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Kick off 2026 the right way with the first Count Me In episode of the year! Adam Larson sits down with Tim Naddy, VP of Finance for the famous Savannah Bananas, professor, and passionate accounting advocate, for a lively conversation that blends humor, real talk, and fresh perspective on what it means to build a career in accounting.
From stories about melting copy machines during internships to reimagining how the next generation of accountants should be prepared, Tim shares why traditional education isn’t enough for today’s workforce, breaks down the challenges of first-year shock, and highlights the importance of mentorship and hands-on experience.
Hear how Tim is bringing creativity, energy, and storytelling into accounting education and why these skills are more essential than ever. Whether you’re a seasoned pro, new to the field, or just want a peek into what it takes to keep the wild Savannah Bananas thriving, this episode is the perfect way to set an inspired tone for the new year. Dive into a conversation that will motivate, inform, and maybe even make you laugh as you start 2026!
BILL is a leading financial operations platform for startups to established brands. Headquartered in San Jose, California, we’re a trusted partner of leading US financial institutions, accounting firms, and accounting software providers. We empower business owners, CFOs, controllers, and accountants to save time and take control of their payables, receivables, spend, and expense management. For more information, visit bill.com.
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IMA® (Institute of Management Accountants) brings you the latest perspectives and learnings on all things affecting the accounting and finance world, as told by the experts working in the field and the thought leaders shaping the profession. Listen in to gain valuable insight and be included in the future of accounting and finance!
Welcome to the first episode of twenty twenty six here on Count Me In. I'm Adam Larson, and I can't think of a better way of starting off this year than sitting down with Tim Naddy, the VP of finance for the Savannah Bananas. In this episode, you'll hear Tim share his story from earning a CPA at the University of Florida, experiencing that first year shock in the big four, and ultimately finding his place leading the financial side of one of most innovative teams in sports entertainment. Tim is passionate about preparing the next generation of accountants, and you'll get to hear his thoughts of why mentorship, storytelling, and practical experience are crucial for today's students and young professionals. So whether you're just starting your accounting journey, looking to grow as a mentor, or hoping to inject some fresh energy into your career in 2026, this episode was packed with insight and inspiration.
Adam Larson:So let's start the year off right together. Here's my conversation with Tim from the Savannah Bananas. Tim, thank you so much for coming on Count Me In. We're very excited to have you. You and I met when you were in Scottsdale for IMA's accounting conference, and I I chatted with you because I was like, I wanna chat with you and bring you on the podcast.
Adam Larson:There's so many different things we could talk about, but something that you're really, passionate about is, like, the next generation of accountants coming on. And so kinda what what inspired you to kinda say, hey. I wanna make sure that the next the next generation is ready to go when they get into the workforce.
Tim Naddy:That's a loaded question, my friend. It's going have to go all the way back to nineteen ninety nine, two thousand when I got out of school. And I will make this a TLDR. Right? So when I came out of school, I went to the University of Florida, graduated with a master's degree, got my CPA license.
Tim Naddy:I don't say that to say, like, pat on the back. That's just what at the time, that's what that's what everybody just did. Right? So if you were coming out of any of the top 10, top five accounting programs, you that was that was their pick of the litter, cream of the crop of the business world. Right?
Tim Naddy:And so I got my job at Pricewood Isles Coopers. I had done an internship, which I mean, let's be real. It was spreadsheet stuff, it was it was making copies. I was working for the investment investment house Bank of America investment team in out of Charlotte, North Carolina. And I think I actually Actually, I think I might have melted one of their copy machines.
Tim Naddy:I was working It was It had it had like this It was beige, and then over the night, could you could smell it, and that wasn't toner, but then there was brown that was coming out, I'm like, oh my gosh. Inside this thing is smoking. So if they're asking for reparations, I'm not giving it to them. You sent me to do the copies. Dutifully, finished that.
Tim Naddy:But when I got out of school, one of the things I noticed is that okay. It's really important to understand that everybody that was graduating at the time had all of those accolades. And so we had an internship under our belt. We all had the master's degree. We all had the CPA license before we were even getting into in fact, before we even get in our senior year.
Tim Naddy:And so by the time senior year rolls around, we're we're just basically everybody's like, where are you going to work? Where are you going to work? Everybody had a job. Everybody had a job. And so when you get down to PwC and, again, it's not a PwC thing.
Tim Naddy:This this isn't a Deloitte thing. It's an Anderson thing at the time. It's a KPMG, Ernst and Young. I mean, you pick one of the big five, big 20, big 100, does not matter. It happens everywhere you go.
Tim Naddy:And what ends up happening is you step through the doors and all of a sudden, all of that knowledge that's in your head I should say this, should point the finger in, all the knowledge that's in my head was like, okay, I've got I know how to I think I know that I know how I should say this. I know what to do, I don't know how to do it. So I have all the knowledge of what a cash reconciliation is, what a bank statement is, all this stuff. Agree, foot, all these little buzzwords that you learn, and they actually mean something in the real world. Whereas, I don't know, you just can't prepare people like that inside school, I should say this, in a traditional way.
Tim Naddy:Way that it was being taught, it's like, here's an audit, here's It's the Dermaceuticals audit. Probably a lot of kids are still using it today. Here's the same audit that they've been doing for the last twenty five years. Now, if I went back and did that audit, I'd be able to crush it, but I also have twenty three years, twenty five years of experience there. When you first come into the industry, you're in the headlights.
Tim Naddy:I wrote a dissertation on this. This is the reason why I got into being a professor, was that I looked around and saw my class, they were getting fired. They were quitting. I'm looking at this going, Dude, these guys are really smart people. Where are they going?
Tim Naddy:They were just like, I think I made a mistake. This is the wrong career for me. Woah, woah, woah, woah, woah, tap the brakes. These people are amazing people. They're very smart people.
Tim Naddy:They're on their toes. I mean, they're working for the big four, Right? And were like, they were falling out, boom, boom, boom, And so and of course, a few of them, I think a couple of them maybe got fired because, you know, they were a little bit too much of the fraternity guy for the business world. But it was one of those things where I was just kind of I was very rattled. And so it ended up having a I had a conversation with my former audit professor, Doctor.
