Hannah and Joey are joined by Cory Gayman, Owner and President of JCG CPA Firm, to break down the intricacies of remote work in the accounting industry. They explore the dual-edged nature of remote work, discussing its challenges, such as communication and trust-building, alongside its benefits, like flexibility and work-life balance. The conversation also covers the adaptation of services for virtual environments, the significance of outcome-focused management, and the impact of remote work on recruitment and retention.
“People are not black and white; they are nuanced, with different needs and communication styles. I really try to teach my managers and leaders that you have to learn how to communicate, not just say what you want and then move on. This is especially important in a remote environment.” -Cory Gayman
The finer details of this episode:
Episode resources:
Time stamps:
Remote Work Challenges (00:00:24)
Discussion on the challenges and future implications of remote work, especially in rural areas.
Adapting Traditional Practices (00:01:02)
Converting and updating traditional CPA practices into virtual setups and the challenges encountered.
Transition to Virtual Processes (00:02:05)
The process of transitioning traditional practices to virtual processes, including the challenges faced and the need for education.
Employee Resistance to Change (00:04:23)
The mixed response of employees to change, particularly in terms of adapting to remote work and new systems.
Adapting Services for Virtual Work (00:06:12)
Tweaking accounting services to fit the virtual work environment, challenges faced, and the importance of educating clients.
Delegation and Team Growth (00:07:42)
The significance of delegation in a firm, the need for skill development, and the impact on team growth and efficiency.
Managing People and Communication (00:09:44)
The importance of managing people effectively, investing in people management skills, and the role of communication in remote work environments.
Trust and Communication in Remote Work (00:12:08)
The challenges and importance of trust and communication in remote work setups, including strategies for effective communication.
Balancing Remote Work Expectations (00:14:52)
Discussion on time budgets, trust, and the need to focus on project outcomes rather than monitoring employees' every move.
Remote Work Productivity and Trust (00:15:41)
Challenges related to trust, productivity, and the shift from traditional office-based work to remote work environments.
Maintaining Remote Work Culture (00:18:40)
The struggle of some CPA firms in implementing remote work culture and the potential loss of employees due to resistance to remote work.
The importance of remote relationships (00:18:57)
Emphasizing the benefits of remote relationships for clients and employees, promoting efficiency and convenience.
Leveraging remote culture for growth (00:20:06)
Discussing the use of remote culture to grow the workforce and retain employees, focusing on seasonal preparers and concerns about loyalty.
The value of human interaction (00:22:53)
Highlighting the importance of human interaction in a remote work environment, sharing personal experiences and the need for connections.
Promoting work-life balance (00:29:37)
Encouraging flexibility for working parents, promoting a family-first culture, and prioritizing work-life balance.
Transitioning to a stress-free environment (00:32:47)
Emphasizing the need for a project-driven approach over hours, promoting a 32-hour workweek, and reducing stress in the workplace.
The challenges of remote work (00:38:24)
Discussion on the potential negative impact of long working hours and the challenges faced by new CPAs.
Flexibility in work hours (00:40:09)
The importance of flexibility in work hours and the appeal it holds for young professionals and experienced CPAs.
Transitioning into retirement (00:42:52)
The challenges and adjustments faced by CPAs transitioning from high-stress work to retirement, and the value of part-time opportunities for retired professionals.
Reducing stress and extending careers (00:43:49)
The importance of reducing stress in the accounting industry to extend careers and provide a soft landing for retiring professionals.
Promoting work-life balance (00:45:59)
The value of promoting a healthier work-life balance and reducing the emphasis on the number of working hours as a measure of value.
Personal life and community involvement (00:47:15)
Insight into the personal life and community involvement of a CPA, including family activities, involvement in local government, and community engagement.
Firm's services and remote work opportunities (00:50:17)
Information on the firm's services, including remote work opportunities, and the expansion of services to include tax advisory and business coaching.
Intro (00:00:00) - Welcome to the young CPA Success Show. If you're a young accounting professional, this podcast is your ultimate guide to navigating your early career. Join us as we share valuable insights, expert advice, and practical tips to help you kickstart your path to success and excel in the accounting industry. Let's embark on this exciting accounting journey together.
Joey (00:00:24) - Hannah and I both work fully remote, and have been for at least almost the last two years for me. Hannah. Maybe a little bit less than a little bit, but. Yeah, or a little bit longer than that. So, I think that's a great place to start. And then we can kind of roll into. You know, maybe what that means for the future for like, a recruiting perspective or whether you're seeing that, you know, especially in, in, you know, kind of some more rural areas and like northern New Mexico where I live, can be very rural. So, you don't have a huge right base of college graduates or whatever to, to come in. So.
Cory (00:01:02) - And if anything, we kind of bridged the gap. And that's kind of we are coming from we're acquiring practices and the old version and we're trying to update them into the new version, but also provide that bridge for clientele and employees that aren't fully remote. But they we need to have a medium ground there. So that's really what we're specializing in right now. So that's a good topic to drill on. Well, let's.
Joey (00:01:25) - Let's dive into that because that's something that we're kind of living right now Hannah and I, in terms of we're almost what, two years into the summit Anders merger, that'll be two years in in April. And that was very much a merging of a more traditional CPA firm with a less traditional CPA firm. What are you seeing as you're going in there and buying up practices and kind of starting that conversion and being the bridge, because that's not always the most comfortable place to be.
Cory (00:01:57) - Oh, sure. For sure or not., so when I started my practice, I always had the idea that it would become virtual, if not 100%.
