← The Ops Experts Club Podcast
Loading summary
Transcript34 lines
- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the Ops Experts Club. If you're at all interested in anything we talk about here in this episode, go ahead and check out the description down below and click any of the links there.
- [00:09]
B
Or if you just want to know
- [00:10]
A
more about us, click the links below. Now on to the episode Ops Experts.
- [00:15]
B
Well, Taryn, I've decided. This is what I've decided. I just decided right now. So that's why you're just hearing about it. I've decided. I think it would be the coolest if every show we come in, you have to humor a movie show tune. Because that's one of my favorite things that you do. People that don't work with us all the time probably don't realize your high skill when it comes to like movie show tunes and humming them because I mean that is your subconscious. That's like your spirit animal. Like your subconscious is you show tunes. And so I think people don't really know that and I think they'd appreciate it.
- [00:48]
C
I think it's an idea.
- [00:48]
B
Hummingbirds a good one. Like, I mean you don't have to be nice about it. You can just be like, it's not a good idea.
- [00:52]
C
It was an idea. I think it's middle of the road.
- [00:55]
B
Let me give, Let me give the fan favorites. Some of my favorite ones. Number one for sure. Jurassic park for sure. Like that's, that's a go to every time. Second one. Probably the second one. Indiana Jones. Like, I think that you do Indiana Jones like a legend. I think those. I think that you could really. The people would really enjoy it. Taran. I just think we should really think about it.
- [01:21]
C
Yeah. I mean they just don't build show tunes these days like they used to.
- [01:24]
B
And those tunes, they come on and it's just like. I'm telling you what, like when Indiana, like I kicked on Raiders of the Lost Ark pretty recently, that thing has lost nothing of its value. By the way, that thing is just as banging as it was the day it came out. And man, that, man, the tune behind that thing just makes me so excited. You know, they did this thing up at the the Brit this year, which is our little outdoor amp theater for concerts here in Jacksonville. And so cool. But they did this thing this year where they brought in the Southern Oregon Symphony to play behind Star Wars. So like they had like uh, Empire Strikes Back up on the screen and anytime that there was show tune normally with the music, the symphony would come in and it was, it was pretty awesome. And I do think you're right. They don't make them like they used to. Taran.
- [02:04]
C
That would be so cool.
- [02:05]
B
So cool. Anyway, Ops experts. Amazing. Like, so just know Ops experts. I might be able to twist his arm. He told me today it was an idea. I might be able to get him to think it's an okay idea, maybe even a good idea. And I might be able to get him his arm twist. We'll see how it goes. Ops experts. I thought we could talk about today. Something that I, you know, I saw in a client this week that I'm like, I don't know if that's the best idea and I'm not going to obviously reveal the client. But it was. When should we consolidate and bring things under our own roof, right? Which is we do a lot of. At the collab team. A lot of what we do with the Colab team is coming in identifying gaps on a team, an operational gap. Identify that we'll put our players in the middle of the gap to sop out the role, create standard operating procedures, and then we'll go out and recruit for that role for the client. And then we'll bring them back the best two or three choices, you know, for them to select. If they like them, they hire one of them. Then we onboard them on the things we've been doing and. And then we exit and are like the resident experts so that people don't have to slow down as they're scaling up.
- [02:57]
C
Right.
- [02:57]
B
Where we help with scaling. So we do a lot of consolidating, right? We do a lot of how can we bring things under one roof? And we really are for that. That's the way our whole business model was built. But I do think there are times when it's not a good idea to bring everything under one roof. And Taryn, I thought we could talk about that a little bit today and talk about the specific areas that we feel like it's better to probably have some tension. Like tension usually isn't a great word when people talk about it. I actually think healthy tension is what keeps us strong. You know, I think it's what keeps our muscles getting stronger. It's what keeps relationships, I think, exciting is when there's healthy tension in the middle of them. And I think, especially in business, that there's a good. It's good when there are checks and balances and healthy tension. What's your thought about that?
- [03:37]
C
Yeah, I think that's beautiful. I think we've seen it play out pretty nicely before with different people helping to manage different people and sometimes not playing out so well, when too many people are managed by one person.
