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Zane Stevens is the Director of Protea Financial—an accounting and bookkeeping firm specializing in wineries. In this episode, Zane talks about his life in South Africa, how he got into accounting, and what made him move to the US to start working in the winery consulting space. Zane and Stuart discuss what’s unique about winery accounting, how they attract clients, and what the future holds for Protea Financial.
Join Stuart McLeod as he interviews the world's top accounting leaders to understand their story, how they operate, their goals, mission, and top advice to help you run your accounting firm.
Stuart McLeod 00:00:06.944 Hi. I'm Stuart McLeod, CEO and co-founder of Karbon. Welcome to the Accounting Leaders podcast, the show where I go behind the scenes with the world's top accounting leaders. Zane Stevens, welcome to the Accounting Leaders podcast. Tell us about how growing up in South Africa was and your experience at college and how your parents supported you through your education experience at the beginning there.
Zane Stevens 00:00:34.532 Yeah, so it's one of those stories sort of starting out, that good in numbers, good in math, it's always a strong point. Got to high school. Well, you're really good at that. You might as well try this accounting thing as well. Started doing that in high school, quickly showed that I've got a good understanding of it, got really good grades for it. When you got to the point where it's like, "Hey, it's time for university. What are you going to do?" Most people were like, "You should go be an accountant. You showed that you understand it, you know how do it, you're really smart. Go become an accountant." I said, "Sure. Not really what I want to do, don't really know what that means."
Stuart McLeod 00:01:06.148 Were your parents accountants or anything like that, or?
Zane Stevens 00:01:09.234 No, and neither of my parents actually finished high school, so my mom is what they call a legal secretary working for an attorney's office, and my dad is a diesel mechanic by trade. So head off to university. I might have been the first within the family to ever really go to university.
Stuart McLeod 00:01:24.322 Was that quite a thing, do you think, back then?
Zane Stevens 00:01:27.410 I don't think so. It sort of went under the radar, right? It was just sort of given.
Stuart McLeod 00:01:32.879 You didn't get fanfare and a parade on your first day?
Zane Stevens 00:01:38.077 No. As a family, I think I got my fanfares younger. I did really well at competing in karate as a kid, so I got a lot of fanfare there. So I think it was always just the expectation, hey, you've got smart kids, they should go to university type situation. And that was for me and my brother. And so, went off, registered to go to university. The course that I took on was a BCom Accounting for chartered accountants, which was great. I had some friends that were going to do it, but I had no idea what that even meant. The term chartered accountant, who knows what that meant at that point? I just knew I was going to go study accounting. Got started with it, was pretty fun to start with, because the first sort of year of accounting was really everything I did in high school, so it didn't take much work at all to sort of get through it. Got a little bit harder in my second year. I had some big learning curves. The first test in second year is like, "Oh, that's not a mock." You know what I mean? I sort of figured out pretty quickly, went from like, "Can you technically do accounting?" to "Can you technically think about accounting? Explain why this is the right process." So took a little bit of adjustment to get there. I got through my undergrad. I passed every single subject, never had to do a rewrite, never had to redo a subject. Went into my honors degree, so I had to do an honors. You do four subjects, had to pass all four of them in that year to be able to be eligible to go into the chartered accountancy program. Got through that. I scraped through on two of the subjects. Two of the subjects I did really well at. And headed off to where I had already been recruited in at KPMG.
Zane Stevens 00:03:08.389 So to become a chartered accountant in South Africa, you have to spend three years with an audit firm, effectively doing audit work, but there is a bunch of core competencies that you have to complete within those three years and a number of core hours you have to compete in those three years. During that period of time, you also have to write two board examinations, one very early in your first year and then one at the end of your second year. It might have changed a little bit nowadays. I think the timing's a little bit different, but that's how it was when I did this back in-- what was that? 2007 and 2008 type scenario. Was fortunate to pass both first time, which would always [find?] you into this big fanfare at the firm, this big party to go along with it. Got through my core hours. I was very fortunate with my experience at KPMG. Being in Port Elizabeth in a smaller office, I got the opportunity to-- mostly in the automotive space, but deal with some really large multinationals, where you work on these big orders reporting to people in another country that you don't have communication with. But also had the opportunity to work on really small projects, where not only was I doing the audit, but I was also doing all the clean-up and accounting work and trying to help the business a bit more. So that's sort of where I got started.
