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Karen Reyburn is no stranger to change. She grew up in Arizona yet found her home-away-from-home in Scotland. She began her career as an auditor but discovered her true spark in marketing—a realization that ultimately led her to founding The Profitable Firm, a creative agency dedicated to serving accountants. In this episode, Karen shares her journey of living in two worlds, the power of marketing for accountants, and her growth philosophy of 'better over more'.
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: 00:00:06.326 [music] 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. [music]
Rachel: 00:00:21.087 Today, we're joined by Karen Reyburn, founder and MD of The Profitable Firm, a creative agency working exclusively with accountants. Karen started her career in accounting, but found her passion in marketing along the way. Through The Profitable Firm, Karen gets to flex her creative and accounting muscles by coaching accountants on how to better market their firm. She's a dual British American citizen and lives in the beautiful country of Scotland. It's our pleasure to welcome to the Accounting Leaders Podcast, Karen Reyburn.
Stuart: 00:00:53.379 Karen Reyburn, welcome to the Accounting Leaders Podcast.
Karen: 00:00:56.870 Thanks. [laughter] Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Stuart: 00:00:59.547 My wife would be very upset with me if I didn't open with this. [laughter] We have never been to Scotland, but we-- you know where this is going, don't you?
Karen: 00:01:08.021 Of course. [laughter] [inaudible] so many beautiful things. [laughter]
Stuart: 00:01:14.761 Firstly, I feel like we've lived on Shetland, having seen the series multiple times. [laughter]
Karen: 00:01:20.491 Yes. Yeah. I tell you, the highlands and islands, whew, glorious. [laughter] I'm just so glad that I live here. [laughter]
Stuart: 00:01:29.125 And tell me the thought process in how you've ended up there and perhaps part of the-- well, let's go through the journey [inaudible].
Karen: 00:01:37.625 Yeah. I was going to say, as with all journeys, life, business owner, and they all begin to merge, I moved to Scotland. I mean, it'll be 21 years ago now. So this is my home. This is my country. I'm a dual British American citizen. And originally, I just came for a couple of weeks. [laughter] I just came and there was an organization I was helping out doing some charity work, and I just came and I really did connect with the country. And especially after so many years and so much travel, I believe we can connect with countries and the culture of a country without necessarily knowing why at first. And I would say if you had asked me 20 years ago, like, "What exactly is it?" I could have thrown around some things. It's a beautiful country. I love the welcoming nature of the people. I love the highlands and the wide open spaces. But you wouldn't fully be able to understand it until many years gone by, and you dig into the underneath of what it is that it represents that's for you, specifically, and that is different for everyone. Almost anyone I know loves Scotland. They come and it's beautiful and they fall for it. But there's a big difference in coming and loving it and going, "I love that so much. I'm going to spend some more time there."
Karen: 00:03:00.760 Didn't originally plan to live here this long. I literally was going to come, get a job, live here for a couple of years, and then go back to America. That was the big plan. And then I got a job at an accountancy firm because I'm a qualified accountant in the states, and they had an opening for an auditor that was my experience. It all just worked out perfectly. And then after three years, I was like, "Well, [laughter] I'm not ready to go back yet. Maybe I'll just stay a little longer." [laughter] And then I stayed two more years, and then I got my residency, then I got my citizenship, then I bought a house, then I started PF. And [laughter] at one point, you finally go, "I think this might be my place now." So yeah, it's been a long journey. And as with most journeys, some things you just figure out along the way and weren't intentional. Other things you can see how your path has been led. And for me, this mixture of accounting and creativity has always been part of the journey. But yeah, this is my home, and I love it. And I always say if I could grab my family members, my sisters and my nieces and nephews and just drop them into Scotland, I'd have all the things, but we don't always get all the things.
Stuart: 00:04:12.063 [crosstalk]-- [laughter]
Karen: 00:04:14.949 Yeah. Honestly, I think they would be happy to come here as well, so. [laughter]
Stuart: 00:04:20.741 Well, let's go back a bit-- let's circle all the way back to some of that, but. So you grew up whereabouts?
Karen: 00:04:27.923 Well, I was born in California and grew up in Arizona. So we moved--
Stuart: 00:04:31.383 [crosstalk]--
Karen: 00:04:31.587 --there when I was young. And so I grew up there, went to university in Arizona, decided to study accountancy, [laughter] mostly because my accountancy classes were the most challenging, the most interesting compared to all my other ones, and I found myself going, "Oh, yeah, really, it makes me think and wonder, and there's a system, and it makes sense." And I didn't really want to be an accountant, but I was fascinated by the knowledge that accounting data gave you and I thought, "Well, whatever I do, this has got to be a good thing," which turns out that's true. And then worked as an auditor for a while in Arizona until I came to Scotland.
Stuart: 00:05:13.784 And so were you UA, University of Arizona Wildcats fan?
Karen: 00:05:17.618 NAU, Lumberjacks.
Stuart: 00:05:18.983 Oh [crosstalk]. [laughter] Lumberjacks. There you go.
Karen: 00:05:21.966 So I was up North in Arizona, which I really liked, having grown up in areas in Phoenix, very desert, very dry, very hot, to live in a place that had seasons. Phoenix's seasons are hot and less hot, and Flagstaff actually had trees that changed color, snow, wind, and rain, sometimes within five minutes, hence, that's what I get in Scotland as well.
Stuart: 00:05:46.620 That's the Commonwealth countries that's four seasons in one day--
Karen: 00:05:49.069 Yes. Good point.
Stuart: 00:05:50.381 --if you follow [inaudible].
