Episode Transcript
[00:00:24] Speaker A: Welcome to Biz Talk. I'm Ryan Herpin, the host of this awesome show. And on this show I really like to dive into what does it really actually take to be successful right now? Today's most successful leaders often come from, well, unexpected backgrounds, bringing lessons learned under pressure into the business world. And I can attest to this deeply as I began as a welder and worked my way into consulting and growing businesses. But today's guest, William Kahn, entrepreneur, business consultant, accountant, published, author, founder of CS Business Consulting. You know, before helping companies build high performing teams, Williams served as detective sergeant and SWAT team leader. Where leadership strategy and accountability were, they really weren't optional. Like they were completely essential.
So after transitioning into business, he helped quadruple the revenue at Shelton Associates CPA and now works with organizations across the country to develop stronger leaders and more successful teams. So, William, it is such a pleasure to have you on the show. I'm so excited for this, Ryan.
[00:01:30] Speaker B: It's my pleasure. I'm very excited as well.
[00:01:33] Speaker A: Now, to our audience, as we begin, think about this and I'm asking you really kind of chew on it. What leadership lessons from high pressure environments can help businesses thrive today?
Now, I'm asking this question because I've had to learn a lot myself and I know William here has had to experience his fair share and it has most definitely carried over. So I really want to start with William's remarkable transition from law enforcement leadership to business leadership. So as we dive right in, William, I think let's hit some of the kind of heavier questions right away just to kind of kick things off, have some fun. But I am really curious, how did your experience as a detective sergeant and SWAT team leader shape the leadership philosophies you have today?
[00:02:18] Speaker B: It was a huge burden to it. So the. It wasn't, and I wouldn't say a burden, but it was definitely a huge part of it and it was a lot of the foundation. So my faith is the number one thing that shaped the leader that I wanted to be. And I built my foundation on servant leadership, trying to make everyone around me better, better version of themselves, whether it be skill, emotional, family, man, whatever it is. And the detective sergeant really carved out a lot of that. And of course, the high risks, high stakes SWAT team leader did a lot of that as well. You start making bigger decisions with bigger life impacts and you have to be really sure that you're sticking to the core of who you are and to formalize an actual leadership philosophy that breaks that down, puts it in writing on Paper for not just you to hold yourself accountable to, but to hold others can hold you accountable to it as well, was a big deal. So in the detective world, you're working cases and you are bound completely by what you're trying to discover to be truth and evidence versus, you know, lies and things are trying to be hidden and kept from discovery. And in that world you have these civil rights you have to watch out for, you have these state and federal laws that you have to govern yourself around and you have to do things just in a moral and ethical way. So you sometimes have to make big decisions that are, you have to let this go because legally you can't obtain that, that, that position, that information, that piece of evidence or detain that person. And on the SWAT team as well, you have to push and get people as sharp as they possibly can be. Because literally the second you go through that door and you go into that operation, if you make mistakes, people can get drastically hurt or even die. So really heightening the idea of I better get serious about who I am and the way I'm going to lead so that civil rights don't get violated and people don't get hurt was really, really important to me. So I actually went to an entire three week long leadership class where the leadership philosophy was completely remolded, reformed and taken out into the basic current status that it is now.
[00:04:25] Speaker A: You know, I've got to highlight a few really big golden nuggets that were in that. And number one is the concept of servant leadership. Especially in that dynamic and in that world. I cannot express enough how important servant leadership really is. I think if a leader is not a servant, they're not a leader at all. They're a boss. And we all know the difference between a boss and a leader. I mean, goodness, you can feel it when you step into the room. But another thing I've really got to kind of pull out of that is the way that you're addressing this. You know, you're in a position and have been in positions where decisions matter, lives are on the line, there's risk.
And when it comes to evidence and when it comes to making moves, it's not about what you know, it's what you can prove. And then not just what you can prove, it's what you can leverage. And that kind of makes me question a little bit, is really, how does that leadership, you know, what, what of those leadership lessons from law enforcement really do translate and carry over directly into business success today?
[00:05:21] Speaker B: That's a great question. So a Lot of my law enforcement careers. What helped me develop my seven pillars of leadership, which kind of, in that last question I said is all built on the foundation of servant leadership.
You know, some of, some of the big things are, is that you don't always have to know the answer, but you better know where to find the answer, right? Or who has the answer and start connecting those people and going to those people.
