Ep. 16 – Shannon Weinstein’s Shift from Big Four to becoming a Fractional CFO

Jamie Gruol: Welcome back to Diary of a Tax Practice Owner. I am so excited to have Shannon Weinstein with me today. I’m going to share a little bit about what Shannon’s been up to you because she’s got the most fascinating story. And I can tell you this is going to be a very juicy podcast because we’re going to, we’re going to turn some, some ideas and beliefs on their heads today for you as a tax practice owner or accountant.

So Shannon is a fractional CFO for business owners looking to scale or sell their businesses. She hosts a top 1 percent podcast. Keep what you earn, where her real talk and relatable examples make financial information a source of inspiration, not intimidation. She is a financial literacy advocate, a volunteer, a donor, an investor, and a sought after speaker for masterminds and business communities.

And we are so lucky to have Shannon here today because Shannon really has some different ideas about what building a tax practice, accounting practice looks like. And we’re going to talk about those today. So Shannon, welcome. I’m so excited to have you here.

Shannon Weinstein: I’m excited to be here. I

Jamie Gruol: Thank you. Ah, so good. So good. So we always love starting out by getting kind of the backstory of where you came from, how you got to where you are today, because it’s often a journey and sometimes they’re more bumpy than others.

So I would love for you to take us back to how you found accounting and how you ended up being a fractional CFO.

Shannon Weinstein: Yeah, I love a good accountant origin story, so, origin story is my dad was a CPA, very relevant. Uh, and I lost a bet with him in high school and had to take an accounting class for a semester. And that was how it started. Cause we were very competitive. We bet each other on everything.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah,

Shannon Weinstein: um, he said, take this accounting class.

It’s a semester it’s in high school. Like you have to take this for an elective. It was one of like the choices in the elective list. Right. And he said, take that. If you hate it, I’m never going to bug you again about becoming an accountant one day. I was the oldest kid. I was also his like, I was basically his like protege.

Jamie Gruol: yeah, I am never gonna bug you again

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

Yeah. 

Shannon Weinstein: it, you have to major in it. I said, okay. I said, I say you’re on, there’s a win win, right? I was like, I got nothing to lose. I’m a, I’m, I was a smart, savvy, 16 year old betting woman at the time. I was like, wait, I win either way, you’re on. And we kind of know how that turned out.

So I, I loved it. I actually loved it. I wanted to hate it. And that’s what, that’s the hilarious part. I resisted I wanted to hate it. And I just said, this is so freaking easy though. It’s

Jamie Gruol: Oh my gosh. So I have the exact same story. My dad was the CFO at the hospital, had his accounting degree, did like CPA work. He never got a CPA, but I was always just figured, you know, that’s a really cool job. And then I knew I wanted to go into business, went into business. And of course, accounting was the easiest thing in undergrad.

So I ended up with an accounting

Shannon Weinstein: and, and, here, so here’s the cool thing. to teach Spanish.

Jamie Gruol: Oh, God.

Shannon Weinstein: my thing.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: Spanish, Spanish was my favorite subject. And if you’re like an elder millennial, like me, the, the only thing they went off of, like the personality quiz was like, what’s your favorite subject? And then that

Jamie Gruol: Yeah,

Shannon Weinstein: set the trajectory of the rest of your life.

Jamie Gruol: right.

Shannon Weinstein: favorite subject when you were 15 was like the thing you were going to do for the rest of your life. That’s pretty much it. It’s insane to think about, but I was like, I love Spanish. I love language. And my dad said, okay, listen, let’s talk through this for a second. Like a 16 year old Channing.

He’s like, let’s talk through this. You know, Spanish is great. I love that you speak Spanish. Never stop doing that. Please never stop doing that. That’s going to be, that’s going to be great for you one day. Spoiler alert. Yes, it was. Uh, but never stopped learning Spanish. However, I don’t think it’s a major because the only thing you can do with that is really teach.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah, right. Right.

Shannon Weinstein: and he goes, but here’s the thing I know you love to teach and you would love to teach Spanish But Shannon, let’s be real like go to you go major in Spanish You teach Spanish if you don’t like it like that was the one thing you did, you know Like you only have that one thing he’s listen to me though.

If you really like language This is the language you need to teach him. This is the language you got to teach as the language of business. Because I’m telling you, this is special Shan, because nobody understands this stuff.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah,

Shannon Weinstein: a gift. A lot of people speak Spanish.

Jamie Gruol: yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: is very, this is like speaking Klingon or another language.

That’s like, you know, a rare language. And he said, this is going to serve you so much better. If you really think this is easy, this is what you got to lean into. Cause this is actually the talent. This is the gift. And, and that really shook me because I said, I want to teach, I want to help people. I want, you can do all of those things

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: studying a discipline that isn’t directly, literally teaching and, and doing those things.

