Elevating Your Brand Through Story with Jeff Bartsch

On Episode 41 of CPA Life, rejoin host John Randolph for part two of his conversation with Jeff Bartsch of Story Greenlight, as they delve deeper into the significance of storytelling within the accounting industry. Learn about the impact of crafting authentic narratives about you and your firm, and discover the benefits of being personal and intentional in your communication, with a focus on social media and creating human connection. Jeff shares invaluable insights into the learning processes of accounting professionals, revealing how embracing storytelling can elevate your firm’s internal and external branding.

Transcript:

Thanks for tuning in to CPA Life. We now rejoin host John Randolph in part two of his conversation with Jeff Bartsch of Story Greenlight. Jeff delves further into the meaning and importance of story, sharing his insights on presenting an authentic picture of you and your firm, and the benefits that come from being personal and intentional. Welcome to CPA Life.

I think that’s kind of, the process that you’re talking about here is getting somebody to take that stuff out of their head, put it on paper. I don’t know what I don’t know to a point of, okay, there is a lot here. I know what I know. I know what I don’t know now. So, I think that getting your client, student, person you’re working with, to understand there is a process to getting to a certain level of comfort, is critical. Would you agree?

A hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, and just to underscore what you’re talking about, getting to that point of unconscious incompetence. I mean, let’s give ourselves some grace here. You can’t look at someone who has been driving a car for 20 years and then look at a teenager and say, see, you’re supposed to do that already, ’cause that’s just not the way it works. So in the same way, it’s equally easy for that teenager to look at someone, you know, who’s driving at a super high level, even at a professional level and say, oh, well, I could never do that. That’s just for the privileged few. That’s just, they were born with those skills. Skills can be learned. Full stop.

Yep. Completely agree. There’s learning processes that everybody goes through and some may grasp that idea or that concept a little better, a little faster, a little easier. But there are skills that we’re talking about here that are absolutely learned skills, learned traits. One of the things that I’ve seen in, in reading a lot about story reading, a lot about the whole concept of thought leadership, doing all I can over the last few years to digest that, one of the things that I had to really get my head around is understanding that through most of those situations, and you touched on this just a little bit when we first started talking, we are not the hero and we tend to so many times to be the hero in our stories. Is that a mental transition sometimes that you’ve got to work with your clients to understand?

Absolutely. That is in fact, one of the major pitfalls that people fall into when it comes to telling stories at all, because the best stories that we’ve ever experienced, you know, be it an amazing movie or a TV show or a book or someone telling us a story in person and where we felt something, it’s easy to think that the power was in the story itself, because that’s what we’re experiencing. But the truth is the power happens from the audience feeling things within themselves—that is where the power originates. And even that is not the end of it, because when you look back at the bigger picture of that definition of what a story is within the strategic storytelling context, those fundamental forces of character, desire, obstacles, overcoming change, those are the forces that are directing everything.

So when we feel something from a story, those forces are directing us as a member of the audience, because we feel, we connect, we understand, we empathize with elements of that story. And the reason that this is so important is that when you are in the position of telling a story, you need to know that that’s where the story comes from. The power of the story does not come from, let me tell you about me and how amazing I am and all the things that I have accomplished, aren’t you amazed about me? And the audience says, eh, I guess. Next. That’s a really big deal and it’s really easy to fall into.

But when we, especially within the advisory context, when we come alongside and we know who we’re talking to, we know what they want and we know what’s getting in their way, and we come alongside them as the guide, as the Yoda, minus the green skin and the ear hair, you know, we come alongside as the guide to help them get what they want. That is where the power comes to life.

You know, it’s interesting you say that I want to switch gears a little bit on you and speak to not only how this impacts external customers of a firm, but how this also impacts internal customers, the ability to acquire talent, the ability to attract talent, the ability to retain talent. I had David Hartley on the podcast recently.

Yes.

