1719 – Proseer’s Proactive Approach to Accounting with Jeff Rudner

0:28Hey there, thoughtful listener. million in revenue. Just head to upmyinfluence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high-ticket sales appointments. You can even chat with me live and I'll see and reply to your messages. Also, don't forget, the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for guests. Go to upmyinfluence.com and click on podcast. We'd love to have you.

0:58with us right now jeff rudner jeff you are the co-founder and coo of pro seer you're found on the web at pro seer.co that's p-r-o-s-e-e-r.co jeff thanks for joining us great to be here josh jeff uh so what is pro seer pro seer is a modern accounting firm helping businesses transform themselves to operate efficiently and scale through a combination of people, process, and technology. We like to think of ourselves as rewriting the script as to how small and medium-sized businesses can operate through efficient back office and data-driven decisions. Well, and just kind of looking at ProSear. So let's say that a business owner were to kind of take a look at ProSeer and then maybe look at a bunch of other accounting firms, what is it that makes ProSeer unique?

1:55I can tell you one thing. I love your productized pricing. Sure. Absolutely. Gosh, it's so easy to understand. We have to go back and forth with pricing and agreements and contracts and all that stuff. It just seems very upfront, which I appreciate. That's a great word they use, upfront. So we pride ourselves on that. The firm is actually founded on the thesis that upfront pricing can alleviate a lot of the friction between a client and the accounting firm. Traditional accounting firms, bill by the hour, there's a lot of surprises. Clients really want the access and the support of an accountant, but they're often hesitant to call because they know every time they call, they get a bill for that call.

2:37For us, our clients are able to call us. They're able to interact with our team, get the advice and support that they need for the price that is fixed up front, and they know what they're getting. We're a team of experts that are excited to help our clients, and we don't want an hourly billing model to come in between that. Yeah. When a client's coming into you, what would be kind of like a pretty typical use case? Or maybe they haven't prioritized it, or they haven't had this level of support within the organization. How do those gaps typically manifest in pain for that incoming client? Absolutely.

3:18So that's a great question. So for most clients, they look at accounting as a cost center. It's a necessary evil. And the accounting team is often thought of as a last resort or the last team that they go to to get information, to get advice. We like to flip that on its head. And we like to look at the accounting team as kind of the nucleus of business process, business insights, and data. And we centralize all the information for our clients so that way they come to us first when they're thinking about making important decisions as opposed to afterwards. By flipping the script on this, our clients are empowered to get the information they need to make the best decisions for their businesses and not have the advising team deal with cleaning up the mess afterwards.

4:08We're along for the ride the entire process because we're partners with our clients. What are some questions that you think that clients could be asking you on a regular basis that maybe they just don't think to ask their accounting firm? Sure. That's a great question. The first thing that I think clients should ask their accountant is, how do you think my business is doing? So many accountants have a vast amount of information and vast knowledge from the market and all the clients that they serve that they can bring to talking with you. And so by asking them, how are we doing? You're going to get a great perspective on the market and your business.

4:50Okay. I'm going to ask you that again. I don't know if that froze on my end. I think it froze on my end. Okay. But let me just ask it. Yeah. I'll have to check my internet after this to see what's going on here. Okay. So, Jeff, what would be some questions that clients could ask their accounting firm that maybe they don't ask as regularly and would gain some value from that? Sure. The first question I think every business owner should ask their accountant is, how do you think our business is performing? The great thing about working with your accountant on this question is that accountants work with a lot of clients.

5:31They have great visibility in the market. They have great visibility in business in general. And they are really skilled at analyzing performance of business to give good advice. And so clients are often afraid to ask their accountant because some, honestly, I understand this, are afraid to learn what their numbers are telling them. But by getting this information from a very knowledgeable source, you're going to learn a lot about your business and you're going to be able to make the best decisions going forward. And the accounting team and your accountant is the best, in my mind, the best person on your team to ask this question and get this information from.