Stuart McLeod 00:04:14.174 Yeah. Audit at KPMG for internationals would have been-- well, you would have learned a lot. Did you find it pretty dry and did you question what you'd done, or it was right up your alley and you really enjoyed it?
Zane Stevens 00:04:26.822 Yeah, so it was funny. I always tell this funny story. When we first started, the first two days were supposed to be training days. You go in the office, you're going to get some training, this is how we do things, and all of that. And it was great. I think my first day was-- we started [doing the check?], and I think it was a Thursday, and then it was a Friday. So short weekend, relax into the weekend. Near the end of the first day, the manager walked in and said, "Okay", and called out three names, including my own. They're like, "Great, you pulled the client that has a deadline in 15 days, so we need you to go out to the client right now." It's like 4:30. Really? Okay, we're going to head out. And so we had to go work on this project and, obviously, that night we worked till 9, 10 o'clock at night, and the next [portion?] comes up. So they went to the office and back to the client on the Friday night. Okay, we don't need all of you guys, but one of you guys are going to have to work this weekend, and it's the person working with this senior on the project. I was like, "Oh, that's me." So within my first few days, I got the experience-- I think I worked eight hours of overtime within the first two days of KPMG, including the weekend. So I got a pretty shock over it. This is what this is all about?
Stuart McLeod 00:05:30.711 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Welcome to the working world.
Zane Stevens 00:05:34.541 But I actually really enjoyed audit in general. I had a pretty good talent at-- I don't know. My colleagues used to call me Captain Audits, probably because I enjoyed it a lot more than they did. I really [liked?] it.
Stuart McLeod 00:05:45.565 It takes a unique type. It must be something that's in your personality that appreciates the numbers and the complexities.
Zane Stevens 00:05:54.159 Yeah, and I think part of it, right, is I got a lot of opportunities to talk to senior management, right? I wasn't scared to go and talk to someone in management, so I got a lot of opportunities or potentially created opportunities that other people weren't willing to take. I really got to see the fun side of it. I was considering like, "Hey, can I just stay and audit and make this my career?" But one of the partners that I was working with in my third year, she sat me down. She's like, "I know you love audit. I know you're really good at it, but this is not where you belong. You will eventually get frustrated with the process, and because what you're doing a lot of the time is going and trying to help people rather than actually get through the audits. It's great, but it's always not the most efficient. So you should look at consulting." And because after three years, you get signed off and you're supposed to go off, I did look in the sort of consulting world within KPMG afterwards to look to take on a role in that sort of space. I'd been working on a large national project because I had finished my core hours at the end of my second-- sorry, my third year. While some of the other guys needed extra audit work, I was just sent around. Basically, I was just a global resource that they would send around the country to get work done. I looked at that time, but it was unfortunate. It was 2008.
Stuart McLeod 00:07:07.556 Oh, yes. Yeah, good timing.
Zane Stevens 00:07:09.875 Yeah, so not the best chance. I got a few opportunities, but most of them required me to leave the Port Elizabeth office and go to another office. Multiple different options within the Johannesburg office. A couple of options outside, in Namibia specifically. I had a fairly good opportunity. I just wasn't ready to leave Port Elizabeth at that point. I had started dating somebody that I thought would be a good idea to stick around and see how this worked out. I'm married to her right now, and we've been married for 11 years.
Stuart McLeod 00:07:37.945 Good, good. Well, that was a good plan then.
Zane Stevens 00:07:41.446 Yeah, so I was looking at it. I went into the consulting team at that point in that Port Elizabeth office, but it was very limited government work. I was effectively being-- I was an AB clerk in a government department for a few months.
