When it comes to pursuing a career in accounting, there’s a common misconception that all you need is a knack for numbers. However, this is far from true and these days, most business owners expect far more from their accountants than just number crunching. So, what exactly does it take to thrive in this demanding profession? In this episode, Gene Marks and Jerry Maginnis, the former KPMG Managing Partner, Senior Advisor, and author, discuss the skills that you’ll need to develop in order to achieve long-term success as an accountant.
Podcast Key Highlights
What Are the Key Factors for Succeeding in the Demanding Field of Accounting?
- Excellent communication skills
- An ability to cultivate relationships
- A value creation mindset
- A willingness to embrace technological changes
What Is a Value Creation Mindset and Why Is It Important?
- A lot of young people today have more of a task orientation mindset, which focuses primarily on their day-to-day responsibilities; however, a value creation mindset goes way beyond that.
- A value creation mindset entails thinking about why you’re doing certain things and how you can create more value for the user of your services. You consider why you’re doing a particular task and how it could be made better.
- As an accountant, you possess a tremendous broad business background knowledge as well as significant experience, and you can add more value to your employer’s company if you get in the mindset of thinking strategically.
- Business owners want employees that are trying to provide not only value to their business, but are also making life easier for the owner themselves so that the owner can go out and attend to other things.
- Accountants with a value creation mindset are a tremendous asset for small business owners since they can save them a significant amount of time and money.
Why Do Accountants Need to Keep Up With the Latest Technology?
- Contrary to popular belief, technology isn’t going to take away opportunities from accountants; instead, it will create more.
- With AI tools to perform more of the mundane work, accountants will be able to spend a lot more time with their clients, helping them run their businesses, and giving them advice.
Why Is the Accounting Industry Experiencing a Talent Shortage?
- Few people realize that practically every industry needs accountants and if you know how to read and interpret financial statements, you’ll have the opportunity to work with clients in a wide range of exciting fields.
- Another reason for the lack of talent is that these exciting opportunities in accounting aren’t being presented to a more diverse population; the industry hasn’t done enough to reach out to historically overlooked communities.
- Lastly, there are a lot of myths and negative stereotypes regarding accountants as well as the work they do that can discourage a lot of potential talent.
What Qualities Should Small Business Owners Look for in an Accountant?
- You need an accountant who’s willing to answer your calls and reply to you in a timely manner.
- It’s also good to have an accountant who’s a little “greedy” and wants to do a lot of work for you.
- Finally, you want an accountant that has an entrepreneurial mindset and is out there to help.
Links
Transcript
The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are for informational purposes only, and solely those of the podcast participants, contributors, and guests, and do not constitute an endorsement by or necessarily represent the views of The Hartford or its affiliates.
You’re listening to the Small Biz Ahead podcast, brought to you by The Hartford.
Our Sponsor
This podcast is brought to you by The Hartford. When the unexpected strikes, The Hartford strikes back for over 1 million small business customers with property, liability, and workers compensation insurance. Check out The Hartford’s small business insurance at TheHartford.com.
You are listening to the Small Biz Ahead podcast presented by The Hartford.
Gene: Hey, everybody, and welcome again. My name is Gene Marks and thanks for joining us back here on The Hartford Small Biz Ahead podcast.
Gene: I have a special, exciting guest that I hope you guys are really going to enjoy this week. It’s Jerry Maginnis. Jerry is the former KPMG Managing Partner, an author, Senior Advisor. Jerry was Senior Manager and then partner when I was at KPMG. I was only this tall, Jerry, and was somebody I looked up to so much for so many years.
Gene: And then ultimately, Jerry, you became the Managing Partner of the Philadelphia office. You spent about 150 years in public accounting or something like that and you know so much about not only the accounting profession, but about the business world as well, and I have so many questions for you.
Gene: So, first of all, thank you so much for coming on board. I’m really glad to speak with you.