Like you can involve teaching in your career, you can involve language in your career, but studying a science and a technical skill was what he was trying to fill in on and say, like, you can use Spanish doing accounting. You can use teaching.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: accounting, you can apply your skill set using all those different elements.

And that’s what really sold me was the versatility of, and then when your mind changes in the future, Shannon, you don’t like this anymore. You can do other things, but this gives you so many choices.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: what, that’s what got me in it.

Jamie Gruol: I love that. And I will agree. Like having gone through, like of course having the business degree, like, helped cause you get kind of the broad based business skills. But having my accounting degree, it taught me problem solving. It taught me problem solving. deduction. It taught me like critical thinking.

There were so many things that came out of accounting that even though I didn’t like sit for my CPA, I never did actual public accounting. I was a cost accountant for several years. It wasn’t necessarily my fit. Like my fit was more kind of yours. It was, I was really drawn more towards like community building and relationships with people.

And so I ended up being a project manager for healthcare it. And that’s how I, you know, that was the path I went on, but you’re so right. Like it’s a, it’s a skill that can be used in so many ways. And we’ll never undersell you. And I think it’s, it’s sad that like, today’s generation is not seeing the value of having an accounting degree and even just coming out of school with an accounting degree and what it can do for you for your whole career.

Shannon Weinstein: Right. We have kind of shitty marketing.

Jamie Gruol: Well, there’s that 80 hours a week. So I want to talk about that. So you got out of school, you started, how did you go into public accounting? Like what, what was your path to being a firm owner?

Shannon Weinstein: I, yeah, I did all the, I did all the right things on the checklist. You know, I,

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: out, I got my internship through a networking, community I was in. I got an internship in Boston at a big four firm. I ended up going to that big four firm full time because who doesn’t take the offer,

Jamie Gruol: Right. It’s a really good offer. Once you put.

Shannon Weinstein: know how this is going to play out. Like, you know, you know what you’re signing up for. So I ended up there for about six years total. I, I did audit, then I did consulting advisory in the technical accounting space, but I mostly worked in financial services, banking, capital markets, asset management.

And I, at the time of my life, I’m not going to lie. Like I really enjoyed it because of how much I learned. The velocity, the trajectory of your learning is unmatched in those organizations. having come out of it, I go, Oh my God, the pace at which I was learning every single day was, it was enthralling in your twenties.

I don’t have that kind of energy now, but in

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: it was, it was

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: And, uh, it’s the great, it’s the best place to spend your early twenties, in my opinion, to, to set your career off to like a rocket ship.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: but I, I eventually left because I kind of got this itch of what else is out there. And I, I knew that I could do better in terms of people like the teams I was working with.

I said, you know, I really need to be in a better environment. I need to travel less. My dad had passed away in 2013 and that was really what set the path in motion was I had a five day bereavement leave and they called me on day three with some asinine question about a time sheet and

Yeah.

I blew up and I was

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: Those first time I said F to a partner, I was like, what the F is wrong with you?

I’m on bereavement.

Jamie Gruol: Right.

Shannon Weinstein: passed away two days ago. What are you

Jamie Gruol: Make up a number. Yeah. Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: don’t matter to these people at all. Like I, it really sunk in that, like, it didn’t matter. And I said, and, and with an expectation, they, you don’t matter. And like, I think it’s once every employee comes to that realization that this is transactional, like, they’re the Mr.

Big to your carry. Like, like that they’re never going to love you the way you love them.

Jamie Gruol: So true.

Shannon Weinstein: Once you realize that you go, okay, now I know what this is. Thank you for that. And then you move on and you make the intelligent decision to try to find that relationship. you try to find your Aiden,

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: So then, So now, now you’re in like a more nurturing environment, right?

So I actually worked in a SASS company for a couple of years, actually four or five years. I worked in a SAS company, three years actually, as the director of professional services and then. Believe it or not, I ended up as director of technical sales

Jamie Gruol: Oh, wow.

Shannon Weinstein: doing, I was doing a SAS company. I was doing demos for accounting firm, accounting firm customers.

So it was a SAS company with accounting workflow 

Jamie Gruol: Yeah,

Shannon Weinstein: so music to your

Jamie Gruol: yeah, exactly.

Shannon Weinstein: I used to work in workflow for a SASS company. and we, and I built the audit workflows.

Jamie Gruol: Oh, cool. Yeah. Because of your experience. Yeah. This

Shannon Weinstein: And then I ended up actually selling the product accidentally because I had to fill in for the person doing the demos. And I told such good stories from the field. Yeah. I was like, Oh my God, you know, when the client gets the PBC list and like, they never get back to you and then this happens and then this happens and they’re like, Oh my God, yes.

Oh my God. Yes.

Jamie Gruol: does it all for you.

