right? Two their firm is not automating the way they need to. Three A lot of the partners love what they do. They just they're defined by it. And and the partners that are in place now have not been were not hit by the bug. Let's say that of this new way of thinking. There's a whole generation behind them that will be different, and that's why they're not going in. Look, let's go back to let's go back to the to the gentleman's comment [00:44:30] about the courting is different than the reality. So, you know, I.

Speaker3: [00:44:37] What is what.

Alan Whitman: [00:44:38] Does it say about, let's say, investment banking firms or or PE firms, right. Do they say, yeah, you're going to come in here, you're going to work your ass off, you're going to continue working, etc., etc., etc.. So they don't they don't sugarcoat it. But there's something else that that happens when they're in the organization. I believe that is different and more developmental [00:45:00] than, than than in my profession. Well, and it may be the, it may be the money aspect. So let's change the paradigm of the money aspect. You know, here's here's my question for all for all the leaders. What will it take? What will it take to pay somebody a new associate.

Speaker3: [00:45:18] 8590 grand.

Alan Whitman: [00:45:20] There's something, something can. What will it take? Because if you ask, can you do it? They'll say, no, but there's something that could happen and.

Blake Oliver: [00:45:27] It would come out of partner comp, right? That's [00:45:30] what would happen.

Speaker3: [00:45:30] Or or it will.

Alan Whitman: [00:45:31] Or we automate the heck out of the, the process to, to maintain margins or, or we get them trained much more quickly in order to get them doing higher level.

Speaker3: [00:45:41] Work.

Blake Oliver: [00:45:42] Actually, I have a thought on this. So please. So I did my accounting education later in life because I was a career changer. And the thing that shocked me was the disconnect between what I learned in the classroom and what I was learning on the job. The. The skills [00:46:00] I learned on the job were far more relevant and important and interesting. I'm not saying that accounting theory isn't important and debits and credits don't matter, but most of what I learned in the classroom was not really relevant to what I was doing. And I wonder if the reason salaries are so low for staff when they start is because they really like what the schools are teaching us, is just not that valuable to firms, and firms have to then basically teach us everything we know, right? So why would basically the the starting [00:46:30] salary is an indicator of the value of what I have learned in school. So I just think firms don't value what the traditional accounting education offers anymore. That's my guess. And that's also why I think when you do surveys of CPAs, like owners of firms, like 80% of them say that the extra year of education that we require like adds zero value.

Speaker3: [00:46:53] Hmm hmm.

Alan Whitman: [00:46:54] Yeah, I, I don't I don't know if I have an answer for that. Uh, again, I'm going to compare [00:47:00] it to others because it's working elsewhere, and. You know, I've had the the fortune of working with a number of PE firms since I've left retired from Baker Tilly, and I don't know if those first year.

Speaker3: [00:47:17] Analysts.

Alan Whitman: [00:47:17] We're really trained to do the stuff that they're asked to do. I don't know, I'm sure I'm I'm sure there's a little there's a piece of truth in what you're in, what you're saying, I don't I don't I don't know if I want to, you know, upset the academia. [00:47:30] I do think there's probably a disconnect. There's not there's not a perfect, uh.

Speaker3: [00:47:35] Um, like like accounting.

Blake Oliver: [00:47:36] Accounting is not that old a profession, right? It was invented in the late 1800s, basically to to support railroads, you know, the the second industrial revolution. And the modern accounting firms only have about 100 years old in terms of like, the structure that Arthur Andersen invented. So, you know, and accounting used to be a trade, right? It used to be taught as [00:48:00] an apprenticeship model. There were very little formal education involved. And now we've gone to this like complete other end where it's like five years of formal education to become an accountant. You know, I just I just wonder, like, like, why have we done this to ourselves?

Speaker3: [00:48:15] Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Alan Whitman: [00:48:16] Like I hear you, but at the same time. Banks rely on on accountants and auditors to do something that's very, very important. The public markets rely on accountants and CPAs [00:48:30] to do something that's very, very important, right? There's stability that is necessary, and that is achieved by the good work that CPAs do. So while I hear the transformation, I also hear the I also know that the markets have evolved and matured, whereby we we need that. You know, you just went back, you said a few, uh, 20 minutes ago you asked the question about, you know, is, is is fraud or bad actors systemic in the profession?