And one of the things that I was, that I’ve been very observant of, within Summit and Anders, as well as amazed by, is how many people in that firm on LinkedIn—and I’m not talking partners, senior leaders—I’m talking mid-level management and senior staff level associates, visible on LinkedIn, consistently telling stories about the firm, about the environment, about the culture, about things that are of value to them as a firm, them individually, and how that dovetails into the firm, and how those things, they resonate in the marketplace.

And we talked about this the other day. I’m a little bit of a skeptic and, but I think that the world that we live in today is, is filled with people like me. And one of the things that I constantly talk to. Candidates about that are in the middle of interview processes. We start talking about strengths and weaknesses, how to handle those discussions and interviews and things, and I always tell them look If you say it about yourself, you’re either bragging or lying if other people say it about you, it’s got to be the truth. Now, that’s a little bit of a sad statement of the world that we live in today that anybody can say anything about anyone on any platform and innocent until proven guilty is chunked out the window in the world we live in today. So, there can be a double edge to this sword, but the reality is as an owner, as a manager, as a partner, you can get on platforms and say all kinds of wonderful things about your firm and tell your firm story, but when your people do it, there’s something pretty compelling to that. Is that something that you’ve seen or talked about with your clients? Because that’s something that I try to drive home with our clients constantly, you’ve got to do a better job of telling your story.

Yes. I mean, in fact, I will say two of my specific clients that I’ve worked with one-on-one are Joey Kinney and Hannah Hood, who are co-hosts of the podcast called the Young CPA Success Show, which is one of the multiple podcasts that is released regularly by Summit, and within the Anders umbrella. The entire reason that they are doing that is because they believe that the accounting industry is undergoing change, there are generational realities in terms of so many partners are nearing the point of retirement, and there are fewer people coming into the ranks of the accounting industry, just in general, what do you do with that? What do you do with a culture of the way things have always worked in the accounting industry, where it’s really easy to get into the weeds of things and say, I’m just juggling numbers, man. This doesn’t make much difference in the world. Why should I care? And if the company doesn’t care about me, then why should I stick with this company?

And that’s where I have seen firsthand, I will absolutely brag on Summit and Anders with the culture that I’ve seen. Every person that I talked to there is super cool from multiple levels up, you know, from the transactional, get things done thing, to leadership, to directors, to the partners, it’s just such a cool place where people actually care about the environment, they care about people. And so, I think it’s no accident that you see a very active presence within their marketing saying, this is what we’re about. This is what we believe. This is what’s wrong with the accounting industry. We’re wanting to change this. Hey, come along and join us. By the way, we’re a great place to work. Here’s where to learn more. It’s all part of the same thing, and they’re doing an awesome job.

There’s so many people that I speak to in the industry today that are in that mid-20s to early 40s age range that want to be more of a presence in the public eye on social media, and they are being discouraged or even outright told you can’t from their organization. And it just boggles my mind when that happens because there’s so much impact that that generation—those generations, I should say—can have on the marketplace when it comes to attraction and inquiries from people about, hey, what are you guys all about?

You know what? Can I, if I can just jump in on that, I would be curious to know from your perspective, what do you see as being the main reasons that firms shut that down? I mean, it’s easy to say, oh, well it’s compliance. I mean, but really, is it compliance? Is it legalities? Or is it something else?

I think from my perspective, what I see and what I hear is, it is a lack of understanding from leadership, the importance that social media plays on the public and professional platform in today’s world. I think that there’s a lot of firm owners and firm leaders that are my age, that are late 40s to mid 60s, and the extent of social media or public platform they know of is Facebook, and maybe Twitter. And they’re either on it very rarely, or if they’re on it, all they see are the negative sides and the toxicity of it, versus a platform like a LinkedIn where there is, you know, is there more personal stuff on LinkedIn today than there ever has been? Yes, there has. But I think again, part of that goes back to the concept of story. People want to connect with people that they have something in common with.

And I will tell you within my circles that, you know, I have a number of people within B2B marketing circles that I’m interacting with specifically on LinkedIn, and they are constantly talking about how their numbers of when they put messages out from their brand, those posts don’t get nearly as much engagement as when those same ideas or that same concept is posted by a person with a face. So exactly what you’re saying here.

