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Greg Daley is the Chief Visionary at Parable, an accounting firm focussing on the church niche. In this inspiring episode, Greg discusses his journey from being a pastor to starting an accounting practice with his wife and growing that into a business that serves 230 churches across 42 US states. He shares why churches are similar to any business, his plan to grow to 1,000 clients, why the journey to the cloud has never been more apt, and the literal life-changing impacts that his firm has on its clients.
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 00:00:06.376 [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. Today, I'm joined by Greg Daley, the chief visionary of Parable, the accounting, bookkeeping, and CFO services for churches. After serving for several years as an executive pastor, Greg and his wife Jessica moved to Fort Collins, Colorado, where he co-founded the Restoration Project, and Jessica founded Xcelerate, which became Parable. Greg has found his niche in developing Parable as he enjoys building relationships with pastors and helping them develop strategies to see their visions take off in stable, sustainable ways. It's my pleasure to welcome to the Accounting Leaders Podcast, Greg Daley.
Stuart 00:00:56.995 Greg Daley, welcome to-- finally, finally, we fucking got our shit together. Greg Daley. Welcome to the Accounting Leaders Podcast.
Greg 00:01:05.413 Thank you. I'm honored to be here, Stuart.
Stuart 00:01:09.762 Two gos at it and one false start, but there you go. Hey, you're now famous in the accounting community, aren't you? Is that true?
Greg 00:01:18.921 I don't know if famous or infamous or-- maybe I'm the most famous person no one's heard of.
Stuart 00:01:26.049 There you go. There you go. No, but you and your co-founder, Jess, told a wonderful story on stage at Karbon X in June of this year, and it really resonated with much of the audience and was inspirational for a lot of people there. Do you want to tell us what that experience was like?
Greg 00:01:45.596 Yeah, it was actually really, really cool. And I definitely got famous through Karbon by being able to be up on the stage. We even hired somebody from-- somebody called us based on that interview.
Stuart 00:01:57.715 Oh, there you go. Shit. You didn't poach them, did you?
Greg 00:02:00.944 No, we did not poach them. They were from the Karbon community in some way, shape, or form, heard our story, called us, and then said, "Hey, I'd love to maybe come work with you or explore that option." And so we just hired her. I won't say who it is, just in case there's-- no, I don't think there was any bad blood.
Stuart 00:02:18.336 No, no, no. That's good. That's good.
Greg 00:02:21.576 That was a surprising-- I would say that was a surprising outcome that-- didn't expect that.
Stuart 00:02:26.673 Yeah, there you go. No, that's excellent. And what was being on stage with the team and telling your story in front of the audience--? it's probably not something you get to do every day.
Greg 00:02:35.768 It's not. And I think what was really cool about it was we felt like Karbon has believed in us, and we kind of have been with Karbon since the beginning, so we kind of believed in Karbon. And it was this reciprocal thing that kept giving back to each other. And so that felt like the fruition of that. And even helping think through how to even take us on a journey, that was-- I think in talking with your team, it was really cool to kind of see how our team mimicked-- or our growth mimicked the kind of maturity pieces that you had articulated.
Stuart 00:03:13.360 Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think as we-- remind me when you started Xcelerate.
Greg 00:03:18.820 We started Xcelerate in 2011. I think we started working with Karbon in 2015 or '16.
Stuart 00:03:25.439 Yeah, so that was way early. I mean, all we had was a couple of pixels back then. There wasn't much else, right?
Greg 00:03:31.008 It's true. Yeah.
Stuart 00:03:31.967 Yeah, I get that. And hopefully, as you've been able to evolve and the platform has evolved with you, and you're able to sort of take advantage of a lot of what's in there as it grows for you.
Greg 00:03:44.737 Well, I would say we were a couple pixels. When I joined the company, we decided to kind of take it from a stay-at-home mom-- my wife Jessica, who founded the company, was a stay-at-home mom's kind of side gig just to make a little extra money for the family.
Stuart 00:03:59.896 Oh, so you were in the gig economy. You were early adopters.
Greg 00:04:03.805 We were early adopters, yes. And then I joined--
Stuart 00:04:05.616 Ahead of the curve.
Greg 00:04:06.256 --which meant that it was a family business.
Stuart 00:04:08.315 Yeah, right.
Greg 00:04:09.163 And then we started to dream about taking it to be a company, and I think that's where we are today. So our evolution kind of mimicked Karbon's evolution.
Stuart 00:04:19.552 Well, I can't not ask you then, right? What's it been like working for your wife? No, I shouldn't say that. What's it been like growing the company together? Frustrations shared in a family are different to those shared when you've got that separation.
Greg 00:04:37.512 It's definitely true. I will say that not everybody could do it. I don't think we're necessarily special, but our relationship is unique in the sense of we don't really cross over on our skill sets that much. We don't step on each other's toes. And so that made for really great business partners. In fact, I'd say we fought less at work than we did even at home because we both have just complimentary things and we kind of stayed in our lanes. The other thing was I was never an accountant, which is kind of unique, I think, definitely to where I am today as what I call the chief visionary of the company. Not being an accountant, that's not a typical kind of structure to affirm.