Stuart McLeod 00:07:53.840 So moving forward a little bit. But you ended up working for a private company after that, or is there a couple of steps in between?
Zane Stevens 00:08:02.425 Just one. My girlfriend at the time, and now wife, had finished her training contract, definitely didn't want to stay at an audit firm, so her partner had basically set her up with a client that he'd been working with that were American owners that had just bought a winery in the Stellenbosch area. So we decided we'll take that job and we'll move to Cape Town. So I was able, with a little bit of communication, to be able to get an opportunity at the KPMG Cape Town office in their sort of IT departments. IT consulting, IT general control audits. So I went and joined that team for a few months on the contract and sort of worked my way through that portion. Because it was 2008 and it was really hard, it was taking a really long time for me to get the permanent contract. I basically had a guarantee from the partner. He was like, "I'm going to make this happen. We don't get a lot of chartered accountants coming into this department. We really want to keep you within it." That didn't work for me. I didn't really want the uncertainty of that, so I went out looking and I was fortunate enough to get an opportunity at a listed company subsidiary, which I accepted on the spot, basically. Which is funny, when I went to go give my resignation, he's like, "I literally just got your contract." And I'm like, "It's too late now. This a fantastic opportunity, a big company, a lot of opportunity to grow, specifically what I want to grow into. I have to take it. So thank you, but this is my notice period."
Stuart McLeod 00:09:26.073 Yeah. And then you were there for a while, and then-- that was in South Africa, and then eventually you moved with your wife and family to America. How did that sort of all come about?
Zane Stevens 00:09:37.730 Yeah, so we're in an interesting phase in our life. We've bought a house, we're sort of really comfortable. I've been promoted into sort of the layer underneath the CFO. I had really good growth opportunities, but the American ownership group that owned the winery my wife worked at had split. So the two owners had split and the ones that she was already working closely with had gone up and formed their own winery consulting and investment company. And once they had a few clients, they reached out to her and said, "You know what, we loved working with you. We think a ton about you. We need a CFO. Would you be interested in coming to California to be a CFO?" And I sort of heard the phone call, making dinner. Came through and I'm like, "Cool, so when you moving?" It was already sorted. We had a conversation after that, but the full conversation lasted eight minutes. Nothing was holding us back. We didn't have kids at that point in time. Yeah, why not? Let's do it for three years, see what it's all about. While we don't have everything tying us down, let's take this experience. So she left in May 2013. I sort of spoke to my current employer, put in my-- I give him like two or three months. We were busy with the financial audit of that year, so I wanted to make sure I got them through the audit, make sure that all the reporting was done, and I would join her at a future stage. So she came over in May, I sort of packed the house up, got it rented. We had three cats at that point, shipped them off to California. I then joined her in August of that year, and I basically arrived in California jobless at that point.
Stuart McLeod 00:11:15.333 And so, being in the wine industry, I imagine they were located in Sonoma or Napa or something like that?
Zane Stevens 00:11:22.089 So their office at that point was in Sausalito in Marin County. And that's where we live right now, we live in Marin County. It's a pretty nice place to fall into.
Stuart McLeod 00:11:33.006 Are you in Sausalito or are you just north of there?
Zane Stevens 00:11:35.672 So we started by being in Larkspur, then moved [just north?] and moved to Novato. Rental prices kept increasing until we were at a point where we could purchase. We were very fortunate to purchase in 2019 when it was still [inaudible].
Stuart McLeod 00:11:50.258 Well done. Yeah. And being a bit further north, you don't have to worry too much about the Sunday late morning invasion from the bikes in Sausalito. We learned that the hard way when we lived in Sausalito. You really have to plan your weekends and summer around the invasion.
Zane Stevens 00:12:09.434 Yeah. I mean, when my wife first got here, she spent three months in Sausalito and she's like, "One, it's really expensive, and two, it's not the funnest place to live." It's hard to walk everywhere because everywhere [it's up?].
