Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Between Two Ledgers. I'm James Rose and today's guest is John Knight. John is the founder of Business Depot, a multidisciplinary accounting firm. They've been around for quite a while and you've probably heard of them already.
As you'll hear, I met John many years ago and I was immediately struck by the impressiveness of their brand.
Like, it was a very striking brand and they had a really cool energy around it. They've built an incredible business, and John shares much of what made that possible Today. In this conversation, we talk about creating a brand that stands out. Using events as a channel for business growth, building a culture where your team, your partners, and even your clients work together, attracting amazing talent and more topics. Now I bring you John Knight.
John Knight, the John Knight man. It is so good to have you here.
[00:00:54] Speaker B: Hey, James. How are you, mate? It's. It's nice to be here.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. I'm doing good. Coming into Christmas, very much looking forward to some time off.
I was really looking forward to having you on, just because I feel like you have been. You've just. I've watched your journey for one, from the very beginning because of. You invited me to speak at one of your events in, I'm gonna say, 2014. And after I spoke, you gave me a speaking gift which had some happy socks in it. And it's so funny how this is, like, been cooked into my mind as, like, John is the happy socks guy, which is. But it's so long ago because it kicked off an obsession. I've had so many, like, you know, bright and colorful socks since then. I didn't know they existed before then. So I've got you to thank for that.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: Yeah, well, the happy socks were ingenious sort of thing that we were quite often remembered for. And it was just a simple gift to say, we're very happy to have you here, or we're very happy and appreciative of your time.
And the happy socks just worked. And people still remember us for some of that stuff.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: How good is that? You know, like, sometimes it's just the smallest thing can be so memorable. I mean, there's a. There's a takeaway right there. I did a LinkedIn post just the other day about delighting. As a newsletter post around delighting your customers. Like, so few people do that. In your case, you're delighting sort of partners as well, you know, because we necessarily a customer or a client, but not very few people.
Everyone knows the advice. No one does it you know, but, like, there's a cafe down the road from me that do, like, these tiny little brownies on the top of every coffee. And, you know, they remember your name and all. And the same people have been working there for, like, a decade. And that, like, feeling is just so nice. I worked with a car detailer recently who did, like, went the extra mile and put, like, a little care package in at the end, you know, and I've recommended him to everyone.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: But it doesn't have to cost a fortune either. I mean, how much is a pair of happy socks? Yeah. Like, we put them in a nice box sort of thing and put a bit of branding on the box.
Even with the box, it wouldn't have been 20 bucks gift, but. But you remembered it. I always remember Seth Godin. I always think of Seth Godin's Purple Cow book. Have you ever read that one?
[00:03:04] Speaker A: I've not read it, but I know the summary.
[00:03:06] Speaker B: Yeah. So the Purple Cow. Yeah, be. Be remembered. Be remarkable sort of thing. And again, it's that delight doesn't need to be over the top, but just somehow show some appreciation, gratitude, whatever you're trying to achieve.
[00:03:21] Speaker A: I didn't think that's the angle we were going for here, but I think this is really like, a great message because, like, exactly that. Sometimes it feels like it can be. Has to be a big thing or like.
But if you just sit down and have a think, there's probably a lot of touch points where you can add that little, like, not just getting someone a gift at Christmas or whatever, Right. Like a hamper that everyone else has also sent at the same time. Like, how can you make the clients like every little touch point with you better? I was thinking about this the other day at a doctor's surgery, right? Because I went straight from this, like, car detail on one day that I was so happy with. And then I went to a. As a heart doctor, Everything's fine, don't worry. But, like, I went in there and I was in there for like, five seconds. He's like, basically just, yeah, it looks good. Be healthy, we'll check in in five years. And I went out and I got reamed for, you know, $550.
And I was sitting there thinking, like, why don't they do like, some little, like, have you ever been to, like, a Thai massage place and they give you the little tea or like, they give you something when you, like, you check in at a nice hotel and sometimes they'll give you, like, a little drink on a plate, like These little moments like, why can't doctors do that? Why don't doctors ever do that?