Speaker3: [00:48:58] You know.

Alan Whitman: [00:48:58] Well, hopefully [00:49:00] CPAs are identifying, you know, and regulating the, the, the numbers and opining on the numbers because there are a lot of bad, bad actors. Now, of course, CPAs are not required to or not held to the standard of fighting fraud. You know, I mean, anybody can fraud, anybody can defraud anybody. So I, I get the transformation. But I don't know if I, I don't I'm not in favor of it going back to where it was.

Blake Oliver: [00:49:30] To [00:49:30] to having more of a learn while you work model.

Alan Whitman: [00:49:33] No, no. For it to be for it to be less, for it to be a non certified certified profession, IT, etc.. Um, I do like the apprentice model without question, I like that. I mean, I, I apprenticed under under my, under my leaders, you know, John DeStefano and you know who was a great mentor of mine years ago when I was at Coopers and Lybrand and then Coopers and Lybrand. So I think that's great. The challenge with, with apprentice [00:50:00] model is it's not somebody just following you around like it used to be, because nobody's together anymore. It's the leaders. If they're going to develop the people and the and the people themselves have to be intentional about connections. Here's here's a prime example. I have somebody that works with me on all my all my material, my my posts, etc. I've never met the young man in person, never. He didn't know anything about the profession when I when I hired him.

Speaker3: [00:50:27] We have been.

Alan Whitman: [00:50:29] Very intentional [00:50:30] about connecting every week, a few hours a week, and I've taught him the profession and all the idiosyncrasies, etc., to the point in three months where he can write for me or he can think of. He can extrapolate my thoughts, etc.. Right. That was an intentional act. Actually better than the apprentice model of him following me around because we actually were talking to each other, as opposed to him just listening to me talk. So that to me is what has to shift Blake. That's [00:51:00] that's what I mean by intentional development of the young Blake or the young Allen. It the environment's different. So you're going to need to change the way we have done it in the past.

Blake Oliver: [00:51:11] It's hard to do it, though, when you're under pressure to bill a lot of hours, right? Hard to find time to develop your staff. That's I guess it all goes back to I like to think it all goes back to that.

Speaker3: [00:51:22] Yeah.

Alan Whitman: [00:51:22] You know, I don't know if I don't know who coined this phrase initially, but, you know, I love the phrase of slowing down, slowing down to speed up. You [00:51:30] know. Yeah. For everybody that I can spend an hour training intentionally and and and developing they then can do ten hours of, of different stuff. And so the, the exponentiality of it is, is, is vast.

Blake Oliver: [00:51:44] I, I literally say that like every week to somebody you have to slow down to speed up. It comes from my music background. I was a musician before I was an accountant. Okay. The successful musicians practice at half speed and learn to play something at half speed before [00:52:00] they ever play it at full speed. Same thing if you're a swimmer, right? You got to learn how to swim smoothly, slowly before you can go fast, right? Yeah. Um, but the problem is with with ours, right? Is that, like, you want to speed up a process in an accounting firm? It's inherently inefficient at first because you're you're going to waste a lot of time figuring it out. And so if you're constantly under pressure to build time. You just you can't do it. You can't sacrifice the productive hours for the unproductive [00:52:30] experimentation.

Speaker3: [00:52:31] And.

Alan Whitman: [00:52:32] Right, I totally agree. And what would happen if you were under pressure to complete the project? Um versus bill the inputs. You may, you may, you may spend a little bit more time but not think about it as spending time versus building, solving or solving for the project. Uh, you know, here prime example, prime example. So people have come to me to hire me and want to want to build. They want me to build [00:53:00] by the hour and I refuse. I'm not Bill, I'm not doing I'm not billing you by the hour. I haven't built hours in years. I'm not doing it. Uh, one. Because I'm not very good at it, you know, the the business of it. And I said, you're going to pay me. You're going to pay me a monthly retainer to be there for you. And invariably you're actually going to get more of my time because you're committed to me, because you're investing your money and not I don't have to do something for you. You're actually committed more than I am, and so you'll get more. So I actually think people will get more done. Not [00:53:30] because of the hours, but because of the investment and the commitment to things.

Speaker3: [00:53:34] Yeah.