Stop spinning your wheels and trying to do it all yourself. Another thing that was really important is law enforcement, as you kind of heard me say, the regulations, the, the state and federal laws and you know, things like that, you're bound by a whole bunch of boundaries, but also you have expectations in law enforcement and that translates to everyone, whether it's parenting, you need to tell your boundaries, hey, you can these things, you have this freedom. You have my permission. I'm giving you permission to go up to the boundaries, but don't go any farther. You need to stop there and ask me for help or ask me for more permission to breach a boundary. And then the other thing is about these expectations is on the opposite side. I expect you to at least do this minimum right? And you can do those things. And in leadership, you know, there's a lot of times law enforcement can be very physical. I mean, you're doing pursuit, driving your foot pursuits, you might have to wrestle or fight a criminal. You're constantly working with tools on your Batman belt, you know, and you have to do things a lot. And as a supervisor or a leader in some role, you don't just sit back and fold your arms and watch the troops do the work. You sometimes have to roll up your sleeves and jump in there and help execute a search warrant on this big nasty house where they haven't cleaned forever. You might have to get in there and help hold somebody down so they can get handcuffed or, or get in there and give CPR yourself so that the original officer on the scene can, can do something else. So some of these things is that you need to roll up the sleeves and like in the accounting office, you know, you don't want your partners doing the tax prep. They shouldn't be doing tax prep. They should be doing the highest level reviews and the highest levels of advisory and have their eyes up on the horizon, steering where the company is going to go. But guess what? In the peak of tax season, you better be able to roll up your sleeves and knock out a handful of those to keep the burden off your staff. So don't be afraid to do those things. Those are just a few of the pillars that definitely translate over well. But I would say if you can stick to those, you're going to have a really great start in your leadership journey. And that they definitely are cross categories. Like I said, marriage, parenting, business, any type of economics coaching, and of course, law enforcement.
[00:07:41] Speaker A: You know, there's a few things I've really kind of got to pull out of there that just really hit me deeply, especially because I heard some of the things that my mentor echoed to me frequently when I was in the pursuit of going from a welder to the director of operations and even chief operations officer was. And it was really simply said, you don't have to be the expert of really anything.
He said, you just have to know and have a good relationship with the experts of each thing. If you don't have the answer, no problem. But you've got to know where to find it and you have to know how to get all those experts to work together efficiently. The problems aren't solved by you, they're solved by your team. So if you can get them to work together and all those experts can put their brain together, they're going to find the right solutions. But you got to be the guy to just kind of make it happen. But one of the things that I really got to bring up is in those pillars, right?
Being able to jump in and do it yourself and to be able to participate and to help your team and to serve them and to have their back in the midst of, well, tax season, right? That, I think is truly what defines a leader, is you don't just talk the talk, you walk the walk. You don't expect your team to do anything that you are not willing to also do yourself. And my style of leadership is very much that I will never expect my team to show up to the battle alone. I'm going to show up even if I am the most ill prepared. I'm going to stand out in front and, and be ready to fight that fight with you.
But I'm going to show up consistently. I'm never going to ask them to do something I won't do. But, you know, I'm kind of curious a little bit here as we got just a few minutes left. You know, how did you navigate that transition from, you know, public servant into entrepreneurship and consulting? Like, what was that transition like for you? It had to be a little bit daunting.
[00:09:15] Speaker B: It was definitely scary because, you know, everybody knows that, you know, law enforcement and taxes are basically the same thing right now.
Most people would say they're opposite ends of the spectrum. And I mean, you're looking at high interpersonal skills every single day and you're dealing with a different person of the public on every single call up and down the economic spectrum, full diversity. And you could go from something highly violent and shattering to your morale to arguing with somebody at a traffic stopper or a minor fender bender. But the transition for me was I modeled what made me successful in law enforcement. And how does that apply here in the accounting world and then the consulting world. And what I did is I put myself back through basic training. In the military, you go through basic training in law enforcement, you go to the academy and you do your basic training. In the accounting world, we didn't have that. So I had to create my own basic training and I became a student all over again.
And also we wanted to change ourselves and really draw out the tax planning and the advisory and the consulting side of things and really help businesses flourish and grow. So we took our own medicine and I became a student. I learned from my partner all of the top down, highest level advisory things. And I also took on all of the grunt roles. The lowest rung of the ladder. And I was scanning documents, I was a partner in the company, but I was scanning documents and helping just the basic workflow and shuffling files around the office and uploading things into our portal system and stuff like that, because I wanted to experience it. I wanted to know exactly what the intern would be doing if they were only here for the tax season or summer as well as I wanted to sit in the room with our $40 million client who's getting ready to make a 17 million dollar deal and advise him on his tax implant applications. And so I put myself through our self created basic training. But then I could replicate that process in the future for anyone else we brought on board. And that was a huge thing that helped me transition with familiarity. I just reminded myself here in basic training for a few months and then I was able to replicate that and help others launch much better once they came into our firm after, after me,
[00:11:19] Speaker A: you know something, I again, man, you're dropping these beautiful golden nuggets of wisdom and I gotta pull something out here that just really stands out to me, you know, and this highlights your servant leadership and the type of leader that you are. Because it's not just solving problems for your clients. Stepping into the advisory role, the consulting role is the measure of a leader, is your ability to create more leaders that become better than you. It's to get not just to have them depend on you forever. It's to set them up with the tools, the mentalities, the philosophies, the beliefs, the system so that they can keep going without you. It's not so they depend on you forever, is so they can use you when they need you, when they need some kind of help, some oversight, whatever it may be, but so they can be better off without you in the long term. That is the measure of a servant leader if I've ever seen it. So to our audience, you know, strong leadership principles often transcend industries because people trust and accountability to kind of really remain at the center of success. So we'll be right back to discussing building high performance teams. So don't go anywhere. You got more biz talk on the way. We'll see you soon.
