John Tyreman: 0:19

Welcome business developers to another episode of Breaking Biz Dev. I'm John, as always. I'm joined by my trustee, co-host, mark Wainwright.

Mark Wainwright: 0:27

Hello John, and we're here to talk about, uh, just a fascinating topic. Accounting.

John Tyreman: 0:33

accounting, but what's specifically, what's broken about business development in the accounting industry, which is what we're all about.

Mark Wainwright: 0:43

I think there's a lot of people out there, a lot of experts out there in professional services firms who put their industry sort of on an island. Whether it's management consulting or, tech consulting or architecture and engineering, as people will hopefully have understood if they've listened to us long enough, is that we speak to a. You know, the larger audience of professional services. And lo and behold, we've got people like lawyers and accountants and others could have on that island as well. And the voices that we are bringing onto this podcast today are from the accounting industry. And, uh, uh, yeah. And you know, and, and it is funny. I look at accounting as, I think having one of the steepest mountains to climb as far as. Differentiation and, you know,

John Tyreman: 1:33

Interesting.

Mark Wainwright: 1:34

put forward good, um, sort of contemporary pricing and, you know, it's just, I have, and truth be told, John, I have not engaged with an accounting firm. But I'll tell you, you know it, when I look at that. That would be one of the most challenging things that I would need to do from a sort of sales coach perspective, because every time somebody thinks about their accountant, they're like, oh yeah, I just pay my accountant$125 an hour and we're done. Right? And I, and I hit them up, know, once a year, six weeks before April 15th. Right. It's like that's. That, that's kind of how we look at it. You're like, holy smoke. So an accounting, an accountant has to build their entire annual budget based on this frenetic, you know, or three month sprint up to tax day. Right? I mean, that's, it's daunting. It is daunting.

John Tyreman: 2:27

It, it, it is. And I've spent my whole career working with accounting firms from the, like the agency perspective, and now as a solo business owner. Um, from this perspective, accounting firms make up about a third of my client portfolio, uh, currently. Um, you know, it's funny, the very first day, like right outta college, you know, it took me about six months to find a job, but when I found a job right outta college, I walked in to Hinge Marketing and I sat down and Lee Frederickson, the managing partner at the time, he says, all right, John, here's your first project. And it was working on this marketing budget benchmark study for the Association of Accounting Marketers.

Mark Wainwright: 3:11

Yeah.

John Tyreman: 3:11

And, that's a study that hinge and, aim, which is the abbreviation for the, for the association, have done every other year since 2013. That was the inaugural study. So my whole career I've had, you know, relations with this, this association, and it was just as of this recording, it was just last week. I went, I finally was able to fly out to their annual summit conference. Recorded some podcast content out there, some man on the street, bits that you'll hear in the back half of this episode. And that was a fun time. But I, I was very much intently listening and asking folks about what they think is broken about marketing and sales. In the accounting industry. And you're right, mark, it's, it's the same things that we hear in the, in a EC in consulting, in the legal space. Um, so business development isn't just broken in your industry. It's, it's rampant.

Mark Wainwright: 4:07

Yeah, exactly. And as we talk this through, one of the things that comes to mind is, Ron Brown wrote a really fascinating tome on, on value pricing, with professional services. And I know I've got the book sort of on the shelf above my shoulder over here. His background is in accounting. So that book, I would say by and large was written. With that industry in mind, which is the value pricing in, in, in accounting is almost an abstraction because I think people immediately snap to like, oh yeah, accountants are just, pay for some hours. And there's a bunch of other industries out there that maybe are listening that. are kind of chained to this billable hour thing and we've, broken down and beat up and, just everything short of, knocked unconscious, the whole concept of, you know, this terrible hourly billing

John Tyreman: 4:54

Yeah.

Mark Wainwright: 4:54

Uh, but yeah, it's a, it's a ball and chain that accounting firms have to deal with. Year in and year out. And, I don't, I don't know if that's that specific topic comes through in any of these voices, but does, is the level of frustration that they feel about certain aspects of business development that, like you said, are chaired across many industries?

