Why CAS Advisory Isn’t a Training Problem in Accounting Firms
Welcome to the CAS Cache, a podcast designed to help accounting firms grow their CAS offerings. This issue is sponsored by TeamUp. Did you know you don't need an outsourcing company to hire an accountant in The Philippines? You can hire someone who works for you and only you. No middlemen, no ongoing fees, just you and your team.
Luke Templin:Learn more at hireteamup.ph. That is hireteamup.ph. Now on to the episode. Recently in the Kick C@$ Community roundtable, a great question came up. How do you train your current staff on advisory so the owner can get out of the work and the firm can expand advisory services?
Luke Templin:The first place I'd start is with the EOS concept of get it, want it, and capacity to do it. Before you think about training, you have to be honest about whether your current team actually checks these three boxes. Advisory fails fast when we assume people want work they never signed up for. I learned this the hard way with real time bookkeeping in accounting firms. I'd come back from accounting conferences excited about new technology and tried to force it onto my team.
Luke Templin:Looking back, they didn't want it. They were comfortable doing bookkeeping manually and didn't want to change. That disconnect eventually cost me staff. That experience taught me not to confuse my vision with my team's motivation. Even when someone does get it and want it, there's another reality check.
Luke Templin:My mentor, Greg Crabtree, has been very clear about this. Many people struggle to clearly communicate financials and strategy in a way clients actually understand. Because of that, Greg vets new hires heavily upfront to see if they can naturally do this. If they can't, he moves on rather than spending months trying to coach something that may never click. Interestingly, he has found people with non accounting financial degrees often to do better here.
Luke Templin:Even with people who can communicate well, building an advisory team is still hard. Good advisers are expensive, and filling their plate with enough advisory clients is not an easy or a predictable feat. That's why Align and the eMyth book really stuck with me. Build your business around ordinary people, not extraordinary people. That idea is one of many that pushed me toward building more repeatable services like bringing bookkeeping in house for my clients because it's far easier to scale than advisory teams built around unicorn talent.
Luke Templin:But if I were to expand advisory, I'd do it in two ways. First, internally. For anyone on the team who wants advisory, I'd start by having them record short loom videos, two to five things that stood out in a client's financials, and what the client could potentially do about them in the future by pulling one of the seven financial levers. No client meetings yet. This builds confidence, forces them to think like an advisor, and gives you something concrete to coach against.
Luke Templin:Second, externally, I'd look for semi retired CFOs who want to work a few more hours a week. One of the best ways to find them is by asking lawyers, bankers, and other professional service providers. This approach has worked well for me multiple times and for other firms I know. The takeaway is simple. Advisory isn't just about training.
Luke Templin:It's about honestly evaluating whether your people get it, want it, and have the capacity to do it, and then choosing a path that doesn't require extraordinary human to make your firm work. Thanks for listening to the CAS Cache. For more, visit cascache.com. That's cascache.com.