Welcome back to what should be your favorite show, Biz talk. We are here with the great William Kahn.
One of the biggest challenges facing businesses today is creating teams that consistently perform at high levels while maintaining really engagement and accountability. Now this, to me, there's a dichotomy here. There is no such thing as balance. There is rhythm in my mind and this is one of the hardest dances to maintain, if you're asking me. So having William in this conversation, so important. So thank you for being here, William. This is incredible conversation to have with you.
[00:13:15] Speaker B: I'm having a great time and I'm glad to be back. This is a very fun conversation that means a lot, I think, to both of us.
[00:13:21] Speaker A: Absolutely. So as the way I like to handle things, I want to dive right into some of that meat and dig out some of that beautiful wisdom and knowledge that you have in that brand of yours. So to really kick this one off, you know what separates high performing teams from average everyday teams? Right. What's the differentiator there? What makes that separate?
[00:13:41] Speaker B: So that's a pretty layered and loaded question as there's going to be a lot to that. And I think you have to understand that there's layers. And I think the number one thing you need to know is that high performing teams are not built overnight. You don't turn them on and off like a light switch. You have to have both the vision and the long term results in mind constantly. So not just the leader but the entire team has to have it communicated to them. Here's our vision. This is what we're working toward. This is what we want to be when we grow up. And everyone has rallied around that vision, they know their part in that. The machine that accomplishes that vision. So they know what cog in the wheel they are and how it helps turn and facilitate the results that get us there. I think that's one thing that's really important. I do think a culture of, you know, disciplined and motivated people are very important. And here's one thing, I'll make a quick tangent on discipline and motivation is there's a famous quote that says you don't need more motivation, what you need is discipline, which means you need the structure of the system. And so as a leader to get your high performing team, you have to provide that structure, that system and again those metrics that they're chasing after and the accountability to hold them to that. So to summarize this whole answer, you need to have accountability to a system and measurable KPIs, whatever it is that you're going to put out there and that you can measure and test because you can't really grow what you can't measure. That's hard to do. You don't know how much water and fertilizer to put in something if you don't know how big the plant is. If you're just going in there blind, then you need to get the team wrapped around a clearly established vision of which they each know their role and the part it plays in success and have them keep their eyes on that long term accomplishment. And I think your team's going to be coming high performing as quickly as possible because again, it doesn't happen overnight.
[00:15:27] Speaker A: You know, I couldn't agree with you more. It is a process that really does take, it takes cultivation, it takes some nurturing. You know, it's not as simple as just get these five people and all of a sudden they're a high performing team. It's something I found that's pretty consistent is and like you said, you said it really well. You know, you cannot manage what you do not measure. You have to be able to measure the start, the in between the goals. But one thing I found that is so important to having a high performing team is you've got to get everybody's reason why understood. You mentioned, you know, motivation, right. Discipline shows up when motivation runs out. Right. And willpower is your ability to stay disciplined when you're no longer motivated. Right. People like to operate off of that inspiration, motivation, you know, get fired up and just go hard for a little bit. Discipline is doing that consistently even when it sucks. But with some of this in mind, you know, it is all too easy to generate fear amongst a team when you have the word accountability.
So how can leaders create that culture of accountability without creating all that fear?
[00:16:32] Speaker B: That's a great question. The way we set accountability is we do it right from the get go. So this is kind of a big culture question. I have written an ebook and I have a philosophy called the first four hours.
Your new hire, your employee, their culture is going to be set through your interview and onboarding process. But most importantly, in the first four hours, we attack literally establishing the culture in that employee. We say, hey, here at such and such business, we operate this way, we think this way, we like to do this. So that becomes their base standard. They heard that first and they understand that, like, oh, we don't quit. We are teammates, we help each other out, we drop what we're doing and support the team. We don't silo ourselves when we do these things. And we introduce our, you know, our policies and our SOPs, of course, but they get one on one time with the leader. So we, I have maintained a small enough structure where I can at least every time we have a new hire, I can go down for at least 15 minutes, right? And here comes the boss of the company giving his personal leadership philosophy to you, explaining it, letting you ask questions and welcome you on board. And then we also, in their first week, we snatch them up and take them out to lunch and they get the rookiest of rookie. The first few days on the job they're eaten with the top tier brass, as you would say. And so that also shows, whoa, these guys are serious, they care about me. And we explain the accountability, what the metrics are for and how we make corrections and things like that. And it's not a threatening environment. It's like, hey, you also have the opportunity to ask for help. That's a requirement too. If you're struggling, you got to tap somebody on the shoulder and say, hey, help me out. But you can't just use them as an easy button, right? So there's boundaries and expectations. And in that first four hours I have had, out of my last four hires, I've had three of them either tear up or cry because they've never been treated that way. They've never had clarity that way, They've never understood stuff like that. And that's when I realized it was really hitting home, is that nobody's caring about these people and setting that culture of accountability and that culture of freedom and growth and teamwork. And if you can do that in whatever capacity you carry out the, the metaphor of the first four hours, I think you're going to Have a lot of accountability and a lot of cultural success.