Karen: 00:05:51.301 Yeah, or five minutes. Yeah, [laughter] you look outside-- I mean, literally this morning, I went out for a walk in the pouring rain and now it's lovely. Lovely and blue skies and some clouds, so. Yeah.
Stuart: 00:06:01.622 [crosstalk] the changes, the fall season, autumn, we would say from my home country, but the colors are just amazing [crosstalk] at the moment in the mountains. [laughter]
Karen: 00:06:12.313 Yes. Yeah, I love it. And I did really enjoy in Flagstaff being in the mountains. So you can go skiing. They've got a lot of hiking. I really enjoyed that. And there's an element of that that I quite like about Scotland. I particularly love the highlands and the islands where the mountains and the ruggedness and the-- it's nothing that's too tidy and I like that about Scotland.
Stuart: 00:06:37.784 Skiing in Flagstaff, you got Snowbowl, is it?
Karen: 00:06:41.896 Yep, Snowbowl. I went snowboarding there, loved snowboarding, oh, my word. [laughter] One of those that I wished I could sort of get into it more. I basically fell for eight hours straight--
Stuart: 00:06:52.533 Yes, [crosstalk].
Karen: 00:06:53.983 --and at the end of the day went, "Let's do it again." [laughter]
Stuart: 00:06:58.513 The first day of snowboarding-- well, [laughter] you know the difference between a snowboard instructor and a snowboarder, don't you?
Karen: 00:07:07.767 Why don't you tell me?
Stuart: 00:07:08.515 About three days, but. [laughter]
Karen: 00:07:12.582 I think that's probably fair. [laughter]
Stuart: 00:07:15.351 Snowboarding is a way to-- is a skill to get further. I think, in winter sports, it brings a lot more people into the mountains and I think it's fantastic.
Karen: 00:07:25.706 I think there was something about the challenge of snowboarding that I-- I'm a pretty stubborn person. So it was like, I saw how it could work, I felt how it could work, but I wasn't getting it to work. But my instructor, my three days instructor, most likely, was like, [laughter] "You've got to just keep at it and you're going to need to fall a lot." He set good expectations, "You're just going to fall a lot." So I thought, "That's fine." And I think the last hour of the day, it finally just clicked, and I'm like, "[inaudible]," just having the time of my life. So, yeah, I enjoyed that.
Stuart: 00:08:01.581 So straight out of Flagstaff or Northern Arizona into work, was it?
Karen: 00:08:06.794 Yeah, yeah. So I left NAU and graduated, and the job I got was with the State of Arizona working as an auditor. So we audited the state organizations like--
Stuart: 00:08:17.227 [crosstalk] the politicians? [laughter]
Karen: 00:08:19.863 Anything owned by the state. Any organization by the state. So there was an audit of the whole State of Arizona.
Stuart: 00:08:26.874 That would have been [crosstalk]--
Karen: 00:08:27.556 There would be audits of the hospitals or whatever it is that's owned by them that we would do. And then you would go on different ones. I did one on the county fairgrounds. I spent nine months in Yuma. There was a whole fraud issue that we had to deal with. And so we had to do three years of audits back to back because it hadn't been done, and I did that with the team. So I did enjoy it. I found it challenging, but after four years of doing that, I was getting a little bored, and I had moved pretty quickly. I'd become the youngest senior that they had, and I just found myself being like, "That's it? Is this what I'm doing?" And there were people who worked for the State of Arizona as auditors and just kind of moved slowly through that and they'd been there 20 years, and I don't think that'll be me. And my decision to go to Scotland had nothing to do with job, accounting, anything. I just went there almost for a break, really, [laughter] and--
Stuart: 00:09:25.999 [crosstalk]--
Karen: 00:09:27.071 Yeah. I'd been working 10 hour days, just building up all this extra time off. So I actually got 10 weeks off, and I had built up so much time that they were able to essentially keep me on as a part time employee while I was gone, and then I came back and still had a job, which was very gracious of them, and I appreciated it, so. But then I came back and went, "Yeah, I want to move to Scotland." And my boss is like, "Okay. So do you have family there?" [laughter] "Nope." "Do you have a job?" "Nope." "Do you have a place to say?" "Yeah, I have some friends that are going to put me up." And it was one of those things you do in your 20s, and that was partly why I did it, was, I could. And it is funny looking back when you're like, "Okay, this could be my only chance." And you don't know that you're going to move there, live there, become a citizen, buy a house, start a business, run it for-- you don't know, and that's part of the fun.
Stuart: 00:10:19.578 It becomes much harder in life to institute change, doesn't it? Family, kids, partners, whatever--
Karen: 00:10:26.304 Or just feeling tired.
Stuart: 00:10:26.315 --the complexities that you introduce to [laughter] [crosstalk]--
Karen: 00:10:28.571 [crosstalk]. I was telling somebody recently, I was like, "Oh, no, I'm getting to that stage where I just want to go to the same place on holiday." [laughter]
Stuart: 00:10:37.746 [crosstalk]--
Karen: 00:10:38.496 [crosstalk]--
Stuart: 00:10:39.111 Yes. [crosstalk]--
Karen: 00:10:39.991 I was like, "I'm one of those people." [laughter] Because I'm like, "Oh, it'd be nice to go to this country or that country." That's a lot of energy. That's a lot of work. That's a different language. Maybe I'll just go back to the Isle of Mull, because I love it, so. [laughter]
Stuart: 00:10:54.773 Your introduction to Scotland, you felt very at home and obviously met people that you had affinity with and started then sort of looking around at what the accounting scene looked like, I guess.
