Carla Caldwell's takeaways from the road

The Intuit Firm of the Future Roadshow for Fall 2016 is a wrap. What an incredible experience to meet hundreds of accounting professionals across the country as they look to transform their firms through value pricing and cloud technology, and have more collaborative relationships with their clients.

I was honored to be a small part of it, and to hear so many stories and meet so many great people. I learned so much—here are just a few of my takeaways:

1. Perhaps the most obvious, is that change is hard. I often asked when I was speaking about value pricing how many firms had tried and quit or got stuck doing value pricing, and so many hands went up. Lack of time to do it, or frustration due to another speed bump in the process, making a change in our business is just tough.  

2. Everyone needs encouragement. Perhaps because of my first takeaway that change is hard, but also because being a business owner is tough, we need to be encouraged that we’re not alone, that we can accomplish more than we think we can, and that we are better than the last mistake, we need support and to have others remind us of the good we are doing, and can do.

3. People are stronger together. So often at the events I would hear people share challenges and successes and see others listening intently, and also sharing their own stories. And everyone benefitted from the experience.  

4. Nothing replaces face-to-face time. I am a true advocate of cloud technology, using it with my own firm and clients, but there is totally different dynamic when you sit across the table from someone, or stand in line for a snack and just get to know someone. Relationships may begin online, but you really learn from people best face-to-face in the same room with another person.

5. There is strength in vulnerability. Speakers often shared their own struggles with implementing value pricing, changing the culture of their firm or just managing internal processes. Each of them had reached out at some point for help from someone else and found that admitting they needed help was more a sign of strength—and attendees who faced the same challenges were emboldened to do the same.

6. Learning is a constant. Accomplished attendees and speakers alike were always learning new things. The pursuit for continual improvement has proven to give successful business owners an edge, and accounting professionals were no different. Satisfaction with the status quo is simply not going to work.

7. The accounting industry is made up of a fabulous group of people. As the most trusted advisor to small businesses, the accounting industry is known to be a group of helpful, hard working, trustworthy people, and this Roadshow certainly proved that to be true.  

Thank you to everyone that came out to the Roadshow, and especially to Intuit and Karbon for putting this all together. I was honored to be a part of it, and hope to see you all again—online or preferably, face-to-face.

This article was originally published by Carla Caldwell on her blog on December 12, 2016.