[00:18:42] Speaker A: You know, you kind of make me think of the difference between sowing seeds and planting seeds. Right. Sowing seeds is tossing them about kind of anywhere they stick. Some might land on rocks, some might land on fertile ground, Some might land in, you know, thorns or bristles, what have you. But intentionally planting those seeds makes all the difference. You know, you talked about the first four hours, which you just gave me a whirlwind of thoughts there, because I have a concept that I do a little bit of education on called the first interview. That leads to the first day. The first day that leads to the whole career. Right. And it's all about that transparency, that accountability, and that leadership through servitude that you can show in a first interview. Right. The first interview. I tend to find out really quick, is this the right person for the job? And it's not because of aptitude. It's because of attitude. Someone with the right attitude can learn pretty much anything. But I love the way that you frame this because you are changing a cultural standard of fear around accountability. Instead, it's power, it's enjoyment, it's satisfaction, it's fulfillment through accountability.
Because it's not an atmosphere of, oh, you make a mistake, you fail, you fall apart. No, it's an atmosphere of, we're gonna win together or we're gonna lose together, but by goodness, we're doing it together.
That is a completely different dynamic, which for audience. I hope you wrote that down because that is wildly important. And I think this is a conversation I'm have to share with some of my clients even, because, goodness, you articulate it so well. So, you know, with that in mind, it does kind of lead to a little bit more of a. I want to dig into this a little bit bit, you know, on that line, what are some of the mistakes that organizations make when trying to improve that team performance?
Right. Because we can tell them all day what to do, but if they don't see clearly what not to do, those mistakes still might occur. So what would you say some of those mistakes are?
[00:20:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I think probably 2. Jump to the top of my mind is they incentivize people improperly is one. But I don't want to touch on that right away. And I think the other one is that they delegate care.
So the number one thing, and it's in the 80% on almost any given survey that you take in the 80th percentile, people say, the number one thing we want is, I just want my boss or my leader, the owner of the company, to care about me, just to know that I'm human and I'm cared about, okay? And so you can delegate care, but you still, you bet you can't, you know, outsource it completely. So you got to come down out of your ivory tower. You got to mix it up with the troops. Even in larger organizations, right? You got to go and talk to people and you have to put on your calendar time to go do genuine, not just like robotic, like, hey, how you doing? How's your wife? How your kids? Next, next, and go to the next cubicle, right? But actually talk care, you know, do some of those things. So knowing that they're here, that's where you get a lot of organizations, they try to improve performance. They either do a raw, raw version of that that's insincere and it's fake, or they don't do it at all. And they just tell their first line managers, like, hey, go show some care and ask this checklist of questions to make sure, you know, everybody's okay. And you can't do that. You got to be genuine. And then the wrong incentivizing is really important. So there's this little system called ppf. It's personal, professional and financial goals, right? If you just sit down and have like a 15 minute conversation of learning what that employee's personal goals are, their professional goals, like, what do they want out of this career? What are they trying to do in their life? Are they trying to learn a language or study piano or travel? More like, what are their personal goals? What are their professional goals? Do they want to just be the best tech that they can be? Or do they want to climb the corporate ladder? And then their financial goals is, where do they want to be? Like, do they want to buy a house? Do they want to have another child and raise up a bigger family, but they can't afford it? You know, do they just want to take this one vacation they've dreamt about since a kid?
And if you start learning this stuff as well now, your incentives can be something better than like, hey, if you guys achieve all your metrics this week or this month, everybody on the team gets an Amazon gift card.
Or, you know, and some people time off is more important. So what we did is we actually let our teams vote and we said, hey, on your teams, what would you guys prefer? And it was funny because it was universal. Every single team voted for more time off. So if they earned their metrics tricks, they could actually earn by Thursday by noon, if they were on pace right, they would get half a day Friday off. They would literally just clock out at noon and go home. And I would pay them for the four hours they weren't here because they sprinted. They work so well as a team and eventually I would challenge them and I would try to work more load. As you guys get more efficient and stuff like this, I'm going to keep loading you up and then I'm not going to do it to where I stress out, stress you out and completely fail you. But at one point we had it going so long that we were so far ahead of schedule making so much money, we gave them full Fridays off and they earned in one year, they earn 17 paid Fridays off. That's an incredible incentive. And guess what? The company was happy. Culture was amazing. We were bringing on more clients and we were making more money all together. But the incentive wasn't let me take you out to dinner. The incent incentive wasn't even give me a pay raise. I wanted to take home more salary or I want a bonus. They said give me the days off and they had 17 long weekends. Like, how crazy is that? And their families loved it. So incentivize your people the way they want to be incentivized in the realm of reasonableness.
[00:23:49] Speaker A: Now I've got to say to our audience, this is a master class on building the proper culture in a successful business. I've seen, oh goodness, 50 plus businesses that are trying to develop high performing teams. And what William is explaining here is definitely the right methodologies to imply because yes, it's harder this way to get it started, but the benefits, the reward, the success is significantly greater. So, so to our audience, you know, people don't simply work for companies. They work for leaders who inspire confidence, clarity and purpose.