So I think it’s just understanding from a leadership standpoint, the impact that that can have on the perception of your firm, with the people that are posting content about work, about their life, about the environment, about the culture, you know, you talk about the people that you’re talking to and the interaction they’re getting on a post. I can post something that is specific to this industry, and I’m going to get somewhere in the neighborhood of pretty consistently 1,500 to 4,000 post impressions. Pretty consistently.

I can post something like I did on Valentine’s Day, about, you know, the fact that I’ve, I’ve been married for 27 years, been with my wife for 30 years. My parents were married for, you know, 60 plus years. My grandparents were married for 50 plus years. And how I come from a long line of love and the things that are critical and important to sustain a relationship like that. And it gets 15,000, 20,000 impressions from the same audience. It’s from the same audience and it’s a story. But it’s, the concept of the story, the foundations of the story is no different than anything I do on, you know, the professional side of things. The difference is, there’s some personal piece to that that I think people engage with. And back to your question, why are leaders opposed to that. I don’t think they understand the impact and the reach that those kind of things can have. I think that’s the first thing.

I think the second thing is, in my opinion, Jeff, they don’t, from a humility standpoint, I think a lot of them just think that, well, this is just a part of who we are. It’s just a part of doing business. It’s just a part of what happens in our environment day in and day out. It becomes old hat to them, and they don’t understand that old hat to them is probably something that is not being seen at another firm that may resonate with somebody that might be thinking about making a job change. And they catch this post or this story and go, you know what? That sounds interesting to me. I may want to reach out to those guys and talk to them, you know?

Or internally, they may not think that, I think I told you this story the other day about a firm owner that we’re working with on, on more talent branding and retention and one of their employees talked about how after tax season a few years back, her mom had come and taken care of her child for three or four months during tax season. Tax season ends and he gives her a bonus of a thousand dollars to give to her mom to say thank you to your mom for giving up her life for four months to come take care of your child so that you could take care of our customers.

Yeah.

To him as an owner, that was just the right thing to do. To her as an employee. It was life changing.

And so to clarify, so you’re saying that owner did that, because of who he was and because of his desire to take care of his people and the people who take care of his people, who take care of his people, and he didn’t think that was any big deal.

No.

That is not normal! That is in, you know, “in a world where accountants are considered to be soulless,” you know, this guy has a heart, he has a soul. He cares about people. You got to tell people about that. People need to know.

It’s one of those things that went over, over three days of sitting with, with this firm and this leadership team and, and hearing 11, 12, 13 different stories over a 30 year legacy that have happened in that firm, when we all got together on the last day before I left, they said, okay, tell what, what are your thoughts? And I just smiled. And my answer was, this is a story, forget firm, forget job. This is a story I can sell. This is a story I want to sell, because those are things people want to connect with in the world that we live in today. I think people want more than just, hey, I’ve packed my lunch box and I’ve got my briefcase and I’ve got my hard hat and I’m going to the office and I’m going to punch the clock and I’m going to put in my eight hours and I’m going to punch the clock and I’m going to go back home. I think people want more than that out of life today. They want to connect with something. And they can’t do that unless they know the story, whether that’s as an employee or as a customer / client.

Agreed. Agreed. I mean, ’cause if you get people constantly giving of themselves within a context and they don’t know why, okay, so you might be in an entry level position and you’re doing bank recs or something like that. And it’s just this torrent of numbers. You’re just making sure the numbers line up, you’re double checking and you’re checking and okay. Next stack, next stack, next stack, next client, next client. And if you don’t know why that matters, that’s going to start eating away at your soul at some point.

Yep.