Tim Naddy:Robert Neckle out of University of Florida. I got the opportunity. We were talking about ice hockey before you record. Got the opportunity. We used to have PwC had the the client had the Ice Palace, which at the time was the Saint Pete Ice Forum.
Tim Naddy:I don't know what it's called now, but it's, but the that's where the Tampa Bay Lightning play. And at the time, Tampa Bay Lightning were just hot, man. They had the they had the rookie of the year, Vincent LeCavier, they had it was awesome. It was what was actually my first hint of getting into sports. I was like, this is pretty cool.
Tim Naddy:I like this vibe. So, anyway, so the guys walk around. I remember this it was a seminal that was talking about. Was like, hey, anybody here a gator? And it's like, you wanna go to the game tonight?
Tim Naddy:And I I peek out from my cubicle at a groundhog. Yeah. I'm a gator. It's like, hey, yeah. There's some some some Gator accounting professor is gonna be in the box tonight.
Tim Naddy:You you you wanna go and and and hang with him? I was like, oh, yeah. So I got to go into the XO club, which was awesome. Right? Never been there before as a staff for PwC, and I'm thinking, man, right, pulling out.
Tim Naddy:I see Doctor. Neckle there. They didn't tell me who it was. I saw Doctor. Neckle there.
Tim Naddy:Now Neckle and I had a pretty, pretty good relationship when I was in school. In fact, God's honest truth, I showed up to his Audit two exam, which was the final exam that I took at University of Florida. A little bit tipsy because we went to the swamp before. It was our last chest our last test, and I already had an a in the class. And and I took his test.
Tim Naddy:I was a little I was you know, looking back, I was probably pretty I was probably pretty loud. I would have given me a b two. But I came as I came down, he goes, how do you think you did? And I was like, I was liquid cursed. It's like, I dare you to give me anything less than an A.
Tim Naddy:He gave me a B. So had a bone to pick with this guy, right? I walk up to him, I'm like, Hey, Neckl, what's going on? Give him a hug, whatever. And then finally, after he had had a couple drinks, I wasn't able to drink that night, but I was just like, I got to ask him this question.
Tim Naddy:I said, I want to know why you didn't prepare me for the real world. And he just kind of looks at me with this look, and it was I'll never forget it because it was it was like he knew something that I didn't, and I didn't like that. So, he ended up starting to explain, Natty, there's there's no time to prepare you guys for what the real world really needs. And I was like, I'm like, that sounds like a bunch of cockamamie BS. Right?
Tim Naddy:I was like, what? That doesn't make sense at all. You have me for, in this case, three years, you know, with all the different curricula, like the two years general ed, and then, you know, three years of of just pure accounting instruction. Three years is a lot of time to prepare somebody for, I don't know, coming out of the gates at least crawling. And so, the way that he said so I told him, I was like, it was that night.
Tim Naddy:It was that night I go, I'm gonna go back, I'm gonna get my PhD, and I'm gonna I'm gonna build a curriculum that can actually do this. And so and he looks at me and he says, okay, listen, I can see that you're upset. I was like, you you think I'm upset. I'm like, I can't believe I just said this to, like, my former professors. Like, he's gonna go back.
Tim Naddy:He was at the time, he was a PwC emeritus professor, so I was like, oh, man, he's gonna go back to a partner, say this, that, and the other. But he never did. And he said, here's what's gonna happen. You're gonna go into your pro you're gonna go into your program, and, all of the idealism that you have right now, everything that you wanna fix, they are going to turn you inside out, upside down to where you will be singing their tune before you leave. And I said, I don't I don't agree.
Tim Naddy:And he said, best of luck to you. And so I went back and got my doctorate. And and as doctor of administration with an accounting concentration, and with this one in particular, I wrote my dissertation specifically on first year shock. So first year shock, to kind of give you a real quick real quick analysis is, it really was coined by a woman out of the out of the night around the 1970s out of the nursing industry. And she wanted to know, why are all these new nurses who are coming out, why are they burning out so fast?
Tim Naddy:What she found is that there is a scale of competency. And now, if you look up the five stages of learning on the internet, they basically have embraced that and turned it into the stages of learning as opposed to the stages of competency. But if you say stages of learning for somebody moving up the channel and then stages of competency, you just flip it over, it's the stages of competency looking the other way. And, what ends up happening is that in the very, very beginning, you don't know what you don't know. So it's okay.
Tim Naddy:I mean, you're a neophyte, nobody nobody expects you to know anything. In fact, in the big four, when you looked at and you don't find this out until later, when you when you have when they come in and they say, hey, here's your bill. You look at the interns and you look at the first year staff. A first year staff at the time when I was coming out was $180 an hour, but they would discount it down to $90 an hour. And you're like, why would they do that?
Tim Naddy:It's because the staff don't know what they're doing, and the and the firm knows it. And what they do is they say, Hey, we're going put a couple staff over here, we're going to train over here. You cool with that? We'll do it half price. If that's what the mentality is at the top of the organization, how do you think they feel when it goes top?
Tim Naddy:It goes partner, senior manager, manager, senior, staff. Staff are already considered half off, right? And everybody up here knows it, so it's like, what are we going to do to actually make them a full fledged staff accountant? Well, you don't become that until you become a senior. That's like you're granted into or you're pulled into the club.
Tim Naddy:Now, you can't be sued yet. Got three more years for that, but the whole goal was is like, the game is I've got to get past two busy seasons so I can be a senior, so I can actually understand what I'm doing. Well, shoot, how am I going to do that if I don't even know how to put this knowledge that I got out the university and apply it into the actual functions of what we need to be doing? It drove me absolutely mad. So what I did, fast forward to 2012, and I told you, there's story.
Tim Naddy:Fast forward to 2012, I created a curriculum. I was working at Shore University, finished my DBA, got a got a nod to go work at Shore University. And while there, I was able to go talk it was, like, 2014. I created this curriculum based on busy seasons. Business season one, busy season two, busy season three.