Shannon Weinstein: Right, we related and then I ended up doing a really good job selling the product in the demos and then, you know it like The rest is history, you know I ended up working in the sales group there and then I left and went into internal audit when I moved to Connecticut in another company, so I’ve kind of run the gambit of different types of Roles from private to public and I really got the itch in 2019.

I started my own company on the side To help, uh, fitness professionals with accounting because I was doing fitness part time. I taught Zumba at night.

Jamie Gruol: Oh, cool.

Shannon Weinstein: for 10 years Yeah,

Jamie Gruol: So what were you offering as services at that time? Were you doing compliance work? Like bookkeeping, tax?

Shannon Weinstein: the the typical books and tax, right? , I It’s gonna sound so funny like sorry accountants , but I called it like my my taxis and joffes because I was like doing anything for money

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: Because I was like, will you pay me? I can do that, right?

Jamie Gruol: Yeah. Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: through that phase in our first couple of years where we go, you need your books done?

I can do that. You need your tax return? I can do that. And I just started saying yes to everybody who was willing to give me money. And I think we all kind of have that initial phase of, then you realize you’re worth something and you can have standards of what comes in and you can say no to some people.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: like you also have to learn who to say no to by. Trial by fire. To some extent, you gotta learn your boundaries by pushing them, you know, like that one extra drink in college and you go, Yep, that’s the boundary. Now we know we’re not gonna do that again.

Jamie Gruol: Yep.

Shannon Weinstein: that’s that’s how I kind of felt around my boundaries in my business was like, I don’t want clients like that.

Okay. That’s a boundary. Okay. I don’t want to do that again. That’s a boundary, but I kind of learned by experience of what I could tolerate and what really went against my values. then I really, really registered that I would always take that as like a little thing in my backpack of like a little charm to go, okay, remember that next time we’re going to add that to the list of like qualifications, we’re going to start filtering for that quality.

We’re going to start honing that in. And that’s how. Again, workflow wise, like I figured out how to create systems around finding ideal clients and offering services that I wanted to offer that stimulated me and that made me feel like I was getting more impactful results for my clients, not just volume game, compliance game, not knocking you if you do that,

Jamie Gruol: Sure.

Shannon Weinstein: really, I really wanted to go like bespoke and high impact and say, I want a small client roster and I want to do big things for them.

Jamie Gruol: I love that. So you saw how Big Four works. You saw the culture of Big Four. When you were creating your firm yourself, I mean, obviously you didn’t, you started growing, right? Like tell us a little bit about that journey of growth and how What you learn or learned or saw in the big four really impacted the creation of your business as you started growing.

Shannon Weinstein: The biggest, I say the biggest souvenirs I took from big four were two things. One, what not to do culturally. Number two was systems and standardization because the thing that made the big four so effective. And, and again, I have, I have no ill will toward any big four firm. Like they operate their machines and they’re amazing at what they do., but what I pulled from that, that I could, I could take as a souvenir in my backpack was, I want to build frameworks, systems, things that people can remember. Processes that work really finding what works, repeat it and train it on. I do believe that. I think that the stimulation, like you said, always be learning, always create situations where you can be stimulated and learn so that you’re growing as a person rapidly and that your team is doing the same thing. then the other thing I said I was taking was like the list of things not to do. And I kind of went back. You know how we remember we remember negative things so much better than

Jamie Gruol: So much easier.

Shannon Weinstein: Look at any Yelp page.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: at the length of the negative review versus the length of the positive

Jamie Gruol: Right. Had a beautiful time. It was an amazing location.

Shannon Weinstein: Great location, fun stuff, yay, heart, smile emoji, whatever,

Jamie Gruol: Right.

Shannon Weinstein: then like, you had a negative experience. It’s like CSI comes out and it’s like every fact pattern detail of like, the wind was cold on that, like, it was a blustery Sunday morning

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: da, and they frame the whole thing and it’s so detailed.

And I said, you know why? I think there’s something neurologically. we have such a vivid memory of the negative things that happened to us, but the positive is just like we brush it off and go, yay, it was par for the course,

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: something doesn’t go our way, we’re, we’re deeply affected. So the reason I say that is I remember vividly the moments and the shaping moments of my time at the firm where I, Felt something where I was like, Oh, okay. And where I felt like there was a mess with my values, whether it was like working late and, and you can’t leave before the senior or

Jamie Gruol: Right.

Shannon Weinstein: the unsung rule of don’t leave the room before the manager,

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: you know, these other little quirks of rules that we had instilled in us that we operated on, but are not really. Real like they’re real in those four walls. But then in the real world, you come out and you’re like, Oh, wow, these are kind of silly rules. Uh, I can’t believe I did that. And I started really like I navigated that actually journaled on it and said, These are things I would never do in my company. And then I’m like, why did we do those things?