[00:04:29] Speaker B: Well, they probably made you wait in the waiting room for, for a long time as well beforehand. So they could have had some tea or something there quite easily, couldn't they?
[00:04:37] Speaker A: It's such a small thing and it would have changed my experience completely. It's funny, I said this exact same thing to my wife and she said a lot. Apparently a lot of women's health providers do do stuff like this.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:04:49] Speaker A: So we might just be getting shafted as blokes on this one.
[00:04:52] Speaker B: I don't know. I suppose it's their attention on the customer. Isn't it? Like, is your customer at the center or do they look at us more like we need them and so they don't think of us as customers?
[00:05:01] Speaker A: Maybe, you know, and that might be. It is. It's just like a heart doctor, for example, specialist is going to be so in demand. They just don't have to care. But I mean, surely if you care, it's going to pay back. It's got to like, if you make those things changes. So I want to get the original thing I wanted to talk about with you and I guess this, like, this does kind of relate, you know, I feel like you've always been quite different and you were very early in the whole like accountants standing out movement, if we want to call it that. Like there's a lot of. These days I feel like it's sort of. There's a lot more of this happening where there's like people with like bright brands or like a really like cool, funky thing going on. But I remember when you guys first started doing this, nobody was doing it. I remember walking into your office and just being like, holy, this is an accounting firm. You know, with the bright yellow and you had like lots of sort of green stuff around. The brand was just so nice.
Like you ran events, you had, I think you had a co working space going as well. And like I just remember being like, what? Like this is so different than what I'm. What I'm expecting. So I guess like what inspired all of this? Like how did you.
Yeah, you were so early to it. So I just want to hear about that story.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: Yeah, look, I mean I was, I was a partner. I was an equity partner in a, in a fairly traditional accounting firm and I was in business with good people. I enjoyed the clients I worked with and I was given a lot of right to have a lot of fun and do whatever I wanted.
I always wanted to just help more like help help and coming. Growing up in a family business myself, I could see the challenges of family business owners and I just wanted to help business owners achieve more of what they wanted to achieve, remove the roadblock so that they could continue down the path that they want to go.
And so I suppose I struggled a little bit with the XYZ chartered accountants saying that they were all these things to everybody when I didn't think we truly were. And so I just wanted to create a place, hence the name Depot. I wanted to create a place that people could actually go to to find whatever it is they need. It just happens. Some of it includes accounting now when we launched, we were 100% accounting when we launched. But the vision always was to solve more problems for business owners. And so we always had a vision of adding in the other, the other services.
As for brand and probably, I'd probably just clarify brand by. I'd say brand experience was something that was really important to me. So I did want to stand out.
As I said before, massive fan of the Seth Godin sort of purple cow sort of philosophy. And so I was never going to set something up and be Knight and co or I was never going to go and do another three letter acronym accounting firm. No offense to those that are that. But I just didn't want to be that. I wanted my name to mean for something, mean something. I, I wanted our brand to give an energy to what we did. And, and that came from a client who said to me one day, John, I don't know if you do a good tax return or not, but you bring energy to the conversations that we have about tax and the business and those types of things. And so in the very early days that energy sort of was a really big part. And we actually had a light bulb and at the time, those single pendant sort of industrial sort of light bulb, we had one as our, as part of our branding.
And there was also a bit of a throwback to my old man who's an electrician and I didn't become the, the son who took over the business. And so that energy, shining light and yellow, there was no one that was yellow at that point in time.
[00:08:39] Speaker A: Yellow is what I remember the most.
[00:08:42] Speaker B: And we still are known for the yellow. It's, it's, it's funny how people remember us for the bright yellow and now mix. Yellow wasn't just my favorite color sort of thing. It was, it had, we had meaning behind it. It was about energy and it was about brightness and it was about not taking ourselves too seriously.
And, you know, it's about sunshine, all those types of things. But that's only one component of it. Hey, like the other component of the brand experience you said was when you walked up the stairs. Yeah. Now you walked up the stairs. And where we are, we took walls out as soon as we moved in so that it was open and transparent. And you walked straight into our kitchen. And it didn't matter whether John was there, I don't know, eating tuna or making a toasted sandwich or something or other. That gave the brand an attribute of transparency and authenticity and vulnerability and those types of things.