Cory (00:02:05) - We would still have maybe a location or a few locations., that's how I started from the beginning. So that was in 2014. And so I started implementing small steps to get there. Then when I started acquiring practices, I'm realizing these retirees, they have done nothing to get it to that point. They, you know, got they're happy with how it worked. And it did work for the base that they built. It did work for the last 30 years. Why would they change it. And so we've started with going paperless and then we've moved forward to okay, let's get a portal system. Let's interact with these, even these local clients. Let's interact with them through the virtual processes. And that just stretches out, you know, then you can keep the client that moves ten states away. They don't have to find someone new in their new place. So we've tried to educate and put tools in place to show them that it will work. But you're right. Even immediately here in these rural areas, we have high percentage of clients that don't have an email address.
Joey (00:03:03) - Yeah.
Cory (00:03:04) - And you know, we're sort of moving past email addresses at this point. And they're still never got on board with the email address. So, we have maintained the physical offices. We do have a minimal amount of paper that still moves around the office, but we try to, at least within our team, get to more of a virtual style process. So, we have seven offices here circled in southwest Missouri,, southeast Kansas and Tulsa, Oklahoma, so we the processes I want in place are for all of those to act as a virtual office together, even though people still report to these physical offices. So, from the employee perspective,, you know, really the last few years, the first question for every new employee is can it work remote? I think everybody has experienced that. Yeah. But these employees that haven't worked remote before, they're a little they're a little nervous about it. They like they just don't like change. We're all accountants. We sometimes resist change.
Cory (00:04:05) - And then I come into the picture and I'm an agent of change. And so I usually disrupt everybody a little bit., we're getting there. It's been a long process to get there, but since I had that mindset from the very beginning, I've always stepped us forward. And I feel like,
Hannah (00:04:22) - Have you found that, like, as especially as you're acquiring agencies that the or you're acquiring different firms or whatever that looks like for you and that the employees of those firms are willing to change like they're adaptable and seem to be. Or have you been met with a ton of resistance in that way?
Cory (00:04:39) - It's a mixed bag., many are. They have younger employees and they're excited for okay, this we can finally get up to date with how this should work. And they do that already., but then you have some that maybe they're also older and we've had a few just go ahead and decide to retire because that they just didn't want to learn anything new., so it's a mixed bag.
Cory (00:05:00) - Yeah. it's I wouldn't say it's like violent resistance. Like, they're mad about it. They just. It works for them or it doesn't. And they they'll wait themselves out., we have we try to stay in good, good terms with all of them, of course, but yeah, occasionally just doesn't work for them.
Joey (00:05:19) - In terms of what you've been offering in the services that you've been offering, have you had to tweak any of those as a result of moving maybe a little bit more into the virtual space? And I think back to like my first like big client that I worked on in Manhattan,, the little apple, not the big one., was it was a Chinese restaurant in town. And the guy would literally bring in his, like, book of checks that he wrote throughout the, throughout the month. And I would physically enter him into the QuickBooks file and do all those things. And like, as I think about that experience, I think about, well, we could have done this a lot better, but also how would we have tweaked this service in a virtual world because it was so heavily reliant on the guy literally coming into our office and giving us the stuff?
Cory (00:06:11) - Right.
Cory (00:06:12) - And I what I've learned is clients are even more resistant to change than the employees are. So, we still have several like that that we are trying to update. We try to advise them to update what they're doing, you know, and in that scenario, we actually have some exactly like that. So Chinese restaurants, in those scenarios, they, they just do it how they do it. And they don't want to invest in a new system. They don't buy an expensive POS., so it is difficult to get them to a new way to do things on. Sometimes, though, we're we get them in QuickBooks where we can download their transactions. That could cut our time in half. And usually, it's the receipts. It's the daily receipts that are an issue and get so paper laden., but we just try to educate our clients, educate our team, and have our team consistently looking for a way to streamline that client for the benefit of the client and for the benefit of the firm as far as a cost efficiency.
Hannah (00:07:10) - And speaking of streamline, it's something that I feel like has helped me a ton help streamline things with the clients that I have is delegation specifically like even delegation down to just an accounting assistant. And we even have people that we work with who are, offshore. And so that has helped a ton. Are you leveraging that within your firm and, and do you feel like your firm is doing it? Well? Because I feel like we're not taught delegation in school, like work or not. It is a learned skill.
Cory (00:07:42) - Right?
Cory (00:07:43) - Well, it's a joke in my family that I am. I delegate everything, so I am personally pretty good at it., but yeah, teaching our staff that as so. So let's say you come in as an entry level employee, but you have risen and you have succeeded and excelled. You have to learn delegation or you cannot go forward. So some employees make that conscious decision that they they're good, they don't want to go forward. So we have to do that.
Cory (00:08:10) - But that does stymie their career, so to speak, and their progression., so I try to encourage our leaders such to encourage our middle leaders as well to delegate. Yes, down to assistants, because we are not only do we want this to be more efficient and more effective, we also want those people to grow, want those team members to grow., I've always said I want to provide them with a ladder, not a ceiling. I don't want people to feel stuck in their position. I want them to feel like they're learning, growing, and they're going to move out of that spot at some point into a higher level. So. Delegation is key for that reason, and I think it's the health and development of our firm and our team.
Joey (00:08:50) - Well, it's it's such a great you know, it's a much easier lever to, to kind of pivot around right where it's like, okay, as you've learned how to do this. You can do this yourself once, but if you can teach 3 or 4 people how to do it, and you've got 3 or 4 people working with you, that's how you can leverage yourself and leverage your skills and leverage your right.
Joey (00:09:10) - You know, and it's it kind of goes back to Hannah's point. The other thing we're not taught in schools how to manage people. And that's kind of been a consistent theme across all of our, you know, podcasts. I mean, I would say we've probably touched on that 4 or 5 times in the 15 or 20 of these that we've recorded to, to date. And having a firm kind of understand and invest in like, hey, we're going to also teach you the skills of how to be a good people manager, right along with your accounting skills. Like, if you can get both of those things, you're going to have some really superstar employees working with you.
Cory (00:09:44) - Absolutely. And that's a good point. That's something I've tried to focus on this past year. Obviously, we're all very busy and tax season is so busy and then we need time to decompress. We need time to relax. And then we've had the Covid years, the past three years, four years. I mean, that's how long it's been now.