What was the purpose of it? another way to accomplish that objective without this vehicle to do that?

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: I really kind of like decided on what kind of culture I wanted to create as a result of really reflecting on that experience.

Jamie Gruol: I love that. What were, like, can you share with us, like, maybe like your top two or three things that you took away that you were like, I will not do that. Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: to do literally anything. Like, I felt like Big 4 was borderline like when you’re in kindergarten and you’re like, may I use the bathroom? Like it was, and maybe that was also internal to me because I was very shy, but I, I felt like I couldn’t do anything without being judged. Because there was a lot of judgment. There was a lot of like, leaving in the middle of the day. She must be going to an interview or she must be doing something like secret or it must be like, you know, it, there was always these rumors and then these other things that would come out. And we were also like young and you know, it was like, that’s all we had to go out.

Like we just gossiped about each

Jamie Gruol: Water cooler attack.

Shannon Weinstein: only people, yeah, they were literally the only people you saw on a given day. You had to make, it was almost like, what do you call that? Like cabin fever, like big brother.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: It just starts to get to you because you’re seeing each other all the

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: So I just said, I think one of the things was, you know, we want to be a safe place to work, but like we are not a family. We are a trusted team of people on the same mission, rowing in the same direction, but we are not a family. We have no obligations to each other outside of the tactical tasks we do. We really just kept it professional., And, and that actually was a really big thing was then it doesn’t commingle. It doesn’t get complicated.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: It’s like, are you doing, are you meeting expectations or not?

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: and that goes into number two, which is like any sort of feedback scorecard numerical rating system. not rankings. All of that. I left that behind. I always have this phrase of keep what you want. Leave what you don’t. I left that one far away

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: I’m never going to give people a number or rank them. I feel that’s so disrespectful, but that’s just me.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: belief is like, I can’t give you a number I think it’s a conversation. It’s always a conversation on messaging and interpretation of certain things that transpire.

Jamie Gruol: Absolutely. Absolutely. I love those. So you started building your business.

Shannon Weinstein: Mm

Jamie Gruol: what did that journey look like into where you are today, thriving, hiring? I saw you’re hiring another fractional CFO type role, so you’re obviously growing. Tell us more.

Shannon Weinstein: And you know, it’s you know, it’s wild. The people who are applying to that job, my former co workers from three different jobs,

Jamie Gruol: Oh, hilarious.

Shannon Weinstein: one of my former big four colleagues. One of my former internal audit colleagues in one of my former fellow fractional CFOs that I worked with at a networking group.

So I’m like, is amazing because it was such a great, like circular moment of, oh wow, people didn’t hate working with me.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah, I

Shannon Weinstein: it was a, it was a great, it was kind of cool to see that I could help other people do the same thing and, and expand into this environment and create that. And it’s like, wow, we actually, we actually built it. We actually built a place people want to go to, and I’m the most proud of that that I’ve ever been in my business than getting that as a compliment by someone saying they’re interested in working for me. but,, the growth trajectory has been crazy because, and it hasn’t been linear. It never is, by the way. If you’re

Jamie Gruol: saw a really interesting video the other day and it was a marble, two marbles let off onto a roll and one was flat and the other one was dips and like peaks and valleys. Right?

Shannon Weinstein: hmm.

Jamie Gruol: and valleys went faster than the flat one to the finish line. So if you’re like, if you’re listening to this and you’re like, I have so many peaks and valleys in my business, will I ever get to where I want to go and have the practice that I want?

Yes. And you will actually get there faster because of your peaks and valleys than you will. If everything was just like linear to get there. Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: And then I realized that if I’m going to play the volume game, I have to have a big team and it has to be repeatable, low surface level work, superficial, and people aren’t going to want to talk to me year round. They’re going to just be like, going to be become the, I just told myself I’m going to become the April 15th, one night stand.

And I really don’t want to be treated that way. That actually was on my website for several years. Like not your April 15th, one night stand, because. I was like, I don’t want to be that person you, you send a you up text to on April 14th going, and you know, you feel this way, tax people, like you feel like they just abuse you because, because you’re, you’re only used for that one purpose all year round.

But like, wouldn’t it be great if you had that relationship with them and they wanted to talk to you and like, you Christmas cards and appreciate you. And I just said, that’s what I want. I want that relationship with my clients. And that was what I wanted. So I said, you know, I, I think I need to go deeper.

I need to offer advisory.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah. Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: if I’m going to do this with a small team, which is my goal, I don’t want to be huge. I said, I need to limit the number of people on the client roster so we can give them the attention they deserve.

And I actually have been growing this company for the last year and a half with the mental picture because fun fact, my first job was at McDonald’s when I was 14. For like six years is the first place I learned business. It’s very relevant to this day how I operate. But, I realized that I looked around and I’m fascinated with restaurants. not as clients, but I’m fascinated. They’re tough.