And then, you know, you also talked about the events that we did. That's another part of the brand, wasn't it? Like it was how we did the events? Short, sharp, 15 minutes sort of presentations. We made people be really punchy with what they talked about. But it was also showing the people we hang out with. So the cool people like yourself who spoke at our events and shared some, some incredible knowledge.
But it also put that flavor of help. We're here to help and we're giving you this for free. We're giving you these insights for free. So I suppose just to circle back around with all that, where did it come from? Always wanted to be different, always wanted to help.
Always wanted to energize business owners and connect them to whatever will help them achieve what they wanted to achieve.
[00:10:23] Speaker A: Man, I love it. There's just so much in there, so much value in there. I feel like even though this was so long ago you were doing this, it's still something that not many people do and still a pretty amazing way to stand out.
[00:10:38] Speaker B: And we're still remembered for those things we did in the early days. Now you're probably going to ask me later on, why don't you do your events anymore? Well, we do some events, but we don't do that style event anymore because those events got so popular and we created such a. An amazing community through those events that we took them to the Powerhouse here in Brisbane for those of you that know the Powerhouse. And one of our events, we had 500 people registered. Now, they didn't all show up. About 300 of the 500 showed up.
[00:11:09] Speaker A: But it's impressive still.
[00:11:10] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, we had 500 people gave us their email address and said, we're going to come along and we're going to come to a Business Depot event.
And that was probably, I think our last Powerhouse event was probably 2018 or 2019 or something or other. And People still remember.
[00:11:30] Speaker A: Yeah, I do remember seeing those events come up. I don't think I ever made it to one. But yeah, like Powerhouse is also just such a cool venue. You know, it's that industrial like kind of on brand, given it's a.
I'm passionate about that.
[00:11:45] Speaker B: Hey, I'm. I'm never gonna. Well, very rarely have I made the mistake of. Often it's when I'm being a tight ass. If I'm being a tight ass and I know it's not on brand, but I do something that's sort of slightly cheaper. They're. They're my only regrets. But I'm pretty dogged about making sure what we do is consistent with our brand. But a brand evolves as well.
Yeah. If you know what I mean. Like, like we don't do a lot of those big scale events anymore simply because we don't have enough staff to get the work done. And so there's no point spending money and growing, growing the leads and the top if we can't get the team together.
[00:12:21] Speaker A: Makes sense. I'm glad you mentioned energy too, because that's like. That is really hard to articulate, I think, I think because that is something I remember as well. You know, it was like, it just felt like a cool place to be. And that was. Yes, the. What the building design was like and the brand's design and the white, you know, open kind of thing and the yellow. But also it just felt like a cool place to be because things were happening. And I think the CO working felt at the time like a part of that. Can you tell me about what happened there? I don't think that lasted long, did it?
[00:12:53] Speaker B: Well, I'll give you the real story and I'll give you the. What we got out of it. Okay.
So the co working happened because we came into this office and the landlord said, I know you don't need all this space, but why don't you take this extra space down here? You'll grow into it, but I'll give it to you for free for 12 months or two years or something or other. And I'm like, great, co working. Co working was a term that was only getting new traction in Brisbane at the time.
And so we just put some desks in there and we just invited people to come in and we said to some of our community, you can use it. Our clients, they can use it for free. And then we had other people who, who paid for it.
Not part of the original plan. I can't say that was a master Stroke of my original plan. But it was awesome because it meant we had these, these entrepreneurial people coming into our office energizing our smaller team at that point in time.
Startup mentality, you know, a bit of that standing beside the coffee machine. What are you talking to this guy about? Might be an engineer or a data guy or something or other.
And we. So I always loved having the co working space because it bought a different energy into our space. Added. They bring their clients to our space as well. And so they would say I'll meet you at business.
And that, that was amazing. And then so what is this place? And then he said other accountants and lawyers and these types of things. We only really got rid of it through covert so.
