Identifying Future Advisors: Strategies for Empowering Your Team
Who should become an advisor in your practice?
It's a question we hear all the time.
Many practice owners assume the most technically capable person will naturally become their best advisor. But that's not always the case.
In this episode of Advisory Conversations, Tim Seymour and Deb Halliday discuss how to identify the people in your team who have the potential to deliver great advisory. Sometimes it's the person with years of experience who isn't interested. Other times it's the less experienced team member who's curious, eager to learn and ready to grow.
We explore why technical knowledge alone doesn't create a great advisor, and why curiosity, communication and a genuine desire to help clients often matter far more.
We also discuss why advisory shouldn't sit with one person. Building an advisory team creates better outcomes for clients, removes the business owner as the bottleneck, and gives your team a clear pathway for growth.
If you're wondering who in your practice could become an advisor, this episode will help you start looking beyond qualifications and towards potential.
In this episode you'll learn:
- How to identify future advisors within your team.
- Why technical ability isn't the only requirement for advisory.
- The importance of curiosity and confidence in client conversations.
- How to encourage team members to step into advisory roles.
- Why advisory works best as a team effort, not an individual role.
- Practical ways to develop advisory skills across your practice.
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Transcript
Welcome to Advisory Conversations with Tim Seymour and Deb Halliday.
Speaker A:This podcast is for accounting professionals and financial coaches who are ready to step beyond compliance and into advisory.
Speaker A:Because real advisory isn't about doing more yourself.
Speaker A:It's about building something that works without you being the bottleneck.
Speaker A:Hello, and welcome along to Advisory Conversations.
Speaker A:Hello, Deb.
Speaker B:Hi, Tim.
Speaker B:How you doing?
Speaker A:I'm very well, thank you.
Speaker A:I'm very well.
Speaker A:I'm looking forward to another conversation with you from the advisory perspective.
Speaker A:And it's interesting because albeit we have a topic to talk about today, we were talking to a practice owner just recently, weren't we, in respect of providing advisory through her team so that she wasn't delivering it herself, which obviously is one of the problems we look to solve and provide a solution for that.
Speaker A:But it, it was an interesting conversation because it's a very common theme in that she had someone kind of in her mind earmarked who she felt was the right person to deliver advisory because this person has all the insights, can spot the patterns, can spot what's going on within the client's businesses, and can see everything that needs to be seen to be the perfect match to deliver advisory.
Speaker A:However, this, this particular person kept her hand down and didn't really feel.
Speaker A:Felt a little bit reluctant, shall we say, to move forward into deliver an advisory to clients.
Speaker A:Yet there was someone else in her team who didn't necessarily have as much knowledge and could see the same patterns and insights, but put a hand up straight away and said, I want to do that.
Speaker A:I would love to be customer focused and talk to the, to the customers more, you know, and develop my skills in that area.
Speaker A:So it's a bit of a conundrum there, isn't it?
Speaker A:What, what do you do, you know, what, what do we do with that, Deb?
Speaker A:How would, how would we start to make sense of that situation?
Speaker B:Well, there's a number of reasons, isn't it?
Speaker B:I would try and find out, first of all, why the person.
Speaker B:Well, first of all, you, you welcome and encourage the person that put the hand up.
Speaker B:Absolutely, you know, without a doubt.
Speaker B:And you, you move them forward on that.
Speaker B:But the one that didn't put their hand up, I'd be interested to know what it was about the service that she didn't want to do, whether it was something that she felt she wasn't capable of or it wouldn't suit her.
Speaker B:Maybe she didn't want the extra workload.
Speaker B:Maybe she was comfortable doing what she was doing.
Speaker B:Had imposter syndrome, potentially, because a Lot of the time there could be misconceptions about what advisory actually is.
Speaker B:And it sounds very grand, it sounds very top level.
Speaker B:It sounds like something that the practice owner should be doing.
Speaker B:So I would break that down and try and find out what it was.
Speaker B:Because it may be in the messaging, it may be in, as I say, misconceptions.
Speaker B:It may well be that she's got other stuff going on, other ambitions, other goals or other avenues that she wants to go in.
Speaker B:Maybe she hadn't considered it at all.
Speaker B:So if you hadn't considered it at all, you're unlikely to put your hand up if you need to think more about it.
Speaker B:So I would, yeah, I'd address those first, really.
Speaker B:And because to me, if I thought they would be ideal and they would be the person that I would want to volunteer to do it, then there's a misaligned communication there.