So we're going to take a quick break and after that break, we're going to discuss business growth and scaling organizations successfully.
Welcome back to Biz Talk Again, I'm your host Ryan Herpin and I am continuing my conversation with William Kahn. And now we're turning our attention to business growth. William played a key role in helping Shelton and Associates significantly increase revenue and now helps organizations scale through strategic leadership, operational excellence, and so much more. And I cannot stress enough just how much you should have a pen and pad when you're listening to William. So, William, thank you for being on the show. It's such a pleasure to have you here.
[00:25:18] Speaker B: It's great to be back. Great to be back.
[00:25:21] Speaker A: Now something I kind of want to Frame here is growth doesn't happen by accident. Through all my time in business, that is one consistent, I can say, you know, it requires intentional leadership, strong systems and, well, a very, very clear vision. So to really kick this segment off, I want to dive in with another one of those big heavy hitters. You know, what were the key leadership principles that helped drive the, you know, dramatic revenue growth for Shelton and Associates?
[00:25:47] Speaker B: That is a great question. And as you said, it doesn't happen by accident and it really doesn't happen easily.
It's simple but not easy. Is one of my favorite sayings in life is like, the concept is like, you get it now, you just got to execute. But one of the things that we did is we decided that we're going to transition to an advisory focused firm. We're going to consult people on those bigger and better ways to structure their entities, their businesses, so that they can get the most tax advantage, reduce liability, audit proof their businesses and put all of that saved revenue, those saved monies, back into their own businesses so they can grow and expand. We took our own medicine. We did it to our clients, but when we quadrupled revenue, we did that in about two and a half years. The years we did it, are we the very middle of 2019 and then 2020 and 2021. So those two and a half years were Covid. And so what we decided is we decided to step out and we'd promised ourselves we're going to take a leadership position with our clients instead of being a reactive tax factory that just took their numbers as they gave them to us. We crunched the numbers, maybe we sprinkled some advice out there along the way. And they either took it or didn't know how to apply it. And we dropped the ball a lot. We said, we're going to step out and take a leadership role. We started advising and saying, hey, here's your situation. It's got issues. Come in with us, we're gonna explain the issues and here's the value it brings to you and then the value you're gonna pay us to fix it. So we became a value focused firm instead of just a compliance tax factory producing widgets, I.e. preparation and attestation services. We cut out all of our audits and reviews and stuff.
So on doing that, we hit Covid and we had an opportunity to say, well, this is too much. We're trying to carve out these changes in our firm. And Covid came and just, really just smashed, smacked us like everybody in the face. And we Said, no, we're going to step out. We're going to push through this. Because we chose to push through it. The clients were even more so drawn to us because we are stepping up out of the storm, saying, follow, follow me. And we gave them that advice that tax laws were changing rapidly with the CARES act and everything else that was coming out. We found some niche areas that we could capitalize on to help our clients and also bring value to ourselves. And that allow us to take a $750,000 firm and turn it into a $3 million firm firm in about two and a half years.
And then we were. During COVID we doubled our staff, right? And we cut our book of business by 24%. So we did 24 less work, made four times as much money with twice as many people sharing the load, and we rode that wave. And we. We opened and changed some different things at the same time. But we had a moment where my partner and I looked at each other and said, hey, man, do we just need to put a time out on this and just go back to being a tax factory, get through the storm, go back to what we know, Go back to the comfort of our miserable ways of scratching, buying, and having the company live paycheck to paycheck. And we said no. We puffed our chests out and we pushed forward. And that was the literal moment where we decided that we were going to stick to our vision, like you said, and we were 100% fail or succeed together. We're going to chase that vision. We accomplish that vision. And we stuck to the principles, the patterns, and all of the things that we had put in place. We kept calling the clients and we kept telling them about their opportunities, and they kept spreading and turning over to us like wildfire. And at one point, it was almost like there was a line at the movies out the front of our our firm, like people were waiting for the next release of the Star wars movie because we almost couldn't answer the phone fast enough to take the referrals for the people that were wanting our help.
[00:29:18] Speaker A: See, now, a story like that is the type of story that really makes people understand that it is possible.
It is not easy, but it can be pretty simple. When you take a 10,000 step back and look at the bigger picture, it can be pretty simple, but easy is just not the thing. Right? And I've helped scale several businesses, but that story right there, one thing that I really want to encapsulate is you're able to see a way of changing streams of revenue Growing streams of revenue, implementing more streams of revenue, but at the same time you have real numbers, hard proof, hard facts that all added up to such a major success.
It's not just one area. You focus on it directly, you make big changes there. Everything changes. No, it is a controlled process that requires constant discipline to find the next weakest link, the bottleneck or whatnot. Right. So with somebody as yourself that has scaled successfully more than once, Right. This is not just a one off deal for you, you have scaled consistently with whatever it is you're doing.
I'm curious your perspective on what some of the common mistakes are, you know, that prevent businesses from scaling successfully.
[00:30:29] Speaker B: So one is fear. And that's the fear of like we just talked about, opening a new revenue stream, opening a new product or service.