[00:14:23] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: Yeah, so we through Covid we got rid of it just from a germs. But also we were running out of space. So we were at our peak size during COVID and so we just needed as many desks as we can. And so we had to close off the co working space and turn it into more desks. I miss it a bit but it's probably the right thing to not have it anymore because we were probably grown up a little bit. Um, if that makes sense. We still have some. They're probably more sub tenants now than co workers.
Um, so we have some people who rent some desks and stuff off us but we don't necessarily market it as co working anymore.
[00:15:02] Speaker A: Yeah, that's fair enough. I, I remember back then co working like you said, it was so new and it was, it was all really cool. There was a place in Brisbane called Little Tokyo 2 and it had that like, you know, entrepreneur, lots of entrepreneurs together feel. But I feel like co working is just not that anymore. Every time I've gone to co working now it's like a satellite office for a big or it's like grown up companies that are just using it for whatever reason and it's like it doesn't feel the same anymore. Like I can't go and just chat to other entrepreneurs. I've got to try and find that in other places. But it makes sense that like and.
[00:15:34] Speaker B: The commercial brain kicks in though as well. Hey, like I can make more money on that desk being filled by an accountant than a coworker paying a piddly amount that barely covers the rent.
[00:15:43] Speaker A: Yeah, it doesn't seem like a great business model. I don't know how these companies survive but yeah, like it's an interesting angle like thing there that you, you've grown up past it as well. You. Because it did earlier early days, you do. There's the cool, funky. I mean, you've still maintained a lot of that.
[00:15:58] Speaker B: Right.
[00:15:58] Speaker A: But like the startup sort of hacky mentality is a bit different. And I remember, and I don't know the current state of this, I know back then you were doing. They had the business collective. I remember when you were first sort of proposing that around, like getting businesses from lots of different types of industries together, whether that's to like share work or whatever, and just so they all know each other and they come to the events. That's you. You can expand on that in a sec because I know I'm butchering the hell out of that now. I just notice you've got like, you do a ton of services in house. Like you've just grown the business to basically do everything.
Tell me about that transition, or if it is a transition, maybe it's still part of the collective. Just tell me about that because I find it really.
[00:16:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, the collective was basically build a community of support supporters from around the place. They were often really specialist, unique sort of businesses that have got some sort of specialist skill that a business owner needs.
And so we can't call ourselves DEPO unless we solve all the problems or point them in the direction to solve all the problems. And so that's how we did that. We built a community of referral partners, effectively.
I'd like to think that we gave them a lot and we like to think that they got value out of us and we definitely got value out of them.
What it meant was a collective member would bring their clients along to our events and so forth. It was one of the ways we got a lot of traction at events. But the collective members also got value out of meeting each other.
So we put structure around a referral arrangement, basically. But to be honest, the real value was probably the brand reach that we got from the collective in that we helped each other to showcase our different skill sets and so forth and everyone would bring them along to events and those types of things. I haven't given attention to probably the collective in the last little while. And that's purely just from a perspective of we have rolled a number of services into Business Depot over the years. We got rid of some as well, to be completely honest. Some of them didn't work.
And so we haven't sort of given it a lot of attention.
That's purely. Just where do we put our energy?
We're 12 years old now. We sort of can't keep doing exactly the same as what we used to do. And I'm a lot older too, and I probably don't have as much energy as I probably had back then to work on these things that maybe don't necessarily add direct commercial value.
When you've got heaps of other things you can work on that do add direct commercial value.
That makes sense.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: Yeah. And like, this is just like, I'm very familiar with this problem. Like, there's all these, like, there's these things that are. You'd like to do or whatever, but one, you get pulled away because you just get so much busier. And the other thing is, like, is this legitimately worth my time? Is it like the responsible business thing to do? Sometimes it doesn't have to be like, you can just go, what? I'm happy to do something that's less commercial because it's cool and it's fine and it gives me energy and that's what I want to do. But sometimes it's okay to let things go as well.
[00:19:03] Speaker B: Yeah, totally. And that's the decisions we've made with a couple of things.
