Conquering Workflows & Systems For Bookkeepers & Accountants | with Alyssa Lang (Workflow Queen)

Letting Go of Sales and Empowering Growth Through Communication with Scott Scarano

• Season 1 • Episode 85

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Alyssa Lang interviews Scott Scarano, Owner and Founder of Accounting High and Padgett Business Services, on the importance of communication and trust within a team, experiences with software systems, reflections on transitioning from sales roles to passion projects, and the challenges and successes of managing teams in introverted industries.

In this episode you’ll hear:

  • How communication and trust within a team are crucial for business success
  • How to let go of the sales process to your team
  • Why over communicating is essential in introverted industries
  • How to empower team members to take on more responsibility and embrace personal growth

About our guest:

Scott Scarano is an eccentric entrepreneur with the heart of a lion and the soul of a housecat. Scott’s "Why" is empowering all growth-minded entrepreneurs, in his reach, to thrive and prosper. Scott’s Padgett team is filled with passionate advisors with unique personalities who share the same virtues of empathy and integrity in everything they do. Scott did the school thing and has the credentials, but his real value comes from his questioning mind and grit to push through any adversity. Scott lives in Raleigh, bleeds Carolina blue, and dedicates himself to his astonishing wife, Juana, and three surprisingly intelligent kids; Julia, Frankie, and Arya.

Connect with Scott Scarano:

Follow him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottscarano Subscribe to his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@accountinghigh Listen to his podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/accountinghigh

Resources mentioned in this episode: 🎙️ Accounting High Podcast 📚 "The Way of Integrity" by Martha Beck ⚙️ Notion

Thanks for listening. If this episode inspired you in some way, take a screenshot of you listening on your device and post it to your Instagram stories and tag me, @workflowqueen

For more information about the Conquering Workflows & Systems for Bookkeepers & Accountants Podcast or interest in our programs or mentoring visit our resources below:

Visit our website: workflowqueen.com

Check out our courses: workflowqueen.com/courses

Follow the Blog: workflowqueen.com/blog

Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/alyssa-lang-wq

Connect on Instagram: instagram.com/workflowqueen

Connect on Facebook: Facebook.com/workflowqueen

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I am so unbelievably pumped for this episode, mostly because I think that you guys are really, truly going to enjoy this conversation. One, this lovely guest, his name is Scott. He like does such a great job of keeping the conversation flowing and also making it really fun and interesting. So I think you're really gonna enjoy that today's episode. So what you can expect from today from our conversation is really, we're just going to be talking about how he's grown his firm up to $2.5 million, which is super incredible, how he also has stepped into supporting the accounting space through his company, Accounting High you've probably. Probably seen it somewhere floating around here because I have been nominated alongside my biz bestie who actually beat me last year, which hoping next year I can beat her out in the accounting high bracket next year, which is such a fun thing to do around the tax season. We're also going to deep dive into how he removed himself from the sales part of his firm. He's going to be sharing some of his commission plans, a comp plans that he shared with his team. As he removed himself from that. So we're going to really deep dive into some mindset things as well, just like truly letting go and stepping out and trusting your team. And so I think you're just going to want to make sure to grab your pen and paper. It's a great episode. I know that I was taking notes, so I really can't wait to hear how you like this episode.

Alyssa:

Hey everyone and welcome back to yet another episode of the Conquering Workflows and Systems for Bookkeepers and Accountants podcast with your host here, Alyssa Lang. I'm so pumped because I am bringing on a brand new friend that I just got the chance to have a wonderful conversation with yesterday before we hit the record today and I'm so excited to bring him on. His name is Scott and he's actually the owner and founder of Accounting High and also Paget Business Services. So welcome Scott to the podcast. I'm so honored and excited for you to be here. Feel free to introduce yourself and share as much as you'd like.

Scotty:

I'm in the room with royalty. This is the queen here. I'm excited.

Alyssa:

Me too.

Scotty:

Gonna be good.

Alyssa:

It is.

Scotty:

I'm just the jester. I'm just like, if this is the royal court, I'm just the court jester.

Alyssa:

I love that concept. It's fun.

Scotty:

So what am I, am I introducing myself? Yeah. Feel free to introduce yourself, what you

Alyssa:

do, all the things. Yeah.

Scotty:

Yeah. So, aside from being the court jester, I am the janitor at accounting high. I'm also the rapper. There I have this alter ego that, has kind of come out in the last couple of years. Okay. R that's the okay rapper. So that's one thing that I do on top of, it's sort of like above the funnel stuff for accounting. I, I think everything I do is above the funnel or top of funnel. I don't really have. Where the funnel goes with accounting high yet. It's just the show. So you can tune into that. That's on, um, YouTube and all the podcast players accounting. Hi. I, uh, also have my accounting firm that I don't talk about as much, but we can talk about that today. we're close to 2, 000, 000 accounting firm. We have people in the U. S. and the Philippines. We do taxes, bookkeeping, write up mostly cash basis stuff, at the firm. yeah.