Stuart McLeod 00:12:22.287 Oh, yeah. It's so hilly.
Zane Stevens 00:12:24.346 She's like, "I'm not sure this is going to really work for us." Sort of found a condo in the Larkspur sort of space, which was kind of good in theory. They were moving the office-- well, we had a second office in San Francisco, so it was quick onto the ferry to get into San Francisco to do all that. So I joined that company she was working with in January 2014 and that's sort of my first step within the job market in the US.
Stuart McLeod 00:12:47.150 Yeah, and the wine industry per se.
Zane Stevens 00:12:49.892 Yeah. So I mean, that first role, effectively, they came on board, they said, "We're having a lot of investments, a lot of people reaching out to us, and we just need somebody to do FBNA type work. Some of the planning, analytics, a lot of exit strategy. If I buy this piece of land and we start planting it, how long before we can make wine and then how long before we can sort of sell and make X amount?" So that was sort of the way I got into it for this consulting firm. But what ended up happening-- and I did a bit of that work, but not a ton. What I think some of the projects they had started with, was sort of ran into the point where they were like, "Oh shit, who's going to do the bookkeeping and accounting?"
Stuart McLeod 00:13:24.520 Yeah, who's going to do the actual work?
Zane Stevens 00:13:27.264 Yeah, who's going to actually do it? The accountancy unit. [While you're?] busy being the CFO of the coffee or winery consulting firm with all these crazy structures that you're dealing with. So like, "Well, Zane, can you do it or is there a better way?" So we went to the market at that point, did some research, looked at what was out there and, generally speaking, we just didn't like it. A lot of it was really expensive. A lot of it was really poor quality. A lot of it was really expensive and poor quality. So trying to be smart guys, we thought, "Hey, we could do this a little bit better." And the way we're going to do this is I know a bunch of people back in South Africa that have a chartered accountancy qualification that I know are really smart, but I also know that they've spent some time having a family and they're looking for a way to get back into the market. So I'm going to reach out to a few of them and see if they're interested in taking on some part-time work to help us with the bookkeeping. I will manage the process from my side and they can basically do the work. And that sort of was the thought process behind sort of starting Protea Financial. So we thought let's put it in its own entity so that it's at least an invoice from a third party. So these investors aren't like, "You're charging me for this and this and this and bookkeeping as well. What are you guys doing?" That's how we started. It was just sort of the three of us at that point. One client, I think it grew to two within the first month, within the investments. And that was the starting point and that's how Protea was formed.
Stuart McLeod 00:14:56.127 I guess the family by then-- you and the wife had a pretty inbuilt or entrenched knowledge of the wine industry, the complexities of some cost accounting, the supply chain, the capacity to sort of bring the fruit to bear, excuse the pun, and all of that kind of thing. But I've spoken to people that are in the cannabis industry and it's like some of the bookkeeping and management accounting you can get is pretty unique and the skill set is specialized. And I'm pretty good on the consumer end of the wine industry, but I haven't had a lot to do with supply chain. And we've done plenty of tours through Napa and understand the very basics of production and we've given our free labor, our feet to the crush, and all of that kind of thing. But it is a pretty interesting supply chain mechanism, and I imagine the accounting can be pretty interesting as well.
Zane Stevens 00:15:51.571 Yeah, I mean, on that point, she had experience. I didn't.
Stuart McLeod 00:15:56.126 Getting free consulting over the dinner table.