[00:19:08] Speaker A: So when I see that huge list of services you have on your website, that's all like, that huge.
I still feel like there's quite a lot going on. There are these, like, all 100% sort of internal. Like, I've just seen this kind of thing structured where they're like different companies or different entities. Like. Yeah. Just out of curiosity, is it. How is this structured for you? Is it all just one big entity and they're all employees?
[00:19:33] Speaker B: Yeah. So typically, I always believe in who before what. So you find a good person and they've got something good to do, then we. We make something happen with them. Typically we have a separate entity that that key person has direct equity in to. To go and do that type of thing. That said, we've got an accounting firm that does a stack of things. We've got a legal firm that does a stack of things. We've got our business broking and our transaction sort of division. We've then got our Sydney team, and they do a lot of bookkeeping and tech advisory and so forth as well. And over the years, we've done other things. Like we used to have HR in house. We don't do that in house anymore. We now do that more of a referral sort of arrangement. We used to provide marketing services to clients as well. We cut that. That was a commercial decision to do that one as well.
And as much as I loved doing it and so forth, we gave it a few cracks with some people I know, you know as well, and we just couldn't make it work. And so we do that now through referral arrangements.
[00:20:35] Speaker A: Yeah, cool.
[00:20:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:36] Speaker A: I don't know. Either way, it's a, it's a very impressive business you've built there. Like, I just, I don't know. To me, it looks pretty massive. I was just on the website earlier and I was like, good God, there's a lot of things.
I have one product and I'm like, yeah, no, this is too much.
[00:20:51] Speaker B: It's not an easy, it's not an easy path we've chosen.
[00:20:54] Speaker A: Oh, no, no.
[00:20:56] Speaker B: It'd be easy to just run an accounting firm.
[00:20:59] Speaker A: But look, man, it's what, what works and it's, it's like, I don't know. I still think it creates an energy. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
I think this all ties into the next thing I want to talk about, which is attracting of talent. I've met many people, whether they're team or directors or whatever from Business Depot over the years, and I feel like they've all, they're all still people I talk to. Right. Like I, I know them through, you know, even if they're not at Business Depot anymore. And I just find that incredible, like the kind of talent you're able to attract. And so I'm interested. Like, you know, has that been something you've put a lot of work into or is it kind of just, you know, have you attracted those people through the brand and the energy and everything and the collective? Maybe. I don't know.
[00:21:43] Speaker B: Look, I, I think that's exactly how we've attracted them. I mean, we put attention on our employer brand as much as we put attention on our client or customer sort of brand.
And over the years, especially in the early days when we stood out being very different to the other alternatives for them to choose from, we were able to attract great people into the group, but also we were attracting them into a business that was encouraging an entrepreneurial spirit. We're encouraging them to at times think like a startup and those types of things.
And so they're always going to have their own desire to do their own thing or to go out somewhere else. And when I look around Brisbane in particular and I see where some of my ex team members are now, actually get a little bit proud about, about that. I'd like to think that I've done something to inspire them along the way. You can't keep everybody, and we don't always get it right with everybody. Either. But I've got that little bit of pride that there's a whole stack of people that have Business Depot on their, on their resume and are now a director somewhere or started their own business or even you know, like Tyson with his marketing business and so forth. It's. I'm really proud to see them out there doing their thing and being successful.
[00:22:58] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm glad you went into that because that was literally like. My other question is like you seem to have a bunch of like entrepreneurial types. Maybe you fostered that. That's really interesting because.
[00:23:08] Speaker B: Well, I won't claim credit for it. Hope I've had something to do with it.
[00:23:11] Speaker A: But yeah, but it's interesting because you know those people.
Yeah. Like it's just crazy how many people I know that run their own show that have been through Business Depot now. And it's. I think it's a side topic but it's always. I find a bit of a mental thing to hire entrepreneurial people because like they are the best people to have on your team but there's also the highest risk that they're going to go and do their own thing.
[00:23:35] Speaker B: Absolutely. They're gonna pack themselves to do their own thing at some point in time.