Alyssa:

So excited to have you here. I'm so pumped and we'll one, the most recent interaction, I think it was this year and last year. I want to say I was also nominated for the accounting high in

Scotty:

bracket challenge.

Alyssa:

Yeah. So if anyone's listening, you probably have voted inside the accounting. Hi, it's really fun. Usually it's around March madness, right? That's usually what the theme is.

Scotty:

Exact same time as March madness and tax season by design kind of as a fun distraction. you did great in the tournament last year. It went up against your best bud, how could you guys do that to me? Oh, I don't know. It's just the way the cards fall. That's how it goes. And it's a rivalry though. Right. You got to, you know, next year you can defeat her and it'll be like an ongoing rivalry.

Alyssa:

So that's

Scotty:

how the college teams are all the time.

Alyssa:

Yeah. 100%. She's still my bestie, but man, we both were like, Ooh, I'm going to win. Like we would, she would like text me every day. Like it was really funny. So. Serena ended up winning this year. I think the prior year, I think I made it to like round two or three or something like that, where it was like each round went more forward. And that was so cool. So I thought it was fun that people were even nominating, , us. Cause I'm not really sure how it works as far as a nomination, but it was so much fun. So thank you for letting me be a part of that. Cause I think it was so much fun. So before we kind of dive into all the fun stuff that I figured we would talk about today. I know that you kind of surface level touched about accounting high, but I would love to know, like, what is your podcast and resources about as far as how they help the accounting industry. So we can get some people right in front of you.

Scotty:

Yeah. Yeah. So in the beginning, when I started out, it wasn't accounting high, it was sons of CPAs and it was mainly for me to learn more and to become a better firm owner. I was trying to fill in the gap of the things that I didn't know

Alyssa:

by

Scotty:

having a show. I had a lot of extra time too. So I wanted to do something fun and I got to meet new people, talk to people. And it was just sort of like, I was curious, you know, I know I, I don't know a lot, I don't know too much. And I think I was, having fun exploring what other people were doing out in the world, it was a ton of fun and it still is. We just kind of evolved the brand from sons of CPAs. I say that's our middle school days and we're kind of graduated into high school.

Alyssa:

Love it. It's

Scotty:

been, we're going on to our third year at accounting high. So it's about to be junior year. And I still don't necessarily have a product offering at accounting high. We just have fun stuff that we do. So on top of the wraps and the tournament that we did, we just have a YouTube channel. And. The podcasts now for people to tune in and be somewhat educated, mostly entertained. I think that's getting to be a little bit more educational. We've got some great guests on there and people are learning a lot, but I want to keep the entertainment factor up there too.

Alyssa:

Yeah. I think that's the one part that I think any podcaster, I don't want to say the right word to struggle with. Cause I think if you've got a natural, like knack for making it really entertaining, , I don't know, have you ever heard of Jeremy Van Groll and Tyler Otto? They have unaccountable

Scotty:

I was just on their show fairly recently. I leaked my new, uh, Xero rap that I'm working on on their show. We, that was one of their, that was like their app that we talked about and we talked about Xero and then I revealed the rap on the episode. So yeah. Oh,

Alyssa:

I'm so excited. But I think they do a really excellent job of entertaining people. So I'm really excited to hear that you're not the only one because I feel like they've also changed the way that even I want to show up as well. Like I love when people start to disrupt the space and make it more entertaining versus, you know, if we talk about taxes and CPA crap all day, it just gets so redundant and dry.

Scotty:

You know, I would say that it's going to put people to sleep, but the more boring the episodes are on my show, the more people tune in. So I think it's like the dry, boring stuff too. I mean, you got to keep it a little lively, but I think for most part, people are coming to learn.

Alyssa:

I love that. Well, thank you for giving me that perspective. I absolutely love bringing episodes and I think my audience really, really enjoys the ones where I'm actually giving them the full process. And a lot of times people can listen back to solo episodes where I'm literally like, this is my onboarding process. It's like fully laid out. And it's so, they love it though. But at the same time they love when I'm just like quirky and I say the wrong words, the wrong slogans, cause that's like my thing.

Scotty:

Well, and that's, it's part of your charm too.

Alyssa:

Yeah, exactly. So I want to dive into some fun topics that I know we chatted about yesterday, but our audience doesn't know about it, which is all about your firm. And just cause I know that you now have this second business, similar to me, I have my own firm and also this business as well as someone who operates too. I know it is. Very overwhelming sometimes, and also just exhausting, but I know that you've shared that you're pretty much worked out of your firm at this point, correct?

Scotty:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So as I said, when I started the podcast, I had a lot of free time because I was getting out of most of the work., but a lot of the stuff that you teach, getting to the point where I was just only in sales and that wasn't taking up too much of my time. And I think as I, as I evolved with the podcast and as I started learning more, I have the inclination to do something new and I want to. Explore that and see what that is. So then I had to get out of the last thing at the firm, which was sales. And once I created a process and exited out of that, I had all the free time. And you know what I did build it up with more stuff with the raps. Yeah. With, with the raps, with the show, with the tournament. And I was working about as much or spending as much time doing that as I was. Back when I was doing the firm full time and that was 80 hours a week. So, you know, you can't escape yourself, I guess. Once you find that you're going to fill, you're going to fill that space. Once you have that free time, it's going to be filled with something. And for me, it was just filled with passion projects and stuff that amped me up, stuff that got me excited. So.