Karen: 00:11:08.891 Yeah. And I mean, as I said, I got the job at an accountancy firm, first, because I just wanted to be here in Scotland, wanted to get a job. It worked out. That's a whole long story, very, very long.
Stuart: 00:11:18.689 [crosstalk] no visa issues.
Karen: 00:11:20.664 Yeah. So the short version is I contacted all the accountancy firms in the sort of local area where I happened to be. And so happened to find one who had been looking for an auditor for nine months. They needed to apply for a work permit, so that was all complex, but again, I had all the qualifications that they-- just everything. Sometimes things just work together. And I won't pretend that it was so easy. I worked my ass off on it and there were challenges. But the things that we did worked. And they got the work permit approved. I came into the country. So I went back to America, they got the work permit and I came into the country with the work permit, okay? Now I'm in as a resident. So I was tied to the work permit, and that was really interesting because if anything had not worked out with that firm, back to America I go because my ability to be here was connected to that. But at the time, that didn't matter to me because I was like, "Oh, I'll be here for a couple of years. I'll be fine."
Stuart: 00:12:23.616 See how you're doing.
Karen: 00:12:24.137 And at the end of the three years work permit, we had an opportunity to renew it for two, and we kind of went, "Yeah, let's do that. I think I'll stick around." But at the end of the five years, the accountancy firm, I was running their-- by then I was running their consultancy division. We'd set up a whole consultancy business to do advisory work and run business development seminars at the time, like in a local hotel, and we'd have business owners come in. And so I was doing all of that, I was doing all of their marketing, and I was enjoying all of that, but then for various reasons, they decided they just wanted to go back to basic compliance. They didn't want to have a big consulting arm. They didn't want to do any of-- even though we had had great success with it, we had doubled their turnover, quadrupled their profits, there was a lot that was good, that wasn't what they wanted. And they said you can be an auditor again, I'm like, "No thanks." [laughter]
Stuart: 00:13:20.894 No thanks. [laughter]
Karen: 00:13:21.740 I've kind of had a taste of something I enjoy better, and so I ended up going to work for a-- it was a network of accountants that that firm was a member of, so I knew them and had worked with them, gone to their conferences. And when they knew that I was available, they're like, "Can you come and work for us?" So I ran their European division. So they had European division, Asia-Pacific, and America. I ran the European division.
Stuart: 00:13:48.996 Which one was that? Alinea or something like that, was it?
Karen: 00:13:51.873 It was called RAN One Consulting Group.
Stuart: 00:13:54.302 RAN One.
Karen: 00:13:54.687 ROCG. So RAN One was started by-- well, back in the Results Accountants' Network days it was Paul Dunn, Jim McCarley, set up RAN One, and I worked with Jim and his son, Mike. And then Mike owned the European division, and then that's the one that I managed. So I did everything for that. Mike ended up going to Bali, and that's where RAN One was held. And I did that for five years as well. I've began to notice I have a little five year--
Stuart: 00:14:26.948 Yes, yes, [crosstalk]--
Karen: 00:14:28.048 --pattern here. [laughter]
Stuart: 00:14:29.268 Everything's in five year chunks. That's all right. No worries. [laughter]
Karen: 00:14:32.109 Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's nice when you realize that. It was funny this year, I was realizing this year was a five year sort of marker and last year I'm like, "Oh, no, I don't think the five year thing is done."
Stuart: 00:14:42.102 Yeah, [crosstalk]-- [laughter]
Karen: 00:14:42.479 But it's not really because this year I finally finished my book. So that was my five year thing.
Stuart: 00:14:48.524 And so rolling along in the partner network and going to Bali for free every year, and--
Karen: 00:14:55.061 I did go [laughter] just the one time, but it was a great visit. [laughter] Did enjoy that. And yeah, it was good, and I learned a lot and I got to work with loads of accountants. So all of my clients were accountants and I helped them. But at the end of that five year period, there was some software that they were using that they were putting as a web app, but they also had as a downloadable one, and there were some challenges with that that were just taking a long time for the transition. Yeah. I was struggling a little with being able to best serve our clients with a desktop software that wasn't being supported, but the new web app wasn't quite working. And I think to be fair, looking back, I was hitting that five year mark of, there's something. At that point, I realized for various reasons that-- I looked around and didn't see anyone who was helping accountants do the marketing work in a custom way.
Karen: 00:15:51.292 So there were people who would be like, "Here's some generic stuff, edit it." There were loads of people telling accountants what to do and consulting them saying, "You need a new brand. You need a new website." But for somebody to actually say, "For accountants and accountants alone, we'll help you build your brand, we'll help you build your website, we'll write the blog post, we'll help you do the webinars, we'll literally be your outsource marketing agency," I didn't see anyone doing that and I wanted to help accountants get the stuff done. And I had been advising accountants for five years and they're going, "Well, where do I go?" And I'm like, "Well, I hope that goes well. Do you have any clients?" And so to be able to move from that to, "We are the people who do this," that worked really well. But classic me, set it up me with my laptop and second bedroom of my flat and see how it goes, a couple freelancers, and it went well. [laughter] And I realized that the more structured we were in our approach to figure out what works for accountants, the more effective it was for them, the more profitable for us, more profitable for them, everybody wins.
Stuart: 00:16:56.909 One of the things that you probably would have come across early is a lot of accountants that we experience are not chasing growth for growth's sake. They're very happy with sort of their path in life, and marketing can be a foreign concept.