Jerry: Yeah. Hey, Gene. Delighted to be here with you today and thank you for that kind and gracious introduction. I certainly have terrific memories of working with you at the firm many moons ago, and I think we spent some time together post your departure at KPMG when you were first launching your business…
Gene: Yeah.
Jerry:… that I might’ve tried to refer you a piece of business or two.
Gene: You did.
Jerry: Not sure if they worked out or not, but…
Gene: No, they did not. There’s another story for another day.
Jerry: Well, we’re being honest.
Gene: We stop recording. But yeah, no, I do appreciate that.
Gene: Jerry, you wrote a book called Advice for a… to basically advice for you succeeding in the accounting world. It’s geared towards accountants and now they can succeed as accountants from somebody who spent decades in the accounting profession.
Gene: For those of you people that are out there that are either in the accounting profession as well as people that are running businesses and are looking to deal better with your accountants as well, there’s plenty of great information in here.
Gene: Let’s talk about the accountants as well. First of all, the accounting profession, Jerry, is facing a major recruiting challenge right now. It is very, very tough. My son is a PWC, by the way, on the audit side, and he tells me all the time that, the demand for talent is overwhelming.
Gene: Tell me a few of the things that you’ve learned and a few things that are in this book, as far as how do you succeed in a profession that is so demanding both physically and intellectually when it comes to performing your higher standards. What have you learned about being in this profession?
Jerry: A lot to unpack there, Gene. Thanks for the question.
Jerry: It might be helpful to your listeners and viewers if I just very briefly share a little background on what motivated me to write this book.
Jerry: Since retiring from KPMG a few years ago, I’ve stayed active in the business world. I’m serving on a couple boards. I’m on a mutual fund board, a company based in New York City, and then also a public company here in South Jersey, a technology company, doing a little consulting work as well. But one of the things that I’ve really enjoyed the most, honestly, is I got involved… I live here in South Jersey and I got involved at a local university called Rowan University. It’s about 15 minutes from my home.
Jerry: Rowan has about 20,000 students. They have a lot of first-generation college students. It’s a very diverse population. And I got involved in a volunteer capacity in a role, they came up with this name, Executive in Residence. So, I wasn’t teaching any classes, but I would get into the classrooms to give guest lectures to the students and they kindly provided me with an office on campus. I was spending 10, 12 hours a week there.
Jerry: The students figure out you’re there, they come by your office, “Can I talk to you? I’m trying to get that first internship. Should I take the CPA exam?” They have all kinds of questions. I tried to be a resource to them, be helpful to them, and over the course of several years, Gene, I met with dozens and dozens and dozens of students.
Jerry: One day, about three years ago, I had a student who wanted to talk about the CPA exam and we had a great conversation and at the end of that, I leaned back at my chair and I said to myself, I think there’s about the 20th time I’ve had this conversation and I wonder if there…
Gene: I should write it down.
Jerry: Yeah.
Jerry: I wonder if there’s an opportunity to try and put that on paper, some of the tips, advice, suggestions I’m sharing with these students, in a way that could be leveraged more broadly beyond the students here at Rowan. So, that was really the catalyst to write the book.
Jerry: In line with that, the first five or six chapters of the book are really addressing questions for younger people, students preparing for a career in the profession. But as I got into it, I realized, “Gosh, during my time at KPMG, I worked with so many young professionals. There’s probably a lot of material here for that young career professional as well.” So the book evolved to also provide advice and tips for people in the early stages of their career, I would say first three, four years of their career, which as you know is a great time to develop good practical habits that’ll serve you well for a lifetime.
Gene: Right.
Jerry: One of the nicer compliments and feedback I’ve had on the book is that people have said to me, “Jerry, you wrote this for accountants, but this is really good advice for any young person starting a business career.”
Jerry: Some of things, for instance, Gene, I talked about in the book, there’s a chapter on communication skills, which as you know are so important. There’s a chapter on the importance of relationships. I have a chapter called Have a Value Creation Mindset. I have a chapter called Embrace Change: Technology is Your Friend. These are pretty broad. Certainly applicable to accountants but not limited to accountants.