Alyssa:

That's sort of where

Scotty:

I'm at now and, and that stuff burns you out too. If you spend enough time doing that, then you kind of lose, perspective of other things. So. Yeah.

Alyssa:

when you came from more of the logical side your brain to then come to get to more creative, I feel like it really does rumble some things within yourself because I know that we've talked about my journey yesterday. Like, , It made me it was kind of forced me into more of a creative space of myself that I was not used to and I was like, what is this? Like, what are these thoughts and these feelings and like the never ending ideas? I feel like I get way more ideas because when I unlock the creative side of myself. So I love that. You kind of touched on that because I think that that's something that people don't. Think about it. Yeah. You know,

Scotty:

like where, especially with accountants, it's very hard to balance those two sides of your brain. It doesn't, it's almost non existent. You can't balance them. You're either turning one on and turning the other one off and I've turned that logic one off and I don't think I could go sit down and do a tax return ever again. Like, I think I've, I've gotten too far past that and the creative side has taken over. Sometimes I wish, and I want some of the stability of the logic side, and I would like it to take over again, but then the creative side comes in, and he's sneaky, and he figures out a new way to get a rap, get excited about a new rap, or something else, and so. That's where I'm at. Yeah, you get it.

Alyssa:

Yeah. Maybe you should make a rap about the logistics.

Scotty:

Yeah. Well, it could be one of those like, guilty conscience type things where you got one on one side of the shoulder and the other one, and it's both personalities kind of talking to each other. It's like alter ego type thing. I'm an Eminem and Slim Shady kind of stuff. Yeah.

Alyssa:

I love that. I really think that the concept that I wanted to kind of expand on was when you were talking about. When you start to create time, which is what happens when you start to remove yourself from your company, you're going to eventually fill it with something. And I see this a lot in like our space where someone will be like, wow, I've like automated, like part of my onboarding process and they just fill their time with more, sometimes it's crap. Sometimes it's actually other things that maybe are passion projects or maybe is something that's more productive. But I find a lot of people just kind of refill that time with random things that don't make sense. So I'd love to kind of like,

Scotty:

Yeah, more clients. Whenever we automated something and we created more capacity, we just filled it with more clients and make more money.

Alyssa:

Yeah, I love that. But that's a good thing though.

Scotty:

Yeah, yeah, it's a good thing. It could

Alyssa:

be, but at the same time it could also create more stress because then if, you know, an automation breaks or now an API that was open is now closed and changing automation. Or if a

Scotty:

person leaves.

Alyssa:

Or a person leaves. That's the huge one.

Scotty:

All the things.

Alyssa:

Yeah, all of them just come together. So I'd love to talk about the sales side of things as far as removing yourself, because what we work with here at workflow queen is we really help people to get to a point where they're no longer needed within the business as far as day to day stuff. And we talked about this yesterday, but. At the end of the day, they're left doing just sales because they now have all this free time. So they're really stuck in just a sales role and their next natural progression to really be fully 100 percent removed is to get them out of sales. But I feel like there's not a lot of. Chatter in our space, as far as really taking people from being the leader to now letting go of sales and not just teaching the objections and how to sale as the business owner. So I'd love to talk about like what that experience was like for you of like letting go of the sales.

Scotty:

Sure. Yeah. A little bit of background too, cause I have always been engaged with sales. It wasn't like I hope that I had to get over to learn how to do sales. I was selling stuff from a kid as a kid, I was selling CDs at school. I was selling vacuums. I sold drugs at one point. There was a lot of things that I've sold. I'm no stranger to selling. Things so as you know, owning my accounting firm, that was naturally where I gravitated toward anyway. And that's, that was the stuff I liked. I love the conversation. I love people and I love solving problems and finding ways to make more money. And that was all sales. That was the fun stuff. So that was the 1st thing is, is I was already. And it was just a predisposition. It wasn't like I had to learn any tactics. I just kind of learned through life as I went. and my team knew that they never wanted to touch sales. That was not something that they, anytime that they had to sit in on a sales meeting or do something, handle something for me because I was out of town or whatever, they, it would stress them out. And I think this is also the case with a lot of accountants that enjoy the work that are more introverted. Maybe, they're scared of sales. And this was the case with my team. So it was never a thought in my mind that I was going to have them take over sales. I always just figured I would ride in the sunset and keep doing sales until I wasn't doing the firm. and then, as I said, I got out of it, like, and I wanted to get out of it. And it was, it was a point where I just didn't want to be tied down by anything. And I kept seeing on my calendar. It was just sales calls, sales calls, sales call every week. And I had no control over that. So I wanted to take back control of my whole calendar. And so then it was time to. Either think about hiring somebody for sales, which is what I explored at first was maybe I can hire somebody to do our sales and we just pay them commission, because my team is never going to want to do this. And I was thinking about that and it was just like, I didn't want to hire somebody new just for sales and the commissions with that. And you're not going to get somebody for that long anyway. Most sales people only last a year or 2 years typically. I would be looking to always replace that. And 1 of my guys was. A little interested in it. He likes talking to people and he was dealing with people. He was a client facing on our management team. So he doesn't handle client work. He's all client facing, usually handles the onboarding and loves to take over. Once the sale is done, he just doesn't like pushing people. So it was training him to understand that sales isn't pushy and think about it differently. And I think that's the stuff that you teach and you coach possibly telling, teaching people mindset shifts and how to do sales. What types of questions to ask and just how to be present and listen. And those were the things that it was like intuitive to me, but then I had to be able to articulate what I was doing. So he would sit in, I would record all the sales meetings. He would sit in and, and it was just, over time, gradually he got more comfortable and it wasn't until he started doing it on his own and had some failures and, you know, didn't close any deals for like a, A few weeks or a month had all these, you know, sales calls and you could just quit at that point if you don't have any success and he didn't quit, he kept pushing forward and eventually landed a couple of deals, got a couple of yeses. And then all of a sudden it was just like snowballing because you naturally learn what's working and what isn't by trial and error