Stuart 00:05:24.138 Yep.
Greg 00:05:24.299 But that definitely helped at the beginning, to not step on toes.
Stuart 00:05:26.778 And what does that entail, then? If Jessica is sort of the technical brain and then you're chief visionary, how do you delineate that and what does that mean for the relationship and for the business?
Greg 00:05:38.619 Yeah, we've actually taken a step past that. About a year ago, Jess took a step, what we call down the hall, and took kind of a break from the company, a sabbatical of sorts. It's going to be about a three or so year sabbatical. That helps us in our family structure. We have five kids, and three of them are in high school right now, and so one we'll be-- one's a senior, a junior, and a sophomore. So we'll be launching one a year for the next three years.
Stuart 00:06:05.117 Stick them in the cannon and light it.
Greg 00:06:07.546 Exactly. It kind of feels like that a little bit.
Stuart 00:06:12.268 See where they land.
Greg 00:06:14.356 So a year ago, we had planned-- for two years, we'd planned to allow Jess to kind of step down the hall. And so she's not in the day-to-day operations at all anymore. She is still what we call in the owner box. So we have a quarterly meeting where she gets to ask questions as an owner, but that's about the extent of her involvement at the moment in the day-to-day operations. And so we've actually able to hire somebody in her role, which we call the Integrator. It's maybe that classic chief of operations that organizes the three functions of our business, so.
Stuart 00:06:52.358 Yeah. And are there a couple of people that took her role or--
Greg 00:06:55.480 It is, yeah.
Stuart 00:06:55.907 --how did you manage to sort of coordinate the transition?
Greg 00:06:58.878 Yeah, I mean, she, being an owner, was doing a lot of hats, things that would slip through the cracks if no one was thinking about it. And just, I think, being an owner, kind of things keep you up at night. Things that could threaten the business success keep you up at night, and those things end up being important things that you end up working on. So she was working on a lot of those things, one of which was what we call our mission control, which is basically the bulk of our employees working that. That's our service side of the equation. She was dabbling, and she would help me out with sales. Whenever I needed a sales expert, like a subject matter expert that kind of knows the systems really well, I'd bring her in. She was doing a little bit of HR because that was her previous background. So we've kind of broken those roles now up into actual roles, which has allowed her to step aside. And I would say at this point, now that we're a year past that transition, operating it all, we're growing at a rate we couldn't have grown had one person been in that role. And so it is kind of that stepping away and being able to have the humility to let something grow outside of even what you could have done or offered.
Stuart 00:08:16.490 Yep. And so growth rates are up. What is your growth acquisition strategy as you go to market? Any different or a little bit different, even, to 99% of firms which don't have one at all and just rely on referral?
Greg 00:08:34.440 Well, we are definitely niche-driven.
Stuart 00:08:36.679 Yep. Tell us about that.
Greg 00:08:37.988 That's a huge piece of our structure. I was a pastor. My wife and I were church planters. So we helped start a church. For people that don't go to church, planting a church is basically like an entrepreneurial venture. You decide, "Hey, we're going to start a church." And it's not as simple as that. You have to go through a lot of steps. The government wants to make sure that you're a legitimate thing. But we helped start a church, and it's literally like starting a business. There's a lot of-- you're wearing a ton of hats at the beginning, and you're trying to build in leaders, and you're trying to grow something. You look at profit differently. So I would say what we call our partners, our clients, they don't think about profit and loss. They think about growth. They think about revenue from a standpoint of giving. They think about it as not being their money, which is different than a business mindset. Usually, a business mindset is, "This is my money. I want to keep it." They're thinking, "I'm stewarding someone else's money. I'm basically stewarding the givers' money." Similar to a nonprofit. And so that put us in a unique niche. So all we do is church accounting across the board, and we do that through core services and strategic services. So we're pretty directed in knowing who we're going after and targeting. And even within that, we're targeting a certain niche of churches as well in the growth cycle, like churches that are willing to embrace the cloud, churches that are willing to be--
Stuart 00:10:05.296 All churches should embrace the cloud, surely.
Greg 00:10:07.794 They should, but they don't always. Sometimes the whole "Want to be local, want you to walk in my office," is still a big thing.
Stuart 00:10:15.257 Oh, that's not what I meant, Greg. Come on, work with me.
Greg 00:10:19.484 Sorry, I missed it. I missed the heaven response. A little slow today.
Stuart 00:10:25.985 That's all right. We'll pick up the pace. But no, keep going. Don't let me blaspheme here or anything. But I always find it funny that church accountants don't typically distinguish between denominations. Do you have multiple denominations in your client base?