Blake Oliver: [00:53:36] So I know you're on AICPA. Are you on the board of the AICPA? I am thankfully, yeah. And that's also the council part of the part of the council. Okay. So, so in the in the 5 minutes or 6 minutes we have left, you know, can I try to argue my point about the education with you? Maybe you can because you have a lot of influence, right.

Speaker3: [00:53:57] Uh, I would hope so.

Blake Oliver: [00:53:58] Are you on the are you also on the committee? [00:54:00] The N.pag committee I am not, no. Okay. But you're going to hear the results, right. So I am so here's my thought about the education requirement right now. So you're talking in firms that we have to move away from tracking the inputs and track the outputs. Right. What was your your production versus outcomes. Um, so if you look at how we do education in accounting, it really to me looks like we're focused on those inputs. The hours that you sit in a classroom, we translate that into hours on a transcript. And the whole [00:54:30] licensure model is built around how many hours did you sit in a classroom? Credit hours, essentially. Right. It's all based on inputs. And the only thing that is an output in our licensure model, and it's a big one, is the CPA exam, right. That's based on like do you have the knowledge to pass the CPA exam. And so like if we could get away from this focus on inputs in education, we could recruit a lot of really smart people into the profession that just have no patience for sitting in a classroom. [00:55:00] Like, I feel like we're losing a lot of those, like those investment bankers, right? They want to go out and they want to do business.

Blake Oliver: [00:55:06] The entrepreneurs, they want to go out and they want to get to work. They don't want to sit in a classroom and earn a master's necessarily right. If they don't feel like they need to. Um, and, you know, I was kind of this I guess I was similar like the, you know, the the only reason I did it is because, you know, I made a, I made a poor financial decision of getting a music major to start, you know, and then I went back to school. So for me, the ROI [00:55:30] was enormous, right? Versus getting paid to play weddings as a cellist versus, you know, what I make as a CPA. But like for, for a lot of business majors, they're doing this ROI calculation. It just doesn't make sense for them to spend this extra time in education for what you know, they're making, in some cases, a lot less money starting out for more education. And I know we can compare ourselves to, like, doctors and lawyers and stuff. But maybe we shouldn't. We shouldn't. We should just compare ourselves to like the other business majors, right? Because that's that's where people [00:56:00] are going. They're going to other business majors.

Speaker3: [00:56:02] Look, I think that.

Alan Whitman: [00:56:03] Your comment about inputs versus outcomes is, again, this is the same. It's just in a different, different iteration. It's a different iteration of what I've been, what I've been saying. And I do think that that.

Speaker3: [00:56:14] Well.

Alan Whitman: [00:56:14] I know that that's a that's a discussion point at the AICPA board. Um.

Speaker3: [00:56:21] We.

Alan Whitman: [00:56:21] Everybody also has to recognize that this is a very, very. Complicated and involved topic because it's not just what the AICPA [00:56:30] wants. The state societies have a lot of a lot of influence and input into this, because every state is its own entity, if you will. And as I'm sure knowing as much as you probably know, you realize that certain states are looking to change the hours. You know.

Speaker3: [00:56:46] There's a revolution.

Blake Oliver: [00:56:47] Fomenting, Alan.

Alan Whitman: [00:56:48] Well, there is the challenge that you have and this. And so I'm gonna now put my, my, my CEO hat on when, when I'll just, you know, this is me personally, not as a board member. I'm just. This is Alan. [00:57:00] When some of those states or if some of those states are successful. We're going to have a huge problem on our hands because of mobility. Because if I have less hours in this state and I want to go do work in that state, and that state has, has, has 30 hours different, you know, go to 120, 150. I can't just do that. I won't be recognized. I won't be licensed. It's like the the law. Uh, being an attorney, we fought forever. The current the current CEO of AICPA, [00:57:30] Barry Melancon, fought for a long time, worked tirelessly to get mobility and in all of his executives across, you know, throughout the country. And that's enormous. And now think about all the CPA firms that have to re licensure license everybody so that they can work all over. Look, the world is flat. Friedman. You know, companies have operations everywhere and people are traveling everywhere. And that is the that is the unintended consequence, major consequence of [00:58:00] people starting a revolution. And it's a it's a huge business challenge. It may, it may I don't know if it will, but it may change the number of people coming into the profession. It may I'm not convinced it will. I take on your your argument and it's going to it's going to substitute an enormous issue for all of the firms that are hiring those CPAs in order by virtue, you know, so you're going to gain somewhere and you're going to lose massively somewhere else.