Cory (00:10:01) - But we've had those big.
Joey (00:10:02) - Tax season hasn't it?
Cory (00:10:03) - It just never stopped. You know, the extended deadlines at first. And then clients were a little bit spoiled by those extended deadlines. And so we got things very late the next year I hope and believe we're back to normal this year. But yeah, it just never stopped. Tax season never stopped. And so it's been difficult to promote the health of the firm in that regard. But this last year I've really focused on it so that our employees grow, they learn. And managing people is part of it. That's you know, I got a I got a master's of accounting. I did not get an MBA. I had one management class. So I've had to learn by fire as I've gone through. But we have we have 35 to 40 employees depending on time of year. And so if mediation needs to happen, if delegation needs to happen, if a tough conversation needs to happen, you just have to meet it head on or it's going to get worse.
Cory (00:10:54) - And there's some, some couth you have to have you have to, you can't just be a black and white accountant in those situations because people are not black and white people are nuanced. People have, you know, different needs, different communication styles. And I really try to teach my managers and leaders that, hey, you have got to learn how to communicate, not just say what you want and then move on. You have to learn to communicate with different styles.
Hannah (00:11:24) - And I feel like that communication is so key when you've got people who are working remote do, especially they're not in the office, you can't just walk over to their pop your head in their office and say like, hey, like, I need this done. Or, you know, I need to like, communicate this about this client or whatever it is like. So, it takes some skill to, like, really be intentional about communication in a remote environment. At least that that's what I've found, do you feel like that has been y'all have done well with that in terms of with your hybrid setup, do you feel like y'all have succeeded in that way with communication? Because I feel like that really is where the success in that setup hinges it is on communication and trust.
Cory (00:12:08) - So the avenues to that communication seem to be the, the more difficult part, you know, are we going to do a meeting,, streamed teams meeting or are we going to do a phone call or how often are we going to touch base?, what I've learned is you must have a lot of trust in that employee, and you just have to get over that, and you have to trust that employee, and you need to monitor their projects,, and stay in communication about them., but. Yeah, what I hired a CPA last year that came on is a pretty high level. It's kind of an operations officer for me, for the whole firm. And he's had some good ideas of, let's get it, let's get a weekly video call with this group of people. That's let's stay in touch over email with everyone that's remote. And now that tax season is here, we'll have a few more remote preparers pop into and stay in communication with them almost daily just based on projects.
Cory (00:12:59) - So but it to that point, the amount of trust you have to put in in these team members is it's sometimes more than you, are comfortable with. But you just have to get there. And we got to get there as a team. And if it's not working, it shows itself pretty quick.
Joey (00:13:16) - Well, I think it's a hard shift as a manager, but you have to be. I found the shift for me was I have to stop focusing on the inputs and start focusing on the outputs, and that was a really hard thing to get over where it's like, okay, I had what I thought was the best way to do something, and I've had him, you know, groups, folks that have worked with me have done it completely differently. And I was like, I have to not I have to let go. I have not, you know, kind of say, well, this is how I would do it and say, well, did they get to the same answer? And not only do they get to the same answer, did they not kind of look into the same answer like, is this repeatable and sustainable? And if so, great, I can step away and say, hey, good, focus on that outcome, focus on that output and how you get there is how you get there.
Joey (00:14:01) - Especially if they're, you know, if they're able to do it more efficiently than me because that's right. You know, I tend to be a little bit more thorough than maybe I need to be and focus on too many little details. And. Right, that's a hard shift to kind of get away from that as you move in, you know, kind of up that pyramid of I'm less detail oriented in this in this role. I have to be more big picture. So, right, just a mindset shift.
Cory (00:14:25) - A good spin off of that is the time budget allowed for projects and the different, different ways to get to the same answer could be a different time for one employee versus another. So, we got to keep that in mind as well. And then with the remote work. If we focus so much on ours, how much the employees working with it, it starts to break that trust that we have in them, and we really have to allow them to get the projects done.
Cory (00:14:52) - And we have to, you know, compensation as a whole different,, discussion that must be in mind, but allow these employees to get their projects done,, monitor their time budget per client, make sure they know what that time budget is. So that's not going over., but again, you can't just see them sitting in the office typing away. You have to trust that they're doing it on their time and at their office.
Hannah (00:15:15) - I had a conversation with somebody who, he I was telling him I worked remote, and he was like, oh, yeah, we had to do that in Covid. It was terrible. And I was like, what? Like, I don't think I could go back to an office. Like, I love working remote. He's like, yeah, but like as a manager, like I just worry that my people aren't working. Like I need to see them. Like, it's just it's not. It just doesn't work for me. And I could not convince him, like, of anything different.
Hannah (00:15:41) - And I feel like that really circles around to the trust. Like he clearly didn't have a ton of trust in his employees that, you know, if he couldn't physically see them in their in their cubicle working. Right, they must be doing something else whenever that's probably so far from the reality of it. But I feel like that could be like a more dated mindset. So, have you seen that in in any of the employees, especially that you've brought on from some of the older, more traditional firms?
Cory (00:16:12) - Definitely., and not to say that their way didn't work, but it doesn't necessarily work with the virtual setup., but I purchased one that was very, very concerned about every, every six minutes, you know, put on to a client every six minutes that that was in the office. I mean, it was
Joey (00:16:30)- I live I live that life.
Cory (00:16:33) - Yes. Yes, I did too, at one point., but what you said also brings back to if that manager can focus on the results, just like you're saying, only go if they can focus on what results happen.