Alyssa:

through

Scotty:

the failures by doing you learn by doing. And so him and my ops manager started handling sales together too. So they started doing a team because he didn't like all the logistics of creating the sales proposals and doing all that. He just liked my, you know, that client success one that I was training.

Alyssa:

He

Scotty:

just liked dealing with the client and talking, interfacing with them. And my ops manager does not like that. He just likes on the back end, making sure everything's lined up. He manages the team. So they took a tandem and one of them makes sure that everything is covered in the proposal, in the proposal. And then he reviews the work because he's more technical and he has done all the work. He's an EA. So I needed somebody that kind of knows what to put together on those proposals and somebody that's got the more loquacious, happy talking to people can keep a conversation going. So it's sort of, I can do both of those. And I have now two people doing each part of that and they do it better than me too at this point.

Alyssa:

Yeah. And I liked that. If we go back to what we were talking about earlier, where we're talking about the creative and logistics brain, it's kind of the same. It's like one guy is the more creative, we're kind of more the talkative and the more like out there and can kind of figure it all out while the other one's more like I go for logistics. What are the bullet points? What's the price points? Let's put it out there. Exactly.

Scotty:

Yeah. And, and because he's no nonsense goes for the logistics, he's not going to be able to sell more and. Get somebody excited about paying more, you know, they're, it's just basically, this is what you want. If you don't want it, that's fine. You know, he's not really going to try to encourage people, but I think in the other case, you know, people pleaser, somebody who likes to, you know, likes to interact with people. I think he can, he's got more potential to continue to evolve in this role too. and then it was the whole like, okay, now that I'm not doing sales. Yeah. I'm also going to be making less money too, because I got to figure out a comp policy for them to want to do sales because it's not just the confidence and it's not just them actually doing it. They want to get paid more to do this. That was the big thing too. If they're going to do sales and take that over now, they want to get paid more. So we already have a whole comp plan for them managing the firm. They're running those. Those 2 are basically running the firm for me. Beyond when I was doing sales and when I was just doing sales. So we already have comp in place for them to manage the team and to manage that. And now we just had to add what's this commission look like. And I made a mistake at first. I just let them create the comp policy and. It was terrible, or at least I see that now it was, it was not really a disaster. It was just like, they thought they were doing good and they created this whole thing on their own. And then they showed me at the end and they kind of glossed over it before we started them doing sales. And it was, they would get 10 percent of the first year's revenue. But the way they figured it out, they would do that up front. So after the third month, I think they would get the 10 percent of the annualized. So they land a new client and after the third month, they get 10 percent of the first year. And I said, no, we're not doing this on an annualized rate. Like, like, and I didn't figure that out until the first commission came and it was like 20 grand. I was going to have to pay them just for that three months. because they landed a lot of deals after they got started doing it. And they were, we took on a lot of clients. And they annualized all of it. And I said, no, we'll do 10 percent of the 1st year after the 1st, after they've paid it on a cash basis. So that we slightly changed it. And now we just pay out 10 percent of what's collected as it's collected every 3 months. So they have a running sheet now and they keep up with all the new clients that they've added. And then we look at the revenues collected on a cash basis and they get 10 percent of that 1st year. And it's funny too, because I've talked to other people who have done this, not in the U S somebody in the UK who did the exact same thing with the exact same commission rate. And I didn't consult with them at all or anything. So I'm like, all right, well, that's, it sounds about right then. And then I talked to with somebody else and they have a very similar 10 percent of the first year. So that's, There's three people doing that, including me. And I think that seemed to work and it's so far it's worked. it's been about a year now, a little over a year that they've been doing that and that policy has seemed to, to work. So that's our compensation policy for that. And they split it though. They get 5 percent each since they're both handling sales.