Blake Oliver: [00:58:29] Well, well, let's, [00:58:30] let's, let's define the scope of the mobility question. Right. Because mobility doesn't apply to me. I don't work for a public accounting firm. If I work in industry, mobility doesn't matter. It's irrelevant to me. Sure. And most CPAs, we don't work in public accounting. Most CPAs. Last time I checked, it's like 60% or more work for industry. So for them and most CPAs who work in public accounting don't well, a lot don't work in audit. So basically you've got this small sliver of the profession that does [00:59:00] audit and signs a test and reports for whom this this would affect. But it's like, what is it, you know. 20%, 30% of the profession and and and that's holding back the rest of us. So, like, I just don't feel like it's fair to say, hold up mobility as this, you know, super important thing. Because really, for most of us, it has no impact. I just wanted to leave you with that thought. No, I appreciate that.

Alan Whitman: [00:59:29] There's no question [00:59:30] there, so I'm not going to answer it. Yeah. Um, I mean, I hear what you're saying, um, and, and I appreciate it. And that in and of itself demonstrates how how. Complicated and complex. Those are two different words. The issue is.

Blake Oliver: [00:59:47] Alan, I'm not going to take the final word. I want you to have the final word. So do you have any parting advice for the firm owners out there who are looking to, you know, build that modern [01:00:00] firm that's going to succeed in the future, whether that's the next Baker Tilly. Or maybe it's just, you know, I have a small firm. I want it to be successful and grow like, like, tell me, tell me your most. What's your one key point of advice? If you can only tell me one thing to do?

Speaker3: [01:00:15] Yeah.

Alan Whitman: [01:00:16] Thanks, Blake. I would address or approach every one of these hard, sticky, complicated, uncomfortable topics. With what? With one question. And that is, what will it take? So [01:00:30] just do a whiteboard and as if you were going to build it from scratch.

Speaker3: [01:00:34] Build it.

Alan Whitman: [01:00:35] What will it take to do that? How do you build it and then start layering in all the things or all the yeah buts and yeah buts. Well if you do this that don't start with that, start with the the clean slate, ask yourself what it will take and then decide if you're willing to take the leap and you it's not insurmountable. It is insurmountable [01:01:00] when you say, can we do this? Because invariably people say no. And and to your point earlier, why would we? Well, if you're trying to blaze new trails and you're trying to lengthen the relevance of your organization and the sustainability organization, I believe you need to address these topics. And, and I and I, in any challenging topic, I start with what will it take? I figure that out, and then I start knocking down the obstacles rather than try to start knocking down the obstacles one by one. Uh, it's, you know, it's the old top down [01:01:30] versus bottom up approach. And if anybody needs help and wants to talk about it, I'd be happy to, to, uh, to noodle it with you.

Blake Oliver: [01:01:37] Go to Allen D Whitman Comm to learn more, sign up for Allen's newsletter, delivered directly to your inbox. Some great topics in there, especially. I just love the the emphasis on ours has to stop number seven issue. It's a great one. So I've subscribed. Now I encourage all of you to subscribe. I will put the link here [01:02:00] into the chat. Allen, thanks so much for your time. Uh, don't go anywhere. I'm going to play the outro video here, uh, informing everyone on how they can earn CPE. We'll see you all around soon on a future earmark webinar. Today's webinar has ended. We hope you enjoyed it. To earn CPE for watching, download the free earmark app. Scan the QR code on the screen to visit the download page. Open the app and create your account. Use a valid email address where you will receive CPE certificates, [01:02:30] then register for the course. You can search for it by tapping on the magnifying glass icon on the home screen, and then entering the name of this webinar. If you're attending the live stream of this webinar, keep an eye out for an email letting you know when the quiz is available in the next few days. Pass the quiz to earn your CPE credits, then tap the button to email yourself a CPE certificate. Stay tuned for more webinars from earmark. We appreciate you joining us today, and we look forward to seeing you again soon.