John Tyreman: 5:13

I, I, I think it's, um, indirectly coming up and, and it's kind of masked by the AI is the big buzzword these days, and I think account accounting marketers and accounting business developers are realizing that they can use AI to still create value for clients while still, keeping their prices the same, so they're reducing their costs significantly, so they're creating more margin. And I think that's, that's what the accounting industry is starting to kind of gravitate towards. There's even a few, um, marketing directors that I talked to who are developing in-house ais within their firms.

Mark Wainwright: 5:53

Yeah.

John Tyreman: 5:54

But you mentioned it's, I just wanna touch on something that you mentioned earlier, mark, and that was, um, that you find it challenging to differentiate accounting firms. And the, the one way that I've seen accounting firms very effectively differentiate is by focusing on a specific industry. If you're listening to this, if you're part of an accounting firm and you really wanna learn more about differentiation and positioning, check out. Uh, it was a recent episode we did. Don't boil the ocean. So go check out that episode if you wanna hear a little bit more about our take on differentiation.

Mark Wainwright: 6:24

Good. Alright, let's, um, let's wander through.'cause eventually, like you said, we've got, uh, you did your men on the street interviews, which I think are fun. We'll get to those eventually. but yeah, where do we want to go next?

John Tyreman: 6:36

I just wanted to call out just a couple key takeaways from this event that I went to and what I've noticed in, in terms of what. Folks were saying is broken about business development in the accounting space before we get to, in their own words. First of all, I love the conference. It wasn't too big, it wasn't too small. Got some FaceTime with clients, which was great. Podcasts are hot right now and it's a good thing.

Mark Wainwright: 7:01

should come as no surprise to us, John.

John Tyreman: 7:04

Yeah, well it was just hilarious because, you know, I went to this conference partly because I produce, um, hinge Marketing's podcast, spiraling up. And we, they had a booth there and we were gonna turn it into a podcast studio. We're gonna record some content and, um, the booth right next door to them, there was another, creative agency that had a podcast set up. And so there was lots of podcast content being recorded on the floor at these events. I just thought that that was so cool.

Mark Wainwright: 7:36

yeah, thanks for doing it. cool that you were there. And you talked with a number of, people that you know are associated with marketing, business

John Tyreman: 7:45

Mm.

Mark Wainwright: 7:45

There all different types of firms, different sizes. I

John Tyreman: 7:48

Yes.

Mark Wainwright: 7:48

yeah, different sizes.

John Tyreman: 7:50

Below a a thousand employees and then above a thousand employees. There's kind of this big divide in the accounting world. Where, you know, the smaller scrappier firms operate in one way and the big larger accounting firms operate in a different way. So that's something that I picked up on was a little bit different and may influence what's broken in both of those kinds of organizations. Um, but the one thing that really, really bubbled up for me was this us versus them mindset, um, from mostly the marketer's point of view. When I talked to people that sat in a marketing seat, it was when I asked them what they believe is broken about biz dev, that it seemed to trigger sales in their minds. So there's a business development organization within these accounting firms that's kind of siloed away from marketing and it's, they are biz dev, they're sales, we are marketing,

Mark Wainwright: 8:45

that's a good theme to, for people to bring up as I think that exists. Now, for anyone listening here that's in a smaller size consulting firm, whatever industry you're in, a lot of times when you have conversations with people who have a specific role inside of a larger organization, you know, you have people who are just specifically business developers and they are not necessarily accountants who are responsible for that new business generation. How I want people to connect and relate to that is that just, you know, if you're in a smaller firm, just remember that marketing, business development, actually doing the work, you know, as maybe a doer, seller. Those are different hats

John Tyreman: 9:21

Yeah.

Mark Wainwright: 9:21

can wear, and it's less about different people in different roles, different job descriptions and things. Smaller firms, it ends up just being one person or a handful of people that has to wear a bunch of hats. Even inside smaller firms where we can develop these conflicts between which hat do you wear more? Which hat do you, do you keep on all the time. Because a lot of times in a lot of the professional services firms that we know, John, the marketing hat just sits in the corner and collects dust while people are out there just having their, their sort of either their doer hat on or their seller hat on and the whole marketing thing kind of gets kicked to the curb.