[00:23:39] Speaker A: One thing I've always wondered around talent is before like you can put that brands forward, right. And like, let's see, put a job post out on seek or whatever. There's the bit before they have any clue who you are when they come into the office like very easy, like if they were coming in for an interview or whatever. Somebody holy man this like really cool, I want to work here.
What about before that? Did you have a strategy before that or was it kind of just like a. They all knew you already because of your brand.
[00:24:09] Speaker B: I think because we had an energy around the brand that people would be attracted to the brand.
The thing I'd say about talent is we always had a human centric approach and so we always invested in the human as much as we invested in the skills and so forth that they worked on. So we, we had an org psych on the books for a year and that was investing in our relationships, our emotional intelligence, our self awareness and those types of things. Now we've ebbed and waned with that over the years but we've consistently made sure we talk about who you are, what your personality type is, how you work with others, make sure you've got self awareness so you can have tougher conversations and those types of things. And actually that's probably one of the Things that I think has created this culture of collaboration within our team that I'm really proud of, because when you got lawyers and you got accountants and financial planners and all these different people together, they don't always work well together.
But I think we've been able to create a culture where they naturally want to help each other out, and they do that without putting their hand out, asking for something in return. It is just the culture that we've been able to create. Create. I think that's got a bit to do with the talent piece for us.
[00:25:26] Speaker A: How do you cultivate that? The culture is such a funny thing to me. Right. Like, I know we have a good culture because people like our team are like, you know, they love working here. And we've had people like, leave and then come back and be like, oh, my God, like, it's so good here, or whatever.
[00:25:39] Speaker B: Right.
[00:25:39] Speaker A: And I can never even articulate what culture means. I have no idea. I know we have it to some extent, but, like. Yeah, how. Like, tell me about that bit and how you think you've sort of grown that, you know, how are you fostering that collaboration? Part of it.
[00:25:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I suppose it's just at the core of how we deal with each other, isn't it? You know, the fact that everyone sits down and does their personality profile is the starting point of that.
We've got our. That step O statements, which are like, our values or our behaviors, and we reward people that show those values and behaviors and those types of things. Now, that's a bit traditional. That's a bit sort of. We were almost corporate, but we've done our that's depot statements in, I suppose, a bit more of a fun sort of way to do it and just try and create that constant sort of reinforcement. What else have we done to do it? Look, I probably can't answer that either, James. I mean, I know Lillette from our Sydney office would say culture's bullshit. And it's. Yeah, but I'm like, well, I don't know how else to describe it.
So, you know, it's like how we work together is what I think culture is. And I think we work together in a collaborative way because that has been ingrained in how we do things from day one.
And if you're not depo, you sort of hear about it a little bit in the nicest possible way.
[00:27:02] Speaker A: Yep, sounds good. I. Yeah, it's. I'm glad you can't articulate it either, because this is something I've struggled with for ages. And like, Especially at a company of your size. Like, for us, it's, like, probably a bit easier because we're 12 or whatever and 12 of us. And it's just like. I think a lot of culture just comes in the way I talk to people and they talk to each other. And it's the type of people you hire probably comes into it as well. They don't get through the culture fit they talk about during the hiring process. And I think it's just like, does this person actually fit in with, like, the way we operate? Like, that's what could be a gut feel thing. At least it is for me.
[00:27:38] Speaker B: A funny observation in that regard is, you know, we do Myers Briggs, and so, you know, one of the traits is feelings, okay? Now, because we're human focused and we. One of our values or one of our that's depot statements is give a shit. We naturally attract people who are higher on the F side of things with Myers Briggs, probably to our detriment, because we probably end up with too many Fs, and we probably need a few more of the alternative, the J's in there. But because of that, we're attracting people who give a shit about other people. They like to be in a culture and environment that give a shit about each other. And so we do. Like you say you attract, like, for, like.
[00:28:20] Speaker A: Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, it clearly shows. Like, you know, I just wish I had a way to understand it better. I've read and I've listened to talks and, like. And I just.
You know, when someone asks me, like, how do you foster a culture of xyz? I just. I don't have a damn clue. Like, I would like to foster a culture of collaboration, whatever. Like, I don't know, get people working together. But then it kind of just happens on our team, you know?