Zane Stevens 00:15:58.796 But I've always been somebody that's willing to learn, right? So started in the automotive when I [worked?] up, shoved around the country in South Africa. I was doing a lot of consumer good products, so sort of having to learn that space. Moved to the Cape Town office, also doing IT general control audits for tech companies. Moved to a tech company that has all this multitude of different products. One's REALTECH, one's [really a?] collection service, the other one's hard products. So I've had to learn all the way. So I trusted myself that I could figure out the complexities on the way. And I felt really good about my cost accounting because of my automotive background, right? Because an automotive company cares about the cost of the staple that goes in the headline to secure it to the roof. So I've got all these basic knowledge concepts and I'll learn the rest along the way. And at the same time, I've had some opportunities talking to who are now my business partners about the difficulties of running a wine business in terms of the three-tier structure on how they're having to sell their wine, how difficult it is to license. 50 states, 50 licenses, all that type of stuff that we looked at. So my general idea there was I'm not going to know everything, but I'm willing to put in the hard work to learn what needs to go into it. And I pride myself in providing a high-quality product. So if I think about this well enough, I know that I can put in structures to make sure that the accounting that we're providing these wineries will be of the highest quality. And then what we'll do is focus on maintaining the costs at affordable level, because it's shit expensive to go into wine. You're burning through cash like crazy. So we want to keep the cost down, but at the same time, we want to make sure we take advantage of a team 10 time zones away to be able to move quickly. And for me, a lot of the time when I was looking at some of the options out there, what I didn't like the most was that they were like, "We close books within 45 days of month end." And, "Hey, yeah, I'm going to close books within 45 days of month end." And I get heart palpitations. How's that helpful information, right? When you've gone through another cycle, then it's just not on. So my big thing was we're going to focus on closing books in 10 business days, so in that 11 to 14 days sort of range, and we need to create a structure that that is possible.
Stuart McLeod 00:18:20.806 Yeah. And how long did it take you to get to that kind of structure?
Zane Stevens 00:18:25.987 I spent the first four years just going, "I know this can work, but we have to figure out and make sure that it worked." So we did zero market the first four years. Any growth we had was purely word of mouth by clients or within our own network, just knowing people. What I did in those first four years was focusing on what would a team on each project look like? What do we want to do, right? So there's a lot of people who'll be like, "Hey, we do bookkeeping, we're your controller, we're CFO." You don't want to do everything, right? So my goal is what do we actually want to do? What do we think we can be really good at, and what can we do for these clients that we can leverage our team in South Africa? So that's how I spent the first four years. I mean, at times I was working 100-plus hour weeks trying to get the work done. I probably took way too long to hire a second person in the US. The team in South Africa was growing, maintaining that team, and just focusing in and going, "Okay, this is the way we're going to do it. This is the way we're going to be unique, and this is the way we're going to make sure that we will sort of change the way people perceive out-sourced accounting."
Stuart McLeod 00:19:33.723 Yeah. So the team in South Africa, you were training up in sort of the specialty of wine and cost accounting and the industry. You're trying to service clients here. With that kind of workload, what was the strain on the family and the marriage and the kids? And was it manageable?
Zane Stevens 00:19:52.673 Yeah. I mean, I made time for it, right? It's get up early, work late, so find time for life. My schedule has definitely changed since I've got two young boys now. Four and six, they'll soon be five and seven. So yeah, there's a little gap before the first one came along where I was able to do it. But even when I was working those long hours, I was still playing cricket for a club here in Marin as well. So I was able to fit in some social side as well. So I've always tried to believe-- everybody always talks about trying to find balance, and I'm not quite a believer in what everybody thinks balance is. I'm more like, "I know when I've got to put time in with different parts of my life." So I know it's important to me and I focus in. If work needs me right now, that's where it is. If my family needs me right now, that's where I am. If my health needs me right now, that's where I'm going to spend the time, and I try to focus in. So I've been able to sort of make time with it. And obviously, as the kids have come along and grown a little bit older, I've reduced my hours over time, but that's also kind of with sort of learning lessons and getting to a good place. I mean, we're 36 people right now. I mean, I couldn't fathom that there would be 36 of us. There's 8 of us here in the US and the balance is down in South Africa. We still have the wholly owned subsidiaries, so they're still our employees. They're still part of the team. It's not some third party that's just churning through people. They are the team. I'm heading down to South Africa in a month's time. I'm going to go see them all. We're going to have a family event. I'll get to meet their family for the first time in three years. They are a team. They just happen to be on another continent.