Until you start saying, okay, this is why we do this. This is why this matters. This is why when we get clean data every month or every week, in some cases, you know, working with fractional, VCFOs, you know, fractional CFOs, they live and die by the need for clean data so that they can help the company look into the future instead of just looking through the rear view mirror. I mean, fine, you have clean financial statements, but that just says what happens last year or last quarter, whatever. But man, if you can help people look into the future, that’s why having clean data now matters. Let me tell you more about our client for whom you just did the stack of bank recs. They do this. This is what they put out into the world. This is the people that they serve, and this is how we’re helping them do their business and help them with their clients, help their clients get what they want.

All of a sudden, okay, you’re starting to attach meaning to a stack of numbers where before there was no meaning there at all, other than this is just something that I have to do. I don’t know why, and I don’t care. I just want to leave and do something else. Which, you know, with your permission, this is one of the things that I always want to get into with my clients is these, this idea of what I call “the thing under the thing.” You know, the example that I often give is if you go out to Hollywood and you go in the touristy section, you go to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. That’s the sidewalk with the decorations with the stars in it that has people’s names in it. So on the surface, it’s a sidewalk with decorations, but you better believe that there is meaning attached to those decorations and that sidewalk. To some people, if they go there, there was a time right at the time when Michael Jackson passed, his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was right outside the complex where I was working at a studio, and you would not believe the crowds of people who just thronged to this one space of sidewalk, in the middle of a city, because it had the name “Michael Jackson” on it, because that square represented to them all the music, all the fame, all the impact, all the experiences that they’d had listening to his music.

So, the thing on the surface is, it’s a piece of cement on a sidewalk in the middle of a city. The things under the thing? Michael Jackson, musician, all those other things that I just said, people make those attachments. And so those things, where we have feelings standing in front of that piece of sidewalk, those feelings that we feel are what I refer to as the thing under the thing. All those attachments are made. So taking this back to the idea of accounting. A junior accountant is doing bank recs, staring at a stack of numbers. Is there a meaning attached to this number? Well, maybe, if the person who’s taking care of this is left to themselves, they attach their own meanings. But as firm owners, as partners, as managers, as leaders, if we say, thank you for making sure these numbers are right, let me tell you what these numbers mean to this client, and to the people that they serve, all of a sudden, we take those stacks of numbers, which in and of themselves can be meaningless, we start attaching meaning to them on purpose. And all of a sudden our people start feeling those purposes for themselves.

Yeah. I think when you give people the context of, of something to be able to begin to drop anchor in and then start to grow roots in, they begin to understand that. And it impacts them just a little bit more, other than just a job, just a task, just a role. There’s, purpose behind it. And I think that when you give people the opportunity to do that, they become more engaged with it, and want to be a part of it more often and longer.

Absolutely.

I think we lose sight of the fact that we all want to attach to something. We all want to fill this space that’s this hole, this proverbial hole that we have to accomplish. Whatever that looks like. for people, you know, for somebody, it may be title, for somebody it may be money, for somebody it may be, you know, flexibility and work to be with their kids and whatever it may be. There’s a sense of accomplishment that they want to have. And if we can do something to paint a picture, tell a story, that allows them to do that at an emotional level, not just a surface task level, I think like what you’re talking about, it gets them engaged a little bit more in the overall process.

Agreed. I mean, on one hand, I’m thinking of one client who, you know, she had a goal for her whole life, you know, when she was a girl, she saw journalists on TV, people like Katie Couric, and she said, I want to be like her. And she told me that she always loved Katie Couric because of the way that she connected with her audience and with the people that she interviewed. She thought that would be cool for her to be able to do. So she started out in journalism that ended up being a road not taken for her. She ended up in accounting, but years later, she’s worked up the ranks such that she is now a virtual CFO with a team under her, and on top of that, because of her position and because of her role at the company, actually at Summit, I mentioned her earlier as the, one of the co-hosts of the Young CPA Success Show, she was asked by Joey, the other co-host of that show, hey, you, you need to be a co host with this show, uh, with me on this show because your voice is important.