Karen: 00:17:14.752 Yep, absolutely. [laughter] I really like the fact that many accountants aren't chasing growth for growth's sake. I was telling somebody recently, one of the things I just love so much about working with accountants is they have this remarkable sense of loyalty and commitment and family-orientated and relationship building and honesty and integrity, at least the ones we work with, [laughter] and those are the people we choose to work with. But it's a remarkable set of qualities and it does mean that when it comes to marketing, if things are ticking along pretty well, they might be thinking, "Well, I don't really need to worry about marketing too much." But what has happened over the years is they've realized, as the business owner, it is their job to worry about marketing, and also the more competitive things get, they need to worry about it in the sense of, are we attracting the right kind of clients? So one of our big sort of flagship phrases at PF is, "Better not more." Or, "Better rather than more." Instead of focusing on more leads, more numbers, fill the funnel, it's, how do we get the best clients, the ones that we love working with? One of our clients said to me-- when I first started writing my book and I was asking her just for some thoughts on her journey, and she said, "I realized we were working with some clients that we didn't like, doing work we didn't enjoy, not making money on it." And--
Stuart: 00:18:46.183 [crosstalk]-- [laughter]
Karen: 00:18:46.484 --that's not how it's supposed to work.
Stuart: 00:18:47.791 No, no, no.
Karen: 00:18:49.161 And I said, "No, when you do your marketing right, not only does it relieve you from the burdens, whatever burdens you've got in the firm, but you get to work with clients you love, doing work you enjoy, making money that fits the value of what you're delivering, which allows you to do what you want to do." So the big appeal for all of the clients that we work with is they're not coming to us for the quick wins and the fast results and, "Can we get 10 new clients tomorrow?" There are other people who help with the faster approach and the little things, that's not our bag. We do best with-- the right way is the long way, the organic content, the quality, intentional, consistent marketing that truly reflects the firm, so the very best clients come and everybody else goes away.
Stuart: 00:19:38.248 Yeah. And they reliance and referral is stronger than ever, right? [laughter]
Karen: 00:19:43.648 I would say, yes, and also what accountancy firms are realizing is that just because somebody has been referred doesn't mean that you can skip the website, the content, the videos, the prospect process, the diagnostic, the diagrams, and that's been really helpful. There was some research that was done by the Hinge Marketing Institute that showed that 48.5% of buyers who had been referred to accounting and finance companies never got in touch. Because they came to the website, they came to the socials, they came to it and went, "Eh, I'll do it later. Not urgent enough. I'm not sure if this is the person or firm." And that statistic matters so much because, yeah, you get a lot of accountants going, "I don't need to bother with marketing because we get referrals." Well, you're missing half of your referrals, potentially, because they still check you out. That's what everybody does. I got referred to three solicitors when I was looking at putting an offer on a house, and I got referred to three solicitors in the area, and what was the first thing I did?
Stuart: 00:20:53.414 Have a look at the website.
Karen: 00:20:53.711 I got their phone numbers. That's what they gave me, [laughter] which I thought was hilarious. It's 2022 people. And then I looked them up, Googled the name of the firm, went to the firm, and what was the first page I went to besides the homepage? The about page. I want to see the person that I would be working with. Do they look like a nice person? Do they seem like somebody I could get on with? It's sort of subconscious, but that's what we do. And then I emailed all three of them. I did. But the way that they responded, and not one of them, to be fair, had a, "This is how it works. This is what happens first. This is what happens next. These are the sort of costs that you may need to consider. I realize we're going to need to talk to you." And that whole approach, that professional services concept-- I know those were solicitors, but the same thing applies to accountants, because the buyer isn't coming going, "I wonder if they do management accounts. I wonder if they do payroll." They're like, "Honestly, I know you're an accountant and you do accounting stuff. How do I get in touch? How does the process work? How much might it cost or how do we even get to the cost part? How do I know that that has been calculated well and isn't a number you've plucked out of the air? How do I trust you? How do I know that you know what you're doing?" And we're passionate about helping the accountants to reveal all of this greatness. So many accountants are so great at what they do, but their websites are not showing it. Their brand is kind of blah. And they know this, but it doesn't feel like a priority. So a lot of what we do is education to help them understand that addressing these foundational things will then help the right clients to find them and buy faster, and the wrong ones for them to go away.
Stuart: 00:22:44.741 Have you got some stories of clients that The Profitable Firm has worked with that has really turned their business around?
Karen: 00:22:53.799 Yeah, so many stories. And actually, my marketing director and I were talking about that this morning. We have so many stories and we've started to share some of them, but we know we have more that we can share and better. I'd say that the top couple clients that come to mind are firms that have followed that consistent sort of marketing map journey process where they come and learn about how accounting works, they address their foundational areas, their goals, their brand, their website, their marketing plan, and then they work with us. They do some, we do some, we collaborate together on consistent, organic content that reflects their firm, their team, their clients' questions, the onboarding process, the buyer process, all of this, and when they do that, they achieve the goals that they set. So we have one firm who is in our Accelerator coaching group who let go of 240 clients because they were the wrong sort of clients. They weren't making money on them. They didn't enjoy it. They were niching in a specific area. They needed to focus on that. That was a win for her. She was like, "Okay, that is not what I was expecting to get out of match-getting coaching group, but that was a big win for me." Then another firm who was just starting up. Sometimes we have startups who come to us and we think, "Well, are they going to be investing in their marketing?" And this particular firm, again, realized who she wanted to work with, invest in her brand and website, and she was like, "Listen, I want to have 10 clients in the first three months." And she was at 29. So for her, that was her win--
Stuart: 00:24:33.323 That was her success. Yeah.
