The Wize Way

Wize Mentoring for Accountants and Bookkeepers
  • 3.7 (3)
  • Management
  • Updated Monthly

Feeling stuck in your firm or on the edge of rapid growth but don't know how to build the business so that it’s not reliant on you?  Join the Wize team as they share the insights, stories, strategies and tools that have helped transform the businesses and lives of our Wize Guys and hundreds of Accounting, CPA and bookkeeping firm owners around the world.  In each episode, we dive into the leadership, marketing, sales, systems and mindset tactics that'll get you to your goals without burning out.  Subscribe to transform your challenges into opportunities and build a business that can run without you. 

  1. 5d ago

    Episode 221: How To Market Your Firm When You Have No Time For Marketing

    Jamie Johns is in his accounting firm about one day a week, and he still gets a tip out to his clients every week without setting aside hours to write it. He spent close to ten years sending technical newsletters that went almost entirely unanswered, and when he finally changed what he was writing about he found the marketing took less time and gave him far more back. In this episode, Jamie breaks down how accounting and bookkeeping firm owners can market consistently without finding hours they do not have. He covers the habit he built from a single calendar reminder, the two questions he asks himself once a week, and the line he draws between being genuinely useful and doing the paid work for nothing. You'll learn:  ✅ How weekly marketing becomes a habit rather than another task on the list  ✅ The two questions that give Jamie a year of content without planning any of it  ✅ Why the content clients actually respond to is quicker to write than technical updates  ✅ How to be genuinely useful every week and still run a proper sales process  ✅ Why the more marketing you do, the smaller the sales conversation becomes  ✅ When to hand your marketing to someone else and what to look for If you have ever told yourself you will get to your marketing once things slow down, this episode will change the way you think about how much time it actually takes. ________________   PS: Whenever you’re ready… here are the fastest 4 ways we can help you fix and grow your accounting firm:    1. Download our famous Wize Freedom Map for FREE - Find out the 101 projects every firm owner must implement to build a $5M+ firm that can run without them - Download here  2. Need to hire right now? Book a 1:1 FREE discovery call with our WizeTalent hiring coaches to help find your next team member the Wize Way – Click Here  3. Work with Jamie and our mentors for 8 weeks - Build a custom business plan for your firm - Apply here

  2. Sep 24

    Episode 220: The 40/35/25 Rule: How to Tell If Your Firm Is Actually Profitable

    A firm can run for twenty years without anyone looking closely at profitability. Revenue grows, the team grows, everyone is busy, and the assumption is that it must all be working. Then a big client leaves, or wages climb, and suddenly the only question that matters is where the money actually goes. In this session, Tim Causbrook works through how to answer that properly, one team at a time. Tim is a Wize mentor and the owner of Causbrooks Chartered Accountants, and he opens up the capacity planner to show what a profitable team looks like on paper, what the benchmarks should be, and why a team can be flat out and still lose money. You'll learn:  ✅ Why firm profitability is really the sum of each team's profitability  ✅ The 40% COGS, 35% overheads, 25% EBIT benchmark and what to check when a team misses it  ✅ What happens to a team's numbers when it loses a major client and keeps the headcount  ✅ Charge-out multiples by role, onshore and offshore, and where the margin actually sits  ✅ Why an all-onshore bookkeeping team struggles to reach 25%  ✅ How low productivity and write-offs distort a capacity plan and lead to hiring you don't need  ✅ Why resource mix matters as much as headcount, and what goes wrong when a senior person is missing If you've never budgeted at team level, or you have a team that feels stretched while the capacity plan says otherwise, this session gives you the numbers to check before the year gets away from you. Want access to the capacity planner and the rest of the WizeHub? Get it here → https://get.wizehub.co/ This is a visual walkthrough, so if you want to see inside the WizeHub as Tim navigates each section, tune in to the episode on YouTube. ________________   PS: Whenever you’re ready… here are the fastest 4 ways we can help you fix and grow your accounting firm:    1. Download our famous Wize Freedom Map for FREE - Find out the 101 projects every firm owner must implement to build a $5M+ firm that can run without them - Download here  2. Need to hire right now? Book a 1:1 FREE discovery call with our WizeTalent hiring coaches to help find your next team member the Wize Way – Click Here  3. Work with Jamie and our mentors for 8 weeks - Build a custom business plan for your firm - Apply here