Well, what if it doesn't work? Well, what if it does? Right? You know, so that fear, there's two versions of fear, that's a whole different speech I give someplace else. But that's the bad fear that prevents you from taking something that you know you should do you or try.
So that bad fear is something that completely prevents you from scaling. You've got these people in your life, they're telling you some people are your cheerleader no matter what, even if it's insane. And some people, most people are going to be in some way a negative Nancy. They're going to try to tear you down or convince you not to take that risk, that leap of faith. So that's a huge one.
The number one thing, however, that I see that prevents people from scaling is the leaders, the executive board members, the partners, whatever it is, they are in their own way. And you had mentioned the word bottleneck. Okay, the bottlenecks. And I largely work with accounting firms, I work with all kinds of industries, but just I've had my foot in the accounting world. So that's just my premier client.
The partners are always in the way. They are the bottleneck. They have to have some type of system or mechanism in place where they have to review, they have to touch everything, they have to approve everything, or they're not allowing a new software in because that software is going to cost us $10,000 a year to use that software. And they're paying for $2,000 software right now. The $8,000, you're going to get the ROI on efficiency and what you can delegate to your staff members and hire new people with. That's Gonna, that's a 10x20x most the time if you just get out of your own way. And let somebody that's smarter than you in technology, smarter than you in operations, smarter than you in HR and team building and stuff like that come in there and handle it. And then you can finally get your head up and start steering that giant cruise ship where it needs to go. And you're not down in the belly of the ship shoveling coal and you can't see what's going on everywhere else. So that's definitely the number one thing is the bottleneck of the owners, the executive board members, the top tier leaders of the company.
[00:32:28] Speaker A: I couldn't agree more. I would say even from my perspective in the businesses I've worked with, you know, outside of the accounting world, because I try to avoid that world, I try to get as far away from it as I can. I'll dive into some accounting and do some forensics and help find the bleeding. But goodness, I focus on operations leadership and a lot of other things. But one of the things I can consistently say that prevents scaling is leadership. You're right. And I found this owner dependency is one of the biggest risk factors in any business that's trying to grow. Because a business will never exceed the capacity and capability of, of its leader and or owner. So when they are the bottleneck, they are the limitation altogether for the entire industry. Well, their entire company. Right. So, you know, kind of looking at this from a different lens here when we're talking about bottlenecks, especially in the accounting world, how can leaders identify bottlenecks that are holding back the organization or the team members or the leaders they're in? Because finding bottlenecks is kind of key. I mean, if we're being honest here, it's just a game of find the next one, eliminate it, find the next one, eliminate it until you're at a safe capacity. But how can some of those leaders identify those bottlenecks?
Right.
[00:33:37] Speaker B: So here's a number one, accounting world or otherwise. Have you ever been your own client? Have you ever experienced what it's like to get your product or service from me? Literally sit on the other side of the door, the other side of the phone and call and pretend and act like you're a customer? And what is it like to get the advice, to exchange, you know, the accounting information to upload into the portal, to access, to log, to sit in a client meeting and then wait for your results to come back, your analysis or whatever it may be? Have you ever experienced your own client experience? You're going to find some bottlenecks real quick if you sit on the other Side and that's one of the reasons like that show Undercover Boss is, you know, they're technically taking kind of a, you know, a lower end employee role. But they also go in and there's a bar rescue show as well that they do that where the first thing they do is they send in secret patrons to the shop and they act like they're, you know, eating at the restaurant and partaking in the bar to find where the real problems are. So you need to experience your own client experience. And then you need to understand almost certainly you're the bottleneck. Anything that you can delegate. If somebody can do a task or a project or whatever that skill set is at an 80%, that's a B minus. If they can do it at a B minus, hand it off to them. Absolutely hand it off to them and let them do it. And then give them the skill sets and the training to develop them into the A plus student. So start identifying this giant list of what all you do, anything that can be delegated or somebody in your organization can do it at a B minus, get rid of it, hand it off to them, but coach them and teach them how to become an A plus student. And again, if you're going to give more responsibilities, you may want to incentivize them in some way that's appropriate to them.
[00:35:16] Speaker A: I love that and I love how you kept it so simple and straightforward. I find it is really easy to over complicate things no matter the, no matter the case. Right. Intelligence can sometimes be the cause of miscommunication. But now, man, you know, I'm curious because this conversation is so powerful and there's so much wisdom here. Where can the audience find you if they're looking to contact you, to learn from you, to grow from this and to continue following up on that? William Kahn's beautiful mind. Where can they do that?
[00:35:44] Speaker B: Easiest place to find me is probably LinkedIn. It's William Kahn on LinkedIn. But my website would be the best place if you want to get contact and book some time with me. And that's five, five talents. Strategic finance is the company and the website is the number five. Five talentssf.com you know, that's five talents from the Bible. It's a parable. He had five talents and that good servant made five talents more. So that's the principle behind our company is we want to take the talents that you have and we want to grow them, double them, and who knows, quadruple them.