Greg 00:10:43.542 We do. I would say we primarily focus on one network that kind of functions differently than a denomination but actually has some similarities. So it's a grouping of churches, and we do focus on that network because they tend to be churches that grow large enough to support kind of an outside accounting firm doing their books rather than Great Aunt Jane or Grandma volunteer kind of that would do the books for free or something like that. So we need that. Also, that grow to a certain point where they need systems that are managing them rather than them trying to juggle all the systems. So we typically hit them at three different points. One is a church startup. Basically, they want to do things right from the beginning, and they value systems already from the beginning, and they just want to do things right. Then we get them at about a million to two million in revenue, where their growth of congregation outpaces their systems. And in a business setting, that's where you usually have a restructuring because you didn't know what you were doing at the beginning and you have to--
Stuart 00:11:52.941 Or purposely sort of kept it lean, right?
Greg 00:11:55.641 Totally, yeah.
Stuart 00:11:56.690 You can't implement 55 systems on day one unless you're me.
Greg 00:12:00.210 Well, you can try. We've tried that. I wouldn't recommend it, for sure.
Stuart 00:12:04.832 No, no, no, no, no, me neither.
Greg 00:12:06.783 And then we get an older, established church that maybe has been doing things one way for a long time. Could even be hand signing checks every week still or doing something very, very manual or using an obsolete system, and they just kind of want to get into the 21st century. And so those are the three kind of places where we find the most on-ramps to us.
Stuart 00:12:31.986 Yeah, yeah. So I have this fantasy that-- so there's another great customer of Karbon, Steve Chaney, who's very non-picky in his denominations. And I always wonder what a client get-together might look like with your Greek Orthodox, your Irish Catholics, your synagogues.
Greg 00:12:51.649 That is definitely a thing. I would definitely say that that's a thing.
Stuart 00:12:55.238 That should be a party of peace, right? It should be a lot of fun.
Greg 00:12:58.727 It should be. Definitely a lot of fun.
Stuart 00:13:05.469 You just have to be careful of the buffet. You don't want to offend anybody.
Greg 00:13:10.698 That would be tricky. Yes, what to eat or drink, depending on the--
Stuart 00:13:13.187 That's right. Eat and/or drink. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, that's just my sick sense of humor, so don't be offended. But I think, look, it's a great niche, though, right?
Greg 00:13:26.699 It is a great niche. And there's 3,800 churches in the US.
Stuart 00:13:30.448 Yeah, I bet.
Greg 00:13:31.509 So there's a lot of room for everyone in them in the mix.
Stuart 00:13:34.507 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't know if you know, but religion globally is-- I'm trying to stay away from the controversy. But Australia has never been massively religious, so I'd be surprised if religion in Australia was growing. Is it growing in the US?
Greg 00:13:51.418 That depends on how you look at it, yes. And I will say, one of the largest churches in the world came out of Australia, Hillsong.
Stuart 00:14:00.037 Oh, yeah. Our ex-fucking Prime Minister was all over that. Don't worry. He was--
Greg 00:14:06.356 There has been some issues. And I think that's-- look, church mimics everything globally. We have problems in businesses where heads of businesses got in trouble for different things. We have trouble in churches, same kind of thing. We're all led by people which have-- we all have the propensity to do things that are not right, that are wrong, unfortunately, so.
Stuart 00:14:33.793 Yeah. No, I wasn't going into the whole pedophilia or anything, and there's no point in doing that. I was just more interested in-- I felt like religion in Australia is sort of, I mean, something I didn't ever grow up with, and we're just sort of average social class or anything. But religion in the UK I would have thought was declining. But I feel like religion in the US, with everything that's been going on in the last-- the socio and political aspects, it wouldn't surprise me if religion as an industry was growing in this country, as opposed to a lot of other countries where traditional churchgoing has probably declined somewhat, right?
Greg 00:15:18.549 Yeah. I mean, and again, I would say that it depends. And that's why there's such a broad spectrum of-- there are certain denominations, if you will, or certain networks that are growing and doing quite well. At the same time, there's denominations that are declining.
Stuart 00:15:35.610 Yeah. For all kinds of reasons.
Greg 00:15:37.370 For all kinds of reasons. I mean, I read articles all the time that Gen Z is not going to church as much as the previous generations. But some of that is they're doing it online, so they're actually taking in the medium in a different way. And churches are definitely having to innovate. I mean, COVID-- I joked with all the pastor friends of mine, COVID made everyone a televangelist whether you wanted to or not, right? And most of them didn't want to be that. They never wanted to be on TV, necessarily. But it made it so everybody had to. There were churches that were closed for eight months. If you were in the Northeast or certain parts of California, you were closed for eight or nine months, and you couldn't go back. So that was an interesting--
Stuart 00:16:24.461 I mean, you don't want a Sunday service to be a super spreader event if you can avoid it.
Greg 00:16:28.175 Totally. Yeah.
Stuart 00:16:28.986 Because Jesus will be unhappy with everybody. Yeah, because I've got a few videographer mates, and they're like, "Fuck, we're flat out getting fixed cameras into churches so they can broadcast their service and be heard and get to their congregation and everything." It was an industry that was just sprung up overnight, right?
Greg 00:16:49.044 Sprung up overnight.
Stuart 00:16:50.264 Tens of thousands of churches looking to get on YouTube.