[00:28:44] Speaker B: Like, that's what culture is. I mean, culture is not something you sit down and you define. I want my culture to be like this. Yeah. The culture just comes out of the behaviors that people do and how you.
[00:28:55] Speaker A: Do things, which is why Lillette probably calls it bullshit, because it is. Like, it does seem weird. Like, it's just a thing that's there and it's not.
[00:29:02] Speaker B: I don't think you should overthink it, to be honest. I just think you sort of.
It'll become. And it'll change. Like, our culture has changed. Like, grown up a little bit. Like, I've lost the hair and I'm grayer and all those types of things, and that's okay, but probably you know, it's got some core elements in there which are your non negotiables. But there'll be parts of our culture that have changed since the early days.
[00:29:30] Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean, it's cool that you're able to retain certain bits and then like let go of the bits that aren't serving you or whatever. You know, like things adapt and change and that's fine.
[00:29:41] Speaker B: I mean, we used to have a, we used to have a brand promise. It was relationship for free. And you know, 12 years ago it was, you know, clients being able to ring and make a phone call without expecting a bill for a six minute phone call sort of thing. And that's what it was about. But we got to a point where that was misunderstood probably by our team more so than our clients and clients. Oh, that's just relationship for free. And I'm like, hang on, you got to actually get your budget as well sort of things. We actually scrapped that brand promise because we needed to make a point. Okay. We need a bit more accountability. We need you to take me a bit more responsibility and we needed a more performance focus.
[00:30:20] Speaker A: That's interesting. That is. Yeah.
Sometimes it is just like you have to let go of things that have served you well in the past for whatever reason. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It just makes me think about like support right now. Like, you know, I've got like the whole 100% human support thing going on in my head. I always want content center to be like that. But like now I'm like, do we give people the option of AI support? You know, like it's. But I'm like, I'm pretty, feel pretty strongly about that because it's. Instead of like a lot of support for apps, they'll force you down the AI route first and then give you the option to go to someone else. I want to be, I want it upfront to be like, which, what do you want to try? Do you want to try AI firms? And it's crazy how few apps will let us do that. So we've got to basically build it ourselves, which is super.
[00:31:04] Speaker B: That's interesting.
[00:31:07] Speaker A: But just so I guess, like to finish this up, like, what are you thinking about? You know, we've spoken a lot about where you've come from up to now. What's the future look like for you guys? For the industry? What are you thinking about?
[00:31:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I probably, I probably apply my mind. Well, I've probably been applying my mind a lot to the future of accounting and professional services industry. And I think there's Been some bigger changes in the industry in the last five years that I think probably don't get enough sort of airtime and it's impacting what the next horizon looks like. If I'm completely honest with you. I don't know, I don't want necessarily want to lead the next horizon of change for the accounting team for some of that. Like when we set up cloud accounting was really just getting going. I mean we embraced zero, but they didn't have a tax solution for us to do tax returns then. But we still embraced it because we'd see where it going. And so, you know, I led that sort of cloud accounting sort of adoption with the set up a Business Depot. I don't know if I want, I'm the right, well, I know I'm not the right guy but I don't know if I want to be the guy to lead the next horizon whether it be AI or process automation or whatever it is. And so I've got other leaders sort of stepping up to do that type of thinking and that type of execution for us.
I think this, look, the accounting industry survived how long going to be fine. I'm not scared by the future in any way, shape or form and anything. I think we could be going into our best era ever with process automation and AI enabling us to actually do more things. But what we, what I do know is we need change like directors and the amount of responsibility that they take on and the amount of work that they do can't continue the way they are at the moment. The burnout is so rife with within the industry and so much of that is people still not having recovered from COVID era. I think, you know, there was so much catch up to play after that period that I don't think we've necessarily all recovered from that yet.