[00:36:12] Speaker A: Right now I, I absolutely love where that came from. That is that that makes me happy deeply. And I can see that very clearly now to our audience. You know, the businesses that scale successfully are often the ones that invest in leadership just as much as strategy. And I really want you to take that away from this, you know. We'll take one final break and return to discuss legacy, influence and leadership impact. So grab coffee, stretch out, get popcorn, whatever it is you got to do. We'll be right back with more Biz Talk.
Welcome back to Biz Talk again. I'm your host, Ryan Herpin, and we're having an incredible conversation today. But as we conclude today's conversation with William Kahn, I want to focus on impact. This is something that means the world to me. Now, the most respected leaders aren't remembered only for revenue growth or business success. They're remembered for the people they influence and the lives they help improve.
Now, William, it's such a pleasure to have you here. I'm excited to dive into this topic with you because this is something I think you have a deep understanding of. So I'm excited for this. This.
[00:37:39] Speaker B: Oh, I'm excited as well. So I can't wait to get into it now.
[00:37:42] Speaker A: Once again, just like we have for the last few segments here, I'mma dive in with kind of a big question. This one's rather large.
This is more of a personal level. You know, what does leadership legacy really mean to you?
[00:37:57] Speaker B: That is a big question.
Leadership legacy. You know, I would. I would think what it lead means to me is that you are leaving a lasting, positive impact.
You know, I think everyone in the world has influence, but you're leaving positive influence, hopefully at least net positive. Let me take a quick tangent real quick back to the first four hours that I talked about. You know, one of the things I do in reading my leadership philosophy is I tell people, at some point, I will disappoint you. Right? I want you to expect that at some point I am a fallible human. I will disappoint you. I will screw up, I will make a mistake, probably hurt your feelings in some capacity. I apologize ahead of time. Understand that I'm not perfect. Only one guy was ever perfect, and I am certainly not him. Them. But I also understand that you're going to disappoint me as well. Especially when you're newer. You're going to make mistakes. We expect you to make mistakes. It's okay for you to mess up. I want us to be humans with each other, to be graceful and forgiving and stuff like that. As long as we're not just maliciously causing personal harm. And that opens a whole door to things. So as a leadership legacy, I want people to look at me and I want them to recognize my flaws. And I try to. Like, my biggest legacy I can leave, hopefully, is with my children, right? And then. And outside, keep expanding that sphere. But if my son looks at me and says, well, my dad really screwed up in this area and I don't like that at all, so I'm not going to be like that, I'll take that lesson as well, as long as I can be open and transparent and honest about it. But hopefully there's a way a lot more of like, wow, my dad really did these things good. While my dad did that, he treated people this way, he did these things. He built, you know, wealth and finances and relationships and community and did these things. And so leaving a legacy is where people can identify both your positive and your negative, and they can take all of those lessons learned from you and be a better version of themselves. And hopefully my goal would be a better human than I was. And if I could do that with somebody, if I can make somebody underneath my charge, underneath my care, a better human than I was, success all day
[00:39:52] Speaker A: long, I. I love that. And once again, there's a few things I have to highlight there that I find just over the top important, and it's easily missed. And it's setting an example, good and bad, that people can learn from, whether it's, man, you know, my dad did these things great and he didn't do these things great. So I don't want to be like that. I have learned what not to do more often than I learned what to do. And that was a vital part of navigating. What does it take to be successful? What does it take to be influential? What does it take to make an impact that actually matters?
And I'm with you. When it comes to legacy, I want my life, my experience, to have a lasting, positive impact that betters somebody else's life. The way I see it is I'm here. And as long as my life and the effort I put in impacts one life, to be better, to go further or even to find, well, the same person I follow that is worth it to me. That is enough. But part of that is I also have a son. I have a daughter. My son's four years old, my daughter's one.
I think all the time about my kids and what they're going to see when they look at their father's shadow. I don't want them to see a shadow. I want them to see a source of light that they can then pick up and carry even further. I don't want them to think, oh, my dad was so great or did so much that I'm afraid I can't fill those shoes. No, I don't want them to fill my shoes. I want them to create bigger shoes of their own that they can carry on to make a bigger impact than me. But it's their option. They don't have to. It's their option. But with this conversation, you know, we could go a million directions. But I am a little bit curious as you have put so much focus and effort into taking care of other people, leading other people. I call that community service.
To me, that's really what that is, is. So I am, you know, interested in how is that kind of, you know, commitment to that community service influenced your business philosophy?
[00:41:53] Speaker B: Yeah, it's influenced a lot. You know, from a very early age, you know, it was instilled in me, like, hey, it's not about you, right? The world doesn't revolve around you, the sun doesn't revolve around you. It's not about you. You are a piece of the puzzle. And how are you going to fit in to make the better picture? And so if it's not about me, well, then who's it about? You know, and so I'm a very faith.
I try to serve God and Jesus as best I can.