Greg 00:16:54.070 And actually, most of the churches-- many churches are looking at that now as almost like a campus, a whole different model. Because who comes to that, you engage those people in different ways, right?
Stuart 00:17:07.819 Sure.
Greg 00:17:08.380 It's a different customer, if you will, to speak business language.
Stuart 00:17:11.749 Yep. Then all it takes is for a couple of fucking TikTokers to inspire a Hillsong, and then away you go. You got tens of thousands of attendees at your congregation all of a sudden.
Greg 00:17:25.027 It's true. No, you're absolutely right. And churches are engaging those mediums as well, Twitter and TikTok and--
Stuart 00:17:30.206 Absolutely. Why wouldn't you?
Greg 00:17:32.464 --YouTube and all those mediums.
Stuart 00:17:34.515 It is the oldest industry to engage an audience, would it not be?
Greg 00:17:39.062 It definitely is up there, yes.
Stuart 00:17:41.101 Well, we won't talk about the other old industries. That's all right. We'll try and keep it a little bit pleasant for you and--
Greg 00:17:46.992 Family-friendly.
Stuart 00:17:48.138 --I won't give-- yeah, I won't be a complete prick, which is not usually like me. But anyway, yeah, we'll keep it family-friendly. But no, I find it fascinating. Okay. And so we got to here because we're talking about go to market. So there'd be a lot of referral in your client base. I get that. Is it geographically sort of specific or doesn't matter?
Greg 00:18:13.498 When we first started, we were more regionally focused, and then that kind of grew outside. But as we've tied in the different networks, I'd say it's not-- we're in 42 states currently today.
Stuart 00:18:25.268 Yeah, right, okay. Well, you must be good with sales tax then.
Greg 00:18:29.110 We are doing our best.
Stuart 00:18:29.649 Well, in most cases, you don't have to worry about sales tax. Fuck [inaudible] get a fortune out of us.
Greg 00:18:34.249 That's very true. Yes, we have different-- which is another kind of unique niche. A lot of firms, I think, that use Karbon are CPA firms. We don't have to kind of operate in the tax world part of that, so that helps in the niche.
Stuart 00:18:50.050 Keep some of your complexities less complex.
Greg 00:18:53.430 Totally. Yes.
Stuart 00:18:54.906 I understand that. And you've grown. So you said you started in 2010?
Greg 00:19:01.483 2011.
Stuart 00:19:02.593 Oh, 2011. And so over the last sort of 10 and a little bit more years, how many churches in--? you said 42 states, so that's at least 42 customers, but you must be a lot more than that.
Greg 00:19:15.403 We do 230 churches currently--
Stuart 00:19:16.784 There you go. Wow.
Greg 00:19:18.164 --and we are shooting for--
Stuart 00:19:18.502 That's really impressive.
Greg 00:19:20.292 We would love to be 1,000 churches strong. That's where we're headed--
Stuart 00:19:22.663 All right. That's the goal.
Greg 00:19:23.183 --for the next 10 years. Yeah.
Stuart 00:19:24.039 All right. Well, just keep turning water into wine, and they'll flock the-- okay, so go to market. So there's referrals amongst the existing networks. And you must be sort of partners with these-- I believe there's a couple of giving platforms where you're sort of automating the donation aspect of churches, which is obviously a pretty critical aspect here.
Greg 00:19:47.910 It is a critical aspect. We definitely are experts in all those things. We haven't yet partnered with the giving platforms, mainly because we've allowed that flexibility that you could choose whichever giving solution that you want to use. We haven't made that a structural thing where we require it. And I think that's a little bit of our niche, is we want to allow some flexibility even though we're very targeted. And so we pick and choose those flexibility items. One of those is their giving solution.
Stuart 00:20:21.773 Yeah. Yeah, you don't have to sort of be exclusive, but they're probably well aware of your expertise in their software, and they would see your name against them. And they probably have some partner programs. Okay. So what is the client journey look like? Not that there's that many accountants sort of specialize in religious organizations. But when a client comes to you after their first year and says, "Oh, thank you, Greg, thank you, Jessica." Well, not so much anymore, but you know what I mean. What are they saying to you about their experience?
Greg 00:20:57.758 So one thing that we've actually started to add to our sales process is our onboarding. And I just assumed onboarding was kind of one of our internal things, and obviously we wanted to get good at it. But we have this tact that we want to delight in our onboarding. And that even if they chose to leave us right after our onboarding, that our onboarding and offboarding process actually made them delay. And that came out of-- there's some models out there that kind of hold you hostage with your stuff, like, "Oh, you're going to leave us? Well, fine, we won't give you any of your data back," kind of thing. And we didn't want that to be a piece. We wanted it to be something-- and we look at it as a journey. We call it a Journey Doc, actually, a journey document that follows the church throughout the history and allows for growth strategies during their time while they're with us. And so we're always trying to redefine what does success look like for the next year in our working together so that there's continuous improvement.
Stuart 00:22:00.168 And what is their response as you take them through this journey document?