- [03:49]
B
Yeah, I think that, you know, the. Where we saw it this week prop up was the client said, hey, I think we're going to bring all of our finance under one roof. We're going to hire a firm that is a CPA that handles all tax prep, that then is also going to help us with internal, the kind of take of that like director of finance seat plus does all the bookkeeping. And honestly like red flags started going off in my mind because I'm like, I don't love that. Because I do think when it comes to finance, finance is one of those things where it's like you need somebody that's going to speak finance to your, your CEO. Your CEO probably finance does not come natural then that may strike some people as surprising. But most visionaries I've met like finance is a little bit murky. You know, they do great with sales, they do great with understanding generation right and creating new products and rev streams. But what they don't do really well, what I found is understanding a P and L, understanding the different levers that can be pushed and pulled for the sake of creating the best profitable business. Like a lot of times that that is like the, the Charlie Brown character, you know, when the teacher talking and it just sounded like background noise, something that just was not intelligible. A lot of times visionaries tune out when we get too deep in the finance side of things. You need somebody on your internal team, I would say, that can come alongside a visionary and help them navigate that. I think that's a great role for something internal. And I even think it's a great role for you to have people that work underneath that person as an internal role where the people that are actually doing the doing of the bookkeeping. And sometimes that's one person, right? Sometimes you hire one excellent finance person. Maybe when you're early starting out and they're doing the doing and the strategy. I think a great place to delegate and elevate would be to pull some of the doing that no longer requires that person's brilliance off of that person. So you get the best bang for your buck out of that person as you grow and then can scale down the lesser work. That's bookkeeping, you know, like the data entry of putting things in and then cleaning up the books, tying them off and then let the strategist review them, dial down on em before they bring it to visionary and speak to them and visionary speak. But I also think there's a real strong argument for having an outside CPA firm and tax organization. Taran, what do you think about all that?
- [05:53]
C
Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean you've set it up pretty well right there and it's a pretty good path to go from even you only need part time finance help to now you can actually have a finance team, two different people on, on the team. It's definitely a nice roadway to get to that point. But as you've mentioned, something like outside cpa, something you're probably going to need from beginning. I mean, if you want to be doing things right.
- [06:20]
B
Yeah, I think that, you know, most of us start with CPAs. Any, any of us that has a business, you probably have a cpa. Maybe somebody was introduced to you. A lot of people, I think they go with who their parents used, you know, or, or maybe an older like mentor in their life referred them to somebody and maybe it was some years back. I do think it's a really important thing to do to like, like test your CPA's like ability to grow with you. If they're not giving you good solutions or good suggestions when you take your books to them, I think that's probably the first sign of have I outgrown my CPA just dropping stuff off, they're doing the books, they don't really ask me many questions. They just tie them off for me, give me the paperwork that's necessary, do my filings for me and we're done and I pay them a check like that. That probably is a CPA that you should think about have I outgrown them? And I think it's always good to be checking yourself on the CPA and the age of your business and the scale of your business. But I do think the nice thing about having somebody that is a CPA that's dedicated to that, that understands especially tax strategies, is they're going to help you think about best ways to use your money before it goes out for taxes. You know, I think that we want to pay taxes, we advocate for taxes. I think that the more taxes you pay honestly probably shows that you've been doing business well through the years. But there's also strategic ways that you can keep that money in play and not have to just give it all away to Uncle Sam at the end of the year as you grow. And you want somebody that understands tax strategy. And that's what they do. They understand books, they understand finance, they understand your books, your finance, the kind of business sector you're in. The best opportunities that you can use the law to keep Money and keep it moving for you rather than just giving it away. And you want somebody that specializes in that. And equally you want there to be somebody on the other side of the fence that pushes and pulls on it.
- [08:00]
A
Right?
- [08:00]
B
Where your director of finance, your person that understands your finance is going to understand your business model better than your CPA probably. Right? Your CPA does a lot of different kinds of people's businesses and they're going to need somebody that's smart on your team that understands well, how does money come and go in your business and where could there be opportunities in your business? And explain to me how there may be even delineations in your business and maybe there are a couple different line items you might want to splitting your business into a couple of different businesses for the sake of getting best, best tax strategy out of different parts of your business. Right. But you're going to want somebody on both sides of that and attention holding people accountable. Because my what I found with CPAs and tax specialists is a lot of times they need somebody to keep them accountable on timelines, right? Like, where are we at with this project? How are things moving with this? Like, are we on time? Are we moving the right time? I don't want to just always have to file an extension. Like are you on top of what you need from me? If not, how can I get you what you need from me so we can stay on time and so that I don't show up at the end of the year with a big tax surprise of we actually have more liabilities than we realize. Nobody wants to hear that, right? Like predictively help me think through before I get there how much I'm going to pay when I get there so I don't have to come out of pocket for a bunch of new when I get there. So having that healthy tension between the two of them I think is really important. I also think when it comes to the bookkeepers, your CPA is not going to want to manage your bookkeepers. That's not something that I found that CPAs love. Like for them, I think they kind of feel like it's below them. And honestly they're a certified public accountant. Like they, they've gone through the schooling, it's not easy to get, you know, the kind of certification they have. I do think probably that kind of management, the tedious day in, day out monotony is probably below them. You don't want to pay a CPA's rate to be managing your bookkeepers, but somebody needs to keep an eye on the bookkeeper.