Jamie Gruol: And the way in which they operate.

Shannon Weinstein: They’re tough. But you think about their, their hospitality, their, their service, their customer service. I said, I actually operate my company like a hospitality industry. Company because I say, think of it this way, or you could look at it like an airline.

I use both analogies

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: I say we’re like a restaurant with a has you go to any gourmet restaurant boutique that’s like high in demand. They have like what eight tables

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: all visible from the counter. There’s a reason eight tables and then they have the waitstaff. Nobody lets the water glass go empty.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: Walking around high service. That’s actually a phrase we use. Don’t let the water glass go empty. Anticipate needs. Don’t wait for them to call you. You need to be on the cycle of serving them. So they feel taken care of. Seen, heard, and understood all the time. And that’s a big part of it. How are our clients feeling?

That is how well we’re doing. And I realize that this is really, and then the menu. The menu is small.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: You don’t see a boutique restaurant with a Cheesecake Factory menu. No ma’am. That’s awesome.

Jamie Gruol: No.

Shannon Weinstein: No, they do a few things exceptionally well,

Jamie Gruol: With very high ingredient, high quality ingredients.

Shannon Weinstein: bingo, and what I realized is, and they hire top level chefs. And I, I also realized something else that, and you go, what brings people to those restaurants? And it’s usually when you think about a restaurant, you compliment service more than the food.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: have, you can have amazing food, and if you have crap service, you won’t go back.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah. So true.

Shannon Weinstein: can have amazing service. At a frickin Denny’s, go back,

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: right? And I’m not saying it’s crap food. Don’t come for me, Denny’s people. I’m just saying that, like,

Jamie Gruol: Gladys is amazing and she, she makes it just wonderful.

Shannon Weinstein: right? But if you have, like, if you have a, a sentimental connection to that because of the service, the people, I go, that will trump any quality.

And we don’t, we don’t sacrifice quality, but I just said, look at how important service is, where it can move the needle in an experience. And I really reflected on that. I read the book, Unreasonable Hospitality, cover to cover, over again. I said, this is what. about here.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: with like, uh, airlines.

I said, we have a first class cabin, you know, and there’s nothing wrong with that of having a first class type of airline, and making it clear that what type of ticket people bought

Jamie Gruol: Right.

Shannon Weinstein: did you buy, are you wrote 32 next to the bathroom or are you in one a don’t be mad. You didn’t get champagne.

You bought a ticket in 32,

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: know, and sticking and sticking guys to your ticketing. tell you how many I like this is for the tax pros out there. If you are offering economy comfort plus and first class type of offers, I like to be first class only because it’s just easier. If you are offering all those tiers,

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: just remember that sure people are aware what they bought, that they bought an economy ticket and that there was an option for a cabin and their first class, because, ,I’ll tell you what, they won’t get mad if you’re not serving them champagne. know what they paid for. But you know, who will be mad if you serve them champagne first class

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: because they paid for that.

Jamie Gruol: True. Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: low paying clients, just cause they’re loud and hitting that call button in row 32 a lot. When you do that, you’re diverting attention away from the people who technically paid for it. So I always picture it like picture your clients on a plane, like they can see each other

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: and, and what would they say? If they saw what you were doing and how you were spending your time, we’ve always said that if they could see us right now and how we spent our time, how many first class passengers would be mad at you right now?

Because you answered that email from somebody in 33 B.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: So that’s a really big, important concept to us. And that was a big part of our growth was really adopting this idea that it’s not about just more money or higher level service. It was more about what type of customer is a first class passenger. In our plane.

What type of customer comes to our establishment, you know, to engage with us and how do we attract more of those

Jamie Gruol: Yeah. I love that. I think that it is, um, it is critical for people to think about the client experience. You know, we, we focus on how you can automate your workflows, create more efficiency, but I tell you, there are so many practice owners out there who are like, okay, I need to get more efficient. And so they build in and build, like, For them and they don’t think about the client.

And it’s like, you have to put a layer of client on top of that. Because if you don’t build your system and then consider what is the impact of the client? How do I get communicate with the client? How do I ask them proactively to your point to do these things for me and make it simple for them? Like we call it breadcrumbing them to success.

If you don’t do that, especially if you’re going into automated workflows and trying to build more efficiency, You’re going to be quickly nose diving into the ground because your clients are going to feel it and they’re going to feel rushed and hurry because you’re all of a sudden super efficient, but they’re over here just like still going the way that they’ve always gone

Shannon Weinstein: Well,

Jamie Gruol: and then it gets really

Shannon Weinstein: first

Jamie Gruol: disconnected.