Greg 00:22:04.247 They're really appreciative. And especially if they come to us from another firm, oftentimes it's that there's a lot of intentionality that's gone around our onboarding so that they feel like things happen quick enough, but they also don't happen too quick. Because business owners and church leaders, they're similar. They're busy. They're busy people. They don't want to waste their time. They want things done and they want them done at a certain time. And so we try to really hit those. The things that we're promising, we try to deliver on those promises.
Stuart 00:22:37.418 And do most of your clients come from accountants that are not focused on religion specifically? They're more broad based and more general accountants.
Greg 00:22:48.908 That's where we get some of it. Some of them, they may have an internal team that they're like, "Hey, we've got three people." But really the work could be done by one, right, with all the different efficiencies that are out there now. And so, I mean, I just met with a client in California. Bigger church. And before they came to us, they had four people they were paying, an accounts payable team, and an accounts receivable team, and a team member. And when they came to us-- and now they have an admin person that is part-time, 20 hours a week, that basically can get all the admin duties on their side of things, things like entering things into the donation software, and they can complete that. So we took four jobs down to a part-time position, and not even a professional. Not that she's not professionally qualified, but she only needed admin--
Stuart 00:23:40.000 Sure, sure. She's not a CPA, for instance.
Greg 00:23:43.009 Exactly. And so that was a huge win for us, right? More dollars get to be spent on the mission rather than paying for staff that's unneeded, so.
Stuart 00:23:52.970 Yep, yep. So we've got 1,000 is the target. What are the plans to perhaps accelerate that a little bit, or how do you think that that's going to come about?
Greg 00:24:04.250 That's a great question. We've acquired a small firm.
Stuart 00:24:07.670 Okay, congrats.
Greg 00:24:09.091 And that was a learning experience, even within our niche.
Stuart 00:24:13.841 [inaudible], was it?
Greg 00:24:15.791 I wouldn't maybe use that language specifically.
Stuart 00:24:19.991 Well, no, no, no, you wouldn't, but I can.
Greg 00:24:24.040 I would say that it wasn't without its heartaches and headaches for sure. And I'm not sure-- I know that other firms grow that way, and that's sometimes a growth strategy. And I'm not sure that that's one that we'll do a lot of.
Stuart 00:24:38.680 That's not right up your alley. It's perhaps a little bit scarred from the first experience.
Greg 00:24:43.750 I think so. I think it's probably continuing to do what we've been doing, which is partnering with different organizations that help churches and grow that way. The reason why there is so many denominations out there is because there's just certain things that people agree to, and it brings a commonality almost like different-- just different people groupings almost. And so when we find one that we identify that we work well together, oftentimes all their friends, we would work well together with them as well.
Stuart 00:25:17.062 Yeah.
Greg 00:25:17.342 And so that's been-- the referral thing has been a huge thing. Our big push this next few years is to become-- we've become kind of-- I wouldn't say we're fully industry experts, but we've been on different things in the accounting space but not necessarily in the church space. And so that's where we're targeting the next few years, is speaking at conferences, maybe even writing a book, putting out--
Stuart 00:25:47.919 I've got the title for you already. Just a Journey to the Cloud. [inaudible].
Greg 00:25:56.181 That's awesome. Journey to the Heavens.
Stuart 00:25:58.760 Yeah, that's it. That's it. There you go. It'll be a number one bestseller. I'll buy it. But the--
Greg 00:26:05.235 But really trying to push into that. How do we become known industry experts that when somebody Googles it, it comes to us. That's our main push.
Stuart 00:26:15.257 Do you do any Google AdWords and stuff?
Greg 00:26:17.516 So we've just started on the marketing engine side of things. I think part of that was we didn't really need it. But at this point in our growth, that's our next phase for sure. We have plenty of referrals--
Stuart 00:26:28.532 You've got 700-odd churches to go, right?
Greg 00:26:29.577 --coming in. Exactly. So to accelerate that journey, we need our name out there more and have more people coming in the pipeline quicker.
Stuart 00:26:39.038 And what does the competition look like, generally?
Greg 00:26:42.168 There's a few. Chaney is one of them that's in our space. We look at them not so much as competitors because I think there is-- we only want 1,000 of the 380, right? 1,000. So that's a small--
Stuart 00:26:54.155 Plenty for everybody.
Greg 00:26:54.715 --market share. There's plenty--
Stuart 00:26:55.185 There's plenty of bread to go around.
Greg 00:26:57.146 And so there are a few others that are in our space and we know about. The great thing is they tend to be great people that, behind the scenes, I get along with many of the other CEOs and many of the other leaders of those companies I already know. And I see them at different events and we're all shooting for the same thing. We're all trying to help churches grow.
Stuart 00:27:19.900 Yeah. Okay. So how many staff about these days?
Greg 00:27:25.469 We've got 33, I believe, currently.
Stuart 00:27:28.840 Yeah, all right. So the revenue per church must be right up there for 250-odd clients and 30-odd staff. So that's good. That's a healthy revenue per customer. So good for you. So you're obviously in there providing lots of services, a broad array of offerings that you can be a one-stop shop for the client base, yeah?