  3. Sep 17

    Episode 219: The Real Reason Marketing Keeps Failing in Accounting Firms

    Marketing is the one part of a firm that most owners have already tried and already given up on. They hired an agency, or handed the socials to a junior, or committed to a weekly email that lasted about three weeks. It cost them, the leads never showed, and the conclusion they drew was that marketing doesn't work for firms like theirs. In this episode, Bren Ward pulls apart why that keeps happening inside accounting and bookkeeping firms, from the knee-jerk push that never survives lodgement season to the weekly email that quietly stops going out. He also lays out how to size a budget properly, working backwards from the growth goal to the leads it takes to get there. You'll learn:  ✅ Why a bad first experience with marketing says more about the starting point than the marketing  ✅ The two things that break firm marketing by month three  ✅ Where the content that actually connects comes from, and why a prompt won't produce it  ✅ The case for giving your best thinking away for free  ✅ How to work backwards from a revenue target to the number of leads your firm needs  ✅ The 5% of revenue benchmark, and what to do if you're spending nothing today  ✅ The two areas inside your existing client base worth exhausting before you market to strangers If you've written marketing off after one expensive attempt, or you're about to spend again and want to get it right this time, this episode gives you somewhere sensible to start. ________________   PS: Whenever you’re ready… here are the fastest 4 ways we can help you fix and grow your accounting firm:    1. Download our famous Wize Freedom Map for FREE - Find out the 101 projects every firm owner must implement to build a $5M+ firm that can run without them - Download here  2. Need to hire right now? Book a 1:1 FREE discovery call with our WizeTalent hiring coaches to help find your next team member the Wize Way – Click Here  3. Work with Jamie and our mentors for 8 weeks - Build a custom business plan for your firm - Apply here

  4. Sep 10

    Episode 218: Inside WizeHub: How Firm Owners Build Freedom One Step at a Time

    Have you ever finished a training, felt completely clear on what to do next, and then looked up three months later to find nothing in your firm had actually changed? In this episode, Raul takes us inside the WizeHub for a full walkthrough of the tools built to close that gap. From the Freedom Map steps to the Task Hub, he shows how firm owners turn what they've learned into work that has an owner, a date, and a place to be followed up, so freedom gets built one step at a time instead of staying an intention. You'll learn: ✅ How the Freedom Map sequences the path to a firm that runs without you, laid out as Discover, Plan, Execute, and Measure ✅ Why every step carries its own tools, resources, training, and project, so you are never hunting for the next action ✅ How to break a step like appointing a senior client manager into the position description, the A and B client analysis, and a capacity planner placeholder ✅ How to hand those smaller pieces to your admin assistant or production manager so progress stops depending on you ✅ How to link a step to your executive or weekly managers meeting so it lands on an agenda instead of a to-do list ✅ Why learning about a role does not let you mark the step complete, and what finished actually looks like ✅ What to record when you put a step on hold, so it's ready the day your firm is If you've got steps sitting at 70% complete because the next move felt too big to start, this episode is your reminder that momentum comes from one bite of the elephant, not the whole thing at once. This is a visual walkthrough, so if you want to see inside the WizeHub as Raul navigates each section, tune in to the episode on YouTube. ________________   PS: Whenever you’re ready… here are the fastest 4 ways we can help you fix and grow your accounting firm:    1. Download our famous Wize Freedom Map for FREE - Find out the 101 projects every firm owner must implement to build a $5M+ firm that can run without them - Download here  2. Need to hire right now? Book a 1:1 FREE discovery call with our WizeTalent hiring coaches to help find your next team member the Wize Way – Click Here  3. Work with Jamie and our mentors for 8 weeks - Build a custom business plan for your firm - Apply here

  5. Sep 3

    Episode 217: Right Person, Right Seat: How Accounting Firm Owners Get Both

    Before Tim met Ed Chan in 2019, hiring at his firm worked the way it does in most firms. Someone said "we need more staff," so they threw more bodies at the problem. No structure, no org chart, no way of knowing whether anyone was in the right seat. Then he and Ed spent five hours mapping every person in the firm, strength by strength, weakness by weakness, and placing each one in position. That exercise is what this episode is about. Wize mentor Tim walks through how firm owners can answer two questions that sound like one: is this the right person, and are they in the right seat? The answer applies equally to last month's hire and to the team member you promoted three years ago. You'll learn: ✅ Why the capacity planner is where every seat decision has to start ✅ How write-offs and productivity numbers expose who is too slow for their role ✅ The resource mix problem that keeps work stuck even when capacity looks fine ✅ When a client manager genuinely needs a production manager beside them ✅ Why two complementary people in the right seats beat one unicorn every time ✅ The 3-times rule for telling incompetence apart from inexperience ✅ How clear outcomes let you judge any seat within 30 to 60 days Every firm owner gets a seat wrong eventually. Tim has, Jamie has, Ed has. The difference is having a system that catches it in weeks and fills that seat with the right person the next time. This is a visual walkthrough, so if you want to see inside the WizeHub as Tim clicks through each section, tune in to the episode on YouTube. ________________   PS: Whenever you’re ready… here are the fastest 4 ways we can help you fix and grow your accounting firm:    1. Download our famous Wize Freedom Map for FREE - Find out the 101 projects every firm owner must implement to build a $5M+ firm that can run without them - Download here  2. Need to hire right now? Book a 1:1 FREE discovery call with our WizeTalent hiring coaches to help find your next team member the Wize Way – Click Here  3. Work with Jamie and our mentors for 8 weeks - Build a custom business plan for your firm - Apply here