Alyssa:

Hmm. Interesting. Cause I've heard of, so I'll give you an idea of like what I'm thinking, cause I'm not removed from my sales yet. And this is something that, like you said, when you were talking about, when you looked at your calendar and your calendar was just like full and the last thing that was on there was sales. And it would just be like, I can't have freedom of my, my own, like calendar. That's kind of where I'm at. So I just got back from three weeks, to Europe and I went to Amsterdam. And then I spent a couple of weeks, just space from the business. I looked at my calendar the first week I was back and I was like, I want to throw up in my mouth because like everything was just like calls, calls, calls. And I'm just like, so I'm just at this point where I really want to lean more into that creative space. I really love the marketing stuff. it lights me up so I can resonate with exactly what you said. And then as far as like my plan, so my plan is also in my own firm. To take over because we've done it successfully here at workflow queen. We've hired people who have helped with sales. usually people who are on my team, very similar to you. I don't want to hire it out because I feel like they don't understand the business as well as the people who have already been invested into it. So magnetic. So my own firm, the plan is for me to get worked out of that. And my plan was actually to do as long as the client is with us. And as long as the team member is with us, they would get paid out each month for each of those fees. If they were the one to sell based off the percent, whether that was given. But I like the idea of doing it 10 percent for the first year. For each month, and I'm assuming you're paying that out each month, as long as the clients with you,

Scotty:

as long as the clients and good thing. I didn't pay out that first 20 grand because a few of those clients left and it was like, what are we going to do? A look back on the ones that I prepaid out. That was what I was worried about. What if we, you know, so that's why I didn't want to annualize it and pay it up front. they wanted it to just be one and done and now it's more tracking. So we've got a spreadsheet that's like, got every one of these new clients lined up and it's got the, you know, Monthly fees that they've paid up until then. And then as the quarter ends, then they calculate it all and tab up a number. And then I just, you know, whatever numbers calculated for that 10%, they split it. So if it's like, you know, 10 grand, they get five each.

Alyssa:

Interesting. Yeah. So we have like, A tracker that we used to use at Workflow Queen for our sales, and it was very similar to that, where it was like, here's how much people are getting paid out, because we do payment plans for Workflow Queen. So for like our students, when they would purchase something, if someone sold them, then it would get paid out. If the student fails on payments, we're not going to continue to pay you out, because like, I know that sounds crazy, but it's like, we need to make sure to collect cash, you know, and same for like clients. So I'm, I'm, Excited more selfishly for myself to hear about some that I was kind of on the right track except I really like the approach of dropping it down to a year only and just doing the first year's 10 percent up front versus the whole time they're with us.

Scotty:

Yeah, perpetuity thing would probably be the case if it was somebody that was older. Only sales and that's all they were doing. But my guys are doing a lot of stuff and they're just handling sales on top of it. Yeah, this is just a part of their job and it's not like the whole thing. And the reason that it really. Does work and why the team likes it is because it's the ops manager that's handling this. So he can say no, I could never say no. I always wanted to take on the new client and figure a way out and figure out how to handle the work. And so we would take on too many clients. And so he's a little bit slower with that. He's also not just taking on anybody. So getting somebody in there that knows how to say no. You know, it's frustrating for me because I'm like, God, we could have used that revenue. We could have taken on that client. Why are we not taking on this one? And so whenever I poke my, poke my nose in it and I start seeing what he's saying no to, I still go back in my old ways and say, well, we should have taken on this client. And so I still have something to say about that. But I think overall for team morale and for everybody, it's better that somebody is in there controlling that and not letting it turn into. You know, a runaway train.

Alyssa:

Yeah. Or even like

Scotty:

it's like I used to do.

Alyssa:

Yeah. Cause even like, I think my fear and just to just be transparent, cause I know that others are probably thinking the same is my fear that someone's going to take over the sales as far as that, and then pick the wrong clients. And all of a sudden you get one bad egg client creates bad eggs on the team and it makes everyone stressed or, you know, that PETA client that we work with. so is that what you're referring to when you're talking about?

Scotty:

It's no, it's actually, that's a good, that's a good point you made. That's not a fear of mine. Because they are the ones who deal with the clients because I'm not dealing with the clients. They know who the bad ones are going to be, and they have a better intuition on the people that may end up turning into bad clients too. Usually they try not to be, they try not to show their true selves during the sales, but we ask a lot of. Questions that their true self comes out based on how they answer a lot of these questions, especially in our type form. Our initial intake form. Yeah, I worked really hard on that. That's that's got a lot of like, a lot of things in there that will help us weed out the clients. So we can score the way they fill the form just to decide if we're going to take on the meeting. and there's a lot of automations in there that won't give them a calendar link if they answer some questions wrong. Yeah. So we have a lot of that built into our process that I, that's not really a concern of ours right now because they're better at saying no to that than me. Whereas if somebody is going to pay us enough, I ignore the fact that they might not be a good client when I was in sales, right? Like, you know, we'll pay you 20, 000 to do this. And I'm just like, yeah, we'll figure out a way to pay you. To do it.