Tim Naddy:And real, real in fact, I'm talking to Denise about this right now, and Mike DiPrisco at the IMA I'm sorry, Denise Froeming of the Cal CPAs. And also Mike, our illustrious leader, about this curriculum, because this is how I think it needs to be taught, because I've been there. I know what it's like. So I create this curriculum, and it's based off busy What does that mean? It means when you're a staff and you come out into the real world, there are certain things that you are 100% absolutely going to do, and if you think it's inventory, you might count something, but you're not going to do the inventory in the back.
Tim Naddy:That is a senior level exercise, because it's not just counting things, right? They'll So send you out there to do the physical inventory, you're gonna screw it up. Everybody knows you're gonna screw it up, so they'll fix it on the back end in the numbers. That's just part and parcel of the whole thing. Know you're gonna do things wrong, so they fix it on the back end.
Tim Naddy:So, mine, you come in, you do cash, and you do a little you do a handful of the audit that you would normally be taking on. You get really good at doing those three things. You're only there for like a quarter end or a semester. Right? Moving to the busy season two.
Tim Naddy:Busy season two, you have some of the things that a second year would do, but to teach you some of the social, political, and economic things that are squeezing down upon you as the now second year, you are also responsible for training the first year. That is part of your grade. Well, why would you do that? It's because if engagement fails, the whole thing fails, right? So the business season three, now you're the senior, right?
Tim Naddy:And now you have two people that you're overseeing, that's part of your is how is how well they do in their in their stuff. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You have to teach. And then, you also take this standpoint of now you're in charge of the budget, because even though the manager's there, the senior's really in charge of the budget.
Tim Naddy:And now, you have the political ramifications of what if you get squeezed by your manager, get squeezed by the staff. Senior is one of the worst jobs on the planet. And you're there for three years, you get to make manager, and finally, it used to be in Anderson, you get like a golf club membership. Joking, but it was like, you've arrived, right?
Adam Larson:Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Naddy:It's a grind. So, and so what would what had happening is that that I I would I brought this to the American Accounting Association, and this is where I knew I was onto something. Talking about this curriculum, I almost almost won the Mark Chain Award, which is for for the best curriculum. They said it was very professor specific though. Like, they need they would need me to So, teach I was like, okay, maybe that's not the right time.
Tim Naddy:But I was teaching on this in a breakout session, and I had I would have I I remember specifically one woman who had thirty five years of teaching experience. She did she did five to seven years in public accounting, and then she moved over to being a professor, had her PhD and everything. And she came up to me and she says, I remember the day that I felt like I wasn't good enough for accounting. And and I started asking these questions around, like because the dissertation said one thing, and I was like, yeah, this is this is pretty spectacular. Took anywhere between six to almost twenty four months for people to actually settle into their role.
Tim Naddy:Yeah. And when were they getting fired? Around month 13. They're like, woah, they're not they haven't even they're so don't give up on them. They've already been weeded out.
Tim Naddy:They made through the weed outs in high in in in university level. They're here. They're smart. Bring them along. Bring them along.
Tim Naddy:Do better management is what you're doing. And so I would have stories from all over the place of people coming in and saying, I I remember this. I remember having that first year shock, and it was devastating.
Adam Larson:Yeah.
Tim Naddy:Yep. And so that led me kind of on my crusade. I was like, okay, I've got to figure this out. Well, then twenty five years happened, and I started, you know, doing my own thing. Well, now that I'm back at now that I'm back in the entertainment industry with the Savannah Bananas, I got one foot in the bananas.
Tim Naddy:I got one foot at SCAD, Savannah College of Art and Design. And now I'm working with creatives who don't want to learn accounting at all, but they have to because they have a bunch of intellectual property with their paintings, sculptors, their video games, everything that their fashion, right? They're they're gonna have intellectual property put out there, and I basically tell them, like, look, on this side of heaven, we need money. So you're either gonna go work for somebody else who's gonna take that intellectual property and make a bunch more money on it than you are, or you can go hang your own shingle and do it yourself. If you're going to do it yourself, let me show you how not to get screwed in business.
Tim Naddy:Right? So basically, it's called strategic financial management, three big words, but basically says, I'm going teach you how to how to own your IP and make sure that you know how the fundamentals of running a business. And so that's where I am right now, and that's why I'm extremely passionate about it to of further that to one more fifteen more seconds. There was no book. I was using the case on Weigandt cost accounting book, 400 pages thick, hard to cover.
Tim Naddy:You know what I'm talking about. All taken We've all like thrown it across the room now. You know, sometimes people sit on it in their cars now to reach the pedals. But there is no book that can explain accounting in a way that is not threatening. Threatening in the sense that it's extremely technical, and if your brain doesn't work like that, it's Even for business and accounting majors, it's very technical.
Tim Naddy:It's very boring. It's very meh. So, I set out to write a book. I finished it. And so I'm talking to publishers right now to get this thing out there so that we can just I just want to I want to make accounting more appealing to people so that they don't look at it and go, I don't like don't like it when kids come into the into the room and they're like, oh, I have to I have to take accounting.
Tim Naddy:It's like, I want them to come and say, dude, I've heard about your course. I can't wait to see what we figure out what I figure out about my life, you know? And I wanna do accounting. I wanna do finance. I want to do these things as opposed to, you know, my mom and dad, you know, I I'm an I'm an athlete.
Tim Naddy:I have to I have to take this stuff. I want them to to really appreciate the discipline. The way I the way that I do and the way that you do and everybody else around us does, I think that accounting is such a beautiful discipline. And it one, we should stop weeding people out at the very beginning, but we should probably give them a better a better intro into into the family and then say, hey, listen. If you don't look.
Tim Naddy:You wanna come into accounting? You don't have to be a CPA. I mean, but if you got an accounting degree, why wouldn't you wanna be a CPA? But it's okay if you're not. There's also the management accountant route, and it's not like it's not like the CMA is is not as not as worthy as the CPA.
Tim Naddy:CPAs, you guys just you take a different a different route. It's now, the CPA is still considered the crown jewel of our our discipline. Okay. That's fine. But you don't have to go do public accounting in order to have a really nice and and wonderful career in accounting.
Tim Naddy:In fact, I worked for the Savannah Bananas. I got an accounting degree. I worked for the craziest, you know, traveling circus, if you will. Yeah. And and that's one of the things that I really wanna impress upon these young kids.
Tim Naddy:I'm sorry, students. They're all younger than me, is that a career in accounting, an education in accounting opens up so many doors for for these individuals who maybe they just don't know what they wanna do, but I can guarantee you, if you go to school and you have no idea, get the accounting degree, you will have options. And and they're options that when people talk to you, they don't they don't kind of they listen to your opinion because you know what's red and what's black. You know you know what's revenue, you know what's expenses. Right?
Tim Naddy:You know those things. And, at the end of the day, look at politics, look at social media, look at everything. It all comes down it all comes down to dollars and cents. And if you understand, you understand the bottom line, top line, gross margin, bottom line, those things, you are gonna go way further than somebody who doesn't understand those things, and has to basically give be given a budget and be told, hey, you you went over your budget. Sorry.
Tim Naddy:Sorry. You get to actually make the budgets, you know?
Adam Larson:I love your story because it kinda shows how everybody's journey is so different, and, like, the way you got to where you are is is your journey, and it's amazing to hear that story. And I think about how every stew like, a student who might be listening to this or somebody who's in their first couple years being like, man, I wish I had had his class. Or, like and and I guess, how do you kinda close that gap to make to get to get to the accounting students who are coming in there? Because not everybody can go to can be near Savannah and take that class and and and take your class and take that curriculum. So, you know, how do we close that gap for accounting students?
Tim Naddy:Well, I I appreciate this question, Adam. So what I was talking in fact, I think I will be, with you guys in when is your student leadership program? It's in November. Yep. I think I'm gonna be I think that's the I was talking to Leanne and Mike, and, we'll we'll probably be in front of, what, four to five student leaders.
Tim Naddy:Right? Yeah. Think the way we do this is, one, it's it's it's it's gotta be bigger than me. I I mean, I have a pretty loud voice. I have a pretty pretty stout platform, but people don't look at the bananas as an accounting organization.
Tim Naddy:They look at it as an entertainment organization. Right? But for the time that I have here at this at this particular platform, people, some for whatever reason, they find me interesting. Right? It's it's one of the reasons why we're having this conversation right now.
Tim Naddy:It's like, if I wasn't with the bananas, you'd be like, hey. It's just another CPA. The I understand. I understand. But what I'm thinking is that so with this book that I've written And by the way, is not a ploy to sell books.
Tim Naddy:What it is, it's a ploy to have people look at a new text and look at the way that it's being communicated to people, and that if people start If it starts resonating, if like the it's a cost accounting book. Here's what I'd say. It's a cost accounting book with an entrepreneurial jacket. I mean by that is storytelling. I don't have to give you a lot of numbers, and I know that people say, Oh, accounting is just math.
Tim Naddy:It's not just math. It is not just math. It is not just math. It is a language. We just happen to use numbers in order to communicate what we're trying to say, and a lot of us, I would say a majority of us, are not very good at communicating what we're trying to say.
Tim Naddy:We just basically, hey, here's the numbers, and someone looks at it and goes, so what am I saying here? What are you saying? It's like, you're not going go out of business next year. Great. Can you give me anything else?
Tim Naddy:Audit fee will be X. No, no, no. That's not how you do it. I think that we need to do a lot more on the on the side of of communicating, like, the storytelling aspect of what we do. And and really getting into forget about forget about business communication.
Tim Naddy:Everybody knows how to write an email. Everybody knows how to text. I mean, some people are, know, emojis are back. So, we're all the way back to the Neanderthal days of writing on caves and people understanding those things. Of course, context, different different situations.
Tim Naddy:But the but what I see here is that if we can if we can introduce, like, seriously introduce storytelling to the accounting curriculum, I think what would happen two things. You would have people that finally can understand how to how to actually create an arc. Beginning, journey, ending, denouement, oh, what happened? You know, like the crescendo, bang, what happened? All of a sudden, you'll have people that can discuss financial things in a way that actually can tie in relevant information, can tie in current information, can tie in the fact that the person might have some other things outside the office that they're struggling with.
Tim Naddy:Hey, work that into the conversation so as, hey, while this is really important, this is not important. This is not that urgent right now. You can wait a couple weeks until everything's done. The clients just want to know that you that you're listening, that they and that they're seen, right? This whole scene thing.
Tim Naddy:And that's all that stuff is is accomplished inside what we call storytelling. I mean, we've been doing it for eons. Yeah. Bonfire, wood, people around, people looking over in the windows, what's the old guy with the big old beard and the naughty staff saying? He needs to spit in a yarn, man.
Tim Naddy:We need to be better at doing that, taking technical information and turning it tangible. The instant we start doing that, we're going to start pulling people to our discipline because it's going to become it's not going be so nerdy anymore, it's going be fun. And I mean, the basis of accounting, I have fun with accounting. I mean, sure, there's those days you grind, but the the reality of it is that we just need to do something different in our curriculum in order to make it to make it work. And this is where I think when you say bridging the gap, I think if you have that storytelling element, if we if we if we teach them how to how to run a business first.
Tim Naddy:Right? I just don't care about the financial reporting side as much as I used to, because financial reporting goes the CPA route. And while I have a I'm a CPA myself. I just don't I think that there's a broader base here that we need to be speaking with, and and it's that accounting in and of itself is such a is such a vibrant and elastic career that everybody everybody needs to be able to tell the tell a good story. And that's not embellishing.
Tim Naddy:That's just taking facts and weaving them into a way that actually makes sense to someone on the other side who has no idea how to interpret financial information. And now watching Fox News Business, they're watching MSNBC, or whatever they're called these days, all these different things, and they're trying gain all these insights, and these people, they don't really know what they're talking about. So, the most trusted advisor that's going be in that room, their accountant, needs to be better at communicating the stuff that they know inherently. It comes back to those stages of competency. You're really good at what you do, there's a level where you go, it's like unconscious, then you go to conscious uncompetency, and then you go to unconscious competency, then conscious competency.
Tim Naddy:And it's up at the very top, it's called reflexive competency. This is the one that's very dangerous, so at the top of the period. Why is it dangerous? Because you know it so well, you can't even teach it. This is the moment where partners come in, or just c CFO or someone comes in, you know, like, hey, I'd like you to do this, and they get that look.
Tim Naddy:Like, what? Like, you know what? Don't worry about it. I think it it'll take me fifteen minutes. It'll take you three days.
Tim Naddy:Just move aside, I'll just go ahead and do it. You know? That's not what we need to do. Now, get that there's sometimes there's deadlines Yeah. But that's the reason why people are leaving the leaving the profession.
Tim Naddy:Because when we we already know that we're not we're we're getting, I don't want say broken, but let's say they're not finished vessels yet, right? And they still need the little ear put on mug so it doesn't hurt, it's not too hot and you could, you know, drink the coffee out of it. So they're not finished yet. They don't get finished, and we know they don't get finished till at least two years into their actually getting real experience, and if that's the case, the worst thing we can do is decide not to use them, is decide not to teach them, because now it falls on us, and that's where that's where kind of everything falls into place to where there's two two things we need to do. We need to we need to help them learn how to storytell.
Tim Naddy:We need to need to learn like, bridge that gap so that when they get here, they know they they they can move down that move down that, learning curve much faster. Secondly, when they're moving down a learning curve, we we, you and me, the seniors in the in the in the room, we need to be good enough to know that if they're treading water to be like, hey, let's throw them a lifeline. Let's not just say, oh, just go, you know, work it work it out. You're gonna you're gonna get it. You gotta get it on your own.
Tim Naddy:No. We're a team. Pick them up, show them how to do it, go back, let them see if they did right. If they did it right, slap them on the back. Hey, you did it.
Tim Naddy:Let's give you some more complicated stuff. Did it wrong? Fix it. Make them do it again on another engagement. It's training, it's mentoring, it's not giving them to fish, it's teaching them how to fish.
Tim Naddy:And that helps us up the line because in five, seven years, that's gonna be the person that's gonna be coming up the ranks so that you can retire, you know? So I think it's one of those things where I go back and I say, What's more important, your dinner plans or your succession plans? Because if it's your dinner plans, you don't have succession plans. So you might want stay at the office a little bit later and help that first, second, third year staff actually be productive. Because they're gonna look at you later on and be like, there are five people that I know that helped me out, and that person, this is the person that taught me this, and they'll never forget it.
Tim Naddy:So I think that's how we bridge the gap. Better better education on the on the university side, but also we have to have to have to on the inside, mentorship, we have to be able to turn around and pull them into our circles and not think that we're just, I'm just too busy to train. No. Because at one point in your career, they thought the same thing about you, but they moved their schedule aside and brought you into the fold. So we we just had to remember what it was like to be them.
Adam Larson:Yeah. Well, and that takes a little bit of putting aside our own egos and saying, okay, let me let me put aside, like, yes, I did this twenty years ago, this new person needs me to do it. And it's saying, let me let me step down and say, I will help you, young paddle one, you know?
Tim Naddy:You know, it's actually one of those things. Was talking about a woman the other day, she's homeschooling her kids, and she was surprised. I said, oh, yeah, we homeschooled our kids too, and she goes, oh, gosh. So what was the worst part? I was like, honestly, the worst part is relearning the stuff that I learned years ago, thinking that I still knew it, and then realize, oh, I forgot all that stuff.
Tim Naddy:I think one of the reasons why a lot of mentors don't want to get into the nitty gritty is because I think they've literally forgotten how to do things. Because technology Okay. You want to talk about AI? AI coming in, there was an article the other day about KPMG wants to bring people out, and within three years, they're going be managers. They're not even going to train them as staff auditors anymore.
Tim Naddy:Like, hold the phone. One, lawsuits, lawsuit, lawsuit. If I was a client and had those kids, yours telling me that my audit's being done by AI, I'm not paying I'm not going to his thing. If AI's going to do it, I don't know, 10 times faster, a 100 times faster, does my fee go down by a 100 times? Right?
Tim Naddy:But secondly, these kids don't even know what they're doing on cash accounts, and you're going to accelerate them into running, like dealing with management, and being the face for the client, and dealing with utilization, realization on jobs, and then, and by the way, you still have to deal with the people underneath you who also don't know what the heck they're doing. You know, it's like, what are you doing? It's like, if there was a vice, you have just put them in it, and so what's gonna happen? You might as well have AI just do the entire first five years of accounting because those people are gonna wash out and be like, screw big four. I'm gonna go work in a private company where I can actually learn something.
Tim Naddy:It's it it'll be it'll be very interesting what happens. I I I think it's a lot of bluster. I think that because private equity is starting to get in the mix, they're like, oh, profit, profit, profit, so you gotta push down. But what we're gonna see is we're gonna see people are gonna get really smart. They're gonna take their talents escrow, or they'll they'll create their own firms with, like like, CPA Club is doing out there in California.
Tim Naddy:They're gonna do a value pricing, and they're gonna take over all the work from the big four. They'll they'll just they'll siphon it off a little bit here, little bit here until the big four are not the big four anymore. There's just the four. And they're they're doing it themselves, man. Doing it to themselves.
Adam Larson:Yeah. Well, it sounds like it would need a whole culture change in organizations in order to do the things you're saying. Not all organizations are set up to have that culture of teaching, of mentoring.
Tim Naddy:Actually, I disagree with that, because I think I that they're just think that they they don't emphasize it. They were because the knowledge base is there. There there are people in all firms who who are there are some people who are who are a little bit better with people. Yeah. There's some people you don't want around other people.
Tim Naddy:Like, just go in the closet crank, right? And and that's okay. That's what's great about accounting. No matter which side of the introvert extrovert spectrum you're on, you can can be in a closet and crank and make a really good living. Right?
Tim Naddy:But for those who are extroverted, who actually who actually enjoy being around people and numbers, I think it's there. I think this comes down to, again, the pricing side. Why would you sacrifice a couple hours of training when you could be billing those couple hours because that's what your value is to the firm? Your value is how many billable hours you're pushing in there, and it's like, I don't have time, so what you do is you push it down to the senior manager. You push it down to the manager.
Tim Naddy:You think they have more time? Heck no. You might have these things stacking up inside your environment. You're on your desk, you have all these work papers everywhere, and you're like, oh my gosh, look how busy I am. It's like, you wouldn't be that busy if you trained the people underneath you how to do some of this stuff, and then you're just basically reviewing.
Tim Naddy:But they've lost It's a lost art. I think I think personally, I think every I would say partners are tough, BIM, but partners have enough time. They have enough time. They say that they don't, but they do. I mean, I've looked up I've looked into partners' offices one before, and it's like, yeah, they're not doing anything.
Tim Naddy:I'm busting my butt over here. They're not doing anything. I think every partner, before you make partner, should actually go and teach adjunct at a community college or or or the one of the intro years. You learn very quickly how much how much do we really need to be purposeful in our in our instruction. And it's not they're not dumb questions.
Tim Naddy:They're just they're questions we used to ask. We just we know them now, so we think they're dumb. Right?
Adam Larson:Yeah.
Tim Naddy:So I think that having that insight of going and actually seeing the frustration on a student's face, they look, they want to do it. They want to get it. And they want to be successful just like they they look at you, I want be like you someday. Okay. How do I get there?
Tim Naddy:This you gotta do x y z. And then when they get there, they're like, this is not this I've been sold a bill of goods. Like, I feel I feel depressed. I feel dejected. I I picked the wrong why am I even here?
Tim Naddy:And then that one person comes in and goes, hey, come here. Let me show you how to do this. And then their their world completely changes. Like, the scales drop from their eyes. There's a light in them, and they do the same thing for everybody behind them and around them.
Tim Naddy:So I think there's the proclivity there to get it done. I just think that firms need to make it a priority, just as just as billable hours in busy season are a priority.
Adam Larson:Sure.
Tim Naddy:In my humble opinion.
Adam Larson:Well, and I've always I've always looked at it, you know, when somebody comes into an organization, especially if you come in very high in an organization, I always feel like that person should go down and answer phones for, like, a week. Hear what the customers are saying. Be at the front lines where your customer service person is is answering those questions, and hear what the questions are from the people that you're actually serving. And then understand, oh, maybe this is how I can do my job better because I'm understanding what the it's like at the front lines. Because otherwise, you're in ethereal theoretical world, and you're not actually hearing what the what's that the customer is actually saying.
Tim Naddy:Yeah. That that's a very wise statement. And and I I agree with you. I think that there's a lot there's a lot to be said about having that that being disconnected from the from the actual grind that's getting you to where you want to go. And but but it happens over time.
Tim Naddy:And and now, it's okay to say this. As you move up the ladder, your skill set changes. Right? You're you're less in the reach, you're more overview, and so you have to have really good people underneath. You got to make sure that that that stays that stays stout.
Tim Naddy:But your job now is to look out across the horizon and say, okay. Well, there there might be a new client. How can I service them? How can I sell more work? And again, I'm just talking about public accounting.
Tim Naddy:But in the private sector, it's very similar. As you start moving up, now you're not really dealing in the in the weeds of the AP and the AR and those things. You're Now looking at budgets, you're looking at performance, you're looking at FP and A, right? And people rely on your research and your analysis in order to make decisions. Like, they're literally in a private company.
Tim Naddy:If you get an assumption wrong, is it going to blow up the company? Well, I mean, sometimes sometimes it will. But but but no. I mean, it's not like we're doctors and, like, you make a mistake and and someone's gonna bleed out and you lost your patient. It's like, at the end of the day, yeah, we might might lose a few dollars.
Tim Naddy:Might lose a few billion dollars. But the the thought is like, no one is gonna gonna die because of because of your your wrong assumption on unearned what is it? Just just pick a management estimate. Right? So but the thought here is is that as you start working your way through these things, you will eventually come with your own knowledge so that now you're a functional unit of the of the management team.
Tim Naddy:Right? You're you're you're managing people underneath you, and then you're also you're also reporting up, and you know now you have a little bit more as as to what you understand what your job is inherently as far as technically, and now it's a matter of how how do you, incorporate this. And I think that's what takes those people to the next level is that once you understand that piece, now you start selling business, you start getting asked to come to the rotaries and the and all those different things where there's the business mixers and what have you. Now you're in the mix and people wanna do business with you. They could care less about your your company.
Tim Naddy:They wanna they say, hey, I like that person. I know what they're about. I would like to do business with them. They're part of a firm. Oh, they're this.
Tim Naddy:Oh, they work here. So the skill sets change as we go up, but, yeah, getting back to what we were talking about earlier, as we move up, a lot of us start shedding some of the stuff that, you know, our branches don't want to hold onto, and so we have to we have to come back down, and and like, get on one knee, just like you would at a baseball game, get down on one knee Yeah. Pull pull up the trousers, and say, hey, what's going on? Like, I could just see, like, there's a little tea right here, a little kid. He's, kinda crying.
Tim Naddy:Like, hey, man. What's up? Just Yeah. Get the ball off the tee, man, and then run. That's kinda what we need to be doing.
Tim Naddy:But I think people are afraid to do it for a a couple of reasons. I think that there's that there is that productivity marker that in realization, how much are you realizing in your budgets, again, public accounting wise. But from the private side is, hey. Did you close? Did you close in three three days?
Tim Naddy:Like, well, no. What were you doing? I was I was training my staff. Well, we don't have time for that. Woah.
Tim Naddy:We do have time for that. You know? So Yeah. It's it's it's a lot of push and pull, and I think that at the end of the day, the the I think the organizations that are gonna be successful have a culture of internal training where where I mean, people just aren't afraid to have people who are working for them who are smarter than them. And and and some of it's that too.
Tim Naddy:You know? People don't wanna train really smart people because they're like, oh my gosh. They might they might take my job. Like, yeah, you gotta get out of that. So, anyway.
Adam Larson:Well, you I mean, you talk to some certain leadership gurus, and they'll tell you you should be training everybody to raise up to come up behind you so they will take your job because you're the one moving up because you're bringing up everybody around you, and that's the mark of a great leader.
Tim Naddy:Well, and and and so I agree with that. And so the and so when it comes down to when people are not training, the question is, is it because they distrust management? Because do they have a contract? Do they not have a contract? If you have a contract in place, it's so much easier to train people underneath you because, like, you're not going anywhere.
Tim Naddy:Right? If But you don't have a contract, you're right you're right to work for hire. It's kinda like, well, gosh, if I train them and they could take over my job, I mean, now I'm now I'm super expensive. They could easily have a a boon by just, see you. We don't we don't need your stuff anymore.
Tim Naddy:Like, there was this there was a there was a thing on LinkedIn the other day that I thought was really fascinating. They were they were talking about when a CFO steps away. Right? I'm using CFO as an example. When a CFO steps away, that that it's not just the accounting that's that's actually there's not any not just upheaval in accounting.
Tim Naddy:There's not people in the in the in the human resource section. Because CFOs bring more than just a a strategy, a number reader to the table. They're usually they're usually the the person that a lot of people go to because they don't want to look dumb in front of the boss. And the CFO, I would say the CFO and finance controller, what have you, they're usually the ones that say, hey. Let me bounce this off you.
Tim Naddy:What do you think about this? Right? And you'll have marketing people. You have you'll have you'll have HR people come and ask questions. And and what because they wanna know, one, the finance people, they they shoot us straight.
Tim Naddy:Give me some facts. I'll shoot us straight. Right? And, also, we're very busy people. So if we're gonna take our time and just sit there and talk to you, it's gonna we're gonna give you a good answer so that you don't come back.
Tim Naddy:It's like, we're gonna give you the information you want. But the but the thought was is that if someone if someone in a in a valuable position like the CFO or the controller or senior manager, what have you, were to leave, the company actually loses a lot more than just accounting talent. They lose a person who has been a confidant for many, many employees. And, like, a consigliere to a lot of a lot of other executives and and maybe even board members, CFOs, and I would say just in the finance and accounting, I keep saying CFOs, but really the finance and accounting world. We know a lot about what's going on in organizations because the, you know, the legal bills come through, the invoices come through.
Tim Naddy:We know we know everything that's happening.
Adam Larson:Yeah.
Tim Naddy:But the and so and so then to have that that added ability because people come to us because they trust us. We're very trustworthy. I mean, accountants are very trustworthy people. And and as long as we don't abuse that trust, people will continue to ask for our opinions, what have you. And so we tend to know things.
Tim Naddy:Know know things more than what HR does because people don't even wanna complain to HR anymore. HR is like, yeah. I don't need it. Just toss your way. It seems to be finance and accounting is starting to be that that or that internal sub HR function where people say, I just I just want a real answer.
Tim Naddy:Like, don't don't give me any drama. Like, what what are you seeing? What are the tea leaves saying? And they're they're taking that information and moving with it because we're the we're the strategists. Right?
Tim Naddy:We we know where this these things are held. So Yeah. Also puts the onus on us to be very cautious in how we advise. Right? I don't wanna do anything to to create negativity or what have you.
Tim Naddy:But the but the thought is, though, is that if we are if we're out there and providing these kinds of services, then when someone from a finance and accounting role leaves the organization, it's it's not just ripping off a Band Aid. You're you're you're getting some you're getting some skin, a scab with That's really gross. But the it hurts is what I'm saying. Yeah. It's not it's not just you're just replacing a number person.
Tim Naddy:You're replacing somebody who people really rely on professionally and personally. So I think that I think these roles are vital. I think that when you talk about students getting into these roles, it's a it's a fun place to be because every I would say, for the most part, everybody respects you for the knowledge base that you have and how you apply it and and how you can get things done. Everybody looks to the finance people like, those people are really smart folks. But secondly, it can also be incredibly rewarding because when people start coming to you and asking you questions about other things besides, you know, without a dollar sign on it, you're now in a position of of it says position of intimacy.
Tim Naddy:I know that's a weird weird word to use in a business context, but you know what I mean, where people don't mind opening up to you and asking you about it because they know that you're gonna be objective with what's happening. And be and by default, people that work in finance and accounting, they know that confidentiality means something. And so a lot of times, people in finance and accounting, they just they just don't talk about that stuff. So it's like, you you talk you come up here, you talk. It's like, okay.
Tim Naddy:Hey. You got anything else in your mind? Okay. You good? Alright.
Tim Naddy:Let me know if any if if we can do anything for you. I get back to work. They feel better. It's it kind of works. And it works like that everywhere.
Tim Naddy:It's not just the bananas. It works like that everywhere. So Yeah. Not sure how we got on that rabbit trail, but I liked it.
Adam Larson:That was a good rabbit trail. It's funny when I when I talk to when folks hear I'm talking to somebody from, like, a different industry, like, you know, the Savannah Bananas, they always want to hear the question, like, what's it like working in that different industry? And it's funny because most answers to the question are like, well, accounting is accounting no matter what industry you're in. And so I wanted to kinda flip that question around and say, is there something new you've had to learn because you're working for the Savannah Bananas in your role as the CFO?
Tim Naddy:That's fair. So one of the things that, when I first came in, I had never worked for a sports team. Right? I've always wanted to work for a sports team. So when I came in, it was actually one of those things where I had a conversation with the president, and he's like, look.
Tim Naddy:I get it. I I get it that you've never done this before, but your body of work speaks to it's not that difficult to learn. Right? One of the things I did learn, which I thought was really cool, is that KPIs really do matter, and matter in the sense that, but they're they're hyperspecific to the organization and the industry. When I when I teach about KPIs, whether it's SCAD or shorter or wherever I was, I I don't really I don't really spend a lot of time on ratios per se because ratios, in my opinion, and I will say in my opinion, they're they're not really fruitful in in the analysis of the organization.
Tim Naddy:I mean, day of day sales outstanding, all of these all these traditional ones that you learn in accounting school and in finance school. I think it's they're more of talking points than anything else. I mean, again, you can go to Fox Business, you can go look at Mad Money, that's what they chirp about. Right? But then again, they they they put an algorithm out there, and all of a sudden, the algorithm is supposed to speak to, like, the health of my working environment.
Tim Naddy:That's all BS. So it's just Yeah. It's a number that an analyst can look at and go, oh my god. Is the stock gonna go up by 2¢, or is it gonna go down by 3¢? Right?