Shannon Weinstein: They’re the

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: ship. Cause they’re like, this isn’t enjoyable for me. It’s already not enjoyable. By the way, for them, it’s already not enjoyable. You’re already

Jamie Gruol: It’s hard. Yeah. Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: So getting a little ranch or a Velveeta for them, please make it easier, it easy. And, um, the other thing too, is you’re, if you’re building it for yourself, just remember that, you know, we actually burned down a lot of automations. I know cover your ears, Jamie. We burned down a lot of automations this year because we realized that again, I have a client roster of.

10 to people. Okay.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: 10 to 1200,

Jamie Gruol: Right.

Shannon Weinstein: I realized that we still had automations and they’re like a welcome email.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: I was like, F that I can send them a welcome email that is custom tailored in their language, because like I onboard a new client every month or other month.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: I can do that email once a month.

It’s not a

Jamie Gruol: Absolutely.

Shannon Weinstein: You really have to look at there is a cost of automation these days because a lot of people are reading these robotic emails or chat GPT generated emails and going, they, they smell it. They know

Jamie Gruol: Oh, yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: And it’s insulting that like you couldn’t take the time for their 500, 5, 000,

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: couldn’t be bothered. To send an email to them personally reaching out or a loom video or a quick little voice note that was like, I’m so excited you’re joining our team or joining us as a client, um, that activation phase between when they purchase from you and when you deliver the first piece of value or deliverable is essential

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: make them feel seen, heard and understood all the time and that they don’t regret their decision. And that is your opportunity to like go outta the automation and just be like, do the unscalable things for them.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah. And

Shannon Weinstein: until you have to scale it, because that’s gonna differentiate you

Jamie Gruol: I will say too, there are ways of automating that so that it’s always brought to your attention that I need to go and do this thing. Right. And make it easier for you to remember. So we can

Shannon Weinstein: it to the

Jamie Gruol: simplify it and, and then you can put your finishing like personal touch onto it so that it’s, you know, Still efficient for you to do and not starting from scratch every time because I don’t want people to hear that and be like, I have to write a letter everything.

No, that’s not what she had to say. She’s saying, just make it make it personalized. And it’s so easy to do that when you’re using automations and to trigger you like now.

Shannon Weinstein: hybrid, not, you don’t go fully automated, fully manual. You have to

Jamie Gruol: Absolutely.

Shannon Weinstein: and say what elements of this are going to be the most impactful if they

Jamie Gruol: Yes.

Shannon Weinstein: and the most impactful being automated. I wouldn’t just be like, oh, by automation is good in and of itself.

Automation

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: places if they save time and energy and make everyone’s job easier. But you have to take a step back and go, wait a second though. I understand that for the click of a button, my entire automotive process happens. Yay. Good for you. But like, we’re in there. Can you infuse a little humanity?

Because that actually will make you stand out these days.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I love that. So you were telling me before we got started and I would love this to be kind of like where we end the show today, because I really want you to talk about this, but you were talking about how. One of the big things that you believe is that there needs to be a mindset shift in the industry kind of as a whole.

And you are very, kind of, you wrote, you’re going against the stream when it comes to what a lot of people believe in the way things should be working. I would love for you to leave us on kind of a Shannon rant of, of what people need. And I’m serious because people need to hear these things. Like there are so many people out there that are Adopting the processes, adopting the way they run their business because that’s how they learned at the small CPA firm that they worked in for 10 years and then decided to go out on their own, or they bought into a CPA firm that has these old school ways of working and they think that Because the, you know, the 50 year old woman who’s been on the team for 25 years, this is how it’s always been done.

They feel like they have to continue with that. And I, you and I are both like advocates for hell no, you don’t, right? Like, this is your business now. This is your life. You get to determine how you run your business. So give us like a 90 second, three minute, like Shannon rant about what people like, how you think about it

Shannon Weinstein: We were, yeah, we were, I was talking about this with Jamie before. So I was talking about how I hire people and like the biggest struggle I have when I hire accountants is like them out of the matrix and like unbrainwashing them into bad habits that they adopted, which is not their fault. Uh, but. But I think that, there are so many little, they’re like micro

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: that we, there are so muscle memory and so common sense to us as accountants that like we forget that we learn them somewhere.

Jamie Gruol: Mm hmm.

Shannon Weinstein: and over so many years, those of you who have been practicing like me, I’m 15, 16 years deep as a CPA.

Like it’s, it’s, it feels like half my life.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah?

Shannon Weinstein: you know what I mean? Like it’s a good chunk of my life. And I go, well, you know, That’s a big part of what’s kind of my, my operating system now. It’s saved files,

Jamie Gruol: Mm hmm.

Shannon Weinstein: files in my, in my system. So I really think we have to rethink and come to consciousness on the type of business that we want.