John Tyreman: 9:58

Totally. And to that point, I, um, met a friend out there. Her, her name is Emily Huggins, and she is a tax advisor. But recently she, she now took on, um, a marketing role like, like she's like a hybrid doer, seller or hybrid doer marketer, I should say. And her focus on marketing is social media. She had success running a video campaign where the firm that she represents has been around for like a hundred plus years, and they've got clients that are family owned businesses that have been a client for a hundred years.

Mark Wainwright: 10:32

Yeah. Crazy.

John Tyreman: 10:33

And so they like did a video series around that and that, went viral, relatively speaking for an accounting firm. And, and so that created, she was able to kind of forge. And create a new role where she's hybrid doing some of the work, but also contributing to business development through social media. But what she said was, and this is an acronym that I've never heard of, I asked her, what's broken about business development? She said, jelly. And I said, well, what is Jelly? She said, just exactly like last year.

Mark Wainwright: 11:03

Oh

John Tyreman: 11:03

And we've talked about Sally, same as last year. And uh, I thought that that was a, an interesting point brought up from a doer seller, a doer marketer about what's broken about business development.

Mark Wainwright: 11:15

Good. Good jelly.

John Tyreman: 11:17

And one other common theme that brought up, and this was the last one that I wanna touch on before we get to, the video montage, is, partner involvement in marketing. Is something that's broken in accounting firms. So a lot of accounting firms are structured in a way where they have multiple partners who have an ownership stake in the company and are responsible for some level of business development, whether that's marketing, sales, and one of the biggest frustrations that I heard from marketers was, we need the partner to do X, but. They keep ghosting us or they keep delaying, or they keep canceling the meeting and we keep kicking the can down the road. And as someone who's been in that position before, that's super frustrating, super frustrating.

Mark Wainwright: 12:05

And I'm being sarcastic here, John.'cause and I've never heard of that ever in any of the firms that I've ever worked

John Tyreman: 12:11

All right, so it's not just unique to accounting.

Mark Wainwright: 12:14

No, it's everywhere. we don't need those senior partners to dedicate all their time to this stuff, but you know, we need them to. modeling the right types of behaviors with their younger team members

John Tyreman: 12:27

Right.

Mark Wainwright: 12:27

up and coming who need to embrace finding and winning new work. And with. A particular long time, maybe really important client accounts, we need to make sure that they're doing enough, to kind of keep and maintain those relationships that no one gets complacent. That we just don't assume that our relationships, you know, heck a hundred year, I don't know if anybody I work with has a hundred plus year relationships with their clients, but that'd be something, uh, yeah. And you don't ever wanna just assume that those are gonna just be the same as next year?

John Tyreman: 12:57

That's exactly right. And then let's call a spade a spade. If you're a partner in a firm and you want to contribute to business development, but can't then empower your team to pick up the slack, I.

Mark Wainwright: 13:09

Hmm.

John Tyreman: 13:10

It's, uh, just a, a message to all you partners out there.

Mark Wainwright: 13:13

good, good. So how, how, how was it, how, how were you gonna run through? You're just gonna kind of, you're just gonna let these rip,

John Tyreman: 13:19

I'll just set the stage real quick. So we are in this, um, open networking room. It's right outside of the conference room. People are walking out. The setting is, uh, cocktail hour. It's at the end of the day, people are walking out of the big keynote conference. They're grabbing a beer, they're grabbing a glass of wine, and I'm roping people in and asking'em, Hey, what's broken about business development? In accounting firms and I think you will really enjoy what they had to say. I am here with Anthony Harlan of BPM. Anthony, how you doing? I'm doing great, John. How are you doing? I'm doing well. I'm doing well. Are you enjoying the conference so far?

Anthony Harlan: 13:55

Oh, sure am. It's been a blast. It's actually my first one. It's been really welcoming. I.

John Tyreman: 13:59

It's my first one too. Um, so, uh, Anthony, uh, on the Breaking BizDev Podcast, we're all about understanding what's broken about the way firms develop new business. Do you have any hot takes or any opinions on the, uh, what's broken about the way accounting firms develop new business today?