Cory (00:16:46) - And then look at the time, budgets and the efficiencies of how much that client is billed and make sure that that all works. You don't have to sit and worry about them if they're getting if they're working every six minutes, you know, you can focus. Did they get that project done? Did we build appropriately based on what it did? Take them and we can and we can kind of keep circling back and forth that way and keeping communication with the employee to make sure they understand it. And they know why you're asking, you know, okay, about how long did that project take? And let's move to the next one. Let's try not to have much downtime, but I'm not going to sit here and monitor you every six minutes. I trust you to take care of this project. That was I think that gets better performance out of those employees when they see that you trust them to take care of it.
Joey (00:17:31) - That's always the thing that's interesting about that fallacy to me is like, it's not like just because people are in an office means they're going to be magically more productive.
Joey (00:17:38) - Like there's right, you know? Right. We made a whole movie called Office Space about how a guy was like, just not at all exactly productive in the office. So it's like, it's hard to divorce yourself from that mindset because it is about, I think it comes back to like, accountants are not great with external locus of control. Like we like to think that we can control things. And it's like, no, you can't. So, you know, I like that you're really focusing hard on, you know, understanding that. And it goes back to balance, right. Like how do we balance out all of these different needs and balance out all the different competing factors and really create an environment that's going to allow our employees to succeed? Because I've, I still talk with CPA firms that are experimenting with hybridization. They're experimenting with some remote staff and they're like swinging the pendulum back the other way. And I'm like, guys, you're making a mistake here, but they don't know how to figure out what you've figured out and, and really invest heavily in that remote culture.
Joey (00:18:40) - And they're struggling to implement it to the point where I think they're going to swing back the other way and say, hey, we've got to, you know, we've got to come back into the office. And the downside of that is I know they're losing employees. They're losing good employees whose lives are taking them elsewhere.
Cory (00:18:57) - They're losing employees and then potentially clients because they're not continuing to invest in those remote relationships, because they're sort of starting to abandon it., but what I'm seeing is that clients are they're the driving force here. They want this remote relationship. And I preached that for ten years now, you know, drop your stuff off or send it in remotely. Don't waste half of a day coming in, you know, driving across town, sitting with someone like me and me, asking you questions I could ask you in ten minutes on the phone or over an email., yeah, let's do this more efficiently, everybody. And so once I started, making that clear to my clients as well, we've created an atmosphere here.
Cory (00:19:41) - That is the norm. Instead of come in and sit for an hour and talk. But that client, you know, has taken the day off of work or half the day, or they're self-employed and they didn't make any money while they were sitting here when they could have just sent everything. Let us work on it. Let me get it to a remote employee who knows where they are. Let them work on it. We could be done by the time it would have taken for you to waste and to burn that day.
Joey (00:20:06) - So I'd like to talk to you a little bit more to as you're, as you're kind of growing your, your practice and your, you're picking up, you know, maybe a couple new locations every year or maybe one every couple of years, whatever your growth plan is. How are you wanting to use the remote culture that you're building as a lever to grow your, you know, your employees and grow your workforce and grow your people? Because whenever I hear somebody say, hey, we really want to grow.
Joey (00:20:35) - Yes. Fantastic. Great. Who's going to do the work? That's always the question that the ops person thinks about. How are you leveraging that, and what are you seeing in the marketplace from a recruiting and retention perspective?
Cory (00:20:48) - So the as far as recruiting and retention, what the the next phase is are mostly remote preparers, potentially even just seasonally. We are very tax season heavy., we do have a bookkeeping and accounting side to our firm. But honestly, at this time, most of the people that work in office are taking care of those things because they're more legacy clients where we're attempting to bring in more tax returns only at this point. So I believe,, the seasonal preparer will become that'll become pretty strong in the market,, the next few years., what what we got to watch out for is that they also can become fickle. And that's what we worry about. Are they just going to work with us? Because it worked this year? But they're not tied to us. They're not coming to the office.
Cory (00:21:32) - It's. It's another archaic idea and then they'll just cut us loose and they'll go somewhere else. They won't have any loyalty to us. So, what we have to be sure is that we are making their process fast, easy, convenient, seamless. They don't feel like this is a struggle every day to get on the system and get everything worked out. We want to make it all very easy for them, and I think that's what the next wave of employment to us looks like are these remote preparers. And so, we're focusing on what makes their life easy, because I do think there's a potential that they could just jump ship and have less loyalty just because they don't see your face. And that's just a human interaction that we have to try to contain. This past year, we did a physical workshop where we had everyone, including remotes, come to our main location. It's an El Dorado Springs, Missouri is my hometown. We had everyone come and meet each other, see each other, and I believe we're going to try to do that every year.
Cory (00:22:31) - So if nothing else, we have one, 2 to 3 day event where everybody does see each other., obviously I take care of them getting in there, and so it shouldn't be too inconvenient, but I think some human and human interaction is still going to be important going forward. While we move forward into the future. With all of the, the virtual processes.
Cory (00:22:53) - We could.
Joey (00:22:53) - We couldn't agree more with that, by the way.
Hannah (00:22:55) - Exactly. Yeah. There's still so much value in human interaction. Like we meet with our team, we meet up at least twice a year,, fully as a team. And like, that is such a valuable. I look forward to that every single year. Like, because I do solely work from home. But I do also like my cup is filled with human interaction and like those connections. So like I desperately like even working from home need that. But I love that. Like there's still a space for me to, like, be present as a mom here and like, be able to do the things that I need to do.
Hannah (00:23:28) - And, and there was there was a period of time whenever prior to me even realizing that remote work in this industry was a thing,, like stepped away from the industry completely because I was like, I, I need to find something else that's more sustainable for me as a, as a parent with my kids at the time were not in school and, and so,, so I feel like remote work has really changed the landscape for especially, especially women. But,, a lot of people in the industry, which is really great, but connection is still valuable. I actually I talked to somebody this weekend. We went to the Peach Bowl for Ole Miss Independence Day.
Joey (00:24:06) - Congratulations on the win, by the way.