Greg 00:27:51.226 Yeah. I think we've really dialed in our core services like payroll, bill pay, and reconciliation and reporting, those kinds of things. We're really pushing into what we're calling strategic services, and those being forecasting, budgeting, giving analytics, audit support, all of those pieces. And that's going to be our next-- I'd say our first 10 years of the journey was building a bookkeeping machine that's very process-driven and kind of well-oiled. Things don't fall through the cracks. And we have people all doing the same things or similar processes across the board. Our next phase is, how do we then scale strategic services? I'm not interested in offering it to only a couple of our clients. I would love to offer it to-- even if it's a scaled-down version--
Stuart 00:28:37.367 Yeah, giving it for everybody.
Greg 00:28:39.164 --I would like everyone to be able to access it. And so that's kind of what makes us excited about the future. If there's an entrepreneurial part still of Parable, that is where we're pushing in and testing products.
Stuart 00:28:52.756 Yeah, plenty of room to grow in that top area.
Greg 00:28:56.207 Yep. Which would increase our revenue per.
Stuart 00:28:59.267 Yep, yep, yep. No, that's good. Healthy margins are a good margin. All right. So there's Google advertising. There's obviously referrals. So at 1,000 clients, you're sort of looking at a good, decent-sized business, right? You're probably up at-- if you're 30 today, you're sort of up at around 100-plus staff at least, perhaps 200-odd staff for 1,000-odd customers, yeah? There you go. Does that scare you?
Greg 00:29:25.034 It doesn't quite scare me. We're also looking at, is there a blended shore kind of potential here?
Stuart 00:29:31.343 Oh, I like that. There you go. That's very PC, isn't it? A blended shore. I like that.
Greg 00:29:35.871 I ended up sitting at a table with several Karbon users that were in that space and just had some really great conversations, made some really great connections. And also, I just think there's a missional side of that on the church thing as well, in that there are churches all over the world. They're not just in the US. And so we could potentially have some of that. That would probably be some kind of partnership situation for us in the future.
Stuart 00:30:03.900 Yeah. So a global organization serving religious organizations all over the world. There you go. I can get on board with that. And are you fully remote? So have you got someone in an office?
Greg 00:30:17.500 We are fully remote, and we've been that way since-- we actually used to do staff meetings and stuff in our living room when we were small, here in Colorado. And then one of our longtime people-- in fact, she's one of the ones that took over Jess's role of COO. She was with us for quite a while. We didn't want to lose her. And she was like, "Hey, we're going to be moving to a different state. Can I still work here?" And we were like, "Okay, I guess we're going remote." And so--
Stuart 00:30:50.098 That was it.
Greg 00:30:50.566 --that was it. We went fully remote after that because--
Stuart 00:30:52.337 Ahead of the curve. Yeah.
Greg 00:30:54.021 Having one remote worker and everyone else is meeting in person just doesn't really work. And so even though we were all still local at that point, other than this one person, we went fully to Zoom. We say we adopted Zoom before it was cool because it was way pre-pandemic. 2016, I think, is when we started using it and moved to being remote. And it's just worked for us. I don't foresee us ever being in the office.
Stuart 00:31:21.701 No, no, no, no. I get it.
Greg 00:31:23.340 We do get together once a year. We bring everybody together, which--
Stuart 00:31:26.040 Whereabouts?
Greg 00:31:27.140 Every year is a different place. Last year we were in--
Stuart 00:31:28.876 Oh, cool.
Greg 00:31:29.286 --North Carolina. This year we'll be in Florida. And we value that. One of our values is virtual, but together. And so a big push for us is even with our clients that we're interacting with Zoom, not just phone calls all the time, so.
Stuart 00:31:43.888 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, 2D is great, 3D is better, right?
Greg 00:31:50.159 Well, and we get the uniqueness, too, of if our people are traveling, a lot of times they'll look up a church that's one of ours that--
Stuart 00:31:57.673 Oh, there you go.
Greg 00:31:58.145 --if they're near it, they'll go worship with them on a Sunday with their family, which is a really cool thing.
Stuart 00:32:04.526 I hadn't even thought of that. That makes sense, that people in your organization would have definitely an interest in religion. That makes complete sense.
Greg 00:32:13.483 Yeah, we definitely draw people that want to serve the church. And I would say most of our stakeholders are involved in some aspect of church in their own local context and are volunteering or-- we have a lot of pastors, actually, pastor's wives that are working on our team. So it's definitely a huge-- they identify with the mission, with the vision of it.
Stuart 00:32:37.112 Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I get that. Is there a customer-- is there a church that comes to mind where, sort of over your journey and Jessica's journey, that you've really seen grow, that has benefited from your experience, that has grown the number of people attending the congregation, has perhaps, I don't know, done something special? Has there been one that really comes to mind that has inspired you upon your journey?