- [09:45]
A
Right.
- [09:45]
B
Because the bookkeeper doesn't have the expertise the CPA has. And I think that's where the director of Finance really fits in. So I think that there really are in my mind, three pieces in your financial puzzle. And that is somebody that's given you some strategy from the top, somebody that's helping execute that strategy internally and then the doers. And I think that that's what creates the magic. That's what I've seen really work. Well, I know Pete Vargas, I feel like really had this nailed. Taryn, do you want to talk about that a little bit? Because I know we worked with several then Pete's team when it came from finance, I know Tabby from our team actually came from Pete Vargas's team as one of the, one of the gears in the cogs.
- [10:20]
C
Yeah. And I mean, you and I saw it both happen from just you and me working part time, helping out with different tasks, hiring, you know, overseer, financial manager to kind of oversee the entire department and then hiring in other people from there to help be the doers and the hands behind the head that's got all the answers. And, and yeah, it was a great, smooth running operation. And then of course, outside services from there on, business, corporation strategy, tax strategy, feeding into the finance manager, director of finance, who's also like, well, but our business works in this way, not in that way. So how do we make this work for us? So just being able to have somebody with the years of experience of that specific company be able to kind of route through all these different scenarios there they're giving you without it having to go directly to the owner. I really made them be able to set all that up way, way more smoothly and correctly for their situation.
- [11:12]
B
I think, you know, Terence, something we see a lot. And maybe you could speak to this because you see this a ton. You know, you manage six, seven, eight accounts at a time, you know, and you're running some of our biggest accounts. Some of the biggest guys we've worked with have all been with you. So the Pace Morbi's and the P. Vargas is. And the Pedro Adeos. And yes, we still work with people that don't have P in their name. But I mean, a lot of our big, our big players you've got to work with. But Taryn, for you, what I've seen happen a lot of times when it comes to some of these big guys is they'll hire in a key person at the beginning. That's a doer and a leader. Right. Like that they have to understand when I hire you in. And that could be a tricky hire. Right. Cause a lot of times the people that could be strategic and overseers, like a director level within your organization, sometimes they've been doing it so long they don't want to do the doing anymore. They want somebody they can task down to. Can you maybe speak to that at the beginning? Like some people listening, like they're just starting out, they're not, you know, they're not making seven figures yet or eight figures yet. You know, they're still in the six figure range and probably they're not going to be able to have a bunch of people on their internal finance team. Can you talk about a leader that's a doer for a minute?
- [12:13]
C
Yeah, absolutely. You're going to want somebody who is okay not just sitting around managing, consulting, decision making, like somebody who's willing to dive in, spend the hours, do the work that they might be overpaid for but is still necessary for them to do to get to the bigger picture before you can build a whole team under you. So it's definitely a skill set of I can manage the seat, I can manage the department of one, and I can get all the tasks done that are reoccurring, get them done on time, get them done correctly, while also managing the overall. You know, I'm going to be responsible for everything as well. Not just responsible in a sense that somebody else is doing it and I have to manage them and double check their work, but I have to do it and then also just be the one who's casting vision in my C as well.
- [13:02]
B
Yeah, good. It's good. It's tricky. It's tricky. Hire really is. You need somebody humble enough that's still willing to do the work, but somebody strategic enough that they can elevate up when it's time to hire. Because probably the next hire after that's going to be a doer, right? Somebody that can actually give you best bang for your buck out of one of your upper paid employees. But for now the investment's going to be in somebody that's smart and can do Taren. I know, you know, we talk about a lot like how we do that hire, how that hire would happen. But I know there was another really big name client of ours that people definitely know if we dropped his name, but I won't because I don't want to like throw shade on anybody or make people feel embarrassed, but who really wanted to take his whole financial controller and farm it out overseas and remember you and. You and I both went like, wait, what did you just say? Like, no, like that. That's not a role you want to go overseas with. Like, they're going to have control over your bank accounts. They're going to have control over all of your financial data. They're going to have so much control. You want to know that you know this person that you're hiring that's going to have that much authority in your organization. Do you want to talk about that for a minute? Like, when should you go overse? When should you not go overseas for some of these positions?