Speaker B:So that needs exploring.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:So understanding perhaps what the role entails, what it means to deliver advisory, what it means to sit in front of a client and have a conversation and maybe take the pressure off about a situation.
Speaker A:Of course.
Speaker A:But see, there's also, there's also an argument perhaps that if this person really is not the right person to deliver advisory, even though they've got the knowledge and even though they can see everything that's happening, maybe they can share their knowledge with the person who put their hand up and the person that put their hand up can have the conversations.
Speaker A:It might be that that is the other alternative solution.
Speaker A:So there's obviously lots of different ways to look at this, and there's so many variables.
Speaker A:You know, we're just putting this out there as a broad brush conversation because it was just a conversation that we had with someone.
Speaker A:But it's an interesting concept as well, because if we're building a team and we're looking at sharing a pool of knowledge together and then having someone then deliver that to the client.
Speaker A:But of course, when you're doing, when you're hosting a session with a client, you're not necessarily talking, you're actually seeking more information and you're learning.
Speaker A:Especially if you're taking a session for the first time, the first few times, you need to be soaking up knowledge and asking questions and finding out what the customer is really looking to achieve.
Speaker A:What's holding them back right now?
Speaker A:What is it I look to achieve?
Speaker A:What's getting in the way?
Speaker A:You know, what, what are the issues that are being seen within the numbers that could be shared by the colleague that doesn't want to be the one in the conversation.
Speaker A:So I don't know.
Speaker A:I just think there's.
Speaker A:There's so many different angles we could go out for this, and there's not necessarily right or wrong answer.
Speaker A:We would, technically, we would need more information and we go deeper with them on how to approach this issue.
Speaker A:But it's interesting, isn't it, because we want to talk about how we spot future advisors in our team.
Speaker A:And that was kind of the topic today.
Speaker A:Anyway, so having this question come up not long before we were ready to record this episode was really.
Speaker A:Actually, it was written in the stars to bring that into the conversation, given that it's so topical of what we're talking about that I felt we had to start with that, Deb.
Speaker A:And, yeah, I. I'm very much of a mind of the collaborative thinking of putting everyone together and having them have a conversation about how best to solve the problems the client's having.
Speaker A:And there may be one person from that team going and having the conversation with the.
Speaker A:With the client.
Speaker A:Some people might say, well, surely they should all be in the room with the client.
Speaker A:If the client's comfortable with that.
Speaker A:That could be a bit overwhelming.
Speaker A:Personally, if I was a client, I would find that overwhelming.
Speaker A:Some people may say that's what they would prefer.
Speaker A:Some clients might be happy with that because they can have a group of people serving them in that way.
Speaker A:But I. I know I've mentioned this before, but I look at it as like that medical team that have the.
Speaker A:Have the surgeon, have the consultant, have the doctor, have the junior doctor, you know, everyone who's there, the radiologist, everyone who's there in that group discussing your case.
Speaker A:But only one person comes back and talks to you about the plan of how to move forward.
Speaker A:And that's how I see an advisory team.
Speaker A:That's my best way of explaining how I see advisory teams being created and being able to move forward, to be successful for the future of the accounting industry, to be perfectly honest with you.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Any thoughts on that, Deb?
Speaker B:We could take that, actually, and one step further, because when you've got your medical team analogy.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:They all come together and decide on your treatment and discuss best options.
Speaker B:And then one person goes back, which is the consultant, to explain.
Speaker B:But then when the treatment begins, it's all done by different departments.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So it doesn't have to be done by that one person, the consultant.
Speaker B:The way that we did it within the counselors was depending on what they needed.
Speaker B:If it was the cash management system or cash flow Best practice we would, one team member would do that.
Speaker B:But if it was a debt snowballs, another team member might do that.
Speaker B:If it was owner's pay, another team member might do that.
Speaker B:But it was always.
Speaker B:We worked on priorities but they then had relationships with all the team members.
Speaker B:It wasn't just one person that delivered everything for them.
Speaker B:They did have that option with like one to one financial business coaching with the business financial coach.
Speaker B:But that was like a very, that was top level expense.
Speaker B:If it was what I consider the entry level advisory strategies, which is bringing a business up to best practice that was delivered by a whole range of team members which.
Speaker B:The same thing would happen with a medical team, wouldn't it?
Speaker B:You would go to radiology and the radiologist would do whatever they're doing.
Speaker B:You would go to surgery and the surgeon would do whatever they're doing.