6:08Yeah, that's, you know, I remember having a conversation with someone who specialized in one at one time. It's, you know, it helps with decision making like big decisions. Right. Right. You know, do we, you know, do we capitalize an investment? Do we should we be that involve money? And I think, you know, the joke he was saying is like, yes, you know, it's a whole lot better to make decisions when you've got the data to back it up, as opposed to just your gut intuition and some magic smurf berries, you know, which I think in business, unfortunately, we do far too often. And, huh, it feels like things are going really well.

6:48So dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. Or, you know, I know for me, Jeff, you know, sometimes I just need that confirmation, especially like, let's say that you have taken on some debt to invest in growth. I think for those of us with, you know, we all have a consumer background where, you know, debt you want to be real careful with, as opposed to in business, right? You've got productive debt. And I think about like the debt that we've taken on in years past. And my gosh, I look back at that. And if we didn't do that, I wouldn't be able to do what we do today. I don't know what we'd be doing if we didn't make that major investment.

7:27So, yeah, so I just, I don't know if, you know, that could be something we could encourage our listeners is have a conversation with your financial team about, I feel uncomfortable or badly about this big debt that's just out there. I suppose that they might have some insight on that. A hundred percent. In all cases, knowledge is power. And you're not going to do yourself any good by hiding from the truth. Once you get the help that you need, get the insight into your business, you can leverage that into scaling. You can leverage that into paying down debt. You can leverage that into optimizing your margins.

8:08And by working with an accountant who's proactive and someone who really understands your business on a super, super granular level, you're going to get the information that you need. So that way you can make those decisions and make them quickly and efficiently. When we talk about debt, debt can be a super powerful tool. And we encourage debt to be taken on in the right situations because it's a lower cost than taking on outside investment. But we only want to encourage that if we think the projections are going to support that investment, if we think that there's a high likelihood that the business can pay it back plus interest, and then have a return on that capital that's raised.

8:50And it's really by working with your finance team that you're going to get this knowledge and insight from the beginning. So that way you can make those decisions and develop that strategy. Your accountant can really help you set your strategy and hold you accountable to the things that you plan to do. We're really an accountability partner for you to help you set your strategy and guide you along the way. And Jeff, are there any, you know, doing what you do, you know, you have access to, I think, kind of an objective view of trends. And I'm wondering if over the past year or two, or kind of looking into your crystal ball, you see some trends emerging that might be valuable for business leaders to consider or know about.

9:40Sure. From our perspective right now, it's getting harder and harder to raise capital, whether that's debt or equity. In addition to the increased cost of debt, it's also becoming harder. banks are becoming more stringent on who they're lending to. So it's really important that whoever you're looking towards to raise capital, that you're really tight on your numbers, that you have a really strong financial projection, and you know what opportunities lie ahead so that way you can communicate in the most effective fashion to raise that capital because the uncertainty is getting higher and higher by the day, unfortunately.

10:17And so it's only those business owners that know their businesses really intimately who are going to be able to succeed. And if you're not looking for outside capital, knowing your business, knowing where your opportunities and weaknesses are, whether it's having too many team members on fixed costs, whether you have too much back office that isn't revenue producing, if you have sales team that is just not generating the leads and closed deals that you need to pay for their salaries plus the profit to the business, These are all things that we're seeing across the spectrum of small businesses right now.

10:53And it's really important that business owners look deeply at the inputs of their business so that way they can know what levers they have to pull to either grow or scale back depending on their strategy. Yeah. And Jeff, I want to encourage anyone that's listening to us that hasn't maybe got a good tax person and that's pretty much it. find a partner, have a conversation. Even Jeff, I'd put out there if, you know, kind of what you've been talking about, if you feel nervous or there's something that's kind of embarrassing, you know, from an accounting standpoint, or, you know, maybe you're unsettled about, you know, how your cashflow has been month to month.