Jerry: I’ll pause there.
Gene: No, that’s fine.
Gene: In your chapter about creating value, one of the things you stress is that in an organization, no matter how small, as a young professional or a young entrepreneur, you always have to be walking around with thinking about what is return on investment for somebody to employ me and what is the return on investment for me to run this business?
Gene: Talk a little bit more about creating value for yourself as an individual.
Jerry: It’s such a great topic and I’ll make the observation that a lot of young people today have, gee, what I would call a task orientation mindset. They come in the morning, they make up their to-do list, and they begin to plow through it almost mechanically. And don’t get me wrong, it’s important to be organized, it’s great to have a to-do list. I make one up every morning to prioritize things that you’re going to tackle first. But a value creation mindset goes way beyond that.
Jerry: A value creation mindset entails thinking about why you’re doing certain things and how you can create more value for the user of your services. Maybe it’s a client, maybe it’s a colleague, maybe it’s a person that you’re supervising. But rather than just mindlessly executing tasks, think about why you’re doing it and could it be made better?
Jerry: I’ll give you an example I used in the book. As a young auditor, you may be tasked with flow charting a client’s cash disbursement cycle and evaluating the internal controls and the processes and saying, “Okay, has anything changed from last year?” And a lot of people will run through that, “Yeah, nothing’s changed. Everything’s fine.” That’s a task orientation mindset.
Jerry: Value creation mindset is, “Okay, let me look hard at how they’re doing it and why they’re doing what they’re doing. Do they have redundant controls? Do they have an effective controls? Are they using IT? Are they using the data generated by this process in a strategic way? How could this be enhanced?” And I guarantee if you sit with your client or your supervisor after that and raise these types of issues, they’re going to say, “Wow, nobody’s asked those questions.
Jerry: It’s easy to do if you get the right mindset.
Gene: It’s really an important lesson also if you’re an independent financial services person or a freelancer as well. Jerry, I remember going out… we still do, saying that just because somebody is paying you a fee to perform a service, they’re constantly evaluating, I know this, whether or not this service is worth it or not.
Gene: Every time you’re in front of a client, and the same works as if you’re working for somebody as well, people are constantly looking at you and saying, “Is it worth me hiring you? Employing this person? Is this person, you’re providing value to me?” Or, “Is it worth me retaining this accountant, this lawyer, this consultant? Am I getting…” It’s like it has to be on your mind all the time when you’re interfacing.
Jerry: Absolutely. Well said Gene.
Jerry: And I think, again, a lot of, not only younger people, but business people in general, don’t really understand that concept. But every interaction is an opportunity to add value. And I think a great way to do that is to think like an owner. Even if you’re working for a large firm like KPMG, think like an owner and think about your client and what’s keeping their C-suite up at night. What is the CEO, CFO, COO depending on the size of the company, worried about? What are their challenges, what are their opportunities and how do you engage with them on those topics? Because as accountants, we have tremendous broad business background knowledge and experience, and we can add value if we get in the mindset of thinking strategically.
Gene: It’s not just everything that you’ve just said, but I can’t tell you how many clients that I work with that are looking for people that just solve their problems. And rather than just doing tasks and rather than just clocking in during the day… Business owners want employees that are trying to provide not only that value to the business, but are also making life easier for the owner themselves so that the owner can go out and do other things that are more value added. And sometimes I feel like employees of companies don’t think that much. They don’t think about what problems they’re solving for the people that they’re working for.
Jerry: Yeah, I agree. And let’s face it, a lot of small business owners, especially if you’re in the early phases and maybe you only have a handful of employees, five, 10 people working for you, you want to focus on some of the most important things like how do I get that next client? Or how do I make sure I’m delivering this big project? You don’t want to be distracted with a lot of smaller things that could be improved, could be enhanced.
