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04/11/2017

3 Tricks to Make Content Marketing (Blogging) Suck Less

Blogging and exercising: the two things you never feel like you done enough of. Maybe there are some days when you feel like you nailed it, but even after you’ve finished a half marathon or a killer post, the future is staring at you with it’s cold, dead, passive-aggressive eyes, and you know you’re supposed to repeat that level of performance every day forever.

It’s like if Sisyphus were the owner of a CPA firm with a well-defined niche and was purposefully and intentionally positioning himself in the minds of his ideal customers.

It’s weird, but I feel like I need to explain the benefits of content marketing; however, I’m also confident you already know all this stuff. So I’ll make it as quick and painless as possible. Read more

Category:: Marketing and Branding
Comments:: 1

04/03/2017

Book Review: Tools of Titans

Every couple of months, I go back to a book that I have read and write up a book review. In these book reviews, I try to organize my thoughts and learning – this helps me to document my understanding and hopefully it also shares some worthwhile insights for you.

For the past several months, I’ve been working through the book Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss. Yes, this is the same guy who has made this phenomenon of a 4-hour workweek common language among entrepreneurs. If you are like me though, I didn’t read The 4 Hour Workweek. The simple reason is that I completely dismiss this notion because I find it insulting to me – a four-hour workweek – “in who’s world?” However, when Tools of Titans came out toward the end of 2016, I heard so many positive reviews from a number of authors, speakers, and leaders that I follow and respect. So, why not, I’ll give this Ferris guy a shot and see what he is all about. Read more

Category:: Book Review
Comments:: 0

03/27/2017

How Much Strategy Is Enough

I was sharing with our Thriveal community recently about a practice my partner and I go through in running our companies. We take a full day each week to plan the strategy of growing our companies with purpose, and we base a lot of the rhythm of this weekly meeting on a great book by Gino Wickman called Traction. We’ve been doing this for a few months now, and it’s been incredible what we have been able to accomplish in small amounts of time. It has allowed us to exponentially move large strategies, take larger risks (in safer ways), and create huge amounts of processes in smaller amounts of time.

As I was sharing our full day of strategy work with the community, one member asked a really good question, “one full day? seems like overkill or has there been payoff?” As with many good questions, the answer is “it depends.”

Category:: CPA firm, Leadership, Strategy
Comments:: 0

03/14/2017

A Robot Will Take Your Job: 8 Things Accountants (or Anybody) Can Do to Keep a Job in the Age of Automation

I always knew that the end was near. I just never thought Jon Hamm would be the one to break the news.

But right now that good looking son of a bitch is on the TV with his sexy Mad Men voice telling everybody that — even though H&R Block employees are the Mark Hamills of the tax prep world¹ — IBM’s Watson is now their R2-D2. And even though H&R Block took Watson into mainstream tax prep, the hipster organization KPMG started using Watson for audit support before it was cool.

We’ve got to get used to the idea that robots are eventually going to make traditional accounting jobs irrelevant. Not convinced? Here are some other traditional jobs that robots are making obsolete: Read more

Category:: Computer and Technology, Other Thoughts, Software
Comments:: 1

02/20/2017

How To Be A Great Firm Leader

Leadership has been something I’ve been growing in for a couple of years now. I even spoke about it at our Deeper Weekend conference last year. During my talk, my perspective was that you are a leader if you are a firm owner. Period. You may be a poor leader or a great leader, but you are still the leader of your firm. It is a fact with the position you hold as the owner of the firm.

Category:: CPA firm, Leadership
Comments:: 2

01/29/2017

Our Community’s Purpose

The Thriveal community is now in its 7th year. We started in October of 2010 as a way to be with other entrepreneurial firm owners. We’ve tried many community ideas along the way and have met many wonderful people. But this year seems different. We have learned so much about what a community means, and how to bring value to firm owners through a community. We truly believe that people building firms in a community grow more than when they try to grow on their own. We have many stories to back this up. Why? This growth happens because a community challenges firm owners in ways they didn’t know they needed to be challenged. And as members of the Thriveal community, we see other members doing innovative things. So we tend to try new things too. But the coolest part of growing in a community is the trust and camaraderie entrepreneurs feel within their community. A community watches out for its members, and supports each other when times get tough. This brings on the bravery needed to be successful growing a firm in a community.

Thriveal’s Purpose:

Thriveal inspires countercultural firm owners to embrace their entrepreneurial creativity within the profession.

Category:: Community, CPA firm, Software
Comments:: 0