Karen: 00:24:34.157 --which may seem small, but it was massive for her. And then we have another firm we've been working with for five or six years who have 15 offices, 100 or 150 team members. They've got clients all over the place. They work with a lot of farmers. A lot of their partners are farmers. They have all these connections and they do consistently the practical things of a really good magazine that we help them design and put together and put out every quarter. They have a special one for farmers, a separate one. They run live events. They run webinars. They bring people in to teach them about Xero or whatever accounting software. They send updates. They keep their clients updated and they connect that with that beautiful personal connection of having the people around. They had a hilarious social post of, at Christmas time, somebody brought a donkey in. [laughter]
Stuart: 00:25:30.175 As you do.
Karen: 00:25:30.292 Literally brought in a donkey, [laughter] as you do. And I thought that this is very fitting, but it's fitting with what that firm is because they work with people who have donkeys. So why wouldn't you bring your accounts in on a donkey for a laugh?
Stuart: 00:25:41.702 [crosstalk]. Yep. Yep. Yep.
Karen: 00:25:43.585 Yeah, it's Christmas. Yeah, [crosstalk]--
Stuart: 00:25:44.612 Or that the animals have a habit of going viral these days.
Karen: 00:25:48.087 Oh, my word.
Stuart: 00:25:49.178 [crosstalk]--
Karen: 00:25:49.253 I mean, you want to go-- we've had accountants say like, "Oh, how do we go viral?" I'm like, "TikTok dances and puppies." [laughter]
Stuart: 00:25:56.245 [crosstalk]--
Karen: 00:25:56.597 Honestly, what more could you ask for? [laughter]
Stuart: 00:25:57.862 [inaudible] donkey and stick them out there, though. [crosstalk] muse, I think it's.
Karen: 00:26:03.870 I know. It's amazing. And speaking of TikTok, it's been amazing. We've got a number of clients who have started using TikTok to just share their knowledge about accounts, and we have one client who messaged us after doing TikTok himself. We were helping him with some content in his website, but he was doing these TikTok videos, and he's like, "I'm getting five inquiries a week from TikTok." [laughter]
Stuart: 00:26:32.207 He's going to have to dial it back.
Karen: 00:26:32.725 And it was just like-- it fit for him. Well, that's the other thing with marketing, is it's really tempting, I would say for accountants but I think this is for everybody, to try to figure out what the trick is. What's the answer? What's the thing? And I'm like, "Well, there's a lot of things that we could tell you to do." I mean, my top two are always, write custom blog posts regularly, at least weekly, and record and share videos. If that's all that you did, you would absolutely get better results, better clients, better connection. But that being said, some people, TikTok works great for. Some people Instagram is great because of their audience. Some people LinkedIn is better or Twitter is better or no social media. But it's about that authenticity, really just showing who you actually are so that the buyer doesn't have to wonder.
Stuart: 00:27:25.573 Yeah. Let's dig into some names. Just looking on your website for a bit, but what about Georgi from Starfish Accounting? Her story sounds pretty--
Karen: 00:27:35.497 Well, Georgi's, I can unequivocally say one of my faves. I definitely remember. Actually, Georgi is the one who said about, "We realized we were working with clients-- we didn't enjoy doing work. We didn't love not making money on it." Not overall, but in certain areas. And so one of the first things we do with the firm is something called foundations, where we look at, what are your goals for your firm and yourself? So that we know what marketing actions to do. What is your brand? Not just your name and logo, but what do you stand for? What are your values, colors, tone, all this? How is that represented on your website? And what's the plan? What are you going to be doing? And what was really interesting about Georgi is she came to us and said, "I actually thought I didn't have to worry about marketing because I didn't want a more quantity of leads. We had plenty of leads. And then I realized, were they the best leads? And were we converting them? And were they becoming the best clients? No. So that's what we needed help with." And she realized that marketing was more than she thought it was. So we went through the foundations with her. And then they just slowly steadily updated their logo and brand, updated their website, added real photographs of the team, started creating content. We create some [inaudible] with them. They create some, they do social media.
Karen: 00:28:59.645 I remember her being on one of our social media trainings and I suggested that she start posting more regularly on Instagram because of the kind of clients that they have. And I said, "Just give it a try. I'm not making promises, but that could be one way to connect more personally." And she has stuck at it, and you go to her social and Starfish's social, and they're present, they're real, they're their selves. If you go to their offices, you recognize it. And they have moved out of their client list, any of the clients that they didn't like, didn't get on with, weren't profitable, were difficult, and that changed their whole prospecting process as well. So now, they don't waste time on the leads that aren't a fit and they're able to convert them faster, and now they have a whole onboarding system, which is better, because I remember she said that to me in the early days, "We want to be able to have a onboarding system that is clear and that we follow." And this takes time. They've been working with us for a couple of years and she was sharing, they've definitely been achieving their sales and profit goals, but more importantly, the type of clients, and they're enjoying those types of clients, being more clear on the kind of clients they want.
Stuart: 00:30:10.064 And all of that makes for a more enjoyable business journey, right?
Karen: 00:30:14.256 Yes. [laughter] Just loving what you do, loving-- I was talking to an accountant the other day who said that he looked at his calendar and saw that he had a call with me and went, "Oh, good. Oh, that's nice." [laughter] And then I said, "Well, do you do that every day with whoever's on your calendar?" And he's like, "No, not really." And I said, "Well, yeah, that's something to look at." Because that for me is a goal to look at my diary every morning and go, "Oh, yay, oh, I get to talk to that person," in the main. You're going to have one or two that are difficult [laughter] or challenging. But that's what we want for our accountants, is what we work to practice ourselves. We don't take on every accountant who comes to us. And certainly some people who come to us aren't ready or are still figuring out what they want. But we also have a client acceptance program based on the values that somebody portrays. And if in the prospect process, we realize that we're not talking the same language about marketing, it can go one of two ways. They could say, "Oh, okay, I get it now," and ask lots of great questions, and we get there. Or they might go, "That's not what I want. I just want these fast results." And we're like, "That's fine. That's not who we are." So we've gotten a lot more confident in who we work with and a lot of it has to do with mindset and values. As I said, we've got startups. We've got more medium-sized firms. I'd say, probably not larger firms. We tend to work best with firms that have one to two partners so they can make decisions quickly.