Stuart McLeod 00:21:22.050 Yeah, no, I understand. I mean, 36 people is a pretty significant staff level. You said sort of over the first four years you weren't doing much in terms of outreach and go to market. What do you do now to attract new clients? And how do you go about the growth aspects of the business?
Zane Stevens 00:21:40.746 Yeah, so after four years, I was like, "Okay, we're growing. We're getting growth. I've got team members. I have to hire someone in the US and I've got to find them work, right?" So it's really important. We need to sort of find different ways to attract people. So my first initial strategy, and it's still the biggest part of my sort of marketing as it is, is I'm going to meet people within the space that I know can make introductions to potential clients for me. And the way I looked at it was the best way to get in with accounting is to find somebody with a stick.
Stuart McLeod 00:22:15.133 A stick.
Zane Stevens 00:22:16.077 Yeah. So I spoke to bankers and tax providers, and those were my initial I need to know who you are, because bankers, a lot of the time go, "I can't keep financing you because your books are in such bad state."
Stuart McLeod 00:22:31.496 Bad shape, yeah.
Zane Stevens 00:22:32.456 And the tax providers go, "I can't do a tax return without doing a ton of accounting at a really high price, so you need to get something better." So I focused in on those two areas, mostly, in the beginning, on the bankers. I went very heavily on the bankers. I tried with the CPA firms. I got in with a few of them, but a lot of them will try to do their own out-sourced accounting, so there is just a little bit of we're a competition, which-- I never really got this between accountants, we're a competition. We're really not. We're all trying to achieve the same thing and there's plenty of work for all of us, so let's just get along. But I'm in the minority when it comes to that sort of approach towards my competitors. I think it still freaks some of them out in the wine industry, like, "Why do you want to talk to me?" I'm like, "Because I get clients that I can't help, and you get clients you can't help. And why would you want them to go to the streets and have some person that's got no accounting experience willing to charge $20 an hour just because they don't know any better? And then it's just [terrible?] quality and pushes everybody's prices down. That makes no sense." So that's sort of what I did to start with, pretty successfully. I was able to-- I've got a funny accent, which helps, right? People know it, you're recognizable. My name is not that usual. The name Zane is not something you bump into every single day. So I had a few things going for me at that standpoint. And then we'd obviously, through this period of time, been working with a lot of banks. So we had sort of got a little bit of reputation like, "Hey, these guys use Protea. We don't see them often, but when you do, we don't even have to think twice about the work." It's of great quality, they get it, they're responsive, which I think is a lot of the problem as well. Even to this day, the bank is like, "Hey, how do you know if I should make [it in production?]?" If you ask for accounting information, it takes a week to get it.
Stuart McLeod 00:24:13.071 That's a pretty good indication.
Zane Stevens 00:24:15.637 Because if you ask me, my team [has a knack for?] pulling an overnighter, getting it by 9:00 AM the next morning. Less than 24 hours. So that was my focus. From there, we went a little bit into social media. We've pushed there. We've done a few digital ads, some paper ads. Really, my big goal is brand recognition. When I get on a phone call with a potential winery, I don't want them to be like, "I went through a long [stay?]. Never heard of you guys." We're like, "Yeah, I've seen your name somewhere. Or I've heard from you from a friend." So that brand recognition, for me, was the most important, because I think when anybody goes into something like, "I've never heard of it. It's got to be new. It can't be that good." All of our sort of outreach is focused on brand recognition. And then my team's quality of work sort of sells it for me, so people-- you hear from a friend, you've done such great work for them, they don't have to worry about their financials, and that's the best marketing you can ask for, is just doing a good job.
Stuart McLeod 00:25:10.873 How much of your bookkeeping and accounting fees do you receive in contra?
Zane Stevens 00:25:16.045 Zero.