The other thing that I think the industry's been through is what I call the fragmentation of the industry as well. And that's come from the cloud accounting. And it's so easy to be a one man show and set up their website and go get some clients and they're, they're a chartered accounting firm. And what's happened is I think that's leading to this huge number of small providers, even just contractors and so forth. And then the other end I think you've got the big getting bigger as well. And so I think there's a real divide in the industry with the number of small providers, the huge size of the bigger businesses sort of gobbling up others. And I'm really Curious as to what that means for us. That's in the middle and I'm not quite sure how that rolls out within. In the industry. Does that make sense to you, James?
[00:34:01] Speaker A: Yeah, it's as you're saying it, I'm like, yeah, that's an interesting observation because I was literally thinking about how there seems to be a lot of firms that are like their strategy is to buy up other firms. I spoke to someone last week who said 2026 is the year they're going to start acquiring other firms.
[00:34:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:18] Speaker A: You know, and, and obviously squeeze. This is kind of what they're doing. They're buying up places and like private.
[00:34:25] Speaker B: Money interested in the industry again which I think's good for the industry.
I think they've learned lessons from decades ago when they've tried to do it and it hasn't worked. But I think that's part of it. That's that private equity money is enabling the big to get bigger. But you've also got the impact on the resources and with so many fewer people doing accounting and yet those that did, maybe they just go out on their own now and you can have a sexy looking brand pretty easy these days. May not stand out as much but it looks a lot better than what it did 10 years ago.
[00:34:57] Speaker A: 100%. And like you said, so many people sort of just heading out on their own now and sometimes they don't even really, you know, they can have a pretty respectable business without anyone on their team.
[00:35:10] Speaker B: 100% if that's what they want, if that's what their goal is and fine. You don't have to go down that traditional sort of path anymore. I think they get lonely pretty quickly though. I think they get the seven interesting where they get to a point they go is this it for the rest of my life?
Because they get a bit stuck.
Interesting. Sort of get stuck in the business that's relying on them. They start and they get a bit weary from not being able to take as many holidays.
[00:35:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:38] Speaker B: And I think they start thinking about their own personal sort of development and vision and career goals and so forth. And that's when I think they potentially come back and they probably roll into to bigger firms again.
[00:35:50] Speaker A: Interesting. Yeah, I guess it's probably a lot of it comes down to personality and what you want out of life, I guess, etc. Because it's funny because my end goal in business was to have to be able to pay myself well and not to work much. And that meant like no team almost, you know, like have I thought software was A good way to get there because we could. You can generally operate a software pretty lean. And now only at 12 people, I'm like, oh, my God. My job is chief people wrangler. Like, that is my job. Now, how did I get here?
[00:36:22] Speaker B: 12'S a good size, I reckon.
[00:36:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:25] Speaker B: Like, I reckon 8 to 12 is a good size because you got enough people to get a bit of leverage. You've got an easy handle on what's going on around the place.
But you get to 20 and it starts to sort of evolve, doesn't it?
[00:36:37] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I am not experienced in that, but, like, I'm already, like, I feel like I'm not losing it, but I'm just like, holy hell. Like, it's hard because I'm. I'm a technical guy. I like building things and I just don't get the time for that anymore, like, at all. I have to get other people to do the work and it's. It eats me a little bit. Like, I almost want to try and get it. Get some of the stuff that I'm doing outsource to, like, an operator. Not outsource, but, like, bring someone in who can take that so I can actually get back on the tools. I know I shouldn't do that, but it's just.
[00:37:08] Speaker B: Maybe you should.
[00:37:09] Speaker A: You got to do what gives you energy. Right.
[00:37:11] Speaker B: What's right or wrong, you know?
[00:37:13] Speaker A: Exactly.
Awesome, John. Well, this is a really good chat. We covered quite a few different things there, but all of it was just, I don't know, very helpful. I'm sure it is, but, like, it's also just so impressive what you've done over the years. So thank you so much for coming on.
[00:37:29] Speaker B: Thank you, James. And look, I don't think we've necessarily done everything right. I think we've made some mistakes along the way and so forth, but I'm more than willing to sort of learn from those mistakes and help anyone out there that wants to learn from them as well.
[00:37:44] Speaker A: Love your work. Thanks, John.
[00:37:45] Speaker B: Thanks, mate.