Hannah (00:24:08) - Yes. Hotty Toddy we, we were at a pregame event the night before. Just. I happened to be talking to somebody, and,, she asked what I did. She's a student at Ole Miss. She's mastering in accounting. And I was like, oh, my gosh.
Cory (00:24:22) - It's so.
Hannah (00:24:23) - Exciting. Like, I'm like.
Cory (00:24:25) - Yeah.
Hannah (00:24:26) - I mean, anybody like, what's.
Cory (00:24:27) - Her name again? I need her email real quick.
Cory (00:24:29) - Exactly.
Hannah (00:24:30) - So I was like, you know, what are you going to do? And she's like, I'm doing audit. She's like, I'm going to UI like she's like, but she's still like she, you know, that generation still wants to be like in an office and like have that experience. So,, I love that there's still space for all of that in this industry. And you're clearly providing that catalyst for, hey, if you want to come work in my office, that's great. But I also need some remote, seasonal people too. So yeah, I love that there's space for everything.
Cory (00:24:58) - And the human interaction is important. And honestly, it's been a tough transition for me, moving away from just offices because I had seven offices for a while. It was just,, five, and we added six and seven last couple of years.
Cory (00:25:12) - But I would physically visit my people. And these are people that I hate to say collective because they're people, but I have I've collected this group of people over time, and I, I know them, I care about them. I've known them for some of them for a very long time and worked with them in the past, and then they came and joined. So that's to me. These are people I want to see and I want to have that in human interaction. But I was getting we were getting so big that I couldn't, couldn't keep up with it and do work. And now things are just moving this other direction., I think even video calls like this help with that. It's not perfect. It's not. Not the best, but it does help with that human interaction a little bit., but that's been a tough transition for me. So, the workshops and just visiting once in a while are important for me personally to make sure that I stay connected with my people as well.
Joey (00:26:01) - Well, and this can these types of calls can serve as a great kind of like catalyst for creating those interactions.
Joey (00:26:07) - Because one thing I found is, you know, especially because when I joined the firm, it was about three months before our first retreat. So, by the time we got to the retreat, I had made the, you know, at least enough introductions where I knew where everybody was. But, you know, Hannah and I have both had situations where, you know, Hannah's had a coworker come through town and they'd stop and have lunch or dinner, like on the way through. I ran a half marathon with a coworker., she absolutely toasted me. I was about 20 minutes behind her when she finished. But, you know, we started the half marathon together. There you go, you know, and it's interesting when you see people like, they'll find reasons to come through people's town. I remember I went and visited, one of my. It's kind of our direct boss. His son was playing a basketball game, you know, an hour south of where I live here in Albuquerque.
Joey (00:26:59) - So we're like, yeah, we go down and watch the games, hang out for a bit and, and do those types of things. And that never, ever felt forced. To me, it just was an organic next step of, hey, whenever we do have that chance to see everybody in person, we tend to take it because of the infrastructure that the firm has put in place to facilitate that. And right, it's beautiful when it works and it takes a firm doing exactly what you're doing, saying we're going to invest in these opportunities, workshops, retreats, whatever it is you want to call it. That is an opportunity to get people more invested beyond just having it be, you know, a place where they go and spend a certain amount of time and then they're done.
Cory (00:27:43) - Right. Right. And to the workshop itself. You know, we had some fun. We had some training, some learning just some team building, it we ended it with a trivia game that some of our team members built.
Cory (00:27:55) - I mean, it's just it was, it was simple. But we got to see each other. Yeah., yeah. Obviously I had a, had a firm t shirt that we all wore, so we all look the same. We just had some, some bonding experiences and it really became an important part of, I think what we're building here., and as we, you know, if I end up with someone that's totally on the West Coast or East Coast and they're able to fly to the Midwest and enjoy a few days with us, that's really cool and a new experience for them. And to see these people in person shake their hand that they've talked to multiple times, probably where the Midwest they're going to hug. So that's true.
Cory (00:28:27) - That's true.
Joey (00:28:28) - Well, I also think your thought about kind of that more seasonal effort.
Cory (00:28:35) - Right.
Joey (00:28:36) - You know, that is something that's really intriguing to me. So a little bit about my background I was primarily in tax. My mom was a tax accountant.
Joey (00:28:42) - My dad was a tax accountant. My wife's a tax accountant. I spend a lot of time thinking around this. Yeah, yeah. I couldn't get away from it., I also couldn't get away from it quickly enough, which is why I ended up at, at summit. Anders. But the I love this idea of, you know, kind of some, some seasonal type things where, you know, especially as we've talked about this industry not always being the most, you know, well, set up for moms and working moms in particular. It's a challenge that I talked about with my mom for a long time. She would have loved what you're offering, which is, hey, it's going to be a pretty intense 3 to 4 months. And then, you know, take your summer off, spend your time with your kids, take advantage because you only get 18 summers with your kid before they're off to school. And those happen fast.
Cory (00:29:37) - Right. And if I can speak to that a little bit, when I first started, we had, you know, I was starting to promote these virtual ideas, but we really didn't have any remote workers yet.
Cory (00:29:45) - That was still ten years ago. It just wasn't what weren't good tools in place for it yet., and so the benefit I could offer, people that joined me was exactly what you're saying. Flexibility. Yeah., and honestly, I struck a chord with moms of, you know, 8 to 18 year olds and or even smaller, and,, they could come to the office, but I can allow them to work school hours and so they could drop their kids off, come to the office, pick their kids up and enjoy their kids. And as we have progressed and we've got these where the ability for them to work from home, it's just natural. Now they work from home 2 to 3 days a week. So, you know, I mentioned we have remote workers, but we also have everyone else on our team is hybrid, that everyone has the ability to stay at home and work. And I did have that in place actually before Covid hit. So, was that March 13th or 15th and 2020? We literally just went home and we were working the very next day.
