When people ask me why I ever worked in accounting, I typically respond with ‘to understand business from the best perspective possible.’
It wasn’t my intention to become a career “numbers man” for people and become the #1 accountant. My venturing into accounting was to get a perspective that not too many share, and dissect businesses to learn what makes them grow and what makes successful entrepreneurs successful.
There has always been a creative, sales and marketing magnetism in me since I was a kid. I like to establish relationships, get to know individuals and make concepts come to life. Things like that just naturally come to me and that has fueled me to build on the creative direction and strategies for emerging brands. But there is a side of business that especially today with how quickly things are changing, you need to understand.
Accounting.
I felt like I had a chance to learn something that wasn’t necessarily my forte at the time, that’s why I decided to go in the direction of accounting. What I wanted to know was how business works behind the scenes, how the decisions were made about financial matters and how the numbers are related to everything that is going on across the business.
Little did I know that accounting would be one of the best choices I would make at the time.
When everyone else was focused on sales and marketing, I decided to learn about the money side of things to be able to scale companies responsibly.
There’s a lot that goes into building a business.
A fantastic product or service is required. To be successful, you must know your customers. You must know how to promote what you’re offering and need to make folks realize it’s worth their time and money.
That’s the area of business I gravitated towards.
I Wanted to Understand More Than Just Sales and Marketing
Making money, getting customers and creating a great brand does not equal a healthy business. I would hear horror stories about the people they worked with and how they would get burned by people who didn’t know what they were doing with the money. Knowing that there was a financial correlation to every strategic decision, I took a different approach to learn the boring stuff first rather than to pawn it off to our CPA.
There’s a pretty big reason to me.
What is the running expense of everything and does that stay constant or does it peak and trough? What is the money being spent on? How well do you retain earnings? Are you prepared with the cash flow to assist your next step of growth? Live cash vs. good debt leverage?
These are the types of questions that can make an entrepreneur’s vision of their business shift completely.
I wanted to know a bit of it all, so that when speaking with specialists, we could relate more. Even more so, when talking to a client’s existing team, like their advisors or even operators in their business, I wanted to be able to sniff out the underlying issues.
It is what spurred my interest in accounting.
I didn’t want to be the person who could just make financial statements and track down the bills. I wanted to know the whole story.
I wanted to learn how business decisions made daily relate to the financial aspects of a business.
And I realized pretty fast that I wasn’t just going to get that kind of perspective from accounting alone, I’d get that perspective from sales.
Why Accounting Is So Overlooked by Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurs are so busy that they treat it like an afterthought. Entrepreneurs are too busy to pay attention to accounting. Let’s be honest: it is not the sexiest part of being a business owner.
An observation that I’ve made over the years is that entrepreneurs don’t always do accounting right.
And I fully grasp why.
There’s a million things that will be vying for your attention when you’re creating a business. You’re considering customers, employees, marketing, products and growth.
You’re searching for ways to make the next sale, sell again after that, and launch the next best idea.
It’s easy to get lost in the weeds of accounting and forget about it.
Many entrepreneurs don’t really consider monetary matters until tax time or when they look over numbers. They’re absorbed in “making money.”
But I’ve said it before and it is one of my mantras: It is not what you make, it is what you keep!
Accounting isn’t just about documenting what happened in the past. It’s about knowing what is currently going on and knowing how to take advantage of that information to make decisions for the future.
When a business owner is aware about their accounting and understands their numbers, they can view a decision differently.
They can analyze if the new opportunity is financially viable. They can better understand what they are spending, identify cash flow issues and better the use of their resources to invest.
This is the kind of knowledge that’s really useful.
It’s not necessary to be an accountant to be successful in business. However, it is essential to have some knowledge of the financial aspect of the structure being constructed.
The more I grasped that, the more I found that accounting could be a true blessing for me.
I was not only learning a skill, but the one that finally allows me to have fun. It was a way to get to know the people that I wanted to work with.
I Decided to Work on My Weakest Skill
I chose to work on my weakest skill.I decided to work on my weakest skill.
I have always thought that it’s good to know what you have a talent for.
However, it’s not as beneficial to overlook areas that need improvement.
I was sales and marketing oriented. I liked those places, I knew I could develop, build on those things, grow on those things.
I could have practiced my own skills to make them better, all day long.
Rather, I would concentrate on something challenging.
I wanted to learn something that maybe I didn’t think was in my wheel. I wanted to learn about accounting, how businesses handled their finances and how businesses work.
I had a different perspective on the business after that decision.
I was more able to see the link between money and the business the more I learnt.
I began to understand the inner workings of parts of a business. There was no separation between sales, marketing, operations and accounting. Every one was involved in the performance of business.
Knowing those connections gave me a different perspective.
I wanted to improve this area was how it began but then became something I could help others with.
I overcame something weak and made it strong.
Eventually, that force was transformed into a superpower.
How Accounting Became My Business Superpower
How Accounting Got to Be My Business Superpower
For me, the use of numbers to understand is only the tip of the iceberg in the value of accounting.
It’s about comprehending the companies behind those numbers.
With financial awareness and sales/marketing awareness and entrepreneurial thinking, you can have a different way of talking about business.
You can better ask questions.
There are multiple ways to view challenges.
And you can help business founders consider choices beyond growth-driven revenue.
This is where accounting really came in handy for me.
I was no longer seeing the world through the prism of business. I could see the need to make money, but I could also see the financial aspects of being in business.
It was a good mix which enabled me to meet entrepreneurs in a different way.
It provided me with a new point of view to add to discussions, collaborations, and projects I have been involved with.
This is one of the big lessons that I have learned on my journey.
In some cases, the skills which you are valuable for are not the same skills you were initially applying. These are the ones that you have to work for.
For me, the skill was accounting.
It provided me with a means of bridging the gap between my innate ability in sales and marketing with an understanding of what business really means.
It’s been really good in the relationships that I’ve had and opportunities I’ve been involved in.
What I Learned From Working in Accounting
In the process, I learned that accounting opens the door to a lot more than just managing numbers.
Having now run multiple accounting firms, I’ve seen how much more there is to offer beyond traditional accounting services.
Most people don’t realize that accounting can lead to some of the most valuable areas of business, from helping companies secure lending and build credit to developing tax plans that protect earnings.
It also gives me the opportunity to work with investable companies and support capital raises.
These are the kinds of services that can make a real difference in how businesses grow, operate, and build their future.
Why I Would Make the Same Decision Again
I didn’t want to get away from selling and marketing. I wanted to be more effective in my understanding of business in general.
I get to sit and talk with family office managers, wealth advisors, and business owners on a regular basis and share unique perspective because of what I’ve been through.
That’s what accounting provided me.
It assisted me to understand the behind the scenes mechanism of businesses. It gave me a different outlook with founders, working with them. It also gave me a strength that is a superpower in my communication with people and business approach.
One thing I would take from that experience is:
Do not solely think about your talents.
Many of the best things can be accomplished with the skills you had no idea you possessed.
By no means am I looking to start or work in another accounting firm; Filing Express and Olivantage are both great sources for information, service and support. Filing Express helps those on the starting side of the journey, while Olivantage is more geared towards those who are a bit more established. The only thing I would do differently is perhaps communicate earlier on that accounting was a piece of the puzzle, but not the whole thing.