Stuart McLeod 00:25:16.744 Zero. Well done. That would be my downfall.
Zane Stevens 00:25:20.510 Yeah. I've actually never been offered product.
Stuart McLeod 00:25:24.023 Really? Wow.
Zane Stevens 00:25:25.700 Bookkeeping, which I thought-- it wouldn't be large, but it's never come up. Clients obviously send us thank yous, like, "Here's some wine." Especially during the COVID period of lockdowns, I had a few clients that'd be like, "I'm going to just drop some wine off for you guys. You got me PPP money. Thank you so much. Just going to drop it off. Just give me your address. I won't knock, just-- I'll send you a text later."
Stuart McLeod 00:25:45.336 I'm sure that's a benefit. So what's next for the business? There's a couple of sort of wine-focused accountants in the region, no doubt. But plenty of business to go around, I'm sure. Do you think that there'd be M&A opportunities there, or happy to grow organically? What's the plan?
Zane Stevens 00:26:05.738 So from a client focus, we're generally focusing on wineries of less than 10,000 cases, whereas there's 11,500 wineries in the US and 92% of them produce 10,000 cases or less. So there's a ton of people that need help out there, so there's a lot of room to grow. Growth is never our first priority, though. I'm always focusing on how do we continue to help our clients, how do we continue to give them a really good product, and how do we focus in on making sure that they have good accounting information to make good decisions? That being said, we've seen major growth. Since the start of the pandemic till now, we've seen the best growth in a long time. You used to get a lot of clients in that sort of 8 to 10 thousand case range, now we're more in the 2 to 6 thousand. So we've moved sort of down the scale in size and helping a lot more people. We've seen a lot of growth come in. Some winery accounting firms close down, take clients away from our competition, and that's how we've seen general growth. We believe it will continue. I mean, I've got a list of seven potential wineries that could start with us in the next week. I'm probably getting two to five referrals a week of new work, so the opportunities are there. We've been very fortunate this year. We have hired at least one person a month since December 2021, which is just crazy. I wouldn't even believe that-- that was impossible. And those hires are new positions. We're not replacing people. Our turnover is low. It's not zero, but it is really low. We try and make it a really good place to work.
Zane Stevens 00:27:35.025 My general talk to everybody is, "I will continue to do this while I'm having fun." And I'm having fun, so I will continue to do this. That doesn't mean there hasn't been people reach out and offers come in the door. I think this type of-- this current market, there's a lot of-- I mean, I get daily phone calls, like, "I'm from an M&A firm." Yeah, that's not real. There's some more hard, like, "Hey, we really are interested." But it's a difficult place, right, to sell an accounting firm. It's not the most profitable thing in the world, right? The deals aren't great. The cellar winery is a 10 to 20 multiple of revenue, whereas an accounting firm is like if you get one, you're [inaudible] and they're going to pay it over the next four years to you. So I will never-- for the right opportunity that I think makes a lot of sense for my team as well as my clients, I would consider it, but I just don't see that at any time in the short term. I'm planning for our 10-year anniversary right now. A year and a half away from it, but I'm getting excited for that. I think that would be a massive milestone. To tell the truth, I had no idea this damn thing would work. Literally, I didn't even know it was a business when I first thought of that. I thought it was a business unit, and now we've got over 140 clients, 36 team members and growing. It's fun. We're doing really good work. Our clients are super happy with what we're doing. We're helping a lot of people, and I just want to be a part of it. I'm just excited. I've got a wonderful team. They really are all great. Not great all the time.
Stuart McLeod 00:29:09.355 Sure, sure, sure. Is there a story with a client that comes to mind that sort of helped over the years, that has seen great growth or great achievements, or just survived the hard times through COVID?