Cory (00:30:44) - So it was not a problem for us. It was different and we had to figure that part out. But everybody went home and got back to work on their laptop so that that those, those mothers you speak of, I had actually my father in law, he said, hey, when I was looking for employees, he said, you know, there's this kind of untapped source of very smart workers out there that they have chosen not to continue their career. They've chosen to stay home or at least pause their career, he said. Those would be great bookkeepers. If you can get in touch with those people. And here in a small town, I know a bunch of them. So honestly, that's who came, that's who attracted to our firm because I allowed the flexibility, I showed them the direction we were headed, and I promoted family first because that's who I am, and that's what I personally believe as well. I have three small kids. They're 11, nine and eight, so I have three small kids myself.
Cory (00:31:36) - And so I try to do the same thing. I try to, off season, keep it to school hours, try to be able to be there when they're off the bus, that sort of thing., but to me, family is primary and anyone's life, and I've hoped to promote a culture that also shows that to the employees.
Hannah (00:31:54) - I feel like we live in such a hustle culture now that it's so easy to get, like, wrapped up in, like, let's grind out these hours like these, get these bills out, like, let's do it. Like it's easy to get caught up in that, like, so prioritizing that is so incredibly valuable. Especially because even as we have young accountants, eventually young accountants are going to want to start a family, to be married, to be present in that way. So, if you're starting that in the beginning for them, and especially promoting that for them, because I feel like especially as a young accountant, you can also get caught up in the hustle culture because what more do you have to do? You can just like grind it out, like, you know, like you, you have more freedom and flexibility to be able to do that.
Hannah (00:32:36) - But I feel like it's so important to provide some guardrails around that because, like, it can become so toxic for people. It. They don't even like before they even realize it. And then it's hard to get out of.
Cory (00:32:47) - And I'm glad you bring that up. And we were talking earlier about being more project driven than ours. Driven. I really I don't even like discussing ours. I don't think hours means you're working hard, I just don't I think projects and results that shows me that you're producing and working hard. If you tell me you worked 70 hours this week, I almost. I'm upset. I would rather you work less. I don't want you to work that many hours. So this year, actually. And I announced it at our workshop. We are going we're shifting from a 40 hour base workweek to a 32 hour based workweek.. So during tax season, they will still work more, accrue that comp time and take it off the rest of the year. But even the rest of the year we, we are going to be a 32 hour office, not a 40 hour office.
Cory (00:33:33) - And then I also put in a maximum for during tax season. I don't want them going over what it was. I want to say it's 55 I think hours. I don't want the I don't want anyone working over more than that. It's just not necessary. Let's get our jobs done. We'll hire people will be more efficient, and I think the team will be more efficient when they show up at the office or when they show up at their desk at home. They'll just be more efficient. They'll find ways to be more efficient to get their jobs done. So, the whole concept of hours, really, I'm trying to trying to kill that completely in my billing process and my employees is just all the way around the board.
Joey (00:34:09) - I think that's the next. That's the next big shift. And it's probably a couple of years away. But we're starting to see some school districts, particularly the school district where my wife is from in, in kind of the East Dallas suburbs, they have started going to a four day workweek, right and right, eventually.
Joey (00:34:29) - Every everyone is going to have to respond to that because that's such a big driver of things. But the studies, their studies that have happened out in Europe that were I think one was in England, one was in a couple of the Scandinavian countries that prove what you're saying, that like, hey, actually turns out it is more efficient. You can get more done in 32 really efficient hours than you can in 40 semi efficient hours.
Cory (00:34:56) - Right. Or even just the days, you know, if you if you really were married to the 40 hours, but you did four days instead of five, less set up, less tear down, less of the go meet at the coffeepot and talk to somebody for 15 minutes. Just less of those little things and you're more efficient., but another big driver behind this is I've really pushed us being less stressed because stress in our industry is I mean, I believe we are one of the highest stressed industries, and that includes police officers and medical field. And we are we're right up there in the top five with them.
Cory (00:35:33) - And it's one of the number one killer in the country. Stress is in general. So, I and furthermore, I think for young accountants coming out, I think it's one of the biggest deterrents, especially if you come from a family of tax preparers like you did.
Joey (00:35:52) - How did we lose him?
Hannah (00:35:54) - Oh, I thought it was me.
Joey (00:35:56) - No.
Hannah (00:36:04) - My internet doesn't say my internet has been crazy today, so. Oh, okay. Yeah. Maybe he'll come back. I clearly am struggling with some congestion stuff, which is a good time.
Cory (00:36:23) - Okay? Okay. All right.
Cory (00:36:26) - Okay.
Cory (00:36:27) - Oh, goodness. Oh, goodness. Okay. I stopped stocking it. They started spinning on mine.
Cory (00:36:40) - I was kind of talking about stress.
Hannah (00:36:44) - Stress. Yeah. So, we were talking about stress and us being like one of the top statistically up there with like okay, policemen. So that's kind of where we were.
Cory (00:36:54) - Okay. I seem to.
Cory (00:36:54) - Have.
Joey (00:36:56) - And I want to make sure that makes it into because that that is something that I talk about with.
Joey (00:37:01) - I can just a lot.
Cory (00:37:03) - I can just start over there.
Cory (00:37:04) - That works. That's a.
Cory (00:37:21) - Okay. Very good.
Hannah (00:37:22) - Cool.
Cory (00:37:29) - Okay.
Cory (00:37:35) - So one of the biggest problems in our industry is, is stress. And I've seen that we're probably one of the top five in stress-related industries. And we know that that's one of the biggest killers in the country., this is just related to everything. Heart attack, stroke, everything. And so I have really promoted a more stress-free environment as much as possible in our office and even with our clients, but because of that I want to I want the I want our employees, our team members to take more time off. I want to be more efficient with the hours that we're working. You know, even if we're working,, four days a week and it's still the 40 hours. That's even better. Could you get a third day to actually relax? And so with my team, I've made that a real point of emphasis this year on,, trying to.