Anthony Harlan: 14:16

Hey, and you know, if I've learned anything at this conferences, if you've met one accounting firm, you've met one accounting firm, uh, everyone's on their own journey here. But if I had to make any sweeping generalizations, it's that I. This, uh, business has very long sales cycles compared to maybe what you're used to if you're coming to this from SaaS or from traditional retail or wherever else you might be coming from before joining this kind of professional services organization. So definitely just keep in mind that, uh, if you make a positive connection with a prospective client and it's a relationship where you've built a little bit of trust and maybe, uh, it's not the right fit right now. Or they have to choose to maybe put a project on hold. A win is a positive relationship and not necessarily a immediate closed one. You know, get yourself ready mentally for that just slightly extended sales cycle.

John Tyreman: 15:12

I, I love that the, the length of the sales cycle in accounting is so much different than technology software as, as a service. Uh, Anthony, real quick before we cut, um, can you give the listeners a little overview of BPM?

Anthony Harlan: 15:24

Oh, proud to. Yeah, absolutely. So BPM is a top 35 full service accounting and advisory firm. Uh, we got our start on the west coast about 38 years ago, but now you can find us worldwide. Uh, we're very proud to have just opened an office in the uk. Uh, we're, you'll find us in Canada. India and uh, yeah, we're very proud of all the industries and services that we've expanded into. Uh, yeah, it's, I've been with the firm for four years. I've seen the growth and I just can't wait to see what's next for us. Excellent.

John Tyreman: 15:55

Well, Anthony, thank you so much for your time. Hello Adam, do you want to tell everybody your name and your company?

Adam Wolf: 16:01

Sure thing. Thanks John Adam Wolf from my CPE one and I'm excited to be here at the AIM Conference and I appreciate you taking a few minutes to chat with me.

John Tyreman: 16:11

Sure. Adam, do you just wanna tell a brief overview of my CP.

Adam Wolf: 16:15

Certainly John, happy to. So my CPE one has a suite of services that help firms grow and scale their businesses. So we offer offshoring for more talent resources. We offer digital marketing, which is a big part of the reason why we're here at at aim. And we also offer continuing professional education credits. We've got the largest library of CPE content in the industry with a seamless interactive platform that helps you manage and track CPE Credit. The common theme is they're all things that you need to do if you want to grow and scale the firm. So that's what we're all about.

John Tyreman: 16:48

Awesome. And on the, uh, the Breaking Biz Dev Podcast, uh, our goal is to beat up and break down what's, what's broken about business development. So my question to you is, what do you believe is broken about the way accounting firms go about business development today?

Adam Wolf: 17:06

That's a very good question. Having been in charge of marketing and business development for a number of years in accounting firms, I could say there are probably a couple of things, but probably the number one thing is there's still a perception among a lot of partners that it's like a, a quick hit, quick fix kind of thing. Like you can do X, you can invest time and money in certain activity, and then you're gonna get business like right away. And that's generally speaking, just not how things work. This is a relationship oriented business. It takes time and energy and many, many touches before you might even have a chance to win business. And I got news for you. You are gonna do a lot of activities, meet a lot of people, and a lot of those things are never gonna turn into business. That's sort of the nature of business development. You have to touch a lot of people over an extended period of time, right? The funnel is like really, really wide at the top. It gets more and more narrow and eventually over time, a st hopefully a steady stream of business comes out. So I think there's this perception that it's like you put a in and you get like b and c out, like right away is, is kind of wrong and broken.

John Tyreman: 18:13

Well, Adam, thank you so much for sharing what you believe is broken about the way firms conduct business development today. Thank you so much. I am here with Tina Braham from Allstate Legal. Tina, how you doing?

Tina Branham: 18:25

I'm doing great. Happy to be at the AM Conference. It's a great

John Tyreman: 18:29

time. Are you, so you having a good time so far?

Tina Branham: 18:32

Yes, and I'm a newbie.

John Tyreman: 18:34

I'm a newbie too. This is my first year.

Tina Branham: 18:36

That's why we clicked. That's right. And it's a

John Tyreman: 18:39

stick together. It's a great place to meet new people, meet new friends. Uh, but Tina, um, the Breaking Biz Dev Podcast is all about beating up and breaking down what's broken about the way firms develop new business. So I'd love to ask you, what do you believe is broken about the way accounting firms develop new business today?