Stuart: 00:31:47.260 Yes. So things can go a bit faster.
Karen: 00:31:47.958 Then maybe have, [laughter] yeah, 10 to 50 employees, that kind of thing. Because once you have 4, 8, 12 partners, the tiniest decision takes three months and great approvals, and I'm not sure if 900 pounds is a lot of money, that sort of thing. And then you've got this startup accountant that's like, "Yep, let's go." Ready to spend 10 grand on my brand or whatever it be, so.
Stuart: 00:32:11.620 Yep. Yep. The clients that you work with, all over the world or have you got some Scottish Highlands accountants? [laughter]
Karen: 00:32:20.573 We do. One of the clients I mentioned the startup, Karen Kennedy, she's up in the Scottish Highlands.
Stuart: 00:32:25.777 There you go.
Karen: 00:32:26.055 And that was one of the beautiful things about working with her, is she realized that she's very much about community and her brand needed to reflect that she is there as part of her community, she connects to the people, the local companies. She and her husband built a self-catering cottage near their house that looks out over the Eilean Donan Castle, and I mean-- honestly, you can't make this stuff up. It's just glorious. I went there and saw her at her house and I just stood there and looked out at all this stuff that I've seen on her Instagram, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this is for real. This is actually what it is." But she set up the firm herself and now people are coming to her because she gets them, and she lives there, and she plays shinty, and her kids [laughter] are there at the weekends and they go walking the Scottish Highlands. And she was one of the ones-- she went through our 100 day video challenge and posted a video on Instagram every day for 100 days. And now she's in this pattern, she does it not every day, but regularly. That's where she gets a lot of her leads, Instagram and TikTok and Reels, and she [laughter] shamelessly uses her children, which--
Stuart: 00:33:37.660 Why not?
Karen: 00:33:37.712 --if you want to and are willing to, I'm telling you, little boys with funny facial expressions [laughter] is a great way to get connection for her because of her audience, so yeah. So we work with accountants all over the globe. Our team, there's 18 creatives that work at PF and the team are in UK, US, South Africa, Hungary, Argentina. We've got all these different sort of regions, and our clients are all over the world because really the core issues that accountants face with marketing is the same across the world. The difference is every accountancy firm will experience it a little differently because of who they are and who their culture is. But that's also why we created these regions, like the US region. There are different challenges that the US firms have, and our US team understand those, I wouldn't say, better, but maybe faster, [laughter] and I'm zones, which is easier to book a call with your--
Stuart: 00:34:34.952 Put the dice there the right way.
Karen: 00:34:36.830 Yeah. [laughter] Yes, exactly.
Stuart: 00:34:38.999 [crosstalk]--
Karen: 00:34:39.595 We do have hilarious conversation in the team Slack about like, "Do people say this in America? Why do people say that in Britain?"
Stuart: 00:34:47.858 Yeah, yeah, no, it's all [crosstalk].
Karen: 00:34:48.093 We've good conversations on those. Yeah.
Stuart: 00:34:51.583 Got to teach them what a fortnight is.
Karen: 00:34:53.535 Yep. That's right. [laughter] And not the gaming, but.
Stuart: 00:34:56.341 Not the gaming one. [laughter] No, the two week one. Yeah. [laughter]
Karen: 00:34:59.742 I'm trying to think of one. We had a massive conversation about biscuits. First, what a biscuit is, the difference there in America and the UK.
Stuart: 00:35:08.564 Scones or biscuits? [crosstalk]--
Karen: 00:35:09.306 But then the types of biscuits. [laughter] Yeah, scones, biscuits, Jammie Dodgers. People are like, "What is that?"
Stuart: 00:35:17.168 I haven't come across that one.
Karen: 00:35:18.706 Have you not? Oh, Jammie Dodgers are good. Empire Biscuits, those are one of my favorites in Scotland. Jammie Dodgers are basically almost like an Empire Biscuit, but they have jam in the middle and then a little love heart.
Stuart: 00:35:29.805 I'll have to hunt them out. The--
Karen: 00:35:31.192 Yeah. You have to put that on your list.
Stuart: 00:35:32.883 Boot and trunk, obviously.
Karen: 00:35:35.098 No, I got nothing.
Stuart: 00:35:35.815 The car boot. You'd be [crosstalk]--
Karen: 00:35:37.348 Oh, boot and trunk. Oh, right. I was like, "Is this a biscuit?" [laughter]
Stuart: 00:35:40.399 I know. [laughter]
Karen: 00:35:42.845 I'm fascinated by the boot and trunk [inaudible], yes. No, absolutely. And I had to learn all those things coming over from America. And I remember telling someone, when I originally moved here, I did not at that time think I was going to live here, become a citizen. But I remember consciously thinking, "Well, if I'm going to be here, I'm going to be all in. I'm not going to do one of these where I insist on calling it a cell phone or a parking lot, because I'm here, and everybody calls it a mobile and a car park and a whatever. So that's what I'm going to do while I'm here." And I'm really glad I did because I think otherwise you can separate yourself so much that you're not even trying to enter into [crosstalk]--
Stuart: 00:36:21.333 Sort of like not adjusting to Daylight Saving Time, right? [laughter] I'm going to stick it out.