Jerry: And if you’re somebody like an employee working for that firm or you’re an outside accountant that comes in, you can add tremendous value just by taking some of those things off the owner’s plates. As you well know, Gene accountants, if they’re proactive and strategic, can also save their employers a lot of money. It might be related to taxes, it might be related to other things, cashflow planning, but an accountant with a right mindset, and that is not a compliance mindset. Maybe you have to do some of the compliance work, but more, “What can I do to improve and enhance this business,” can definitely save a small business owner a lot.
Gene: I have been critical in the past and I continue to be critical about the accounting profession. I love our profession. I still maintain my certification as a CPA because I’m so proud of having that.
Jerry: You worked hard to get it right?
Gene: Yeah, I worked hard to get it.
Gene: And there are so many talented, good, excellent professionals that are in our profession, but there are also quite a few people that just fill out the forms and don’t provide that value add for their clients. And I think companies nowadays, they’re more demanding of their financial professionals.
Jerry: As they should be. You pay a lot of money in professional fees and you need to get value for those fees.
Gene: Yeah, a hundred percent. And even nowadays, this is different from when you and I were working together so many years ago. Nowadays, with the technology that people have, clients expect answers on a prompt basis. They expect to be able to reach their financial professional. And besides that, they expect their financial professionals to lean on technology so that a lot of the mundane work gets out of the way and they can be providing more strategy and more consultation and more value added advice to their clients.
Gene: Listen, with the advent of artificial intelligence, it is not too far off that accounting software will be able to read through our financials and put together a pretty decent financial statement in tax return with minimal involvement by a human. Does that put us out of business? No. It gets worked… If a computer is doing that work for us, that allows us to spend a lot more time with our clients, helping them run their businesses and giving them advice. I don’t think a lot of accountants realize that, the opportunities that there are.
Jerry: I totally agree with you Gene, and yeah, over the Thanksgiving break was doing a demo of ChatGPT with my grandkids and we were asking questions and it’s amazing how it can spit out immediate, highly relevant, highly informed responses that might need a little tweaking in editing, but you actually talk about this in the book, in the chapter on Embrace Technology: Changes is Your Friend and my theme is it’s going to elevate your role. The number crunching is going to be handled by the powerful technology and you’re going to be in a position to be that strategic advisor, interpret the data, provide advice. So, rather than when you and I started, we were in the trenches really crunching the numbers. Now you’re going to be able to analyze and advise. That’s more fun, frankly, and more value added.
Gene: And it’s funny that you say it. It is more fun.
Gene: One of the biggest complaints that I’ve heard in the accounting profession is no one likes to do the grunt work. They don’t like the mundane work. That’s fair enough. But technology itself is quickly replacing… I recently interviewed somebody that… Actually two people from a company that does website design and their future iterations of our AI tools will be that you ask it a question and you tell it, “Design a website for me. I’m in the automotive business. I need to have this feature or this function and I need this background and this color scheme” and it’ll just do it for you. That same thing will happen with the mundane parts of building financial statements and tax returns. And that doesn’t mean that accountants are put out business. The bad accountants will go out business. The ones that truly understand the value they provide will leverage that technology and provide great service to their clients. It’s a great opportunity.
Jerry: Accountants, Gene, have always needed to stay up to date, as you know, on the latest technical accounting matters or the latest tax law changes. But I think now more than ever before, they need to stay up to date on technology.
Jerry: To your point, they need to embrace these changes and become comfortable with them. It won’t eliminate their job unless they don’t stay current. Then it definitely becomes a problem.
Jerry: I want to come back, if you’ll allow me to briefly, to this accounting talent shortage. It has been getting a lot of press and not just in the accounting publications but in the mainstream media. You’ve probably seen some of the Wall Street Journal articles. I have chapter one of my book is called Why Accounting is a Great Profession, and you know this, but for the benefit of your audience, I’ll just briefly touch on the fact that as Warren Buffet has famously said, accounting is the language of business. And it’s true.