Speaker B:But yeah, so there's so many different ways that you can deliver advisory.
Speaker B:So I think that's one of the.
Speaker B:Instead of just having this is my offer, this is the service level, you've got to go deeper than that and you've got to decide how will that be delivered and will it be like you say, a team getting together and all discussing and collaborating with each other, somebody spotting the patterns and then delivering somebody.
Speaker B:They discuss the insights and then come up with suggestions.
Speaker B:And it, you know, you.
Speaker B:If like we had a number of people within what we called the finance team for the client, but they could all come up with suggestions individually and suggest those to the client.
Speaker B:We didn't necessarily have one customer service person or account manager that would only ever speak to the client because to me that's another bottleneck.
Speaker A:Yeah, but that's really interesting.
Speaker A:It's interesting.
Speaker A:Different people delivering different strategies is what I picked up on.
Speaker A:That's the really interesting concept as well.
Speaker A:So you could have again like you say, it is like having a specialist in certain areas that you would go to and then you come back and then the team look after you and then you go, you've got another issue.
Speaker A:So the another specialist comes and comes and basically problem solves and sorts you out and sends you, sends you back on the way again.
Speaker A:And yeah, it's a great way to look at it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:The ideal situation would be that you would have a number of people on your team all delivering the same strategies, of course.
Speaker B:But you could that way if you had somebody, for instance, debt snowball.
Speaker B:If you had somebody delivering debt snowball to a client but they were on holiday at the time that the client was due to have the catch up meeting or the progression meeting.
Speaker B:Somebody else could step in because they understood the strategy.
Speaker B:So otherwise you're still creating bottlenecks for different services.
Speaker B:But yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:So there's lots of ways to do it, but you've got to.
Speaker B:It's not a case.
Speaker B:I don't think it's a case of just designing and then marketing and then selling.
Speaker B:I think it's a case of really understanding how you can deliver and how you can make best use of your resources, how you can best serve the client and how you can best serve your team.
Speaker A:Yeah, but quite often people have, there are people in teams right now.
Speaker A:They work for accounting practices that probably have all the ability required to be a great advisor, but it's not been recognized.
Speaker A:Maybe no one's looking to identify that because the business owner just thinks it has to be done by them.
Speaker A:It's just that for some reason there's that mentality, isn't it, that I have to deliver this because the client won't want one of my team.
Speaker A:They will want me because I'm top of the chain.
Speaker A:I'm the one that they signed up to at the very beginning.
Speaker A:I'm the face of the business.
Speaker A:I'm the one who built the business.
Speaker A:I can't have someone else doing this when you know, it's my name against it.
Speaker A:So there's all those issues that we have to solve before, before the owner can get to that point of analyzing the team and understanding who has the great potential.
Speaker B:So if you've got it in your, in the culture that it's available as an option and people are expected, your team are expected to contribute, you will, people will naturally show an interest and show an aptitude and step up to the plate.
Speaker B:Whereas if you've ring fenced it for just the business owner, nobody's, if they don't think it's an option, you're not going to, you're not going to be able to spot any talent.
Speaker B:And that I think is a mistake that a lot of practice owners make.
Speaker B:Because yeah, if it's available to your team, then they will naturally start showing an aptitude towards it, an interest in it and then you'll be able to see the traits that you want and you need in your team.
Speaker B:It's great to have the, you know, a list of traits and to know what you need, what makes a good advisory team.
Speaker B:But to avoid having that reluctance from your team members taking on that, then it's built into the culture that this is, this is this is what we do.
Speaker B:We all help our clients.
Speaker B:And you can do it in a, you could small steps, entry level strategies.
Speaker B:And it's just supporting clients rather than cfo, fd, fractional kind of like status.
Speaker B:Because try getting a junior bookkeeper to envision themselves as a fractional fd.
Speaker B:There's a huge mountain there to climb.
Speaker B:But if you can teach them how to present a spreadsheet with the debt snowball and tell the clients how much to pay off each month and what date they'll be able to finish each debt and when they'll be debt free.
Speaker B:That's a gentler step, isn't it?
Speaker A:It's a gentler step, but there's a tangible outcome from those gentle steps when they all add up, isn't there?
Speaker A:And there's a, there's a feeling that the, the client gets that they're being looked after.
Speaker A:They're getting real strategic help to solve one of their problems, one of their most stressful problems.
Speaker A:I would argue that as well.
Speaker A:So I think as well, if I was, if I was looking at a team and I was looking at the team members, I'd probably be looking out to see who asks questions.