Karen: 00:36:27.426 I mean, I come from Arizona, who is-- I think Arizona is the last holdout state that does not do daylight savings.
Stuart: 00:36:34.571 Oh, there you go.
Karen: 00:36:35.591 All the other states do. [laughter] So half the year, my family is seven hours behind, and the other half, they're eight hours.
Stuart: 00:36:43.380 Well, yes. If they're in Arizona, that's true. But see, we have the extra hour mostly from here. We're in that funny couple of weeks at the moment where it's only seven hours not six.
Karen: 00:36:53.938 Wait, [laughter] do you have the half an hour one--
Stuart: 00:36:56.513 No. I mean, no.
Karen: 00:36:56.807 --where some regions [crosstalk]--?
Stuart: 00:36:57.772 That's Adelaide. They're silly. They're [crosstalk]--
Karen: 00:37:00.058 Oh, it's so confusing. [laughter] I'm like, "Who came up with that noise?"
Stuart: 00:37:03.460 Oh, it's South Australians. [laughter] If anybody in the world is going to come up with it, it's the South Australians. [laughter]
Karen: 00:37:09.063 Culture is fascinating. [laughter] They really do. Yeah. [laughter] And we were talking the other day about, why is it that half the world drives on the right side of the road and half on the left? Couldn't we all just agree that's it's whatever side it is?
Stuart: 00:37:21.009 No. There's a whole thing about that.
Karen: 00:37:24.283 There's a whole thing?
Stuart: 00:37:24.864 Yeah. Same as the--
Karen: 00:37:26.152 And imagine trying to change it. I mean--
Stuart: 00:37:28.220 Well, they did.
Karen: 00:37:29.187 --[crosstalk]--
Stuart: 00:37:29.217 Okay. So here you go. There was a country, I reckon it was like-- or a city. I reckon it was something starting with S. I don't think it was Sweden. It might have been Sweden. In the '70s, it was a European country, and they changed the side of the road that they drove on.
Karen: 00:37:50.225 Oh my. And did they have disaster, or [crosstalk]--
Stuart: 00:37:53.423 No, no. It was one of the best executed infrastructure projects of the last decade, or the last century, I should say.
Karen: 00:38:00.546 That's amazing.
Stuart: 00:38:01.679 They had 60,000 signs that they had to change overnight.
Karen: 00:38:06.571 Yeah. [laughter] Wow. That is impressive, actually. I think if you take it seriously, because you do realize people will die, if you don't. I mean, I've had people ask if the pedals, the accelerator--
Stuart: 00:38:19.483 [crosstalk]-- [laughter]
Karen: 00:38:19.782 --and the break are on different-- and I was like, "Okay, if that was the case, there's no way that I could drive in America then come over here and just--
Stuart: 00:38:27.996 No. No, you couldn't.
Karen: 00:38:29.206 There's no way. It would just be a disaster.
Stuart: 00:38:30.930 Well, the funny thing [crosstalk]--
Karen: 00:38:31.476 But I am sort of [ambidrivous?], I can drive on both sides of the road. Although I do find that when I go back to America, every once in a while, if I'm in a new place, if-- I grew up in Arizona, I learned to drive there, so whatever. But I might be in a new town or a new place and I'll find myself in the car park sitting there going, "Hang on, what country am I in?" And I'm like, "Well, I'm in America." I'm like, "What does that mean?" [laughter] And I remember one time I was in a car park, and I literally sat there and waited for another car to drive by so that I could follow them, because I just thought, "My brain is not working, and if I make the wrong decision, I could kill someone."
Stuart: 00:39:09.248 [crosstalk]-- [laughter]
Karen: 00:39:10.380 So I will just wait. [laughter] "Ah, yes. Okay. That's the side. Got it." [laughter]
Stuart: 00:39:14.475 No. I can relate to that. It's two times. Firstly, when you get out of the plane after a long-- you're like, "Oh, fuck. Okay. All right. I've got to really think about this." Or, yeah, like what you said, early morning when there's no cars in the road, I've found myself--
Karen: 00:39:29.353 [crosstalk]--
Stuart: 00:39:29.651 --on the left hand side, [laughter] just going back to the way we learned, right?
Karen: 00:39:34.537 Is it just a-- I mean, [inaudible] I lived in America for-- how old was I? I was either 24 or 25 when I moved here and that's a long-- I got my license in America when I was 16. So that is a lot of driving--
Stuart: 00:39:47.713 That's right.
Karen: 00:39:48.397 --to get used to.
Stuart: 00:39:49.276 That's right.
Karen: 00:39:49.864 And when I came here, people would laugh when I went to the wrong side of the car because you do that. You try and get in on the driver's side and go, "Whoops." And I'm like, "To be fair, I've been doing this multiple times a day for a quarter of a century.
Stuart: 00:40:02.687 Oh, yeah. But you never [crosstalk] how you learned it right at the start. [laughter]
Karen: 00:40:08.067 My favorite was when my friend picked me up at 4:00 in the morning to go to the airport, and I put my stuff in the boot, got in the car, sat there--
Stuart: 00:40:15.304 Or the trunk. [laughter]
Karen: 00:40:16.913 --and he comes around to the window and he just stands there staring at me, [laughter] and I'm like, "What's wrong?" And he's like, "Are you driving us?"
Stuart: 00:40:24.029 [crosstalk]--
Karen: 00:40:24.440 And I look and the steering wheel is right in front of me. [laughter]
Stuart: 00:40:27.006 Oh, I get it.