Jerry: If you know how to read and interpret financial statements, you’re going to be in the room when important business decisions are being made and you’re going to have people consulting with you, whether you’re the outside auditor sitting with the board of directors in an audit committee meeting, whether you’re the CFO of a company. “Should we build this new plant?” “Should we launch this social media campaign?” Accountants are well positioned to provide that kind of advice.
Jerry: You’re actually a great example, Gene. In my book I talk about accounting is a pathway to other opportunities. Like many folks that I’ve worked with over the years who started working in public accounting, got their CPA, and moved on to become CEOs of big companies, Fortune 500 companies, board members, senior advisors, someone like yourself has branched out and had a great career that was built on your accounting knowledge.
Jerry: And so there’s so many ways to leverage it and if you think about it, everybody needs accountants. Big public companies like Google and Apple have thousands around the world, but what about that small business on Main Street, that pizza shop, that dry cleaners, they have to file a tax return at a minimum. They may have a bank loan that they need to provide financial statements. As business owners, they want to understand their financials, so they’re probably working with an outsourced provider. But venture capital backed companies, state and local governments, non-profit organizations, by the way some of them are pretty large and complex, they all need accountants.
Jerry: So, it’s a great profession and if you’re a young person thinking about your future, let’s say you like tech or you like retail or you like the entertainment industry, you can pursue a career in that industry. You may remember the name John Nicholas who worked with us at the firm back in the day. John’s a big sports fan, loves baseball in particular, wound up becoming the CFO of the Phillies, a job he loves. Every day he goes to the ballpark, that’s where his office is. Accounting is a great profession that can lead you a lot of different directions.
Gene: A couple of comments on that is that we live in a big data world and everything is about being data-driven. When people look to data, they look for professionals that understand data and have been trained in data, and that’s exactly what accountants do. Even 30 years on from me getting a CPA, having a CPA behind my name brings with it such credibility. It opens doors and it gives an audience that you’re talking to figure, “Okay, well this person’s CPA, so he must know his numbers,” which you do have to know your numbers to get that certification and that is credibility.
Gene: Funnily enough, you mentioned about the different areas to go to. Even this company, this is a Hartford podcast, the former Chief Marketing Officer of The Hartford who just recently retired, she was a CPA. She grew up in the accounting world and ultimately became the CMO of a Fortune 100 company. And the reason why is because the world is a data driven… Even in marketing, it’s all about data and what better person to do that work than somebody who has a background in data.
Gene: So, the opportunities are pretty limitless when it comes to people in the account… Again, that’s another one of my other pet peeves about the profession. I don’t know if we do a good enough job spreading that awareness and we’re all responsible for that.
Jerry: Yeah, you’re absolutely right. We could do a better job telling our story. We could also do a better job, in my opinion, getting the message out to a more diverse population. Maybe… We’re going to some places we haven’t been historically, like community colleges and inner city high schools.
Jerry: For the last year or so since my book came out too, and I’ve been doing a lot of speaking. I’ve probably been at about 25 universities around the United States and I talk with young people and they’re unaware. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of myths and stereotypes of accountants, like accountants do taxes. Accountants are introverted. The work is boring. I mean, you and I know none of this is true, but we’ve got to break down those myths and stereotypes to change that trajectory of people entering the profession.
Gene: Jerry, this is a podcast for business owners. Accountants are business owners and there are tens of thousands of accounting firms and accountants all around the country. If you were to go back in time and start your own practice, knowing what you know now, what kind of a practice would you start? How would you run it?
Jerry: It’s such a great question and I can actually give you a little bit of a real world answer to that Gene. It’s not directly responsive to your question, so I’ll cycle back and try to answer your question, but I’m actually… The consulting work I’m doing is with a firm based here in the Philadelphia area called Century, which started up by one person about 10 years ago and has now grown to about 200 people with six or eight offices and very rapid expansion plans. I’ve been serving as an advisor to their CEO and the management team. So, we get to wrestle with these… Like the question you just asked me. What do we want to be when we grow up?