Alyssa:

Yeah. Or work around the personality. We'll figure it out. It'll be fine. I think also you made a really good point because I didn't even think about it from that note. So I'm really glad I brought that up because I feel like that's my own. hurdle that I need to jump with myself as far as like my own mindset because that was my fear. But seeing it from your angle, I don't do the books. I'm not in the account management anymore. I'm not in the day to day work. So like you said, it is really easy for me to be like, just do it. But I find I'm opposite where it's like, I feel like in my gut, I'm like, Ooh, my team will not like them. Or I won't even like knowing that they're Sitting there in the background being service, if they like treat me a certain way or they say something specifically. So I really love that you touched on that because maybe it's just, I need to let go of the control that, and the fear that it might not come out this way. If I, you know, bring this person on, it's just yet another thing that's stopping me from hiring them or bringing them on.

Scotty:

The fear is the reason you want to keep control. And so you got to get over that, the fear and you have to let them. Make a mistake to like, you've got whatever you're afraid of them doing. Inevitably, they're going to do it and they're going to learn from it. and that was something that I learned during COVID. Like as I exited a lot of other things in the firm, I learned how to trust people. And when I actually did figure that out. You know, it wasn't like, you know, you could lie to yourself and say you trust everybody to do everything,

Alyssa:

but

Scotty:

it's they visibly showed me that I could trust them in through a lot of things that happened as I stepped away and they took on responsibility and they took on things and as they made mistakes, they owned and they were accountable for everything. And it was just all of my fears vanquished. Because I was afraid of the wrong things and I was scared of the wrong things that would happen and, and the things that I thought I trusted them, really, it was just that, you know, it was. Lies that I was telling myself, like, yeah, I trust them, but then I would still go in and look behind them on the stuff they were doing. Like they would do things. And I would still have to look at it before maybe a client got it or before somebody else saw it. It was always like, well, I'm the one who needs to see this because I know everything. You know, it's the common thing that we all fall that common, like, you know, where it's that mindset shift and really understanding, like they care about this job as much as. I do. And I think they do. And so it's. Once I really trusted them, everything started working out, and I started to sleep better. I started to, things were better, because when you say you're out of the stuff, but you're still always thinking about it, and looking at email, or reviewing this, and reviewing how that went, or looking at that sales call, you don't really trust them. You might say you do, but you don't, and that's told myself what I realized as I started to shift out and stop looking at those things in my off time and actually have the freedom that I thought I did, that's all between the ears, that's all the stuff that's going on. And it was all stuff that was going on in my head.

Alyssa:

Yeah. I love that you kind of touched on the people think that the team members that you have, because it's a huge mindset thing. It's one of the first things we tackle inside of our program is literally when people say their objection to hiring is that nobody can care about my clients like me. And I really love from someone who has a very successful firm just said that, like, but you can find those because I find that a lot, a lot of people are like, They're not as invested. They could care less. I'm not their priority. They don't care about the clients. When I think it's just the candidates that you're finding, it's the people that you're finding. And are they also managing their own firm? And what do they have in their life that's taking over, that's not prioritizing you. And I love that you said that because I, Sometimes I don't understand when my students say that, mostly because I feel like I have found some incredible team members that are seriously, I don't know. I still don't understand. Like, I know that I have a very specific process, but there's days when like people tell me, like, they're just not invested. I'm like, I've never experienced that. I've always had people who are so dedicated. And I love that you touched on that. That is so it goes

Scotty:

back to like dogs and their owners owner. The dog is typically a reflection of the owner. And I think in this case, I see a lot of successful firm owners say they have great teams and they do not complain about their team members. They say they have the great, the best team. I say that too. And I realized now that it's, I think it is like the people who are complaining and saying their team doesn't care it's because they don't give them any responsibility and they don't trust them. And they're always reviewing everything they do. So they don't give them a chance. To think for themselves and think freely and make mistakes again, I'll say that it isn't enough. I was always afraid of people making mistakes. So I'd always look at it before the client got it. You got to let people screw up and that's when they'll really step up. If they care enough about themselves and they have enough self respect, they will learn from that mistake. And they'll do better the next time. And then again, the next time, but you have to empower people and hold them accountable too.

Alyssa:

Yes. I love that. You are preaching my friend. I am so happy that you're saying all of this. I think that a lot of us get stuck in our head. And at the end of the day, it's all like just mindset stuff. We're all working through. We're all, we're all working through our own trauma and our own chaos is what it is. You know,

Scotty:

Perfect. that's exactly it. And I think that's probably what you teach too. If you can fix yourself, then you can fix everything else around you.

Alyssa:

Yep. 100%. It's so funny because this morning, one of our coaches inside of breakthrough names, Brooke, she is incredible. She's become one of my best friends and I absolutely love her. And it was an honor to have her come coach today. I was talking to her about something. It had to do with like the team and she took a step back and said, your heart. What you're frustrated right now with a certain team member on communication is what you're experiencing with your friend that I had just shared something that was going through what I'm going through with one of my friends about my own lack of communication with my friend. It's so funny that I want it from this over here. And she's always really good at telling me that your business is a direct reflection of what's going on in your life and that you as an individual, it's also going to bleed sometimes into the business, especially if you're involved. And I just absolutely think that we've experienced it. In the reflection of the mirror of like the business versus ourself.

Scotty:

Yeah. Communication's always key. Over communicating is something that I've always done. I don't shut up. I usually fill all the space with words. So I tend to over communicate, most things. And that tends to work out too, because a lot of people, their complaints about accountants is the lack of communication. So I've always stressed Our team's communication with clients is the utmost importance. That's the most important thing they should focus on is meet client meetings and responding to clients. You know, just the lack of communication. I think if we're going to talk about the client side and running a practice, you know, that's the first thing that everybody has to address this communication to.

Alyssa:

Yeah, and I think like you said, though, the hardest and probably why they struggle so much is because we're such an introverted, industry because a lot of the times the founders and the owners and the people that we hire don't want to be talked to. So they're trying to, they're just short. Direct, not everybody, but everybody has different brains, even if you're in the same industry. But I do find that maybe that's one of the big core reasons why our industry really sucks at it. Cause same with contractors. So I have a lot of contractors who come in and out of my house helping me with stuff. They're like the worst at communicating, the absolute worst, but it's because they're actually really pretty introverted. So I find that most industries that have more of the introverted personality trait tends to have really terrible communication. And, you know, but they deliver, they deliver all day, but they just don't communicate throughout the process to let you know what's going on. Here's the progress. Here's the status in Here's what we have going on.

Scotty:

This is like what I was saying with my two guys that are handling sales, you know, one of them is more like reserved, quiet, introverted, and the other one's going to.

Alyssa:

Yeah, I mean, I have nothing to say. Yeah. At the end of the day, it's all just like one big, however, things are coming up in life is how things come up in business and how you deal with things. And I really love that. We're talking about trusting in your team, because I know that for myself, I've been that person who's like popped in on the team. And like you said, it's something that you have to train yourself to just trust them. You know, if you keep finding things, then you train them on it. Like it doesn't need to be like, we need to fire them. We'll let them go. It's like. What did I do as the business owner? What have I failed? Like, let me put my ego aside and say, you know, at the end of the day, I failed to give you the education that you needed in order to do X, Y, Z. Cause communication for me is like, probably my top thing. Like I always tell like my team that the number one thing that you do is you're always answering questions before people can ask them. In any form of communication, whether that's an email, whether that's the way that you comment on a post or you talk to a client or answer something, like if you're scheduling a meeting with a client, like don't just put 12 PM, put 12 PM PST, because you never know where people are located. It's always answering them because I say you don't want that thread back and forth. It's more efficient to actually just answer it all up front.

Scotty:

Yeah. That's, that's a really good point.

Alyssa:

Yeah, I love that. Well, this is such a great conversation. I know I can talk to you forever because I feel like I've just absolutely love everything about you as far as, especially as far as like what you're doing with the accounting space, especially how you're supporting people. I love the accounting high, the brackets. I can't wait for next year because I hope that me and Serena go head to head because I'm going to tell her, mark my words, people, if y'all don't vote for me, I'm going to be really sad.

Scotty:

Well, and again, this is it's like all organic to the way that the nominations came in. I don't think I had even, um, I don't know about most of the things in the tournament either. So it's all based on who's nominating and we try to do a pretty good job of getting that word out there to get the, the votes. Nominations in, and I think, you know, we'll change a few things every year, but that's just, to me, that was like my crown achievement so far. It was the funnest thing that I've done. And it was really just something silly, something simple, just. Everybody competes. Who's the best?

Alyssa:

It's so fun. It's fun to also see, like, I think a lot of the times we don't even know what tech's out there, especially someone like for me, like I, that's literally what my company is. It's like the tech teaching the software. I need to know what's happening in this space. And so sometimes like seeing even new course creators that I've seen on there or new people that are standing out, like new podcasts that are coming up. I like it because I kind of just like go through and look at it. Like when you guys were doing like Drake tech software, and I forgot what other company. I'm obsessed with Drake because I used to do taxes as well, and I would do anything for Drake.

Scotty:

Wait a second. Are we talking about the tax or the rapper here?

Alyssa:

No, both. I don't know. I think I don't know if I like both. Yeah. I

Scotty:

don't know.

Alyssa:

Eminem girl. Like then I am like a Drake girl. Like I don't know.

Scotty:

Yeah. Even though like tax, but Drake tax.

Alyssa:

Yeah. Drake tax. It's funny. Cause I actually have YOLO tattooed on me. I know everyone listening cannot read it, but I definitely have YOLO. And it's actually because my, my, when my brother passed away and my best friend's mom had just passed away and we're like, you only live once, but it was right around when Drake's song was like YOLO.

Scotty:

I literally have like a Drake

Alyssa:

quote on me, I guess.

Scotty:

All right. Well, we'll, we'll, we'll say that that's based on taxes. You only live once. So you got to do your taxes, right?

Alyssa:

Death and taxes people. So before we kind of end off, like I want to know, well, one, I have two things because I know that you, I don't know if you're prepared for this. I'm sure you can do this on the fly, but I want to hear one of these infamous raps.

Scotty:

Oh, okay. I need to hear one of these. On the fly. I don't know, but I can play one on the fly for sure. we've got a few. Things coming up, I could leak the zero, one for anybody that's going to zero con. I know most of these listeners are QBO. So maybe they would like to hear a little bit more about zero.

Alyssa:

they definitely, if you want to talk all the zero, I know we have a lot of people switching from QBO to zero because they're tired of the. Yeah.

Scotty:

Ooh. Okay. Okay. So this is juicy. We can wait. Yeah. That's a little spicy topic there. People wanting to switch to zero. This could give them another reason to check it out., so little story behind this, we'll be performing it at zero con in August. I, um, Thrilled to be doing that. This was like, you know, when I first started going to zero cons years ago And I saw greg kite doing comedy there in like the back of my mind I wasn't even a rapper then but I was like, oh, I would love to rap at accounting conferences and so it just kind of like spiraled into me talking about it and then actually finally I had a lot of time to write my first rap and I started performing in 2022 toward the end of 2022 And just one thing led to another it led to me getting invited to Expensacon in Italy and then performing at Scaling New Heights last year, and then performing at Bridging the Gap and then performing at Robot Keepers, AI Unchained and all the other performances last year. And now this is going to be like the one that I've been waiting on. So tune in right now. We're going to play, it's, it's a parody of two different songs, a cannabis song from the nineties called Channel Zero. And I won't say the other one, cause you'll get it when you hear it. another Easter egg here that we might possibly, well, I'm leaking here now, but your friend Serena might also be on the, another version of this, this version is me doing the hook. She possibly will replace me. It'll sound a lot better with a female's voice than mine. Oh, I'm so excited. You ready? Yeah. This is Zero Works.

Alyssa:

I love it. Oh, thanks. I love it. I love that you called out QBO in so many different instances. It was hilarious. I like wrote them down. I'm like when they're talking about the green and I

Scotty:

tried not to, say it by name. It was QBO is kind of by name, but I say green and other things too. Yeah.

Alyssa:

You, you definitely dropped the hints that we know what you're talking about, which I absolutely love.

Scotty:

Yeah, it was fun. The, our mutual editor and Serena's brother, he's also

Alyssa:

our editor, he's going to do this episode

Scotty:

as our editors putting together the lyric video of this for that'll be on stage. We got it kind of like, it's about a third of the way done. I think we got it. We got some work to do, but we got plenty of time to put that up there. So it'll be good for people to see the words as I'm rapping them.

Alyssa:

Yeah. That's so cool. And then I also realized that. I'm sure you did this on purpose, but your rapper name is the OKR to also reflect the like objectives, like the objectives and key results. Okay. As soon as you said, okay, I was like trying to figure out because I can see, but you guys can't listeners. I could see his name on the screen says OKR. And I was like, I wonder what this is for. Then you said it. I was like, Oh, I see what you did. There was like a pun.

Scotty:

Okay. Okay. Rapper. That's that's what I.

Alyssa:

Yeah. Go

Scotty:

buy. That's, that's kind of. It's just funny.

Alyssa:

It reflects on something that's big in the industry.

Scotty:

Yeah. I'm trying to set the bar really low there though. Okay. Rapper. Like it's not really like I'm an accountant by trade and a rapper by fun, like I'm doing it for fun. So.

Alyssa:

Well, I love that. I think it's been such a great conversation. I think I benefited. So much for myself as well. Just like sharing some of your sales stuff, that that's something that I'm currently going through myself as well. So I appreciate you and thank you for creating all the resources that you do in the space, as far as like opening the space for the accounting high, people to get educated on different things out there and also just having accounting high and just what you do. So how can people get immersed in your world, learn more about you and all the things we will drop some links that you've provided, but you want to let people know.

Scotty:

Sure, yeah, Scott Scarano on LinkedIn, S C A R A N O, I think it's Scotty, you'd probably have to type that on there, or, I think Twitter, Scott Scarano too, and the podcast, Accounting High, and I want to also open up the idea that Accounting High may end up becoming a marketplace that has a marketplace. Thanks. Classes and courses from the community, as you saw in the tournament. So accounting high could be a place where you can buy some of Alyssa's courses or Serena's or others in the future. Yeah, I have a roadmap for this, but I don't know when, when it's going to be. It could be this coming year. It could be the year after, but at a certain point, we will be doing different things where you could actually purchase different courses and other types of classes and other. Yeah. Conference tickets and things like that at our marketplace. So I'm looking to turn that into a marketplace. I'm also looking to start something like clubs. So stay tuned for that. could be similar to your, million dollar girls club. We may have something like that at accounting boys and girls club though. I think we wouldn't do, girls only obviously, but we'll, we'll have to do, different ideas for that. So we'll, we'll see. So tune in, stay tuned and we've got some stuff coming up in the future. So buckle your seatbelts. It'll be fun.

Alyssa:

Yes. I'm so excited. Thank you so much for being here today and I'm sure you'll be back and I just cannot wait to see next year's brackets. And I can't wait to mark my words, beat Serena.

Scotty:

We, you heard it here first.