11:35And so I'd say the worst thing you could do is nothing. And I'd say the best thing you could do is actually bring or have a conversation and just talk about the reality so that you can craft a plan. And Jeff, I would imagine that there's times when you can provide insights and ideas that, or certainly help with decision making in a way that maybe the business owner, it would be much more challenging for them to do by themselves because they're in the middle of it. I think, you know, with money, we far too often make up most of our decisions emotionally. And I think that it's really helpful to bring in a third party who's a little bit detached from that.

12:20They're on the outside, right? They're not in the middle of it. It's like writing your own marketing copy. You're too close to it. You're inside the bottle. So I just want to encourage our listener to have that conversation. Maybe you could talk about maybe those, what that discovery process is like, you know, kind of what those initial conversations typically sound like. And then of course, if you had anything else to add on what I just mentioned. Yeah, absolutely. The way that we often hear from our clients, the terminology we get is it's almost like financial therapy. We create a space and an opportunity for our clients to talk about their uncertainties, talk about their doubts, and talk about the things that are really painful to them about their business.

13:04So that way we can get it out in the open and we can figure out how to improve going forward. It's creating a safe space and a relationship where we're really an objective observer that's tasked with helping them succeed. Because our relationship is one where we succeed when our clients succeed, we're really in a seat where we want to do everything we can in our power to encourage that growth, to encourage that right sizing of the ship. And that's how we frame all of our engagements. So because we've been in business for a while, there's not anything that we're going to be surprised with. We've heard a lot of stories and we've helped turn around a lot of businesses.

13:45And we've also helped a lot of businesses scale by using our combination of people, process, and technology. We bring the team to every situation. We combine that with ideal and efficient processes, all supported with best-in-class technology. So that way, our clients can work smarter, not harder, and focus on the things that really matter in their business, which is driving growth, driving profit, and not spending their weekends doing their books or worried about how much taxes they need to pay. They really are empowered with their business. And it's a transformation from before and after and when they become clients.

14:26Jeff, a lot of people listen to this podcast because they've done some searching on a particular topic and now they've landed on this episode. They listened to our conversation and hopefully we instilled in them the motivation to take action. What would you recommend those next steps be in a way that you could help? Absolutely. For us, we're always happy to talk. So please reach out to us directly, proseer.co slash contact. You can fill out a form and I'll get back to you within 24 hours. Or for those of you who might want to learn more about the firm and spend some more time, you know, figuring out your own businesses while we start a relationship, we have created a guide that gives a step-by-step guide on how businesses can build their back office in an efficient way using technology and process.

15:17It's free to everyone. I'd love to offer it to all your listeners. It's procear.co slash rules dash ebook. And just give us a couple of points of information and we'll send you the ebook and we can go from there. Yep, I've got it up right now. Again, that was procear.co forward slash rules dash ebook. And the book here is right here. You can download, it's called Rewriting the Rules, Unlock Exponential Business Growth with Transformational Accounting Solutions. All right, Jeff Rudner, again, you're the COO and co-founder at ProSeer, the website ProSeer.co. Jeff, thank you so much for joining us.

16:00Thanks, Josh. Great to be with you.

16:06Thanks for listening to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur Show. If you are a thoughtful business owner or professional who would like to be on this daily program, please visit upmyinfluence.com slash guest. If you're a listener, I'd love to shout out your business to our whole audience for free. You can do that by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or join our listener Facebook group. Just search for The Thoughtful Entrepreneur in Facebook. I'd love even if you just stop by to say hi. I'd love to meet you. We believe that every person has a message that can positively impact the world. We love our community who listens and shares our program every day.

16:50Together, we are empowering one another as thoughtful entrepreneurs. Hit subscribe so that tomorrow morning, that's right, seven days a week, you are going to be inspired and motivated to succeed. I promise to bring positivity and inspiration to you for around 15 minutes each day. Thanks for listening and thank you for being a part of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Movement.