Cory (00:38:24) - Be conscious of it because to me, just hammering out hours that that's not really impressive or productive. It's sometimes just, it can hurt you personally, and it could hurt the firm if you start to have poor performance.
Hannah (00:38:38) - I tell people all the time, like summit, Anders gets more out of me and 40 hours being home at work than they ever would if I stepped.
Cory (00:38:46) - Into an office. Because.
Hannah (00:38:48) - Because I do like I mean, I do enjoy talking to people like I do like, enjoy like seeing how their weekend was and like, right.
Cory (00:38:54) - And often talking at the cooler.
Cory (00:38:58) - Another point to that is it's one of the biggest deterrents for, I think, new CPAs and new tax accountants coming out, especially if you're from a family of tax accountants and you've seen it for many years, you're like, I don't know, I don't want to do taxes. I was terrible. I watched my mother and father do that. And they were mad all the time or they were.
Cory (00:39:15) - Tired all the time.
Cory (00:39:16) - So,, I think if we can promote a better atmosphere around that and we can eliminate that from the equation, that we will get these smart,, diligent workers, the young workers, into the workforce, because you guys know, like I do, CPAs have dropped every year for 20 years in the new CPAs coming out. So that's a real problem that we need to try to address.
Joey (00:39:38) - And the amount and the amount of work CPAs are being asked to do is only going to increase, you know, as advisory starts to really take off, that's going to that's going to shift. And what I enjoy the most about kind of what you've set up there is, I remember being at an office one time and this was during the summer. So, it wasn't during tax season hours. I remember saying, guys, I'd really like to work for 10 hour days and this not come in on Friday, still get 40 hours, but just right. And they were like, no we don't.
Joey (00:40:09) - We really just want you here on Friday. And I remember saying, this just doesn't like it didn't compute to me where I'm like, why does the Friday matter? Like why is that the hill that you're wanting to die on? And I it, I don't know what I never really did get a firm answer from them on what was causing that. But I think the thing that when I talk to young kids and I talk to kids in college, the number one thing they want is flexibility, right? So, if you're saying, hey, how you get the how you get the job done, how you do the hours, how you do the projects, cool. Get after it, get it done, have some autonomy, take your time off, fit within the guidelines, but you kind of control your own destiny, right? That's very compelling to a lot of people. Right. And it's going to that's.
Cory (00:40:57) - That's the future of what needs to happen., if it does happen in some of these large legacy firms, it's yet to be seen.
Cory (00:41:06) - But most of the new firms that are popping up, they are they're doing that. They're making it more flexible and they're attracting new talent. And that's where that's where we want to be as we move forward., but you're right that that Friday, unless you're the front desk person and they need you there, why? What's the what's the reason to make me work Friday, when I could have done all this projects for the whole week in these four days and then take Friday off, or even or even, like a.
Joey (00:41:33) - Wednesday in the middle of the week, right? Where it's like, hey, because that's always the thing. They say, well, we got to have coverage. Great. Some people are going to take Fridays, some people aren't going to want to work Mondays, some people are going to want to take Tuesdays or Wednesdays or Thursdays off. Because that's when things happen in their life. And, you know, there's another thing too. Obviously, our focus is, is younger CPAs.
Joey (00:41:53) - But I don't want to forget about our more experienced CPAs as well. Right? I think about someone like my mom, who is in her mid 60s, has been a CPA for 40 years and she retired about a year ago. But, you know, I kept she kept trying to figure out. She's like, I've still got so much knowledge. I've got so much to give. But she's like, but I don't want to give. I can't do what I did before, I just need something 15, 20 hours a week, something to give me a reason to, you know, to get out of bed and, and continue to try to do this thing that I've done my whole life, something like what you're offering, where it's like, hey, you've got some seasonal hours. We're not going to burn you out, but we're going to give you an opportunity to be a professional and have mentorship opportunities and have opportunities to still be productive. And so, from my mom's perspective, kind of land that retirement plan because it's really tough to go from like flying at 40,000ft to all of a sudden I'm on a beach.
Joey (00:42:52) - Sounds great. But in, in practicality it's tough. That's very, very compelling I think to a lot of people is having that opportunity.
Hannah (00:43:01) - And when you talk about stress too, like with this being such a high stress industry, especially if she's worked her whole life, you know, doing taxes and like going from like that level of stress to not having it is so abrupt too. Like I had this conversation with my with my I guess it was my husband this weekend. I was like, Nick Saban's not going to retire for a long time.
Hannah (00:43:21) - Because the second he does like he's probably looking at his deathbed within a few years, because going from that level of stress and just competitiveness and everything that he's done for throughout his career to nothing is literally it's harmful to the body. Like whenever you.
Cory (00:43:38) - Do that system.
Hannah (00:43:39) - It really is. So, I mean, I think the same could probably be said for accountants, you know, whenever they go from that high stress environment to nothing like that is a shock.
Cory (00:43:49) - And with these acquisitions that we've made, I've experienced that with some of the retirees where they were doing everything, any of the any of the ones that I've acquired has they had one person. They were running the show. They pretty well did everything. So, when we come in, we immediately take off that administrative burden. That's a giant load off. Yeah, but I really need them to work a couple of years during tax season at least, however we can. We just continually reduce their role and their time needed commitment and they just slows down. And I had a few say, hey, I actually enjoyed tax season this year because I got to do tax returns and work with the people that I like, and I didn't have to worry about running the office because we took care of that part.,, or they were able to focus on some of the higher level tax returns, and they didn't have to do all the lower level tax returns. So just that come that come down that soft landing.
Cory (00:44:41) - And it is really important for that age. I had one of my CPA who's not he's not really close to retirement age yet. But yeah, he's late 50s, I think he told me after we switched, I announced that 32hours switch and then the maximum during taxes, like you probably just added 5 to 10 years to my career because I just know that I can't do 70 hours a week much longer. It's just not going to happen., you know, I have too much stress. I just my body can't take it. So, I believe it's better for not just acquiring young talent, but also providing that soft landing and extending careers because some they just get to a breaking point. I'm never doing this again. Don't shut the door. Go be a Walmart greeter. So, they, it there's just there's a level of stress in this environment that we need to start to mediate.