And now Hannah gets to live out her dream of being a journalist. She posted on LinkedIn, of course, she said, hey, I had this dream of being Katie Couric. And now I get to live out this dream in my own way. And let me tell you, well, I don’t have to tell you. She will be the first person to tell you that being able to participate in these conversations gives her so much joy and just fills her up as a human being and as a professional within her industry. People who feel those kinds of feelings about your firm, they are far less likely to leave than the people who are just doing this. And they don’t know why they’re there.

Absolutely.

Now on the flip side, it’s not just about fulfillment within your role. There’s another client that I’ve worked with who I worked with him one on one, and later on, I found out that he was actually diagnosed with cancer. And so when I found that out, that was a shock to me. And, so I shot him a text and said, man, I’m thinking of you, praying for you, for your family, for the doctors. And he emails me a few days later from the hospital in the middle of a chemotherapy treatment he said in his email, and he said Jeff, thinking about the stories that we’ve been talking about, about what I’ve done in my life, has made me realize that this is not just about me continuing to be here for my family. I love them. I want to be here for my family. And even beyond that, I’m still going to kick this cancer to the curb because I have a lot more to offer to the world. I have a lot more to offer to the people in this industry, and it’s time to make this happen. This is the power of thinking about these things, not just about us personally, but what we offer to the world as human beings. It is incredibly powerful stuff.

Yep. And it’s so much more than footing and tying numbers. It’s so much more than completing a tax return. There are so many more things that we have to offer. And I think that if we, if we challenge ourselves to go back and think about why did I start doing this to begin with? What are the things that I’ve been able to accomplish along the way? Whose lives have I been able to impact? Whose companies have I been able to change the course of? Those are the things that begin to make some great stories, but they also remind us about the why, you know? The wonderful question of what’s your why? I think that if we start peeling the onion back on those things and stop getting so involved in the day to day of the how, we quickly get reminded, like this gentleman you’re talking about, we quickly get reminded about the why, and how we can leverage that and begin to find the passion and the excitement again for what it is that we do.

So I want to thank you today, Jeff, for joining us and giving us some insight on, on how the concept of story, you know, the thing behind the thing, all of those little tidbits that we talked about, how they can elevate a firm’s brand, an individual’s brand, you know, both internally and externally with their customers and their employees. I think that so many times we lose sight of that. If there are listeners that want to learn more about what you do, talk to you about the services that you provide, what’s the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Yeah. There is one specific place that listeners of your podcast should go and it is the URL StoryGreenlight.com/CPALife. And when you go to StoryGreenlight.com/CPALife, you’ll see a link to my podcast. It’s called Speaking of Numbers. It’s where I lay out all these ideas, just lay them flat out, so anyone can start taking hold of them for yourself, for your firm. So there’s a link to that on that page. There’s also a checklist where if you want to say, hey, I want to start thinking about building a story for myself, there’s a way to start taking those elements in your life with a checklist that I provide there. That’s there as well. And of course, when you come to the place where you say, I want to fast track this and make this stuff work specifically for me and my team, there’s a way to get in touch with me there too. So it’s StoryGreenlight.com/CPALife.

Awesome. And we’ll make sure that we put that link in the show notes so that people can learn a little bit more about the process, possibly reach out to you and talk to you about the services that you provide and how it can begin to drastically impact their overall business, not only externally with customers, but internally with their talent, acquisition, retention, their talent branding, all the things that really begin to set them apart in the industry, which is only getting harder to compete within.

So again, Jeff, I want to thank you today for joining us. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on your favorite streaming platform to make sure that you don’t miss any of our future episodes, because we have a lot of interesting conversations that are already queued up into the very near future. So I’m looking forward to spending some time with you guys again in the future. And until then, here’s to you and your best CPA Life.

We hope you enjoyed today’s episode. Be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcasting app, leave a five star rating and visit our website for links and show notes at CPALifePodcast.com. We’ll see you next time on CPA Life.

Important Links:

StoryGreenlight.com/CPALife

Jeff Bartsch on LinkedIn

The Speaking of Numbers Podcast

Elevating Your Brand Through Story with Jeff Bartsch

Transcript:

Important Links:

About the Guest: