There may be errors in spelling, grammar, and accuracy in this machine-generated transcript.
Nancy McClelland: Welcome to. She counts, the Real Talk podcast for women in accounting, where your hosts, Nancy McClelland.
Questian Telka: And Questian Telka.
Nancy McClelland: And every episode we're digging into the real experiences, challenges and unspoken truths of life in this profession.
Questian Telka: Because if you've ever felt like you're the only one, you're not [00:00:30] and you shouldn't have to figure it out alone.
Nancy McClelland: Special thanks to our sponsors forwardly, Justine Leykis, the incubator and keeper, for helping us bring these conversations to life, enabling us to share out loud what everyone's thinking, but no one's saying.
Questian Telka: Today's episode is called Build the Business You Actually Want, and we have a very special guest with us, our good friend Justine Lackey.
Nancy McClelland: Justine is [00:01:00] a trailblazer in the virtual bookkeeping industry, devoted mother to three and mentor and coach in her incubator program for bookkeepers and accountants growing their firms. She loves everything entrepreneurship, ethical leadership, almost all technology and hosting elaborate dinner parties for her loved ones, which I am gonna get an invite to at some point because I've seen those photos. Justine. Thank you so much [00:01:30] for agreeing to join us on She Counts. I'm especially excited because I know we have quite a few listeners in my ask a CPA community, and also from your incubator community and a ton of crossover between the two. So I want to give a special welcome to all of you out there in each of these groups. Again, thank you so much for being here with us today.
Justine Lackey: I am so excited to be here. You know, I love spending time with you. I love talking about all things accounting and entrepreneurship, [00:02:00] aka what I call talking shop. So. Thank you for having me.
Questian Telka: Uh, we are so excited to have you here. And as you know, because you are one of our avid listeners, we love launching each episode with a story. And Justine, I know you have one to share with us about why this episode topic is so important to you.
Justine Lackey: Um, so I'm an accidental entrepreneur. [00:02:30] I just landed in bookkeeping through, um, the invitation of a roommate, uh, to go work for a company. But I also accidentally became a pioneer in the virtual accounting space. And so how that happened, which I think is funny because this is a podcast for women, is I used to go around to all different studios and businesses in New York City, And then I got pregnant and I was in a very famous [00:03:00] fashion stylist loft and my office. My desk was actually up a ladder, like, not stairs, a ladder. So here.
Questian Telka: Oh my gosh.
Justine Lackey: And I'm I'm six months pregnant and sling back heels climbing up a ladder. And I'm like, I have to figure out how to do this differently. And so virtual bookkeeping in the early 90s involved Fedex [00:03:30] zip drives and messengers. And I would just round trip the documents and the files back and forth. And that is that's really this is before online banking. So that's how I became a virtual bookkeeper by precariously avoiding my my death in New York City fashion loft.
Nancy McClelland: So oh my gosh, I love that story so much. And I am so glad that you kept that a secret before, so that I could hear it for my [00:04:00] first time live on.
Questian Telka: Me too.
Justine Lackey: I remember the shoes.
Questian Telka: I have to know if you'll tell us who is the fashion stylist. Because you know I love some fashion.
Justine Lackey: Listen, honey, we're bookkeepers and accountants. We keep. We keep secrets like never. Um.
Questian Telka: Well, also, the slingbacks like.
Justine Lackey: Don't kiss and tell, but. Yes. Uh, no. Her work. Let's see that.
Nancy McClelland: Well, [00:04:30] hearing that story definitely makes me, um, understand a comment that you've said a few times before. Um, better, which was that you never wanted to build the H&R block of bookkeeping firms. Just you wanted a curated, high functioning business. You've used that, that phrase a lot. So I'm I would love to know. And I know our listeners would as well. What did it take for you to get that clarity? And what [00:05:00] do you wish someone had told you when you were starting out?
Justine Lackey: So like I said, I was an accidental entrepreneur. So this was just really a job, but a job that I could control. I could control the time, the amount of work, the amount of money I was making. Um, and I, I didn't go to college. Um, I didn't finish college until 2009, which was well after good sense was up and running. And I [00:05:30] didn't come from corporate, so I didn't have any of these adopted frameworks that people would know. Quarterly goals, annual goals, moving strategically towards those goals. So it took me quite a long time to get that clarity because I had, you know, essentially these deficits in knowledge. But what I did know was I wasn't a corporate girl. I wasn't going to a cubicle. Um.
Questian Telka: Nor did you want to, I'm sure. Right. [00:06:00]
Justine Lackey: I mean, I was working in some cool places, but it just was. It's not my vibe. You know, and and the idea of such, I. And I think looking back on it or being in conversation about reflection, it's corporations are really large and I'm, I'm really community centered. And so I think that really was part of it was a smaller firm was going to allow me to continue to have these relationships. And that's very true. Like [00:06:30] when I sold my firm, one of my clients had hosted my baby shower and had been with me for 22 years.
Nancy McClelland: Oh.
Justine Lackey: Yeah. So, um, but I eventually got clarity. It took me a long time, but now that's also why I'm very passionate about it. Because it led to a lot of dead ends and wasted time and wasted money.
Nancy McClelland: Well, you've talked about that in this period where you were like getting clarity on what you wanted, that [00:07:00] you made some mistakes because of A. Um, what question? And I have talked about a lot this like external narrative, this pressure to grow at all costs. Um, and I know that you've shared that you made a few mistakes along the way there as well.
Questian Telka: So, yeah, I would I would love to hear if you want to share what those mistakes are. And then what do you wish someone would have told you that may have helped you avoid them?
Justine Lackey: Well, [00:07:30] I think the first and biggest mistake was not having clarity around what I really wanted. You know, not. So so here's here's the the really strong tangible is everybody says I want to be successful, but that's ambiguous, Us, right? You have to get into the details of it. I want to make $250,000 a year. $500,000 [00:08:00] a year. I want to work 20 hours. I want to have a team of five. I want to have an offshore team. I am against offshoring. You have to have actually the the outline of what that looks like. It's not enough to say, well, I just want to be financially stable. Like, you know, I just want financial freedom. Like these.
Nancy McClelland: Are.
Justine Lackey: Phrases that don't help. So that was that was my first and biggest mistake. And then I think that because I had this, you know, there's this external pressure for everything [00:08:30] to get bigger. Right. The economy always so true. The economy always needs to expand. You know, your business.
Nancy McClelland: Oh, I'm so glad you used that example because that is something I get frustrated. It's like, you know, sometimes sometimes we don't. Sometimes we've got it figured out and we should just stick with what's working.
Justine Lackey: Yeah, and that won't always work forever, right. Because things are constantly changing. But yeah, like I think that there's we're constantly, you [00:09:00] know, chasing the next thing because of this cultural narrative that we're not examining. And so there's this immense pressure to keep growing at all costs. And then what happens is, is, you know, for me, what happened is I ended up growing so big that my business felt like a runaway bus. And I.
Questian Telka: That let me off.
Justine Lackey: My wife once told me she was in labor and and the lady was walking [00:09:30] around the room and she said, I want to get off. I want to get off. I changed.
Questian Telka: My mind.
Justine Lackey: I changed my like like she like she could get off the bus. But, um, uh, so my business at that point was so big. And for me, I. I am not the sole breadwinner. I well, when I first started good sense as a corp, I was a divorcee with two young children. I eventually got remarried, uh, I had a third child with my [00:10:00] husband, and, um, and while it wasn't the sole breadwinner, I was the primary breadwinner. And so I couldn't just get off the bus. Right. And, um, but that was a very stressful, stressful period where just it really just felt completely out of control.
Questian Telka: And I think that's so that's so common for for women to feel that way who are running businesses. And it's that we have this, as you were saying, this cultural or societal [00:10:30] idea and definition of what success looks like. And then we we put pressure on ourselves to follow this ideal of success. Like you said, you grow your revenue to X number of dollars or this many people, and it's that is not always a fit for everyone.
Justine Lackey: That's right. We're all different. And, um, I like to say everybody has the right size business, you know, and everybody that the constitution of what that looks like. Um, but I think, I think [00:11:00] really what it is, is it's much easier for, for us to say, I want to be successful. I want my business to succeed. It's a lot harder to be brave and courageous and write it out and get into the details of it. When you live in the land of ambiguity, you that's you just float. You know, you don't arrive. You don't. You know, you lack direction. Direction. Thank you for filling [00:11:30] in the gap there.
Questian Telka: Yes.
Justine Lackey: Yeah.
Nancy McClelland: I want you to tell this story about, um, you had you had told me about it, about how you were in a session with your employees where you had built out an entire, like, road to 3 million roadmap. Yeah. And and what you're like physiological reaction was to that.
Justine Lackey: Yeah. So in the last 2 or 3 years that I was running good sense, we hired an amazing [00:12:00] EOS implementer. Her name is Denise Haney. Um, and we brought EOS into Goodsense. And if you're a company that's five or more, I think that's a recommendation. I really recommend running your business on EOS.
Nancy McClelland: And for those of you who aren't who don't know what that is, that's entrepreneurial operating system. Google that. There's lots of great info out there on it. I know there was also a session last year on EOS at Bridging the Gap that I thought was was really fascinating that Roman Villard was a part of. So lots of great info out there. Uh, if you want [00:12:30] to deep dive on that. So sorry. Go ahead.
Justine Lackey: Yeah. So we were in you know, there's a whole structure about how you roll it out. And, you know, we were, uh, building what they call the Vision Traction organizer. And there's like, you know, your one year goals or three year goals, your five year old goals. And, you know, we, um, me and my entire team together, plus two people joining virtually from Florida, and we built out this roadmap to 3 million. And, um, when I ran my bookkeeping firms because we were doing a full service Apar [00:13:00] payroll, we had, um, redundancy built in. So we would have two people on each of these accounts. So if somebody was out sick or on vacation, everybody could the the wheels stayed on the bus. So we I figured out this is my best recollection, but my recollection of this was we were going to need I think it was it was roughly it was something like seven or 7 to 9 teams. But then we were gonna need, um, [00:13:30] 7 to 9 teams. So that would be 14 to 18 bookkeepers. Then we were going to need client service people to manage those bookkeeping teams. Then we were going to need a true integrator Greater Qiu and we landed somewhere around 28 people. And, um.
Nancy McClelland: By the way, I think I just got hives. Yeah. Seriously?
Justine Lackey: About that. You know, when you're in Conference World and you're like, yeah. Woo! And like, you're like, you're on hot coals. [00:14:00] You know, like you get. So that's like how the energy in the room was. And I'm like paid maternity leave for everybody. Retirement funds like you know all of these things being really deep desires. Everybody makes over six figures. And we mapped it out like we could have done it. And um, so we all leave, we're all super excited. And then the next morning I woke up and I literally could not move my right shoulder like I my whole neck. And I was like, I don't I didn't sleep wrong. I got like [00:14:30] hit with a cinder block. Like it was so, so bad. You know, it was this chair. And I'm like, you know, uh, rotating. And I called my massage therapist. She actually works at a children's hospital. She said, well, I have 20 minutes. So she came here and she massaged me in this very chair. And I was like, I don't, I don't know what's happening. And she was like, what is this weight on your shoulders? Like, she could not even massage.
Nancy McClelland: What is this weight on your shoulders?
Justine Lackey: And [00:15:00] I had to be I happened to be recounting, just like, you know, what's what's going on with you right now? Like what's happening. And I. And I'm telling her about this iOS meeting, and then she's talking about the weight on her shoulders. And it was I haven't had a lot of aha moments. I know that's a cultural cliché, but that was an aha moment where I was like, oh my God. I was like, I don't want this. This sounds this sounds terrible, you know? And, um, and that was a moment for me.
Questian Telka: It didn't sound [00:15:30] like a buzz. It sounds more like a train.
Justine Lackey: Yeah. And I had a great team. I mean, I think we could have done it, but I. I didn't want to do it. It was not my. It was not my desire to build a corporation. I guess at that point it's not still a small business. It's under whatever, 100 employees. But it just was not.
Questian Telka: So what did you do? Like, so you wake, you have that clarity, you have that moment and you have like this team that you've been talking to and you're like, everyone's all hyped [00:16:00] up and excited about it. What did you how did you manage that after?
Justine Lackey: Well, that's ethical leadership in action. That's hard conversations. That's going back to the team and saying, you know, it was really exciting and I really believe that this can be done. But at the end of the day, this is my life. And, um, I'm I am a dedicated leader and I will always take care of you guys when you're here. But what we have is great, and I'm not I don't want to do [00:16:30] that. And, you know, I mean, it's terrifying to put your tail between your legs and be like, oh, yeah, we took a wrong turn. We got to turn back. But the other consequence would have been greater, which was us. I was just talking about this with my community members yesterday in an incubator session about integrity. And we often talk about integrity in relation to other people, but we don't talk about integrity in relation to ourselves. So when when [00:17:00] we're out of alignment with integrity, that causes inner conflict and stress. So for me to be I and I, at that point, I had figured that part out. And I knew that if I went down this road and built this company that was out of integrity with me, and that was going to not end up not not be good for me. And then ultimately, when you're you're not well, you can't lead a team.
Questian Telka: That's what I was going to say, is admitting [00:17:30] that you have taken a wrong turn, or you feel like this would be taking a wrong turn and admitting that to your team. I think that that builds a lot of respect. And then to your point, saying, if we did this, I don't feel like I could be a good leader. So this is not a place where I want to take us.
Nancy McClelland: And actually, I'm going to interject that this has worked for me with letting go of clients or transitioning clients to colleagues. Um, because we've gone through [00:18:00] the right sizing exercise, uh, a couple of times. And Justine has definitely given me a lot of insight there. And, um, and letting the client know that you're doing this not only for your own good, but for theirs, because you would not be able to serve them in a way that either you or they or your team would be proud of. So that's that's a way that you can extrapolate that lesson.
Questian Telka: Yep.
Justine Lackey: 1,000%. [00:18:30] But that also has integrity I agree.
Questian Telka: Yeah, absolutely.
Justine Lackey: I had call me and say, do you use zero? I made a very strategic decision to only do bookkeeping and only do bookkeeping and QuickBooks online, because I wanted us to be the very best at what we did and telling people, I'm sorry we don't use Xero, but I heard you guys are great. Can't you just learn it? No, I'm [00:19:00] not your person or somebody who worked in wholesale. I hated counting bits and bobs and cogs.
Nancy McClelland: And.
Justine Lackey: I'm not your person. Don't hire me. I'm a terrible fit. You know? But. But that piece, Nancy, that you're talking about, which is. It's really important to me that I do a great job for you. And either I can't do what you're asking of me. I don't have the skill set. I don't [00:19:30] have the capacity to teamwork. But sometimes it also comes down to desire. It is okay for you to turn away clients that you don't like.
Nancy McClelland: Yes.
Questian Telka: Well, we often.
Justine Lackey: You know, not all of them. That's not a successful business plan. But you know, when people are nasty or mean or abusive, I see a lot of people, particularly women, putting up with dysfunctional behavior because they believe they have to.
Questian Telka: Yeah, because [00:20:00] they believe they have to, because we've been taught that. But we also have. When you're running a firm, we lose track of the fact that, you know, we can generally always find some sort of business. We have a scarcity mindset, right? So we're like, oh, we have to take every single client on. And it's like, no, you don't have to take every single client on.
Nancy McClelland: Yeah. When Melissa miller Ferguson gave her talk to ask a CPA on the ideal client profile, one of the things that she had, I remember really well on one [00:20:30] of those slides was Clients who are nice like that was one of her, that when she wrote up her ideal client profile, she's like, I don't want to work with jerks, right? Like that. There's nothing that's incongruous between that and, you know, developing the clarity that you're describing. Justine, you know, like, won't work with jerks is a absolutely is one of the things that can be on there. It doesn't just have to be, you know, the the niche or the, [00:21:00] uh, geographic locality or whether or not you work with inventory, etc..
Justine Lackey: I put a linked up post up at some point in the past year where it was like it was something like, Pro tip for success, just be nice.
Nancy McClelland: Yeah.
Justine Lackey: You know, like when you're nice, when you're genuinely nice, what happens is, is you build relationships and I, my students and my clients that relationships are [00:21:30] Or assets. We can't line item them on a balance sheet. But when I sold my firm and I don't even know if we actually mentioned that part, but I did sell my firm in 2023. I had 28 people court me. Wow. Uh.
Nancy McClelland: That's amazing.
Justine Lackey: It was amazing. Um, but but the point is, is that one of the things that made my firm so valuable was that I had very strong relationships first with my clients. Remember, there [00:22:00] wasn't just one. That was over 20 years. I talked about the client that had been with me for 22 years, but I had really strong relationships. I had team loyalty. So being able to show this was a really healthy business. And, um, and you get there through relationships. And how do you build relationships? You build relationships by having integrity, by being honest, by saying sorry when [00:22:30] you're wrong and and good communication.
Nancy McClelland: Okay, well, I want to I want to spend some time on the good communication part, because I know that that is related to the different types of growth that you talk about. You talk about lateral growth and vertical growth, if you wouldn't mind defining those for us. And, and uh, once you've defined those for us, explain how that's related to communication. [00:23:00] And, um, what happens to us when we when we don't think about lateral growth?
Justine Lackey: So before I talk about lateral lateral growth versus vertical growth, how I view it, I want to say the communication piece is keeping your team in the loop is really important because you're the captain of the ship. And when you are transparent about what the plan is, they trust you and they know where they're going, what their mission is. So that's the first piece of that. [00:23:30] But, uh, we talked in the beginning about grow, grow, grow, expand, expand, expand. And that's what we call vertical growth. That is the most common type of growth that we hear people discussing. And we talk about vertical growth in terms of raising your revenue number and client acquisition. Those are really sexy numbers. Yeah.
Nancy McClelland: Like whenever people on LinkedIn talk about having a successful firm, they always talk about revenue. They [00:24:00] almost never, ever, ever talk about profit net income margins.
Justine Lackey: Exactly I know.
Questian Telka: Yeah. It's it's crazy. Um, there's some quote that I, that I always makes me laugh and it is um. Oh, what is it? It is, um, I can't remember what it is. Now let me see if I can come back to it. But it's basically the in a nutshell explaining that, um, paying attention to your revenue is insanity. But [00:24:30] paying attention to profit is sanity, and I gotta see if I can find it now. Now I'm curious.
Justine Lackey: I haven't heard that, but I, I like it. Um, okay, so so we talk about vertical growth. Everybody's like, oh, yeah, I know those numbers, right? Yes. Um, one of the other things that I think leads to vertical growth over a long period is also, um, client retention. So sales and marketing and getting the clients I had a sales call that was great. Like, that's really sexy, right? I got a new client. Client retention is [00:25:00] really sexy because that's where your asset building component of your firm actually begins. If you have high client churn, your people trying to acquire, you are going to be skittish.
Nancy McClelland: And that's what you mean by asset building. Building something that you, in theory, could sell later on, whether or not you actually do, just working from that mindset of building something that could be sold later on. That's asset building.
Justine Lackey: That's asset building. And I want to talk about that once [00:25:30] I get through the lateral growth part, because I want to talk about how I actually figured out I had a business to sell.
Nancy McClelland: Okay.
Justine Lackey: So lateral growth is all of it's it's the foundation component. It's the systems. It's the processes. It's the technology. It is it is the cogs and the wheels of the business. And that stuff requires patience. [00:26:00] And it is it's very detailed hard work.
Questian Telka: Yes.
Justine Lackey: But when you are trying to stay in integrity and deliver on those client deliverables, whether it's bookkeeping or tax return or a cash flow projection, you're trying to service your clients. You're trying to vertically grow in terms of client acquisition and revenue. And then you're trying to laterally grow, shore up your systems, [00:26:30] build those processes, nurture your team, coach your team, teach your team, build your team. There are very few people, particularly smaller firms, who can do this all at once. So then you need to make a choice about what you're going to focus on. And when we had done it a couple of times, but when we the first time I did this was right after the runaway West moment, I was like, I can't take on any more clients right now. I'm too [00:27:00] stressed and you know, I'm messing up. I'm not doing a good job. So I paused on taking clients, but the other part was, after we started to really dive into EOS, the entrepreneurial operating system, we paused, intentionally paused so that members of the team so that we could shore up this lateral piece so that we can continuously wow our clients and and have a low stress life like that. I don't think we are transparent enough [00:27:30] about how stressful this industry is. Oh. Oh. It's it's it's brutal.
Questian Telka: It's brutal.
Justine Lackey: You know, it's really. I always say money's like medicine. The stakes are really high. It's not like if you're if you're creating social media assets and a graphic goes sideways. Like there's real consequences, right? You know, so so I hope that that gives you clarity around what the difference is between vertical growth and lateral growth. And it's very hard to do those things simultaneously [00:28:00] and still deliver on all your client work.
Questian Telka: Yeah. I can tell you that's been a struggle for me since the since the very beginning. Um, and I did remember that quote, by the way. It is revenue is vanity. Profit is sanity. That's what it was. Oh.
Justine Lackey: That one.
Questian Telka: Yeah, I like that one too. Yeah.
Nancy McClelland: Uh, so what happens when we skip that step? I know a lot of women. I mean, question you and I have both talked a lot, um, [00:28:30] both on the podcast and just via endless text threads. Um, when. So for you, you didn't listen to your gut, right? When you were starting your firm, you listened to people who were not entrepreneurs. And for me, it was that I. I'm not very good at operations. I'm not very good at workflows. I am a dang good bookkeeper and tax accountant and consultant. I am so good at those things. But I, I didn't build, [00:29:00] I didn't build, I didn't have lateral growth because I was always chasing the bus. Not only had one wheel fallen off the bus and was rolling down the highway ramp, but I was also chasing after it, riding on a skateboard on one foot and a roller skate on the other.
Questian Telka: Oh my God.
Justine Lackey: So during a Chicago snowstorm.
Nancy McClelland: During a Chicago snowstorm. You're. Exactly. So, I mean, I feel like you're describing.
Questian Telka: My life right now.
Nancy McClelland: But [00:29:30] for you, it was more about. Not like you knew you needed this.
Questian Telka: Yeah. Because I, I have a background in, you know, in an operational background. And so for me, I think the hang up that I have often had is I know what I need. The problem is that, like, I'm so hyper focused on my, my clients and making sure that their deliverables, deliverables are what they should be, that I have a hard time making time to, [00:30:00] to get all of those processes documented. And so it's like this slow moving, you know, thing. And when I started my firm, I had all of this. I knew that I needed that foundation, I knew it and I knew it because of my experience, but I also knew it because of my gut. And I listen to other people tell me, just start. You need to just get started. And and I said this on another podcast recently, I felt like I had prepared to not [00:30:30] have clients. I had not prepared to be drinking from a fire hose with clients. And that's what happened. And so that foundation was not where it should have been.
Justine Lackey: Yeah. So the first thing I would just say is that I think the danger zone is blame, which leads to guilt, which then leads to inaction. It's just it's a cycle where you end up spending a lot of time. But I had been around, you know, the accounting [00:31:00] world. I knew there was other accountants and bookkeepers struggling with this, which was why I launched the incubator in 2022. It was a year before I sold my business, and I said, well, it might have taken me 15 years, but I have figured it out. And what it comes down to is sales skills, systems and service. Right? And that's what I teach in the incubator program. What [00:31:30] I tell you can't focus on all of these things at once. And each of these larger categories have subcategories to them. What I tell my students and clients to focus on is the system that is causing you the most stress, or the the most amount of client dissatisfaction or churn. So a really good example of that is if you have people who are leaving because [00:32:00] you're missing your deliverables, you need a system in place to help you manage that. Or if you're having a problem getting documentation, you might need to improve your onboarding system. Um, so there's a lot of different ways that we can address it. It takes time to build this out. You have to focus on where the where the weaknesses first.
Questian Telka: I think that's really incredible advice. And I'm I'm very curious. What would you [00:32:30] say to a listener who's working inside someone else's firm so not running their own? How would these concepts apply to them?
Justine Lackey: I'm like, here's the secret nobody knows. Is every firm owner wants help. And so this going back to.
Nancy McClelland: You have to restate that. That is so good. That is a secret that nobody talks about. Nobody says that out loud. Say it again.
Justine Lackey: Every firm [00:33:00] owner wants help.
Nancy McClelland: Wow.
Justine Lackey: So when you can come into a conversation and say something With. I don't want to say love because you don't really use that word in a firm, but saying, I really like working here and I really like the work that I'm doing, but these are the problems that are they keep recurring, and this is [00:33:30] the solution that I'm proposing, and I'd like to help you get there.
Nancy McClelland: So that would take a lot of courage. I mean, it.
Questian Telka: Also shows a lot of initiative too, right?
Nancy McClelland: That's true.
Justine Lackey: And you don't have to do the work. You could say like, of course it is an incredibly I want to explain that a little bit further. Yeah. You know what? Hard conversations require an incredible amount of courage, but it [00:34:00] is also really weak to stay in a situation that you know is not healthy or not helpful or not good for you. And if you're working in a dysfunctional firm but you like your clients and you like the owners, you do actually have some autonomy there. You you can actually say, I want to help. I might not be the right person to help, but here are the things that are [00:34:30] recurring, and this is how I think we could solve it. We could get a better IT company. We could get a really awesome executive assistant. We could change out of this platform that everybody hates and is fighting with every day.
Nancy McClelland: My best mentor ever, from a from a business perspective, taught me such an important lesson. She said, come to me with solutions, not problems. And that's exactly what you're [00:35:00] describing. Like I see that this is an issue you find the courage to speak up as questions said, you know, it shows initiative, but you're also saying, here are some ideas. To help them with their vision. And I that is very thinking of all of those situations as every firm owner wants help is actually super. I wish I knew that, I wish I had known that 30 years ago. I really do.
Justine Lackey: Yeah. [00:35:30] So the expression is, is you want to be solution focused, not problem focused. Yeah. Person who comes in like, oh my God, all these things are wrong. I'm like, that's what.
Questian Telka: No, it's funny that you said that because Nancy and I were before we were recording. We were having a chat today, and I. And I said, you know, we're so much we're so similar in the way that when we have a problem, like, we might complain about something, but we're always going on to the solution. [00:36:00] And, and that's a lot of how we formulate the podcast too, is, is wanting to share, you know, solutions being solution oriented.
Nancy McClelland: But the venting is important too. I always say the venting and the validation need to be there and the solution. So I love that. I love that angle. Justine. And you've said specifically, you've said that quite a few times about how rapid growth can actually be a liability. And so I want to get into the conversation [00:36:30] because you love almost all things technology. I know that you have a parentheses there. You know, it's almost all things technology, but you were one of the people I look up to in terms of adoption, early adoption of technology. So I want to know, as tech and automation continue to shift what's possible in our field. Maybe there's a way that we can stem the liability of this rapid growth and instead define growth in a way that includes [00:37:00] the things you were talking about earlier freedom, balance, fulfillment, not just, you know, the the vanity of revenue.
Justine Lackey: Right? I'm like, oh my God, I could go 8000. Ping pong ping. So I.
Nancy McClelland: Said.
Nancy McClelland: All of the words that that trigger and activate your the teacher in you.
Justine Lackey: And I'm like.
Questian Telka: But me too.
Questian Telka: Me too.
Justine Lackey: Yeah.
Justine Lackey: Uh, you [00:37:30] know, I think what I call, you know, the definition of the modern firm is it combines a high touch experience for your clients. That's what I teach in my programs is the five star customer experience that focuses on the value of those relationships. Right? We talked about relationships as assets, and then you leverage the technology to support you in that. For [00:38:00] example, a really clear onboarding plan step by step with the script broken out in any. There's a number of platforms we could use at this point. Right. Um, practice management softwares. But when you have a great onboarding experience, you know what happens. You build immediate trust.
Questian Telka: Yes, absolutely.
Justine Lackey: If you [00:38:30] bomb it, you have planted a seed where the person has lacked confidence in you or will lack confidence in you, and it will take you a really long time to get that back. Yeah.
Questian Telka: Here's something more. So that's such that's so insightful. It's such a good point. Um, yeah. And I think we over I think that gets overlooked often, but it's just, it seems it seems like it should be fairly obvious. Right. But, [00:39:00] um, not everybody pays.
Nancy McClelland: No, it is not fairly obvious. Thank you very much. I see you looking at me.
Questian Telka: That isn't looking at you.
Nancy McClelland: I was looking at you, thinking you were gonna look at me, though, because I know that that is. That is a challenge for me. It absolutely. I didn't know it was.
Questian Telka: A challenge for you.
Nancy McClelland: Yeah.
Questian Telka: So that was definitely your. That was your lizard brain this time.
Nancy McClelland: I acknowledge that.
Justine Lackey: There's [00:39:30] one thing I want to say about technology which which is a very feminine way to look at it, which is I feel that technology platforms are like people and not all people are your people. So a platform that works for question is not going to work for me, and it's not going to work for you, Nancy, because the interface alone will [00:40:00] work for how your brain operates.
Questian Telka: Yep.
Justine Lackey: You know, and so that is like, you know, we're talking about the right sized firm, the permission to change course. We first started running good sense on Google Sheets. We had spreadsheets for each client, every single client that every single account that needed to be reconciled, all the different steps in a Google sheet. Practice management rolled out on the scene. We we tried one. We built it out over two months. I came back [00:40:30] to my team at three months to do an eval and they were like, oh my God, we hate it. So we had invested all of this time and all of this energy and all of this money. I talk about this all the time. Mtv, money, time and energy. You pay for things always, you know, through money, time or energy. So we bagged it and we went back to Google Docs. So sometimes lo fi is hi fi. I know that that doesn't [00:41:00] satiate people's Desire for the bright shiny object. But the point of you using technology is to improve the client experience and to improve your efficiency. And if you do both of those using technology, you will increase your profitability.
Nancy McClelland: And increasing the profitability. Increasing that profitability [00:41:30] is part of building the asset of your company that you were talking about earlier, because you sold your company for a nice a nice amount of money, right?
Justine Lackey: Well, for a very poor kid who had no college education, I, I really enjoy life now.
Nancy McClelland: I don't think you need to qualify it. I don't think you need to qualify it. I mean, building [00:42:00] a business is also about building an asset. So can you walk us through? Obviously, this technology component is a big part of having built a valuable asset. So, um, talk us through how you came to see your firm this way and what advice you'd give someone who's such as myself, who had previously never thought in terms of valuation or exit strategy [00:42:30] because I want to hear about this. This is selfish question on my part.
Questian Telka: I'm like, I am eating all this up. So.
Justine Lackey: You know, but it's not a selfish question because my deepest desire is to help people. And I really believe that, uh, you know, when we when we succeed as individuals, that is better for us as a society. So even though it'll benefit you, I'm happy that you answered this question inside of my programing and the coaching work that I do. It's very practical, right? We talked [00:43:00] about sales skills, system service. But one of the elements of that is the mindset shift that happens both in leadership and around your own self-worth and value. When you live in a scarcity based poverty mentality and not everybody does, right? That's just my own experience, my life, my destiny. It is hard for you to see a different reality for yourself. So [00:43:30] even though conceptually I knew people sold businesses, people thought businesses like, you know, you know about this just from culture. I had been running my company for a while. I don't know the exact timeline. I should have put it up beforehand. Probably five years. Um, remember I freelanced before I formed my corp and hired my people, so it was a really long trajectory. But five years is the core, and I was working with a designer at the time, [00:44:00] and she had a very different pedigree than I did. She came from a wealthy background, she had a higher education. She lived all over the world working. And I was really just it was one it was the runaway bus time. And I was just like, oh my God, I'm so frustrated. I just want to quit. And she was just like, well, you could just sell it. And I was like, so what?
Nancy McClelland: Like what? [00:44:30]
Justine Lackey: She's like, you could sell your business. And I was like, what are you talking about?
Questian Telka: You're like, well epiphany.
Justine Lackey: Literally, it literally was. I was blindfolded and somebody snatched the blindfold off and she's like, well, duh, you have recurring revenue, you have a strong model, your operations are great, you have great clients, and you're really like, you're you're a great business. Like you could sell it and, and I So then I went and I read this book. Um. [00:45:00] Oh my God, what is it called? Built to Sell by John Warrillow. And I started doing some research. It's like all happened that that book I read in a day because it's a really easy read. But then I went and I looked. And at that time, firms were selling for about one time their annual revenue. And, um, I realized that the firm was actually worth more than the house we were living in at the time, which, to be fair, was a 960 foot square foot cottage.
Nancy McClelland: So, [00:45:30] but still.
Justine Lackey: Super tiny but.
Nancy McClelland: The point.Remains.
Justine Lackey: The point remains was like I couldn't even see what was possible for myself. Yes. I couldn't even see what was possible.
Questian Telka: I have to tie that back to the. To what? We to to one of our podcast episodes, which is, uh, she believed in me before I did. And the value of having those strong female relationships and mentors [00:46:00] in your life. You had a woman who was able to see the see something that you didn't see. And just like, snatch that blindfold right off your face, which is amazing.
Justine Lackey: Totally. And and then that's when I got serious. Then I was like, okay, wait a second. There isn't, there isn't, there isn't exit here. I don't have to just quit. And in fact, one of the things that I really believe strongly in is, is financial stewardship. And so, in fact, at that moment, I knew [00:46:30] that it would be wrong for me to just walk away and quit because then I would be leaving so much money on the table, and not just as a personal financial steward for myself, but for my children. That was not going to.
Nancy McClelland: You had built a legacy, but you could not see that it was a legacy until that was pointed out to you. So is that how you. Is that how you developed the modern firm [00:47:00] challenge, which we haven't? We've been talking so much. We haven't even we've, like, barely even touched, scratched the surface of this upcoming challenge that you have. Which question and I are both really excited about about taking it's a free challenge. So I'm making sure that all of our, all of our listeners know this is something that everybody can do at no charge. Tell us, tell us about it.
Justine Lackey: So the modern firm challenge [00:47:30] is born was born from my personal mission statement. So we talk about corporate mission statements. But I have a personal mission statement that I live my life by, which is I help the world by helping people. So I'm not going to be Mother Teresa or like, you know, huge Figures what I do. My work is individually based. If I help you today, question or [00:48:00] a listener today, I'm living out my personal mission.
Questian Telka: And because I love that love that I feel the same, I can, I can relate. I think that's amazing.
Justine Lackey: It's my personal North Star. So because I know so many women are stressed out, underpaid, can't figure it out, you know by your community co mentorship. Right. You can be mentored by your peers as [00:48:30] you guys.
Questian Telka: Yes.
Justine Lackey: Um, so I developed the Modern Firm challenge. It's five days. We walk through all the biggies. We walk through the secrets to onboarding. We walk through the monthly end close, which is directly tied to your deliverables. We talk about pricing and there's a few other things. I'm going to change the class a little bit, I think, and move more towards a tech AI component, and then we'll probably [00:49:00] add some marketing in there. So but always I always really focus on those ones that I know are big pain points.
Nancy McClelland: And so you're scaring me here because you're because you're telling me and and I'm going to use your words back at you. You're telling me that I need to slow down to speed up? I don't have five days to take off to do this. How? What would what are you going to. How are you going to convince me?
Justine Lackey: I'm like, I wish we were all going to Tahiti together [00:49:30] for five days, but.
Nancy McClelland: Oh, gosh, that sounds that sounds amazing. Um, but, you know, I, I this this doesn't feel like something I can manage. And I know you're going to convince me that I can, because you always convinced me of all the hard things. Um. Tell me how to reframe this. Fear and and how slowing down and taking the time to do this is going to be worth it.
Justine Lackey: So first of all, it's all the classes [00:50:00] are an hour a day. We run them from 1 to 2 and um, the classes are only an hour today. Remember what I said earlier? You're not going to fix all the things. You're going to look at the lessons and say, this is what I'm going to focus on right now so that you can resolve that problem. You'll get takeaways. You'll get, you know, it's that osmosis thing. You'll learn things and you'll come back to them maybe when maybe you're going to focus on onboarding now and then you're going to deal with pricing in six months. [00:50:30]
Questian Telka: I think that's so smart because it makes you because I you know, I've talked about this a lot. I have ADHD and I'm like, oh, I'm going to do this focus in this one area. And then I go over here. But if you're doing it in a group setting, you know, um, for the five days, then it's keeping you accountable, you know, going through this process because I am notorious for starting something like that and then moving to something else.
Justine Lackey: Yeah. And, um, so we also have the free Facebook group where people come [00:51:00] and ask questions about the trainings. We record them and put them up on Vimeo, because we know there are people who are thinking about starting a firm, working at a larger corporation like, or, you know, they're working moms or they can't get to the training at that specific time. So the recordings are available. Um, and I've done versions of the Modern Firm Challenge over the years, and we've just really seen some wicked results that I'm super proud of.
Nancy McClelland: Ooh, I want to. What are some [00:51:30] of the results? Like what? What have people accomplished through this?
Justine Lackey: You know, I, I am sometimes candid to a fault.
Nancy McClelland: You know.
Justine Lackey: Which is like, I'm not here to tell you you can build $1 million firm overnight. What I'm here to tell you is you can do whatever you want to do, but it's going to take time, you know, and and all of the pain that I went through during good sense. And trust me, there were [00:52:00] some like knock down, drag out, crying on the floor, hysterical temper tantrum nights where I was just like, this is awful. I really believe, led me to this point in my life to be a teacher and a mentor. And one of the things that the people who have participated in this is that I teach in a really practical way. You're going to lead. You're going to leave there with [00:52:30] a framework for your onboarding process, or you're going to leave there with more ideas about your onboarding process than you have now, and it's going to improve. Sometimes you already have the framework you just need to polish it. So it is it is something that I feel that I can say with confidence, not arrogance, that I. I'm a good teacher [00:53:00] and I'm invested in people's success.
Nancy McClelland: I believe this. We're good friends.
Questian Telka: Yeah, we know this.
Nancy McClelland: About you for a while. Yeah. Justine, where can we find out more about you and your work, and specifically how to sign up for this free modern firm challenge? Because I know question and I are very we are very excited about it. I'm guessing some of our listeners are too.
Justine Lackey: So you can go to Justine Lackey register. [00:53:30] It's j u s t I n e e l a c k e y.com/register. Please come and find me on LinkedIn. I love connecting with people there. Uh, Of course, my website, which is just, just com and we have a free Facebook group. Anybody is welcome to join that. Um, I think we have about 4000 members in there now. That's called the wow. I know there's a lot of building the community. [00:54:00] That's what we love. Um, so that's the incubator. So you can just go to Facebook and and find that search for it.
Questian Telka: Awesome. Thank you so much. Um, we would also like to ask listeners to follow the She Counts Podcast LinkedIn page and to join in on the conversation by sharing underneath the episode. Build the business you actually want. Tell us what's one system you wish you'd built before growing your firm, or that you wish the company that you work for had [00:54:30] built before they grew?
Nancy McClelland: And before we sign off, I want to leave you with a quote by author Laurie Perez. I reserve the right to evolve what I think and feel today is subject to revision tomorrow, which Justine ties in. I think very well with how you've given us all permission to not only have clarity, uh, and then reverse engineer [00:55:00] ourselves to find, uh, to figure out how to build the firm that we are now clear on what we want to build, but also to decide, as you did, that our goals have changed and we have permission to do something differently.
Questian Telka: Yeah. Such an important quote and point and something always to remember. So thanks for being here with us on She Counts, the Real Talk podcast for women in accounting.
Nancy McClelland: If something in today's episode hit home for you, and I hope it did, because [00:55:30] it certainly did for me. That's exactly why we're doing this.
Questian Telka: So that you feel seen, heard, and never alone.
Nancy McClelland: Remember that you can get CPE credit for listening at earmarked links to that and any other resource will be in the show notes.
Questian Telka: And please, please subscribe and leave us a review because it helps other people and other women find the podcast and share this with another woman in accounting who you feel needs to hear it. [00:56:00]
Nancy McClelland: And thank you. For those of you who have left reviews. We read them out loud to each other. We copy and paste them in. We save them to each other. We save them. It just makes us feel incredible to hear how, um, some of these stories are resonating for you out there. So many thanks again to our amazing guest, Justine Lackey. We are so glad you could join us today. Thank you, my friend. And we'll see everyone in two weeks.
Justine Lackey: Thank [00:56:30] you for having me. It was a pleasure.