Karen: 00:40:27.561 I'm like, "Oh, yeah, my bad." [laughter]
Stuart: 00:40:29.704 But it's easy with it. I mean, with a stick shift, that's even more complex, right? Because that is a change of hand.
Karen: 00:40:34.921 Well, and I didn't drive gear shift when I was in America. So I had to learn that over here. So that actually helped because I was like, "Right, everything's new. I'm on the other side. I've got the gear shift thing going on." I mean, it's a whole story for another time, but I'll just say that I got lessons and everything, but I wasn't great at it. [laughter] So I got my [crosstalk]--
Stuart: 00:40:53.426 [crosstalk]-- [laughter] [inaudible].
Karen: 00:40:57.531 I was driving home from the dealership and I think-- I mean, now, if I was to drive from that dealership, 10 minutes to my house, it took me 45 minutes. [laughter] I mean, people were honking and swearing and flipping me off. So I went and got one of those green L's, that means, I'm a learner, please be kind, stuck that on my car, and the next day, the whole world was like, "Don't you worry, hun. You take your time. You just go."
Stuart: 00:41:22.936 [crosstalk]--
Karen: 00:41:23.329 It was lovely. And I told one of my friends and they're like, "Maybe I'll just stick the L on my car forever."
Stuart: 00:41:27.572 [crosstalk]--
Karen: 00:41:29.473 People are nicer to you. [laughter].
Stuart: 00:41:30.372 [inaudible]. Those baby on board stickers don't seem to work [crosstalk]--
Karen: 00:41:34.655 Yes. Yeah. Exactly. I'm a little stubborn though and competitive, so it's sort of like, "Okay, I'm done with the L now." I'm one of those people that looks Google Maps as a challenge to be accepted. [laughter] It says, "Two hours and 30 minutes," let's just see. [laughter]
Stuart: 00:41:49.971 So as we come up to time, Karen, and now I have to ask, have you been to Shetland? And have you seen the sets that they--? [laughter]
Karen: 00:41:57.295 I have not. Shetland is still on my list. 20 years in Scotland, Shetland and the Orkney Islands are still on my list. But I've focused a lot of my time on the Isle of Mull because it's my favorite of the remote islands. And I've been multiple times to the Treshnish Isles, which are just off of Mull, where the puffins are, and that is one of the things I love. Honestly, I could just sit there and watch puffins walk around all day long.
Stuart: 00:42:24.636 Yeah, they are [crosstalk]--
Karen: 00:42:25.683 They're literally people who [laughter] refer to it as puffin therapy and there's a good reason for it. So yeah, I love the highlands and the islands. I love Mull because you can drive for two and a half hours from my house to the ferry. 45 minutes on the ferry. Just another world. You're driving along and there's highland cattle walking across the road or sheep or nothing for an hour, and the weather and the rainbows and oh, it's glorious. Absolutely beautiful. But yeah, Shetland and Orkney, still on my list.
Stuart: 00:42:57.145 Well, at one point-- I mean, we've never been, but we've done plenty of UK and stuff, but never Wales or Scotland or Ireland. And definitely on our list. Particularly, I'm going to have to come and find the MacLeod kilt, and--
Karen: 00:43:10.550 Aha, yes. Is there maybe a castle as well [crosstalk]?
Stuart: 00:43:13.548 I think there's probably a castle. There's certainly a couple of movies [laughter] [inaudible]--
Karen: 00:43:18.153 Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I even have-- there's an accountant I was talking to in the States who is coming over to Scotland with his two boys and his wife, and I'm just going to go with them. His boys are Harry Potter fans, which I am as well.
Stuart: 00:43:33.274 All good. Yep. Yep.
Karen: 00:43:34.450 So we are going up to Glenfinnan, where the steam train goes over. And then we decided to tack on to drive to the Isle of Skye and spend a two-day-- and I just thought, as we get PF scaled and the team's just sorted everything out, I might just do a Scotland travel tours thing.
Stuart: 00:43:50.730 There you go. There you go.
Karen: 00:43:52.535 But it has to be cool people.
Stuart: 00:43:53.716 Scottish travel tours for accountants that I like to get along with well. [laughter]
Karen: 00:43:58.722 Yeah. For accountants that I like who either they or their children are Harry Potter fans and--
Stuart: 00:44:03.078 There you go, niche. Niche [crosstalk]--
Karen: 00:44:04.498 You just make a whole-- yes. [laughter] I mean, accountants are not niche enough, right?
Stuart: 00:44:10.523 That's right. [laughter] That's all right, as long--
Karen: 00:44:14.162 But I do. I do I enjoy travel and I enjoy showing off-- Scotland, I mean, I don't have to show it off. Scotland does it for itself. But I've never had somebody come and visit and not be like, "Oh my word, you live in the best country ever." I'm like, "I do actually, to be fair. Completely non-objectively."
Stuart: 00:44:30.364 Yeah. I get it. [laughter] I get it. Well, Karen, it has been an absolute pleasure this time together. And congratulations on all the success of The Profitable Firms so far, and to many years of much more of that. And as always, if there's anything I or anybody at Karbon can do, just never hesitate to reach out.
Karen: 00:44:50.688 Yeah. Thank you so much. No, really enjoyed it. And just love being able, as I say, to-- it's a privilege to work with accountants who are good at what they do. They're also just good humans, and they're good company. So I enjoy that, and more of that for our accountants that they get to have clients like that too.
Stuart: 00:45:07.939 More of that. More of that. Exactly.
Karen: 00:45:09.567 Yes.
Stuart: 00:45:09.883 Karen, thank you so much.
Karen: 00:45:10.986 Thanks, Stuart. [music]
Stuart: 00:45:17.948 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 1000 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 5 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.