Jerry: If I was starting over again, I think it would be really fun to work with small business owners, people that are busy, they’re passionate about what they do, but they want to focus mostly on doing what they’re doing, and not have to worry too much about all the compliance and financial reporting, taxes, all those types of things that we as CPAs are uniquely positioned to help them with. If I could do that in a way, picking up on your point a few minutes ago, to really leverage technology so that I wasn’t sitting there or my people weren’t sitting there crunching the numbers, but had the benefit of the technology enabled deliverable to then sit with the business owner and say, “Let’s talk about your balance sheet.” “Let’s talk about your income statement.” “Let’s talk about your cash flows.” “Let’s think about what we can do in the next 30, 60, 90 days to better position you to achieve your business goals and objectives.” That’s really fun stuff.
Jerry: I worked a lot with many different clients at the firm and anytime I could work with a client where I felt I was helping them meet an important need and they would say, “Thank you,” that was very rewarded and that’s enjoyable. I think everybody could relate to that.
Jerry: There’s a lot of need for that today as you well know, and I think your listeners probably well know, and I would challenge your audience, if your accountant isn’t providing that value add, it may be time to take a look at what else is out there because you deserve it and they can add tremendous value if you get the right person.
Gene: I’m glad you’re saying that, and I do think that’s a real lesson for the clients as well, that they should understand that if your accountant is not picking up the phone or if they are not responding back to you timely or you don’t feel like you’re getting paid attention to, that’s not right and that’s not good and you have every reason in the world to change that account.
Gene: I always half jokingly say that it’s good to have an accountant who’s a little greedy as well. There is nothing wrong with an accountant looking for more billable hours from you because an accountant wants for them to get billable hours. They’re offering services to help you with your business and they should rightly be paid for that time. You want an accountant that has an entrepreneurial mindset that’s out there to help.
Gene: There’s also another thing. I was thinking about myself, if I was going to start an accounting practice today and I was 30 years younger or 20 years younger, I would actually… I’d love to focus on an industry. I’d love to… I’m going to be an expert in construction accounting and construction is going to be my clients and those are the ones that… And I’m going to compile data for the construction industry and clients and non-clients all in the business. So, I could go to a client and be like, “Hey, your margins are better than the typical company in your region in Europe, this area, but your overhead rates are a little bit higher compared to some others as well.” And just be the expert, the construction accounting person. I think there’s a ton of opportunity to verticalize as well.
Jerry: I agree. And it’s probably relevant for a lot of your listeners. Specializing in certain verticals or industries really enables you to add a lot more value.
Jerry: This accounting firm I’m working for now, they’ve been looking ahead to what I’ll call emerging industries and they’ve staked out a leadership role in places like cannabis. Regardless of how you feel about cannabis, it’s legalized in 15 states. The federal government could legalize it someday, so it makes a lot of sense to get the knowledge and expertise, and if that takes off, it may, you got a great spot.
Jerry: They’re also into e-gaming and some other emerging industries, and I think industry expertise is a good formula for success because you can walk in the door and really talk turkey with those business owners and the average accountant can’t do that. So, it’s a great differentiator.
Gene: Great.
Gene: A couple of minutes left and we will recap, and I have so many more questions to ask you both from a business owner standpoint and accounting standpoint, but we’ve been talking about accountants and the profession. You said that you go and you speak to a lot of college campuses. You wrote this book for students that are graduating, as well as people that are in the profession for a few years, how to succeed.
Gene: Give us a couple of takeaways from your long career in the profession, Jerry. Why do you think you were so successful at KPMG? What did you do? What’s the secret sauce for success and what worked for you?
Jerry: Thank you for the question, Gene.
Jerry: I’d like to give you some witty, innovator unique silver bullet type response, but the reality is, and again, I think a lot of your listeners probably already understand this, especially if they’re small business owners. It’s all about being passionate about what you do. And if you really enjoy what you do, I can tell you really enjoy what you do every day. I enjoyed when I was with KPMG, what I did every day. I got a chance to work with so many different companies. Each company was unique in terms of the challenges they faced, the opportunities they were trying to take advantage of. The people I interacted with. As you know, you’d meet all different types of personalities. So, every day was an opportunity to learn new things.