Greg 00:33:06.321 Yeah, I think there's been a couple, but one that definitely stands out. We talk about a lot that churches often-- they're good storytellers, right? A pastor, that's what they do, is they tell stories every week. And they're very good with vision. Oftentimes, the good pastors are good with vision because they're always rallying people to a vision or a mission that's larger than themselves. That's kind of the story there. They're really great at telling their story. It's always connected to their heart and their passion. But rarely, though, is it connected to their finances. And so oftentimes, the budget is kind of a necessary evil. I joke with my pastor friends that they think that maybe it was given as part of the curse when God kicked them out of the garden. Adam and Eve first had to create a budget. And they kind of think about that. But what we've tried to do is help them realize that aligning their financial story with the story they're telling, it just-- when those three are aligned, it gives them traction, it gives them a better tie-in to the vision, and it gives them a place for their donors to know where their money is going. I mean, a huge piece-- kind of an interesting statistic out there is they did a cross-business study on trust, and pastors actually ranked down with lawyers and bankers in the trust arena on this one study. And I think it's just where the spectrum has swung in these--
Stuart 00:34:33.730 As long as they're not down with car salesmen, right?
Greg 00:34:37.738 Right. Yeah. Right. And so a big thing nowadays is to say, "Hey, your money is safe with us." Well, why is it safe? "Well, we go through these practices, or we have this outside firm that gets to look at our books. So we're transparent with our numbers." And so that's something that we're hoping to try to help churches with, is how to better tell their financial story. One church, for instance, they weren't doing anything nefarious, but what they didn't recognize was how to join their budget to it. And so they were an outreach-driven church, very big in outreach, and they would speak that from the pulpit, and they had lots of volunteers. So from a volunteer standpoint, they were an incredibly outreach-driven church. From a "How do I spend my money?" standpoint, very little was tied to the outreach. And when we showed them that on the reports, it was kind of like a jaw-dropping moment for their leadership. Because they were like, "Man, we would have thought that our budget was telling the same story." They realigned those priorities in their budget which then brought it in alignment with the strategy of the church. And I wouldn't say that all their growth was due to us helping them align that.
Stuart 00:35:51.486 Oh, you can claim it. It's all right. They won't hear this for a few weeks.
Greg 00:35:54.316 But definitely grew tremendously. And then the pandemic hit. And so all that money that they had reallocated to be specifically driven towards outreach was able to be utilized in some really powerful ways during the pandemic where other churches maybe weren't able to push into that space as quickly. They were able to quickly just jump in because they already had it kind of allocated. That church has since merged with another church, and the vision has only grown. And we got to do the books for the merge. So we helped them merge and then we helped them post-merge as well.
Stuart 00:36:30.966 Cool. And so let's dig in a bit. When you say that they're-- I'm trying to translate into my agnostic language. So you sat down with them. And they're already a growing church. They had a good congregation. Their message was well-received. They obviously had enthusiastic supporters. And you were able to sort of hone an increase in donation and give them some strategies to sort of increase giving. Is that a fair sort of start to the story?
Greg 00:37:00.704 That's a fair start. And then helping them then also tell that story in a better way.
Stuart 00:37:06.565 Right, okay. All right. Okay. I sort of get where you're going with this. So align their vision and their journey with extracting more money from the congregation.
Greg 00:37:18.772 Well, I think people want to give money towards things that they believe in.
Stuart 00:37:24.053 Absolutely. Definitely.
Greg 00:37:25.890 And so if you can articulate-- the organizations that are articulating really well how that money is being spent and the life change that it's enacting--
Stuart 00:37:36.148 All right, cool. So give us some examples. So this church goes and helps X number of charities locally with the money that goes into the church, for instance. Is that fair?
Greg 00:37:45.829 Yeah. Or they had a track program that they ran, which you wouldn't necessarily think--
Stuart 00:37:52.377 As in athletics?
Greg 00:37:53.508 Athletics, yeah.
Stuart 00:37:54.208 Cool. All right.
Greg 00:37:55.350 And so they're in an area--
Stuart 00:37:56.089 Fucking divine runner.
Greg 00:37:57.961 Yeah. Well, actually, a more recent example was the one I just met with. So they, during COVID, recognized the need in their community that the food bank wasn't able to provide enough food. They didn't have the distribution to meet the need. The church had space that they were not utilizing. And so they quickly were able to remodel that space into a beautiful-- they call it a shopping experience, actually. It would remind you of maybe a Trader Joe's kind of setup, like a small, little local grocery store, but really cool, beautiful art on the wall, which is opposite of what you tend to sometimes get at a food bank, right?
Stuart 00:38:38.476 Yeah, yeah. Amazing. So they took the money and sort of worked with the food bank to provide this kind of amazing area for the community.
Greg 00:38:47.847 Yeah, and I think that one of the really cool things that they did was they took kind of the gospel of the church-- every person has worth because of the image bearingness of God is kind of a church gospel belief. And sometimes in the homeless side of things, when you've experienced homelessness or you go through that, the last thing you believe about yourself is that you have worth.
Stuart 00:39:12.670 Is worth. Yeah.