  6. Aug 27

    Episode 216: The Vision, Mission, and Values System for Accounting Firm Owners

    Kristy Fairbairn wrote her vision, mission, and values early in her business journey. She pinned them above her desk and told nobody. Not her team, not her clients. For years, they changed nothing about how the firm ran.  In this episode, Kristy walks through what she does differently now, and how those three statements became the filter for who she hires, which clients she takes on, and when she makes her next hire.  ✅ The difference between vision, mission, and values, and why owners collapse all three into one vague paragraph  ✅ The fill-in-the-blanks prompt for writing a mission that is specific enough to act on  ✅ Why a vision that feels comfortable is a vision that is too small  ✅ How one value, balance, screens job candidates before the interview even starts  ✅ The link between your values and your capacity planner, and how to spot a team member who has fallen out of alignment  ✅ Where your eulogy exercise fits, and why your business values and personal values should not be different  If you have never done this work, start with one statement this week. If you did it years ago and have not looked at it since, this is your prompt to open the document again. ________________   PS: Whenever you’re ready… here are the fastest 4 ways we can help you fix and grow your accounting firm:    1. Download our famous Wize Freedom Map for FREE - Find out the 101 projects every firm owner must implement to build a $5M+ firm that can run without them - Download here  2. Need to hire right now? Book a 1:1 FREE discovery call with our WizeTalent hiring coaches to help find your next team member the Wize Way – Click Here  3. Work with Jamie and our mentors for 8 weeks - Build a custom business plan for your firm - Apply here

  7. Aug 20

    Episode 215: The 90/10 Shift That Made Ed Chan's Firm Run Without Him

    Someone once told Ed Chan he should write a checklist. He was working 100 hours a week, so his answer was the obvious one. Where was he supposed to find the time? Everything that eventually got him out looked like that. The checklist. Training the hire. Writing the policy. All of it sat in the pile he would get to once things calmed down, and things never calmed down. Ed explains what changed his thinking, and how far it took him. ✅ Why the work that never feels urgent is the only work that changes anything ✅ The question that decides whether your next hire should be a junior or a senior ✅ Why the money objection to hiring comes down to how you read your own numbers ✅ What happens to write-offs and turnover when people sit in the wrong seats ✅ The deep and narrow team structure, and why adding more people rarely fixes a workload ✅ How to hand work over when you are certain nobody will do it to your standard ✅ The exercise Ed used to sort every single thing he did into one of four places Ed does not work in the firm anymore, and it still runs. This is how that happened. ________________   PS: Whenever you’re ready… here are the fastest 4 ways we can help you fix and grow your accounting firm:    1. Download our famous Wize Freedom Map for FREE - Find out the 101 projects every firm owner must implement to build a $5M+ firm that can run without them - Download here  2. Need to hire right now? Book a 1:1 FREE discovery call with our WizeTalent hiring coaches to help find your next team member the Wize Way – Click Here  3. Work with Jamie and our mentors for 8 weeks - Build a custom business plan for your firm - Apply here

  8. Aug 13

    Episode 214: Inside the WizeHub: How to Spot an Unhappy Employee Before They Quit

    Have you ever lost a great team member out of nowhere, with no warning signs and no explanation that made sense? In this episode, Raul takes us inside the Wize Hub for a full walkthrough of the tools built to stop that from happening. From the team NPS to the career and energy audits, he shows how firm owners can get a true 360 view of how their people are really feeling, long before a resignation letter lands on the desk. You'll learn: ✅ How to track your team NPS monthly and what the score is actually telling you ✅ How the career audit uses AI to identify whether someone is a Grinder, Minder or Finder, and whether they're in the right seat ✅ Why the energy audit and life wheel help employees feel valued, especially in remote teams ✅ How the different access levels keep sensitive information private until an employee chooses to share it ✅ How to build a complete staff profile covering strengths, weaknesses, revenue capacity, and your ideal charge rate Raul shares a real client story about a firm owner who kept training great people only to watch them leave, and how one small change turned that pattern around. If you've ever assumed your team was fine because nobody said otherwise, this episode is your reminder that the problems you can't see are the ones that cost you the most. This is a visual walkthrough, so if you want to see inside the WizeHub as Raul clicks through each section, tune in to the episode on YouTube. ________________   PS: Whenever you’re ready… here are the fastest 4 ways we can help you fix and grow your accounting firm:    1. Download our famous Wize Freedom Map for FREE - Find out the 101 projects every firm owner must implement to build a $5M+ firm that can run without them - Download here  2. Need to hire right now? Book a 1:1 FREE discovery call with our WizeTalent hiring coaches to help find your next team member the Wize Way – Click Here  3. Work with Jamie and our mentors for 8 weeks - Build a custom business plan for your firm - Apply here

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Ratings & Reviews

3.7
out of 5
3 Ratings

About

Feeling stuck in your firm or on the edge of rapid growth but don't know how to build the business so that it’s not reliant on you?  Join the Wize team as they share the insights, stories, strategies and tools that have helped transform the businesses and lives of our Wize Guys and hundreds of Accounting, CPA and bookkeeping firm owners around the world.  In each episode, we dive into the leadership, marketing, sales, systems and mindset tactics that'll get you to your goals without burning out.  Subscribe to transform your challenges into opportunities and build a business that can run without you. 

Information

  • Creator
    Wize Mentoring for Accountants and Bookkeepers
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    221
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Wize Way
  • Show Website
    The Wize Way

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