Tina Branham: 19:00

It's a lot of focus that I've heard, um, is, is collaboration and bringing those ideas to all the different departments. And then of course getting everybody upstairs, all on board. So there's a lot of moving parts. So everyone is here soaking up this great content from their peers and you've got some of the best of the best and you know, just trying to take it to the next level to bring in that revenue.

John Tyreman: 19:27

And you mentioned something to me earlier that I thought was really cool and how you're doing a lot of print marketing for your clients and it's cutting through the noise. Can you, can you tell the folks a little bit about, about that?

Tina Branham: 19:40

Yeah, so Allstate Legal is a commercial printer. We do branding, commercial printing. We've been around, we're going on 80 years, and, you know, as much as digital is, is so impactful. We need the visuals, we need to see it. We still need to touch it because there's so much to see. There's so much content out there. Your eyes can hurt, you know, and you miss things with all the filters on your email. So we're meeting, we're at a conference and you hand someone that business card. It's another way to represent your brand. You're following up with a client. You have a printed note card, so you have all of this collateral that goes along with all these marketing ideas. It's just so crucial. It's so essential to growing.

John Tyreman: 20:25

Well, and you've, you Allstate Legal, it's on the, the lanyards here.

Tina Branham: 20:29

Yes, we did. Wonderful lanyards. We've had really good feedback. They're kind of silky around your neck and it's just a nice way we can have a little print to talk about our services that we do, and just a, a way to showcase, you know, some of the printed collateral that you can have at these great conferences.

John Tyreman: 20:46

And who doesn't like getting a postcard in the mail? Right.

Tina Branham: 20:49

I love it. It's a special touch. It makes you feel special. Because they may miss your email. They might have a filter and not able to click on your email. So getting that note card, you can have a special tagline and just something about your interaction with that client that you remembered and it makes you feel good. It's a good way to just kind of maybe open the door and start that conversation with your prospect.

John Tyreman: 21:13

So it sounds like what you believe is broken about the way firms are developing new businesses, just not being creative enough to cut through the noise.

Tina Branham: 21:21

I would say there, there's still a lot of, a lot of steps to kind of make that project take off. So you just gotta keep pushing, you know? Just, just don't stop marketers, keep going,

John Tyreman: 21:33

keep going. Wise words. Well, Tina, thank you so much. Thank you so much,

Tina Branham: 21:36

John. It was a pleasure meeting you and I hope to see you at AIM next year.

John Tyreman: 21:40

Cheers. All right. I am here with Allie Blessing. Allie, can you tell the good people about your firm?

Allie Blessing: 21:48

Yeah, so I work at Malden and Jenkins. We are headquartered in Atlanta. We're a hundred million dollars plus in revenue, and we've got 14 offices in six states.

John Tyreman: 21:55

Awesome. And so the Breaking Biz Dev Podcast is all about beating up what's broken in business development. And so my question to you is, what do you believe is broken about the way accounting firms go about business development today?

Allie Blessing: 22:10

Yeah, so I think, you know, as we continue to have more business development, full-time professionals, sometimes marketing and business development can feel like they're not have having the same sort of goals. And so I think seeing that we have more in common than that we don't have in common. Um, I think sometimes it seems like we have different things that we're going for and we're not aligned, but really we're all going after the same goal, which is more revenue, growing our firms and building for the future.

John Tyreman: 22:34

So it sounds like there's a little bit of friction between sales and marketing within accounting firms.

Allie Blessing: 22:41

Yes, I definitely think there is. Um, I think, you know, business development is continuing to grow, whereas marketing is kind of in the old hat for a while, and so when we have new things, they sometimes are a little scary.'cause change is scary. And so instead of, you know, fighting against each other, I think we can work together for the greater good of our firms and, and helping each other to continue to progress in our careers.

John Tyreman: 23:00

We are stronger together. Yes. Well, Allie, thank you so much for sharing your insights. It's been a pleasure.

Allie Blessing: 23:07

Yes, thank you so much.

John Tyreman: 23:08

We are coming at you live from the 2025 AIM Summit in Phoenix, Arizona, and I am here with my friend and colleague, Joe Pope, partner at Hinge Joe, how you doing?

Joe Pope: 23:20

I'm doing well. I'm doing well.