If we’re going to go off on our own, know, a lot of people go off on their own because they’re sick of the. The circle, the hamster wheel, whatever you want to call it, of, you know, I come in here, I serve clients. I didn’t even pick for myself. I have to work these crazy hours to be at the, at the beck and call of these people I work for. And even then those people are working for somebody else.

Jamie Gruol: Mm hmm.

Shannon Weinstein: not even like you’re connected to their mission really literally. we crave that sense of impact. We crave that sense of, I want to get out and like, what I want to do.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: And then we just build another cage for ourselves.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah. Mm hmm.

Shannon Weinstein: crazy.

Self employment is just a cage that you built yourself and got to decorate the interior of. Um, but it’s still a cage because you’re still going to be beholden to your clients if you choose to.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: and I’ve even told people who joined my team, I said, if you get burnt out in this job and you get pissed off, like. 100%. That’s a you problem and not an us problem. And I’ll tell you why, because we have a culture here. We have a, we have a medium where one of the problems you basically bring to the table with us is solvable by one of the three levers. And I actually call it this in our, in our organization. I say, let’s pull a lever, which lever do you want to pull?

Which is I’ll get you more help.

Jamie Gruol: Mm hmm. Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: is we’re being asked to do. Like, we’ll find a way to change how we’re approaching it so that it’s easier. Or we’ll give you more time, like burnout, stress deadlines happen. A lot of these are fake deadlines, by the way, like are simply the expectation you have set with your customer, unless

Jamie Gruol: Yes.

Shannon Weinstein: of course, but

Jamie Gruol: Right.

Shannon Weinstein: are just the expectations you’ve set with your customer.

And I said, well, if you allow us enough time to reset those expectations. Chill out. We’ll buy more time. Like I’ll tell them, Oh, we thought we could get it done this week, but so and so’s kids got sick and we need until Tuesday. I don’t think I know a single client in our roster that would be like, that is unacceptable.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: me a break.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: we’re all human. I think, especially after COVID, I think we’re all a little bit more like human and understanding.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: And I say that to say like a lot of things that I think we have a lot of internal. Stuff going on where we think I have to do this right now. I have to respond to emails right now. I have to do all of these different things. I have a sense of urgency that is self created and it’s not there. Your clients don’t need you tomorrow. And if they’re asking you to be there tomorrow, set the tone of your availability. And if they’re insisting on that, well, they can buy a first class ticket with extra leg room, all the things.

Okay.

Jamie Gruol: Right.

Shannon Weinstein: like, I must board the plane first, cause look at this way. You go, you go to an airline. And you have a, you’re at zone 7, Or you’re, whoever, you see somebody in zone 7, they’re walking up to the front, and they’re like, Zone 1, veterans, people with disabilities, people with small children, you can tell, you can tell I travel a lot, it’s like, Zone 1, pre boarding, pre boarding starting, and then a zone 7 walks up and tries to get in. What, what does the airline do? What does the, the gate agent do? They’re like, kindly step to the back, wait till your zone is called. Y’all, why can’t you all do that?

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: It is an expectation in our, it, it, if your client was in this situation and they were a zone seven, they would know what to do.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: You have to make sure they understand they’re in zone seven.

Jamie Gruol: Yes.

Shannon Weinstein: Like just, just a thank you. Thanks for your email. We’re working on this. Make them feel acknowledged, seen, heard,

Jamie Gruol: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Acknowledge them. Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: It doesn’t mean addressed. heard, and understood. I understand what I need to do for this person. I’m gonna go put this on my Asana board. We use Asana. But like, I’m gonna go put this on my Asana board for on Thursday when I have a little bit of gap in my schedule and I’ve already handled all my priority tasks for the week. They are, again, they are in Zone 7,

Jamie Gruol: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: but I got some first class people to serve first.

And you don’t even have to say that, but you have to understand when you operate your firm, that’s how every other business operates, every restaurant, every, every hospitality industry type of business. And I really, I sat there and I thought, don’t we treat ourselves with the same respective policy that every other business sets that tone, but every other customer. understands that tone. They understand where they, where they are. They understand that I’m not to step to the front of the line until my zone is called. Behaviorally, they’ve been conditioned to know that. So I go, why aren’t your clients? Like, why, why are you letting zone one, zone seven in before zone one?

You’re going to piss off zone one. Why did I pay for a zone one then?

Jamie Gruol: Right.