And like I said, I'm fallible, right? And but the thing is, if I can go serve someone else actually on a selfish side, that does help me. But that's not the reason you do it, right? You do it because you see a need. And if I can help that person here or this person there, it grows the community. It makes all of us stronger. Proverbs 27:17 is one of my favorite verses. I have three companies that all have P27 in the name for Proverbs 27 is this. As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another other. If I am serving another person, I am sharpening that person. I am making them a better tool to be useful in their own life, in their own community, in their own family, in their own business.
Why in the world would I not want to make myself better, to make other people better and have a better community? You know, think about it this way. If you're worried about your 16 year old getting their driver's license, you're biting the fingernails every time they pull out of the driveway because all the crazy Driver's out there. But you had some success to go out there and become a driving instructor and teach people to be safer or influence the traffic laws in the highway system to make everybody safer. You're serving everyone, but it's also a selfish result of your kid's going to be a little safer because there's a lot less knuckleheads out there. And so you can put that metaphor on anything. But if you're not looking to serve other people, one, your mental health is probably suffering. The best way to cure mental health is to serve another person toward that. I can't help you go find kindness and do something for somebody. But you put that in your organizations. Now you put service in your organization. You go back to what I said in segment one, which is talking about people want to be cared for. They just want to know they're a human in the eyes of their boss and have, feel like they're cared for.
That's, that's it right there. That's, that's the ticket.
[00:43:59] Speaker A: You know, I, I've got a fun little phrase or saying that I learned from the late great Jim Rohn that has stuck with me and has never left my head. And it really is a foundation of a lot of those thoughts that, of that, you know, it may seem selfish to a degree, but we call it enlightened self interest. It's where everyone wins, no one loses. We serve ourselves by serving others. But I think people like you and I, we find that a lot in the purpose we believe we were designed for. Right. We understand that serving others does bring us things. If I help a team develop and create success, it's serving me by growing my influence, growing my credibility, paying me and my team. You know, there is win, win. And like you said, you know, we have the ability to create influence, to create these things and to, yeah, it might be serving ourselves at the same time, but if it's serving others, that's enlightened self interest. Everyone wins, no one loses. But in this note though, and talking about future leaders, I'm curious of your perspective on something that, you know, we can go a hundred different ways with. But why is developing future leaders so important for long term organizational success? Because right in those first four hours, whether you recognize it or not, you're developing a leader, you're planting a seed that's not by accident, that's intentional. So why is developing the future leader so important for long term success?
[00:45:18] Speaker B: Well, I mean, somebody has to be able to take up that mantle and push the objective forward. Push the mission forward, keep the vision alive. And if you're not raising up leaders, there's so many businesses. There was a study, it's a couple years old now. I think it was back from 2423. Kentucky CPA Society sends out all these different reports, and it was 73% of accounting firms that closed in the last three years. So 2020, 2023, the owners literally just walked away. They had not raised up a leader, nobody to take over the business. They didn't even have a sale. They didn't even sell their business. They just literally notified their clients, this will be my last tax season. I'm out. And they clicked off the lights and walked away. 73% of people, those businesses all failed. When you get done with it, if you want success, if you truly care about the people working for you, raise up a good leader that's going to take care of them the exact same way you did. Raise up somebody that's going to take care of them better than you do, that has a better vision than you can, take them further than you ever imagined or were capable of. But if you're not going to raise up a leader, that business or that team or that division or whatever it is is going to die with you. When you have bad health, when you leave the company, when you finally get 95 years old and gray and you hopefully pass on peacefully in your sleep, that company is going to die with you. And you have to have future leaders to inspire the next generation, to inspire the next generation and carry that business into the future.
[00:46:43] Speaker A: You know, one of the things I like to think about, and I think about this pretty frequently now, is it's shifting the mindset from how can I do this better? To who can own this and do it better than I.
And I think about that in most things that I do nowadays, whether it's being a father, whether it's being a leader, whether it's helping a client, I always think, okay, well, if I want to be an impactful leader, it's not about how can I do it better, it's how can the people around me own it and learn to do it better than even I? Because if my objective is not for the people around me to be better than what am I doing? I'm wasting my time. But, you know, with this conversation being so powerful, if our viewers like to connect with you and learn more about, you know, cs, business consulting, or, you know, you know, five talent, strategy, finance, where can they go? How can they find you? What can they do to get in touch.
[00:47:34] Speaker B: Yeah, well, William Kahn on LinkedIn is probably the easiest way to get a hold of me. And then if you want to actually book meeting Five Talent Strategic Finance website, which is the number five, five talent.
So that's talents, plural5talentssf.com and you can go right on there. Look at the information. We're specializing in some tax credits right now that are for W2 employees. We're really killing it. There's the LinkedIn page right there. You just send me a message and we can rock and roll. We can find you help in a lot of different ways.
[00:48:03] Speaker A: Now, I speak for the audience, I'm sure when I say thank you so much for being here and for joining us and sharing your insights on leadership, leadership, business growth, accountability in building those high performing teams. Now at BizTalk, we believe success leaves clues and the best leaders are willing to share the lessons they've learned along the way. So to our audience, thank you for being here. I hope you took notes. I hope you took the time to really chew on what William was talking about because it is too important to overlook. So we will catch you next time on Biz Talk. Don't miss it. There's more impact coming.