Tim Naddy:The so I don't really focus on ratios, but I've I've come around to KPIs. And what I mean by that is that, like, specifically in the baseball industry, or really just the sports industry, we have what's called a per cap, per capita. And a per cap, you can use a per cap very similar to it's getting really nerdy. We're about to get nerdy. When you look at vertical analysis versus horizontal analysis, okay?
Tim Naddy:And what I mean by that is you take an income statement or P and L and you say it, or a balance sheet, but we'll stay on the P and L, and you're saying, Hey, I want to compare two companies, right? A company that's a $5,000,000,000 company and a $5,000,000 company. Well, how in the world are you going to do that in the context of like, that company's way too big. They have so many other processes, blah blah blah blah blah. Well, then you do what you have what's you have what's called comparable statements.
Tim Naddy:Right? The but the yeah. Comparable statements. So you take it and you say, okay, let's take the percentage of the revenues. And so that's a 100%.
Tim Naddy:And as we start moving down, cost of goods sold, gross margin, and now you get down into SG and A and all your fixed costs, it's a percentage of sales. Right? So now, all of a sudden, this $5,000,000,000 company and this $5,000,000 company, you can look at them and go, oh, look at that. Their cost of goods sold is 36% minus 34%. It's like, oh, man, I beat I'm beating the the industry giant.
Tim Naddy:Right? Now, where do get that information? A lot of these guys are public. Right? So you can actually look at those things.
Tim Naddy:But if you wanted to identify how to look at your organization versus a bigger organization, you can in that manner. Well, per caps are very similar to that in that it's like a universal metric across all of, I mean, you could say all of entertainment, but let's just keep it inside sports because sports is a little bit more like, I could say Broadway and things like that, but food and beverage and Broadway is probably a little bit different. But the number basically, it's the number of people that come in. So let's say let's say you sell let's let's keep it simple. Let's say you sell 10,000 tickets.
Tim Naddy:Right? And in 10,000 tickets, let's say 9,000 people come. Right? So you're at a 90% re in this case, realization rate for us, but it's a 90% scanned rate. So your redemption's at 90%.
Tim Naddy:Alright? So when you make when let's say you have let's say you have you sell $2,727,000 dollars worth of merchandise. Well, $27,000 I'm sorry, $270,000 of merchandise, and you have 99,000 people in the building. Right, you don't use 10,000 because there's thousand people that aren't there. You take that 9,000, you take the $2.70, divide it by nine, and all of a sudden, you're at what's considered a $30 per cap, which means that on average, those 9,000 people spent $30 at your merchandise tables.
Tim Naddy:Right? Now, is that did did every single person spend 30 no. Some people spend a 180. Some people spend 5, whatever it is, but the average comes out to about $30. Why why you can take that?
Tim Naddy:Now you can do that you can do that with merchandise. You can do that with food and beverage. Right? Why is that important? Because now you're getting down to the per person cost.
Tim Naddy:So I could say if someone if someone spent $30, average $30, how much average cost were the were the things that they purchased? Right? If average cost is anywhere between if it's like $15, I'm at a 50% margin just on materials alone. I haven't I haven't I haven't included the labor or the overhead or logistics of even getting that stuff out there yet. So I have, $30 and $15?
Tim Naddy:Woah. Woah. What what what's got what's happening? Or if it's down to, like, maybe, like, a 10 or a $9 cost, like, woah. We're we're, like, down underneath 34%.
Tim Naddy:Hey. Good job, team. So these these are there are all these little things that can can really shortcut the analysis on how well an an organization is doing at a not only a particular event, but also across, a series of events, so like a weekend or whether it's a month or a season. And those become the little canaries in the coal mine that go, okay. What promotion did we do on this one night that that led people to buy more hats?
Tim Naddy:Right? And okay. So let let's let's really find that out. Because a lot of times, people just need to know how their marketing is actually translating into their numbers, specifically from an from an accounting standpoint. And so that per cap can help.
Tim Naddy:So one of the things that one of the things that I found is that not not necessarily KPIs per se, but but the I'm sorry. Not necessarily ratios, but certain KPIs for for certain industries. And and again, it it becomes very, very specific. Once you understand how that rolls into the overarching operation, you can then start moving into operating off of percentages. Instant you're able to the instant you're able to move away from dollars and move into percentages is the day that you own your environment to where someone you can look at it.
Tim Naddy:In fact, you can you should you probably get this. There are those people that and it used to it used to befall me. Was like, that guy's looking at a a p and l, he's, like, telling me all the things wrong with this organization. All the things good is and, like, how in the world are you doing that? Because in his head, he's like, editor going, This this this this balance sheet versus this p and l, that doesn't match.
Tim Naddy:And he's like, and so you look at that and go, how did he just do that? Well, it's because over time, you get good at this, but also, you know what to look for. You know you know where the warning signs are. You know where people are gonna if they're going to do it, where they're gonna hide it hide it. And I think that's one of the things that when you start looking at when you start getting into accounting is accounting is accounting, specifically to my industry inside, again, baseball, banana ball, what have you, per cap's a big deal.
Tim Naddy:And if and if I understand what those per caps are, after every game, I can look at those per caps and go, is it above? Is it below? Is it a triple a game? Is it a Major League Baseball game? Is it an NFL game?
Tim Naddy:A football turned baseball? And all of those have different per caps. And if we're within that threshold that I that I think we got, then I feel good. If we blow through that threshold, what in the world do we do? It's not it's not gonna I I don't just give myself a high five.
Tim Naddy:I'm like, oh my gosh. We did it. It's like, what happened? What did we do here? And then also on the flip side, if it goes below that per cap, it's like, oh, did were were the lines too long?
Tim Naddy:Was was something not priced correctly? Did did we not do we do we, like, fail on one of the sales? Did did we just give away some stuff for free and it didn't it didn't come in? So lots of different things you can learn from those those little things. I would say I don't I just don't spend a lot of time with with ratio analysis, but KPIs are important.
Adam Larson:Yeah. That's awesome. Well, Tim, I truly appreciate you coming on the podcast, sharing your insights, sharing your story a little bit with our audience. It's been a great conversation. I just really wanna thank you for coming on.
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