John Tyreman: 23:22

Joe, I've got a question for you. So, uh, on Breaking Biz Dev, we like to beat up and break down topics related to business development. And I have one question for you. What do you believe is broken about the way accounting firms go about business development today?

Joe Pope: 23:40

Fancy. You asked me this question because I brought props. Oh. So Hinge, uh, does a ongoing study every other year for the Association of Accounting Marketing called the Marketing Budget Benchmarking Study. And it's a really interesting opportunity for us because we get to talk to a diverse list of accounting firms, all shapes and sizes, different areas of the country, global. You know, national base, things along those lines. And we ask a wide variety of questions about how they build their budgets in marketing. And one interesting thing that continues to stand out constantly is that high growth accounting firms spend twice the amount of money. That their low growth peers spend in the form of marketing sales. We, we, we kind of, and I know you've got your takes on this, but we, we do ask the questions across the entirety, business development structure, so, you know, from inception to like, we're retaining clients and things along those lines. Uh, we've got some other findings in here, but the, the two times thing, it just, it stands out. It's been a reoccurring trend, but that gap is not. Been this big until this year's study, and I think a lot of that is just coming out of misconceptions about how to build budgets in the accounting space and coming out of Covid where, you know, everybody went crazy for digital and then, okay, now we're back to doing our golf tournaments and whatever. Um, that just misalignment in the understanding of the value of these types of tactics, like what we're sending people to, how we are investing our dollars in. What is truly a non-billable type setup is broken in terms of accounting,

John Tyreman: 25:14

marketing. So it's, it sounds like it's twofold. It sounds like number one, firms that aren't growing their business development function is broken because they're under investing at, on the whole, the whole, but then also the one, the tactics that they are investing in aren't moving the needle.

Joe Pope: 25:32

Yeah. I mean, we saw some, uh, some interesting things stand out as well. One of the big findings, um, I think. You might like that 1 64 0.3% of high growth firms plan to increase their budget for video production. How about that? Crazy. So, I mean, there is things that definitely stand out here in terms of where they should put their investments. Uh, you know, I think that we're all pretty well aware of the value of honestly sticking a microphone in front of somebody who could potentially pay you money. Like we pay him money. So

John Tyreman: 26:01

well, um, if you're listening to this and you enjoy the Breaking Biz Dev podcast, chances are that you would also enjoy the Spiraling Up podcast from Hinge Marketing. I need a hat. Well, it's gotta be a purple hat, right? Flat brim. Yeah, I got, I got the trucker style. That's

Joe Pope: 26:19

right. Me too.

John Tyreman: 26:20

Yeah,

Joe Pope: 26:20

I usually do that as well.

John Tyreman: 26:22

Well, Joe, thank you so much for sharing your, what you believe is broken. Thank you about the way accounting firms do business development.

Joe Pope: 26:27

Appreciate you having me on, brother.

John Tyreman: 26:31

I am here with cc and can you tell a little bit about your firm?

Cece Roeder: 26:36

Yeah, so I work for, uh, Christensen, CPAs and, uh, consultants. We just crossed, uh, the threshold of a hundred, uh, full-time employees, but we're a full service, uh, CPA firm located in West Central Minnesota with, uh, five locations across the state. Oh,

John Tyreman: 26:51

wow. Um, I'm sorry I didn't get your last name. Can you give their, your last name for the folks out there?

Cece Roeder: 26:55

Yeah, definitely. So I'm CC Rader.

John Tyreman: 26:57

CC Rader. Okay. CC uh, on the Breaking Biz Dev Podcast. Our whole premise is business development is inherently broken the way that firms go about BD sales marketing. And I wanna ask you, what do you think is the one thing that is the most broken about the way accounting firms go about sales and marketing today?

Cece Roeder: 27:19

I think just the thing that is broken about BD today is assuming that just because someone is a partner or some senior level in the firm, that they are automatically going to be rainmakers. There's all sorts of different types of people. Some of us like to be in our own lanes and just heads down, get the work done. Some of us are just out there, you know, living that BD life. So I think that's, that's what I think is broken, is just assuming that one size fits all.

John Tyreman: 27:45

I love that. I love that. And one of the, the things that I subscribe to is that everyone can play a role in sales and marketing, and some people have different skills than others. So it sounds like what you're saying is, um, you know, play to your strengths of your team.