- [14:02]
C
Yeah, I mean, in the previous example, it's. It's a good spot to hire somebody overseas. If you've been doing that role, you've set up the processes and you can manage secondary people who may be working overnight, working different time zones, or just working off a task list. So you actually are understanding of what they need to be doing, how they should be doing it, if it's done correctly, how much time it should be taking them. So you've set all that up ahead of time. That's a great opportunity to bring that in because you know the expectations personally and firsthand. It's gonna be really hard to bring somebody in for that if you're asking them to work on things that you don't even know how to do. Like, if you haven't done them yourself, somebody else hasn't done them themselves. That's handing it off to them. That's gonna be a really hard role to fill. There's gonna be a lot of unsureness. The person you're hiring for that might not be a good decision maker. They're gonna be a good doer if the roles and the lanes are clear. But you're going to miss the opportunity of setting up the system while they're doing it, too.
- [15:01]
B
It's. That's a great delineation. And I think it's really important that whoever you hire for a main seat in your organization, you're able to get references on. Like, you want to be clear that you're really sure that they're sure, because especially a finance person, they're going to be probably speaking a language that you don't speak. Right. That's not. That's not something that comes natural to you. So I think references is a really important one on this one. Who have they done this for? Have they done this for a business your size? Have they held this seat before? Can you confirm that through somebody? Because I think there's a lot of people out There that can say whatever they want to say. But I believe strongly in referrals at this point are really important references that you can go back to and say, hey, what was your experience and how long did they work there and did they do good work and would you hire them again, like having just some of those really critical conversations to make sure that people really have the chops and the ability to do it. You know, something that I. I always advocate for and we talk a lot about on the show is like sourcing out fractionally, you know, at Colab Team, like, what we do offer is that director seat plus bookkeeping that people can factor out to us, you know, that we're fractionally they could. If they're not ready to make an internal hire, that scares them. Like, I think the great thing about what we do is we have a long list of people that have worked for us, have worked with us rather, that are clients, big names, reputable, that have done, you know, 5, 5 million, 10 million, 20 million, 50 million that we've got to work in the middle of and seat. Sit in those seats, that then you can start to create a pattern.
- [16:19]
A
Right?
- [16:19]
B
That's what we. That's the gift collab team offers, I think, is, why don't you let us come and sit in these seats, do the doing. And then when you're ready to hire somebody internally, then we can help you with the recruiting process and bring somebody in internally to backfill the director. And then maybe you just use our team just to help you with the. The bookkeeping part of it, you know, but you have a director that's seated, and then maybe we help you find somebody that can be hired internally that can do with the bookkeeping. And that way you don't have to know all that or do all the vetting or all the resourcing. I think it's great when you can factor something out and you're just like, hey, this is my budget. How much can you do with this? And then realize finance is kind of one of those things you get addicted to. Like, the more reporting you see, the more clarity you get. You kind of start wanting more and more. And that's usually what shows you you're growing out of your fractional person. Right? Is no, no, we need somebody full time. I want somebody full time that can help me look stuff. I want to be able to have these conversations on an ongoing way that maybe somebody fractionally can't always do. So I think that's usually the growth model we see. If you're interested in collab team coming alongside and just having a conversation or maybe even just seeing the kind of services we offer. Finance.thecolabteam.com is a great place to check out because you can see to some of the services, how we clip in and then we can make some Great references of CPAs I know do wealth is one that I would always refer people to. Jim and Mimi do are great human beings. They really help with back office and that tax strategy and finding you good CPAs and putting you in the right place to be able to grow the business. So that's always somebody that I'll refer to when it comes to that tax planning CPA CoG, I think it's a great one to find. So having different people, when do you consolidate, when do you delineate, especially when it comes to finance, I think is a really important conversation. Taryn, anything you feel like I'm leaving out?
- [17:55]
C
No.
- [17:56]
B
Good. I love it. I covered it all smooth.
- [17:58]
C
Okay.
- [17:59]
B
Well off Experts, I hope you enjoyed today's show. Taran Turner, thank you so much for joining me. As always, an amazing guest. And we'll see you guys next week here on OPS Experts Club.