Joey (00:45:29) - Well, and and to your point, the the knowledge and the value to the firm that you're unlocking.
Cory (00:45:34) - Oh, absolutely.
Joey (00:45:36) - By having such a high level operator say, hey, I can do this for another 5 to 10 years because you made one small shift. Like that's the value that I see there, that it shocks me that other people don't see it right and structurally don't want it to happen because they think, well, the only way you provide value is by cranking through tax returns. No, not at all.
Cory (00:45:57) - Right.
Cory (00:45:59) - And they come generally from generation where number of hours is your value. Yes. And you know or you need to work 80 hours. You need to work 90 hours and you work 100 hours. This is to me, you're just you're killing yourself. And it's just not necessary. I mean, literally, and it's just not necessary. And honestly, taxes aren't that important either for us to have to do that. So, we need to find a way that it works for them, works for the clients. And, end of the day, it works for everybody.
Joey (00:46:27) - Well Cory this this has been super fun and I, I think I'm, I'm sensing at least one, maybe two webinar topics that we could talk about in here and really expand on a couple things here. Yeah. But one of the, one of the places that we like to end on is, is just kind of learning more about who you are as a person, because, as you know, Hannah and I have talked about before, and I'm sure you've experienced this too, you always start conversations with, well, I'm an accountant. And what we're curious about is you're an accountant and you mentioned you've got three, three young kids, and I'm sure there's some I do stuff in there that the kind of, you know, where you spend a good amount of your time. But when. And you're not running your office and thinking about that. What are some of the things you're doing with your time and what fills your cup outside of the accounting world?
Cory (00:47:15) - Yeah, and I appreciate the question.
Cory (00:47:17) - And honestly, I do not start with I'm an accountant and I really, really never have. I yeah, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm a CEO of this firm. I've enjoyed growing this firm., I hire smart people to be the accountants. I that's what I, that's what my goal is., but outside of growing this firm, I actually have a few other businesses that we've acquired and grown., a couple of small businesses in our local community., I got involved in ten years ago when I started the firm, we moved from Springfield, Missouri, which to us is the big city., back to my hometown of El Dorado Springs., I went to school in Springfield on the Missouri State Bear and lived there for ten years. Love it. Still have an office there, like to visit, but we're back home and both of our hometown, mine and my wife's. And,, I got involved in the community right away., I actually got on the city council. I became the mayor for a while.
Cory (00:48:09) - That was a quite an experience. You know, we're a town of 4000, and you have to live in the city to be on the council. So, I'm not saying it was easy to do. I'm saying that,, not everybody wants that. That pro bono job. So, getting on there, though, and making a difference and helping and using the skills that I've acquired over a career to help the city that I love and want to see prosper. That was that was really fulfilling to me. I've since got off to there. I've the firm has grown too much and I need to be able to focus on it better., but I still am connected there to and involved in our community. My wife is involved in our community very much as well., my three young kids, I've got a 11 year old boy, not a nine year old girl and an eight year old boy. So, we had them all pretty close together, and we're having a lot of fun right now.
Hannah (00:48:58) - That's also my kid. I have a 12 year old boy. A nine year old girl. An eight year old boy. So we're living the same life clearly
Cory (00:49:05) - Right? Right now.
Cory (00:49:08) - Right now it's basketball season. We're a sports family, so we're all into basketball right now., I attempted to get him into golf in the fall, and I think I got some traction on that. So hopefully we got three golfers coming up, too., we have a lot of fun. We get involved in our church as well., a little small country church that my wife grew up in. So that's that's very fulfilling, as you would say., just so that I like to, I like to promote and and see my community and my, the people that are around me grow and prosper. And I'm trying to use the gifts that I've been given and the. Hate to even say success that we've shown so far., I like to use that to, to promote other people around me.
Cory (00:49:51) - Like I said earlier, I've always I've always told my employees and anyone around me, I really want to provide you a ladder, not a ceiling. I want to see how high we can go together. And this is a team effort. And let's see what we can do so.
Hannah (00:50:04) - Well I know we appreciate you coming and just gleaning some of your knowledge throughout your career with us here on the show and potentially for our audience. And so if our audience does want to connect with you outside of the show, how can they best do that?
Cory (00:50:17) - Sure. So we have a website. And really that's the best place to start because it has all the information. So, it's JcgCPAfirm.com. We'll have all of our offices are listed there. If I can list the offices we have El Dorado Springs, Nevada, Missouri. Stockton, Missouri. Bolivar, Missouri, Springfield, Missouri. And then Jerod, Kansas. Tulsa, Oklahoma., but then lately we are working with clients all over the country just through our remote processes.
Cory (00:50:43) - And it'll feel much like you're working with a fully remote firm. So, our goal is to be that hybrid, be that bridge, work with people on their tax return services. Of course, we do offer accounting and payroll services. And then recently tax advisory and business coaching and business coaching. You would get me directly and that that's a new aspect of our services that we're starting to push right now., because as we have grown and I've got leaders at each office, I'm looking for what's my personal next step. And I want to implore this knowledge to the next generation coming up, business owners, even CPAs and tax firm owners, that I can coach and help and teach what I've learned. So, the next person doesn't have to make quite as many mistakes as I did.
Hannah (00:51:32) - Awesome.
Joey (00:51:33) - Thanks, Cory. We appreciate it.
Cory (00:51:35) - Hey, I appreciate you guys.
Cory (00:51:36) - Thank you so much.
Hannah (00:51:37) - Thanks.
Intro (00:51:38) - If you're a young CPA looking to develop in their careers, we're always looking for great people.
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