Cece Roeder: 28:00

Yeah, absolutely. If someone is a rock star in a certain area, embrace that rather than trying to, what is it? Uh, square peg in a round hole. That's it. Yeah.

John Tyreman: 28:08

Well, Cece, thank you so much for sharing your insights. Yeah,

Cece Roeder: 28:11

thank you.

John Tyreman: 28:12

All right. I am joined by Arlene Labrador. Arlene, uh, could you tell a little bit about your firm?

Arlene Labrador: 28:20

Yes, I am Arlene Labrador. I'm a South Florida business developer for the, for the firm. I'm a market, uh, kind of business developer. Um, I'm a generalist and every industry I take care of it. And, um, it's been a great pleasure to see the journey that Cherry Baker had been taking. And, um, glad to be here and being the winner for the first time for this, uh, new award that is a business developer and, uh. Just, just very, very happy about that. Well,

John Tyreman: 28:51

congratulations on winning the inaugural business developer of the year, so my question for you, Arlene, is on the Breaking Biz Dev Podcast, we like to beat up and break down what we, we believe, believe is broken about the way firms develop new business. So my question to you is, what do you think is the number one thing that's broken about the way accounting firms go about business development today? I

Arlene Labrador: 29:14

don't think it's a broken, nothing. It's broken. I think it's a, it's the way you see puzzles, you know, sometimes they don't match, they don't fit and it's trying to break, bring that, you know, color or uh, form that will make things happen. And sometimes it's just that is the growing pain for different things in, for grow the journey of, uh, you know, the clients, the strategies and uh, just wanna make sure that the post is completed with all the teams, you know, through marketing. Through business development, through the partners. Sometimes they, they think that we are taking over some of the roles, uh, uh, that is something that I would like to see or I'm seeing that they are being gracious to think, okay, you know, I'm the technical guy. Uh, I love to have that support of the person that has, uh, the best interest for the firm and the client, and being the one that I can throw things to it and that puzzle. It's coming along very well. And I think that's the same way with marketing or you know, anyone else. I think it's, as I said, it's not a broken process. I think it's putting together the pieces.

John Tyreman: 30:22

Love that. So it, it sounds like perhaps maybe what, what would be broken or someone might interpret it, is that lack of patience for putting together that puzzle?

Arlene Labrador: 30:33

It could be. It could be. Um, it's, I think it's a journey. It's, it's, um, it's a great way of seeing things and I think we have. On our own business developers. A lot to do with making that happening.'cause we are the drive, we are the ones, kind of the glue of what is happening because we are all over. Yes. Uh, we have like, I call myself an octopus. I am talking, you know, with here, with the clients I'm doing, I'm the ad, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm flying solo. But trying to put everyone, everyone together in a, in a team mind that sometimes is kind of difficult, but it's not impossible. Let's put it that way.

John Tyreman: 31:12

I love that. Well, Arlene, thank you so much for sharing your insights and congratulations again on winning that award.

31:18

Thank.

John Tyreman: 31:18

I am here with my friend and colleague, Austin McNair of Hinge

Austin McNair: 31:24

Austin. How you

John Tyreman: 31:24

doing?

Austin McNair: 31:25

I'm excellent right now and a little bit tired. This has been a great conference, but I mean, wonderful. A little tired, huh? Where are you flying in from? Austin. Yeah. Uh, I traveled here from South America, actually, uh, all the way from Brazil. So they, I don't think the conference did an award from who came the furthest, but I think I'm a front runner right now flying in from, uh, Southern Brazil, I'd say so.

John Tyreman: 31:51

Well, Austin, um, the Breaking Biz Dev podcast is all about, um. Business development is broken, and there's a number of things that can be wrong with business development. And we're here at the Association for Accounting Marketing Summit in Phoenix, Arizona. And so I, I would like love to ask you, Austin, what do you believe is broken about the way accounting firms go about business development today?