Greg 00:39:13.137 Because people are constantly telling you you don't, like, "Get out of here. We don't want you in the parks. We don't want you." And so what they did was they kind of restored that dignity of like, "Hey, I want to shop in a beautiful place, right? Why should going to a food bank kind of setup or getting a handout of some food have to be a negative thing? Why can't it restore dignity?" And so, I mean, they built it just like a grocery store. I wish I could pull up a picture. But it's just really cool, stunning. I mean, you wouldn't think it-- and this is in the church. So volunteers from the church staff it all week. They have certain days that they come in. They put up a shower unit so that people can schedule a shower. Because that's another thing in the homeless--
Stuart 00:40:00.266 I bet.
Greg 00:40:00.824 --world, is not being able to have a shower. They will give them clothes as well. And then one of the coolest things-- the last year when I visited, they had a blank wall that was really long. It was a really long, blank white wall. And this time when I visited, there's 30 beautiful paintings on the wall, and they're all of portraits of individuals, and they were people that have come through that were either experiencing homelessness or just came out of a homeless situation, got plugged into the church, built community, had people around them that were helping. And then this artist did a beautiful painting of their face and did it with, I mean, just gorgeous colors. And the artist was fantastic. They sell these paintings. And if somebody buys the painting, all the money from the painting-- the artist has already donated the works. And so all the money that they raise from those paintings goes directly to that person and their family to continue to help them get out of the situation that they were in.
Greg 00:41:07.298 And so one guy-- I just asked, "Hey, what about this guy?" It was a really cool painting. I was thinking maybe that needs to be in my house. And then the guy had-- when he came to the church, he was completely homeless. Got plugged in, then started to get more stable housing, was able to come to what they call the King's Table. They bring them to a wonderful five-course dinner where they have a host that hosts them and talks to them. Here's their story. That's where the painting's done. Had the painting done. They helped him make connections. He got a job at Disney World-- or Disneyland because they're in California and now has a great job, is doing well, and volunteering and giving back. And now he helps host at the King's Table. It's like this reciprocating thing where-- I'm sure when he sits next to a person that's right now going through those situations, he has complete empathy because he's been there and can identify with where they're at and meet them with where they're at. So it's just a beautiful story of how a church is impacting-- that's city-changing, right? That's not just within the four walls of a church. That changes the city and how it approaches-- now the city is now looking at the church for ways to better engage the homeless population, right? That's exciting.
Stuart 00:42:30.055 Very. And your role in that is pivotal. Because without their expanding base, without being well-organized, without your passion and enthusiasm and your mission-driven organization, they're perhaps plateauing or they're not able to help as many people. They're not able to create these beautiful spaces.
Greg 00:42:48.352 Yes.
Stuart 00:42:49.053 I think that's amazing.
Greg 00:42:50.251 Yeah. It's been a wonderful thing to watch, and we've been partnered with them for 5-plus years now, probably. I mean, our longest partnership, which we value, is 10 years old. Our first client was a church. It's a partner. They've been a partner ever since. So we get to kind of watch them as they grow. And I know that's a lot of firms, like get to watch a small startup business and get to grow with them. I would say that's one of the most rewarding things that we get to do, is celebrate those wins. Because of that 220, we don't just look at them as a number, although they do contribute to that number that we're targeting. We look at them as every one of them has impact in their community. I'm not called to go be a pastor of a church in that community, but that person is. If I can help them do a better job at it and help them be more sustainable in their growth, that then gives a life-giving community in wherever they are.
Stuart 00:43:49.299 Yeah. You'll forgive me for this, but I reckon that's fucking awesome.
Greg 00:43:53.519 It is. It is definitely.
Stuart 00:43:58.489 No, that's super amazing, Greg. And the work that you and Steve and all others in your niche of industry is fascinating, and I think it's just an amazing application of your skills. And people like you. I think it's fantastic.
Greg 00:44:14.239 Yeah. I actually met Steve early on when we first started-- when I first started with Xcelerator, so somewhere around 2015. And he was incredibly gracious. Met a couple times with us and shared some ways of doing things and got us kind of going. So I love that. And I think that's what I love about the Karbon community too. I experience that not just from people that are working in our space but everyone I talked to at Karbon. And I've had several follow-up meetings with people that I met there that were just very open and willing to share and like, "How do we all get better as an industry?" And I love that. I love being part of that.
Stuart 00:44:53.356 Yeah. And knowing Steve, that doesn't surprise me at all, that he was gracious and willing with his time and happy to hand on plenty of expertise. We'll have to have him on the podcast. Haven't had him yet. Haven't seen him in a while. So would love to.
Greg 00:45:05.755 Oh, there you go.
Stuart 00:45:08.383 Greg Daley, this has been amazing. Thank you for sharing your experiences with us, and thank you for being a wonderful Karbon customer. Thank you for sharing your experiences on stage at Karbon X. It was simply fantastic. And look forward to catching up again soon.
Greg 00:45:23.451 All right, thank you, Stuart. It's a privilege. It's been an honor. It was an honor to share on the Karbon stage, and I love doing this. Thanks for having me.
Stuart 00:45:32.073 And thank you for allowing me to swear on--
Greg 00:45:37.024 No problem.
Stuart 00:45:45.203 [music] 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 liked 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.