Speaker A:Who's curious, I think is probably the word, who asks questions about what's going on within this business, who sort of says, you know, well, something doesn't feel right here, or the margins are dropping, surely we need to solve this problem.
Speaker A:Or maybe the pricing is not right, maybe they're buying from a new supplier and there's a reason why the, the costs have increased, but that's not being reflected in the sales price.
Speaker A:So it's having that curiosity to ask those questions, to start nudging someone perhaps, else to say, I want to find out about this, I want to know the answer to these questions.
Speaker A:That's the type of person to me that I would be thinking, yeah, they're someone definitely to nurture and to bring into this team environment, to build a team with.
Speaker A:Now, of course, you might want all of your team, you might want everybody who works for the business to be within an advisory team.
Speaker A:And it depends on the size of the business.
Speaker A:You might have two or three different advisory teams.
Speaker A:You might have one advisory team.
Speaker A:Of course, you know, depending on who, how big, how small the advisory team might be, the owner and the one employee they have.
Speaker A:But that's okay because that's your starting point, isn't it?
Speaker A:But it might be that you have a team of five people and they are running the advisory for you.
Speaker A:So having people that are inquisitive, that want to know answers to questions, that spot patterns, that spot things that look a bit off.
Speaker A:They're the ones, aren't they?
Speaker A:They're the ones that you think are the ideal candidates initially.
Speaker A:It doesn't mean other people in the team aren't noticing these things.
Speaker A:It might just be they haven't got the confidence to mention them because.
Speaker A:Might look silly if I ask this question, because surely I should know the answer or that's how.
Speaker A:That's how we all feel, isn't it, in certain environments, and especially when we're younger, we're a little bit scared to step out of the comfort zone, doing the technical stuff and ask questions that are great questions.
Speaker A:But we might feel we're challenging and we shouldn't be challenging because, you know, the boss is in charge of that, so we shouldn't really be, you know, pushing ourselves into that zone.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:That's why it's so important to have team meetings and have a group discussion, because the more junior, or maybe the.
Speaker B:The quieter members of the team will see other people mentioning things that they've thought of.
Speaker B:I mean, who hasn't been in a team meeting where you think, I just thought of that and.
Speaker B:But somebody else has said it.
Speaker B:So next time you have a team meeting, you think something.
Speaker B:You're more likely to say something because you realize what you're thinking is actually correct and not something silly, not something that somebody is going to judge you on.
Speaker B:And it's actually valuable contribution because you see other people talking.
Speaker B:So that's why it's vital to have a mix in your team.
Speaker B:So all levels of your team, not just have a team meeting where it's just the elite top senior members, have it with everybody because it elevates people so much quicker.
Speaker B:I mean, don't say that they have to.
Speaker B:Everybody has to be invited to every meeting.
Speaker B:But when it comes to advisory services, absolutely.
Speaker B:If you want to elevate a team, you have them all working together so they can all support each other and learn from each other.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, without a doubt, without a doubt.
Speaker A:I mean, you can, you can.
Speaker A:Can make so many comparisons to.
Speaker A:To what a team.
Speaker A:Everybody knows, you know, a team is, Is much better to do something as a team than to do it alone.
Speaker A:And there's a reason for that.
Speaker A:There's a reason for that because there's a collective amount of knowledge.
Speaker A:There's, you know, there's all that intelligence, there's all that brain power coming together.
Speaker A:There's just not in one person.
Speaker A:And everyone's got different skills and qualities.
Speaker A:You know, it's, it's just, I know I always use football, so I'm going to use cricket as an example.
Speaker A:Because, you know, with, with, with cricket, for instance, you've got, the fielding team are trying to find a workout how to get the batsman out and the batsman is going to have certain strengths and certain weaknesses and, and so the fielding team are going to try and exploit the weaknesses and keep him away from his strengths.
Speaker A:So they're going to tactically all come together and think about which one of them should be the one that bowls and where should he aim to put the ball?
Speaker A:You know, this sounds basic, but, but it's a fact.
Speaker A:Where, and where are we going to put our fielders so that they can't hit to their strong parts, but they're going to have to play to their weak parts and we might get, get them out.
Speaker A:So that's the best analogy I can come up with today is that, but that is a team environment all coming together, thinking about who's the one with the best strengths to serve this particular situation that we've got to solve.
Speaker A:And you're just brainstorming a problem.