Austin McNair: 32:16

I think that the, the first answer that comes to my mind is just investing in enough people, like business development people. Right. Um, in our research that we do with aim, we have this research partnership with the marketing budget Benchmark study, we actually see a trend that the fastest growing firms, not only. Uh, hire more marketing people as a part of their team. They also do the same thing on the business development side. And so if you're asking me like, what's broken in biz dev, that seems to be like maybe the number one answer for people is getting more team members involved and maybe bringing in more talent on the business development side of the house to generate more business to, to support other team members. Um, another like real like detailed thing about that is that. The high growth firms, they had more people and then the average salary of those people was a little bit lower. So having more specialists who can support more coordinator level people, I think we're seeing kind of that be a trend of the fastest growing firms. Again, do we have enough hands? Can we be fast, can we be responsive? Can we, can we have more proof for quality if you have more people on your team? All those things become a lot easier, uh, to accomplish.

John Tyreman: 33:25

Interesting. So it sounds like these firms, I. Are under investing in the human capital for their business development teams.

Austin McNair: 33:33

I've talked to a lot of people this weekend and, uh, one of the things that has been a theme has been, yeah, I could use more support, I could use more help on my team, I could use, you know, um, just we have ideas, we have things that we want to innovate, things we want to do. It's just hard when we don't have the, the, the people power to invest in those things. And so of course I'm talking to a lot of marketers, but on the business development side of the house, I've gotta think that these, these folks are having the same thing going on.

John Tyreman: 34:03

Very good. Well, Austin, thank you so much for sharing what you believe is broken about business development. Alright, mark, do you have any takeaways from that 20 minutes of Man on the street interviews?

Mark Wainwright: 34:16

Well, you know, I mean the, the, the, the themes, um, the themes that we talk about regularly, John, are themes that, that cropped up, you know, here and there. Uh, that, that, Like Adam and Anthony and Joe and Arlene, they were sharing their thoughts and there's nothing radically,

John Tyreman: 34:36

Different.

Mark Wainwright: 34:37

But the, the, the point is, is that professional services in general, people who are out there selling their expertise, not widgets, face a number of similar challenges. And you know, like you said, the sales function. Often butts, heads with the marketing function, that, marketing needs to take time,

John Tyreman: 34:59

Mm-hmm.

Mark Wainwright: 35:00

to, do its job. All these things take time. The selling takes time. It's the sales cycles are long, they're not short. So

John Tyreman: 35:07

Yeah.

Mark Wainwright: 35:08

a, a ton of, a ton of similar themes. I don't know. You were there so you were experiencing, and I'll ask you, what were your big takeaways?

John Tyreman: 35:16

I, I mean, like you, these are all very familiar topics that we've talked about on past episodes that we've identified ourselves in across industries. Um, but I love the way that Arlene articulated what's broken about business development. She said it's not broken, but it's like a puzzle. You have to figure out how to put it together. And I thought that that was a really, a really good way to take a look at it and to think about it. And it's a more of a positive attitude and I just really appreciated that from her. Um, and then, you know, there was a similar sentiment from Austin who talked about the mix and makeup of marketing staff. Um, so that's very kind of puzzle esque, if you will. And then Tina from Allstate Legal, when she talked about differentiating with print marketing and physical marketing, because digital is so saturated these days. I mean, who doesn't like to get a postcard? Right? So, uh, these, these are all, all, all great, all great things. And it was a, it was a pleasure to be out there.

Mark Wainwright: 36:16

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, good on you to, to, to get out there and do it. You took full advantage. Um, you know, frankly, it was a little unexpected that you'd be, you know, doing your man on the street thing. But I think it's, it's, it's great. We really enjoy bringing additional voices onto the. the podcast. You know, we think at least it's our hope that people who listen, get some value out of them. And, you know, it's, it's, they, yeah, lo and behold, they reinforce a lot of things that we've talked about for a long period of time. Uh, a lot of things that people sort of, I. Feel are going on in their organizations, but you know, they aren't necessarily top of mind or they're not, you know, screaming and, you know, staring them in the face. Um, so just hearing other industries and other people facing similar stuff I think is really useful. So yeah, I appreciate you doing that.

John Tyreman: 37:02

Totally. All right, and uh, for those that are listening, thank you so much for making it this far, and Mark and I will talk to you next time.

Mark Wainwright: 37:11

Until next time, John.

John Tyreman: 37:12

Until next time.