Zane Stevens 00:29:22.307 Yeah. I mean, we've got a winery that at a point in time was the fastest growing winery in the US. We started with them when they were a 8,000-case winery. They had this concept of how they're going to grow their business, very unique story. We're still involved with them. They've brought parts of it in-house. Those people are left and we've had to stay there and stabilize the whole building. We're helping them grow all time. I think they're forecasting to be 360,000 cases this year. So we've been with them from the beginning and we're still a vital part of the team, so that's always a nice one. Early on, we had a couple of great scenarios where we took on a client and then the first week one of the team members was like, "They double paid this person." What do you mean? There's two payments to this person for $10,000. The contract says it was $10,000. I'm like, "When did that happen?" Six months ago.
Stuart McLeod 00:30:11.633 Oh, no.
Zane Stevens 00:30:13.519 And they reached out and the person is like, "Oh, yeah, I saw that. I wasn't sure why you paid me twice, but it is what it is." And so we got $10,000 in that winery's pocket straight away. And then there's just some nice stories, right? I've got a client up in Oregon where, when we took it over, it wasn't that the previous person was doing things poorly. They were just slow. They'd fallen really far behind, mostly due to-- they had some illness. And we went in there, we did some clean-up, we got the books done, and when we sent them that first set of matching accounts, it was probably three or four months into the project. He sent me this email that just said, "I'm so thankful to get this sort of matching account. I haven't been able to understand if we're making a profit or not for almost two years now." And it's just like-- he had a sense of what it is, but to [have?] that hard piece of paper that says, "Yes, you're making a profit", I think was just a major relief on their shoulders. And then we've got some good news stories. We had a client that was sold this year. I think that March 30th was the official date of it, and they went through the diligence, they sold to a listed group, and the financial side of it was really simple. The buying entity didn't have too many questions, because the books were really in order. So from the banker type side, they're like, "It made our life a lot easier. Now we're really just talking about strategy and markets and wine-making rather than the accounting, because the accounting is what can hold these deals up." So because we could move through that really quickly, it made the whole process so much easier.
Stuart McLeod 00:31:44.021 Yeah. The story is fascinating. I love the immigrant aspects, coming from South Africa into disrupting a traditional-- well, it is a pretty traditional Napa wine. The industry in California is pretty traditional and pretty staid, and you've done an amazing job in tapping into that and creating a fantastic and successful business. So Zane, we really appreciate you appearing on the Accounting Leaders podcast and sharing that story with you. Sorry my picture is gone at the end there. I'm struggling technically today. I really do congratulate you and Candice and the whole team on such a fantastic effort and the company that you've been able to create, the firm that you've been able to establish and do such great work for the wine industry, which helps alcoholics like us, which is just a very important aspect of society during difficult times like COVID. So congratulations on your success. If there's anything that we can do, never hesitate to reach out.
Zane Stevens 00:32:49.260 Yeah. I mean, I always feel like it's a really simple story. Do good work and be successful and anybody that's thinking of even trying to get into their own accounting practice or want to consult in the accounting page, it's that simple. Do good work and you will be successful. Accounting, at the end of the day, is a fairly simple thing. You just have to do it well.
Stuart McLeod 00:33:09.104 When you enjoy helping people and you do that through good work, it makes the world go round.
Zane Stevens 00:33:14.567 Yeah. And then, we're really fortunate to stumble on Karbon at a point in time as well which, for me, was a lifesaver and made a big difference in our practice as well.
Stuart McLeod 00:33:23.836 Only too glad to help out. Zane Stevens, thank you for joining the Accounting Leaders podcast.
Zane Stevens 00:33:29.126 Thanks, Stuart.
Stuart McLeod 00:33:36.804 Thanks for listening to this episode. If you found this discussion interesting, fun, you'll find lots more to help you run a successful accounting firm at Karbon Magazine. There are more than 1,000 free resources there, including guides, articles, templates, webinars, and more. Just head to karbonhq.com/resources. I'd also love it if you could leave us a five-star review. Wherever you listen to this podcast, let us know you like this session. We'll be able to keep bringing you more guests for you to learn from and get inspired by. Thanks for joining and see you on the next episode of the Accounting Leaders podcast.