Speaker A:No different to a group of a team that work for an accountancy and bookkeeping business that are problem solving to help the client move away from the problems that they're facing and providing the solutions so that they could become more profitable, they can create a longer term sustainable business and they can, you know, pay themselves the amount they want to pay themselves.
Speaker A:They could, they can achieve the freedom they're looking to achieve from their business.
Speaker A:So, so yeah, I just think the power of a team should never, ever be underestimated.
Speaker A:And if you, if you run an accounting practice and the bookkeeping practice and you haven't thought about advisory from a team perspective, it's definitely worthwhile having a little think about who in your team is capable.
Speaker A:They might not, you might not think they're capable right now, but they can be, they can be developed and they can be nurtured to be able to be part of a collaborative team that delivers so much more for your clients.
Speaker A:And, and giving the clients the best outcome has got to be our purpose, surely.
Speaker A:Otherwise, what are we doing?
Speaker A:Why are we doing it?
Speaker A:What, what are we looking to achieve running these businesses?
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, if you start small and start with one or two different strategies, you don't have to do the whole full advisory offering.
Speaker B:You can just specialize a niche in certain strategies until you've built up the capability within your team and they've learned, you know, a range of if that's the way you want to go.
Speaker B:But yeah, I mean you could specialize in owners pay, you know, profitability or debt.
Speaker B:Now there's lots of different things you can specialize in.
Speaker B:You don't have to offer all of the services from day one.
Speaker B:You can introduce them gradually.
Speaker B:As I say, as your team become more confident and they get really good at one or two entry level strategies, then their confidence will grow and they'll be ready and willing to, to take on the more advanced strategies.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's like anything.
Speaker B:We didn't start bookkeeping, you know, by doing end of year accounts, did we?
Speaker B:We learned double entry, debit and credit and bank reconciliation.
Speaker B:Do the same with advisory.
Speaker B:Do it strategy by strategy.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Start at the beginning and move forward, isn't it?
Speaker A:And, and with these, everything we do is about small steps, isn't it?
Speaker A:So just, just taking these small steps with developing your team, it could end up with a really massive outcome for you, a really positive outcome.
Speaker A:Give yourself the freedom from your business for one thing.
Speaker A:But delivering the high value outcomes for your clients is going to be so worthwhile because there's more value attached to it for a start.
Speaker A:So you're going to get paid accordingly.
Speaker A:Let's be honest, you know, you're looking to make money as a business owner yourself and, and if you want to look after your team, you know, you make as much money as possible to build the long term sustainable business, don't you?
Speaker A:You know that, that's factual.
Speaker A:But also imagine how great it's gonna feel to have clients saying you're a team.
Speaker A:They're amazing.
Speaker A:You know, I love it when I talk to so and so really helped me out with this particular strategy and, and you know, the other one over there, they've helped me out in this area.
Speaker A:It's great.
Speaker A:And I never thought in a million years that I'd be saying this to you.
Speaker A:Cause I just wanted to, to work with you initially and that is going to feel so good and it's achievable and we've seen it.
Speaker A:And Deb, you achieved it yourself.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:And I've seen people in the membership I was in previously achieve this.
Speaker A:So we've got a great opportunity to help businesses right now and this is it.
Speaker A:Because our time is going to be so much freer from using AI, automation, et cetera to produce a lot of the compliance work for us.
Speaker A:So our life can be good and we can help our clients in such a great, purposeful way.
Speaker A:So, look, look, if you want to find out more about what me and Deb do, please hop onto our website, apxtraining.co.uk that's apxtraining.com and if you want to go a step further and you want to come and join our free group, join some of our online sessions.
Speaker A:They're all free for people to come.
Speaker A:And to come and join is assuming you run your own account in a bookkeeping practice.
Speaker A:Then come along into Facebook, head to advisory teams, and you will see us answer a couple of questions.
Speaker A:We'll let you in and you'll be able to access our weekly sessions that we hold.
Speaker A:As I say, all for free.
Speaker A:So come along and have a chat with us and let's learn more about you and your business and see where we can help you build your advisory team.
Speaker A:So thank you for joining us today.
Speaker A:Another great conversation.
Speaker A:Any last words, Deb?
Speaker B:No, I'm all out of words now, Tim.
Speaker A:All out of words.
Speaker A:Okay, brilliant.
Speaker A:Thanks very much and we will see you next time.
Speaker A:Thanks for listening to advisory conversations with Tim Seymour and Deb Halliday.
Speaker A:If you found this useful, make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss the next episode.
Speaker A:We'll see you next time, Sam.
