Entrepreneurial Career Insights for Accounting Professionals - Accounting Influencers

Episode 14

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Published on:

21st Aug 2018

Entrepreneurial Career Insights for Accounting Professionals

Caroline Plumb

Caroline Plumb OBE is Founder and CEO of Fluidly, a venture-backed startup using data and machine learning to deliver automated cashflow forecasting and management for SMEs.

Caroline previously co-founded and led FreshMinds, a market research consultancy, and FreshMinds Talent, a recruiting business. Her businesses have won a number of industry awards and listed in the Sunday Times’ 100 Best Small Companies to Work For.

Caroline is one of the Prime Minister’s Business Ambassadors, representing the Professional & Business Services sector. She has a First Class degree in Engineering, Economics and Management from Oxford University, is on the industrial advisory board of the Engineering department and was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s 90th Birthday Honours List in 2016. She has three very noisy small children.

In just 22 minutes, you’ll hear all of these great career insights for accounting professionals:

  • How Fluidly was born and why cashflow is the number one stressor of small business owners
  • 60% of business owners have lost sleep over cashflow and the management of cash
  • Accountants are the very best business advisors to business owners
  • Owners of very small businesses can hold a lot of critical business information in their heads, but once they start growing, they need help with cashflow forecasting
  • The ONE FOCUS the great accounting firms have that the rest don’t
  • The accounting profession is always changing, and always will be
  • The challenges large accounting firms face in a world where products and services are moving to subscription models
  • Project based work and value added services for large accounting firms are hard to land, hard to price and hard to deliver, but worth it
  • The impact of technology and automation on the changing accounting profession
  • How can you use a rich ‘real time’data set to see what’s coming up and see round corners – the icebergs before you hit them and see what your competitors can’t
  • Accountants can add the most value by applying their expertise to drive their clients forward with insight and recommendations that are more future based than historical
  • What predictive analytics offers accountants to predict what’s coming next based on the data they’ve seen
  • When it comes to advisor, it’s never one size fits all s- to drive revenue, segmentation looks at the business and the person behind it
  • Good accountants are brilliant with the mechanics of a product or services – to make sure it’s a good fit for client needs
  • The go to market process of understanding customers and markets and tailoring products and services to create a more consistent brand proposition
  • What a ‘T shaped accountant’ looks like – people in senior roles have breadth of knowledge across the firm with depth of expertise in key areas
  • Can small accounting firms learn anything from the larger ones or is it the other way round?
  • What entrepreneurial accounting firms like Baldwins are doing, and the extent of their ambition and vision
  • The power of relentless curiosity to uncover new possibilities, particularly in innovation and creating new categories
  • Why it’s hard to be different and why you have to deeply understand unarticulated wants and needs of clients and what is causing them pain
  • Great advice – ‘know what you don’t know, and then find someone that does.’

To contact Caroline: 0207 611 1001

Twitter: @cplumb

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Fluidly website

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About the Podcast

Accounting Influencers
Insights, interviews and commentary for accounting, CPA, bookkeeping and finance professionals
ACCOUNTING INFLUENCERS is a weekly podcast for accountants, CPAs, bookkeeping and finance professionals, together with the networks, associations, fintech vendors and influencers who lead them, work in them and serve them.

The show is hosted by Rob Brown. co-founder of the Accounting Influencers Roundtable (AIR). The style of the show is not overly technical/technological/tax in nature but more on people, performance and success in the accounting world. Popular topics and themes covered include:

☑ leadership, executive presence, trust, integrity & reputation
☑ M&A, business models, future proofing, drivers of change & disruption
☑ performance, values, culture, vision & strategy
☑ employer brand, gen z/millennials & talent - succession, recruitment and retention
☑ industry trends, statistics and patterns
☑ growth, marketing, differentiation & positioning
☑ pricing & profitability
☑ digitisation, cloud, technology & automation
☑ advisory services, niches & emerging markets
☑ environmental & social governance ESG
☑ diversity, equity & inclusion DEI
☑ professionalism, career development & CPE/CPD
☑ business acumen & commercial awareness

Sources and guests come from:
★ EXPERTS - influencers, disrupters, consultants, gurus, podcasters and broadcasters in accounting and fintech
★ EVENTS - live coverage and interviews from exhibitions, conferences and a range of industry events
★ MEDIA - newspapers, online outlets, commentators, writers, bloggers and authors
★ VENDORS - suppliers and providers of accounting apps, platforms, fintech and software
★ REGULATORS - professional accounting bodies, institutes and associations
★ NETWORKS - alliances, associations, networks and communities of professional firms and accounting practices
★ SOCIAL MEDIA - opinion pieces, high engagement posts and controversial conversations

Rob Brown is a renowned presenter, facilitator and chair of high level conferences, panels and events globally for the accounting and fintech profession. He is retained by many professional networks, alliances, associations, practices and vendors to chair their events and provide high-level interview content for their communities.

He is a dynamic speaker and accomplished expert on trust, reputation, employer brand, talent, career development, succession, gen z/generations, executive presence, referrals, networking and winning new business. He is also the bestselling author of Build Your Reputation (Wiley) and his TEDx talk ‘The Personal Brand of You’ has been viewed 320K times on YouTube.
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About your hosts

Martin Bissett

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Martin Bissett is the founder of the Bissett Group of companies that provide practice and personal growth communities, content, and continuing education exclusively to the accounting and bookkeeping professions worldwide.

Previously he established a high six-figure consulting firm while serving as a keynote speaker with over 100 one-off and repeat engagements to his name, as well as becoming the most published author on his topics of specialism with 11 books including 1 bestseller.

Since 1998, he has played a major part in working with over 1800 accounting firms in over 40 countries. These projects have led to those firms acquiring over £500m of recurring fees before inflationary increases, referrals and upselling are factored in. He stopped keeping track of this number over 5 years ago. Martin now advises both accounting practitioners and FinTech companies alike, at board level.

Rob Brown

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Rob Brown is a renowned MC, facilitator and chair of virtual and in-person panels, conferences and events globally for the accounting and fintech profession.

Rob is co-founder of the Accounting Influencers Roundtable (AIR) mastermind group and co-hosts the world’s most popular accounting and fintech podcast: Accounting Influencers.

Throughout the pandemic, he chaired 24 virtual panels with leaders of global accounting networks and alliances to discuss the key issues and challenges. Rob is retained by several associations and vendors to chair their events and provide high-level interview content for their communities.

He is the bestselling author of Build Your Reputation (Wiley) and his TEDx talk ‘The Personal Brand of You’ has been viewed 300K times on YouTube.