Jerry: If there’s one piece of advice I would give, not just to young people, but to really, everyone is being intellectually curious. The world is constantly changing and evolving and staying abreast of what’s going on, asking why, understanding how things work can play a huge role in your success.
Jerry: The other thing I’ll add quickly, and I talk about this in the book as well, people don’t read like they used to read, and successful people read aggressively. There’s a strong correlation between success in business and life and in reading. In the book, I talk about people like Bill Gates, avid reader. Elon Musk when asked, “How did you learn how to build rockets?” “I read books.” Oprah Winfrey is an avid reader. Jamie Diamond reads six newspapers every morning before he goes to work. So, I tell young people, read. Get beyond the social media posts. Cell phones are great. We all get a lot of news and info from them, but you got to get into the analysis a little bit. Read the Wall Street Journal, read Forbes, read other business publications, and stay abreast of what’s going on in the world and ask those questions.
Gene: Jerry Maginnis is a former KPMG Managing Partner of my office in Philadelphia, an author, a senior advisor Jerry’s book, Advice for Having a Successful Career in Accounting is great advice for anybody in the profession, whether or not you’re just starting out or already in it as well. So for those of you out there that are in the accounting profession, it is absolutely a must read.
Jerry, I can’t tell you how happy I am to talk with you and thank you so much for coming on board.
Jerry: Yeah, Gene, thank you for the time. It’s great to catch up and connect.
Jerry: And if I could just make one or two closing observations here. I followed your career and I’ve been very impressed. You write for many different publications, including our Philadelphia Inquire here. What I really like about your writing is it’s very practical and it’s very actionable. A lot of people write these theoretical tones, but you read your column, “here’s five things to improve your cash flow,” “five tips to save you tax money.” Great advice. And I kidded with you earlier, you’ve become a bit of a media celebrity, but it’s well deserved because…
Gene: Thank you.
Jerry:… I know you’ve worked incredibly hard to achieve this, and I’m really impressed that in the background you’re running a thriving, successful small business, and yet you’re doing all these other things. So, good for you, my friend.
Gene: Thank you very much. I appreciate that, Jerry. And it seems thriving and successful, but some days it is a lot of headaches, which I think makes me a better writer and speaker.
Jerry: But one of the reasons you have such practical, actionable advice is you’re living it every day.
Gene: I’m living it.
Jerry: You’re dealing with some of these things. So you’ve got personal…
Gene: Yeah, I always say about myself, I’m signing payroll checks every week or digitally signing them and dealing with suppliers and partners and contractors and all that, so I am living it.
Gene: Hey Jerry, thanks very much. Coming you that means a lot. Thank you.
Gene: Everybody, you have been watching and listening to the Hartford Small Biz Ahead podcast. My name is Gene Marks.
Gene: If you need any tips or advice or help in running your business, please visit us at smallbizahead.com or SBA.theHartford.com.
Gene: Thank you so much for joining us. We will see you again soon. Take care.
Gene: Thanks so much for joining us on this week’s episode of the Hartford Small Biz Ahead podcast. If you like what you hear, please give us a shout-out on your favorite podcast platform. Your ratings reviews and your comments really help us formulate our topics and help us grow this podcast, so thank you so much. It’s been great spending time with you. We’ll see you again soon.
Download Our Free eBooks
- Ultimate Guide to Business Credit Cards: The Small Business Owner’s Handbook
- How to Keep Customers Coming Back for More—Customer Retention Strategies
- How to Safeguard Your Small Business From Data Breaches
- 21 Days to Be a More Productive Small Business Owner
- Opportunity Knocks: How to Find—and Pursue—a Business Idea That’s Right for You
- 99 New Small Business Ideas