Shannon Weinstein: you, and I’m not saying you have to nickel and dime and make everyone pay for everything and become a spirit airlines, right? But. I’m not saying you have to charge for everything, but I am saying like, you really should have an idea of who your top tier customers are that you treat with, with the utmost white glove service, because you want more of them. And I’m not saying to treat people badly, but I am telling you to prioritize your time. To the clients that are deserving of it and are paying for it because that’s what you have is time and energy that are in, in scarcity. You must dedicate that to the people who are paying for it, whether, or that are worth your while.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: and, and I just, I see this all the time where just the loudest people get priority.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: then I see, and then I see the accountants complaining in the Facebook groups, which I’ve mostly left at this point, but

Jamie Gruol: Smart. Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: I see people complaining in the groups about the nerve of someone to call me on a Saturday, like the nerve of you to give your cell phone number to someone who would do that, the nerve of you to give her your real number out

Jamie Gruol: Boundaries are critical and it’s funny, the, the industry itself is very, um, people pleasing in nature.

Shannon Weinstein: we have a lot of trauma.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: of trauma. I realized like accountants, like y’all, like I’m one of you, like I had some unresolved stuff to work out where I was like, why am I. Why do I feel like I’m only worth how fast I respond to these people?

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: why do I feel like I’m only successful if I get back to them same day and that I’m magically going to get, it’s like in your career, like the harder I work, the more ahead I’m going to get, I’m sorry to break this news to you. It’s not going to matter. It’s going to be who you know and how you make people feel.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: It’s going to be how you make people feel, not the work that you did. And I actually really shifted into that. I had an awakening moment. , When I quit my job, uh, in internal audit and in compliance, I had a really, a big breakthrough actually that happened right at the right time, that was solidifying when I quit, when I decided to go off on my own officially.

I had been building my business behind the scenes, side, side hustle, and then I finally quit the job and it was two months before I quit my job, I got a leadership award. And for the past six months before that, I, yeah, it was, it was so funny. I didn’t give a, you know what, on any meeting. I didn’t care. I said, I said what I was feeling.

I had nothing to lose by telling the absolute truth of like, I really don’t think that’s a good idea. And let me tell you why

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: had no, like, per my last email, I was just straight up like for the other email and go, did you even read it? Yeah, I was, I was

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: person

Jamie Gruol: already gone. Yeah. Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: checked out and like, I don’t recommend always doing stuff like that, but it was, for me, it was kind of this like. I’m just going to be me and that’s my personality, by the way, I’m very blunt, clearly. people knew that and I, and I was more like vocal about, you know, how I felt and trying to get things done and sure people were treated fairly and make sure I was, I was leading. I was basically delegating my whole workload and training people up and coaching them instead of doing the actual work.

I became the coach because I didn’t have the time to do all the work. I had the

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Shannon Weinstein: and, and lo and behold, two months before I quit, I got a leadership award for being a stellar leader. Empowering team members and representing them well and representing the team and advocating

Jamie Gruol: Yeah,

Shannon Weinstein: I Cracked up laughing and I said all it took was not giving a you know what

Jamie Gruol: yeah,

Shannon Weinstein: Like that’s all it took was was stopped thinking about how like how other people are gonna perceive you

Jamie Gruol: yeah,

Shannon Weinstein: out over what people are gonna think and stop stressing out over like the client the client problems that do not exist yet Like oh, they’re gonna be mad at me.

They probably won’t

Jamie Gruol: yeah. And if they are, there may be one, right? Like, there may be one person that becomes upset and,

Shannon Weinstein: and they’re

Jamie Gruol: the

Shannon Weinstein: not a

Jamie Gruol: large majority wrong. Yeah, I

Shannon Weinstein: they’re probably not good for you anyway. Let them show their true colors and let them, let them tell you who they are now you know what to do.

Jamie Gruol: love that. I love that. Shannon, this has been so good. So good. I loved hearing your journey and you’ve gained so much wisdom and just hearing how you’ve grown into the leader that you are today. I, I really appreciate you taking the time to share your nuggets of, of experience with us today. So, um, before we go, tell people where they can find you, how, where, where can they go to hang out with you and see some more of Shannon’s goodness.

Out on the interwebs.

Shannon Weinstein: So I have a podcast called Keep What You Earn. It is primarily for the entrepreneurial audience, but if you enjoy that type of stuff and hearing accounting from someone who talks like me, uh, join me over there on the podcast. We have daily episodes. Also, we have great tips on marketing and other business strategy things that you can apply to your company as well. And, uh, that’s the best place to hang out with me. Otherwise, I’m on LinkedIn. Go ahead and connect with me on LinkedIn. Let me know you heard the show, uh, and that you’re not selling me outsourcing services. Uh, I’m not buying them, but if you’re not doing that, I would love to talk to you on LinkedIn and then, uh, Instagram at Shannon K Weinstein.

So just, uh, give me a follow. Do you find Shannon Weinstein? Hopefully we have good enough SEO that if you look for my name, you’ll find me.

Jamie Gruol: Awesome. Well, we’ll drop all the links below too. So you can find Shannon there in the description. but again, thank you so much, Shannon, for being here. Excited to connect. All right. We’ll see y’all next time.

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