Business Insights from an Accounting Entrepreneur

Building a business from scratch takes grit, vision, and the ability to adapt, and few know this better than Sam Falanga. In this episode, Sam shares his journey of transforming a small accounting practice into a dynamic firm that serves clients across industries. Starting in 2010 with just himself and one other accountant, Sam took on every role in the business—from managing admin to taking out the trash—before scaling his company into a thriving 19-person team. He discusses the challenges of growing a team, implementing operational processes, and creating a culture where learning and collaboration are prioritized.

Running a business with your spouse can be both challenging and rewarding, and Sam's experience with his wife, Alessia, provides a unique perspective on navigating this delicate balance. Her operational expertise has been key in implementing systems that drive their firm’s success. We delve into how they manage to keep personal and professional lives harmoniously intertwined, with clear roles and KPIs ensuring both business and family thrive. This conversation is a must-listen for anyone considering merging family and work life, as well as those pondering the strategic choice of acquiring a firm versus expanding their team.

Whether you're just starting your entrepreneurial journey or scaling an established business, this conversation is packed with actionable takeaways. From understanding when to hire new staff to implementing systems that promote long-term growth, Sam provides a roadmap to help you take your business to the next level.

Chapters

• 0:00 Business Growth and Journey to Success
• 7:36 Family Partnership and Business Growth
• 19:18 Business Training and Mentorship Benefits
• 27:29 Accountability and Business Growth
• 34:15 Business Automation and Education Awareness
• 39:46 Efficient Communication in Business Operations
• 44:52 Business Growth Through Processes and Systems
• 54:58 Training and Recruitment Strategies for Growth
• 1:03:55 Business Growth and Diversification Strategy

Transcript

George: 0:00

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the podcast. Thanks for being here, listening and spending the next hour or so with us. We've got a special guest here, sam Falanga from Falanga Co. I did say that right, didn't I Exactly correct? Thank you, george. Good, and we've known each other for a few years and we've seen your business growth and journey come along, and I think it was really just a matter of time really before we got you on the podcast, because I reckon you've got a great story and one that will help others in their pursuit of achieving excellence and and financial freedom. Let's call it for the cliche, but, um, yeah, thanks for coming down all the way from Sydney as well yeah, and I appreciate the time and giving this this opportunity.

Sam Falanga: 0:38

um, like I said, coming down from Sydney to meet you, and we've probably known each other what close to three or four or four years yeah, I'd say that so it's and Robbie too.

Robby: 0:46

And Robbie and we just met, we just-.

George: 0:48

Oh, you got on so well. Robbie wore a special cologne today. Yeah, doesn't wear that normally. No good, doesn't wear that normally. On another podcast which is just me and you, it's-.

Robby: 1:01

I do. If you didn't say anything, I reckon you wouldn't notice. No, but you brought it up.

George: 1:06

Might be a bit gay if I just say oh you look, you sound nice today. You smell nice Just like your baby blue shirt. Well, it goes with my eyes. Why wouldn't I wear it? He's untold, he's been told it goes. Well, my hair. That's it. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your business, just for context, so people know what we're on about.

Sam Falanga: 1:25

Yeah. So we kicked off in, took over an older gentleman by the name of Joe DiGiulio in 2010. We're in inner city, so it's a suburb that's called Leichhardt, and from our journey, I started off like anyone else, with one accountant and myself doing everything from admin to the accounts, to advertising, to marketing. So an accounting firm just to clarify, yeah, accounting firm and he sort of taught me how to deal with small businesses. So my background is from a larger accounting firm called Crow Hallworth and we decided there to take over and it was a big change for me. So in a corporate world, you sort of prepare the accounts and then you've done all the work and then the work goes to the partner and the partner goes to the meeting and you don't get any say, or you don't even get to meet the client, unfortunately. And then 2010 came along and I was given this opportunity and it was a realization for me. But also, you know, you could take the skills that I learned from the larger corporate accounting and apply those to the small businesses out there, which is something that was true to my heart, because I grew up with small businesses in family and transportation and it was a way to help. You know the little guy per se, but thrown into the deep end, don't get me wrong. You've got to do absolutely everything take out the rubbish, clean the toilets, and then we've grown from there. So you get a few extra employees, you get an admin assistant to do corporate compliance, you get a marketer because you've got a couple of dollars to actually pay a marketing firm. You get some new furniture, fix the office, and then we're fortunate enough with word of mouth to grow the business and we're in a terrace, three level terrace and then we ended up knocking one wall out to put more desks, and then another wall and another fit out in the same commercial premises.

Sam Falanga: 3:15

And then, in 2021, we decided to move to a larger, 310 square meter office in Rhodes, which is another 15 minutes out of the city, and the open floor plan was what attracted us. We moved across there with 10 employees, obviously with room to grow. So we knew that we wanted to be in this for the next 20, 20, 30 years. And you know, the open floor premises was the reason why, because when we had the terrace, you couldn't learn from your manager or your senior accountant if you're a junior because they were so far like physically located away from you. But the open floor was a fantastic idea because you're sitting in the close proximity to learn while they're on the phone with a client, or you could learn while they're in the meeting.

Sam Falanga: 4:07

So I tend to throw our junior accountants in the deep end per se. Yeah, good, swing, sink or swim, yeah, and sometimes it's a fantastic idea. Sometimes it works against us because they learn so much, so fast that then when they get poached from another accounting firm, they've already had the experience of dealing with a human one-on-one and interacting from that perspective. And now, fortunately for us, we've had an implementation of a general manager, which is now going on two and a half years. So we brought Josh on board in order to help us facilitate that growth about where we want to get to. He's fantastic for our organization. Coming from an MBA background, he brings a different mindset for us. Yeah, not an accountant, not an accountant, yeah. So we went through a bit of a transition there to learn about someone that can guide us and has dealt with larger organizations, and just that positivity of it can get done has helped a lot and helped with the staff as well, yeah, that's awesome.

George: 5:16

A couple of follow-up questions. So when you took over, were you working with that gentleman for a little while? Yeah, was there a transition period, or were you working with him and then bought him out?

Sam Falanga: 5:26

So no, it was basically I took over from day one.

George: 5:28

Yeah.

Sam Falanga: 5:29

From a legality perspective. Yeah, he was really wanted to concentrate on other things that he had going on. He's got an engineering company and he liked to play the stock market. Yeah, and it was basically from day one I took took over. So you also had to collect debtors and you had to have those conversations about collecting money, which is also sometimes hard. But he taught me about, you know, what real life was all about and real business was all about.

Sam Falanga: 5:55

And we had a transitional period there of about 12 months where he was, you know, sat with me for the client, gave me the introduction, you know, know, because these clients have been with him for 20-25 years, right, so there's a new kid on the block. You know, excuse me, um, giving them the advice now and sort of saying where they want to go. And you have to from day one. If you're going to take over an organization like that, you have to provide more value than joe did, and that was all my always my goal, and I knew that Because that's more of an old school guy as well.

George: 6:29

Yeah, yeah, most definitely. How he operated and what he did.

Sam Falanga: 6:32

Yeah, and you have to give him more value, as in more time, a better type of advice or a better system that they might be able to implement. Like you said, he was a bit older and in that regard he might not have known apps and you know things that might help their business and you bring those on and then the client sort of has is not obligated but prefers to deal with you than Joe Cause some of them did say like he was a bit old school. And then it's just you know, client by client, building up your business and moving on from there.

Robby: 7:10

Nice. How long have you been in business now?

Sam Falanga: 7:12

Since 2010,. So going on 13 years, 13 years.

George: 7:15

Yeah, it's a long time, isn't it? Yeah, I think it's gone.

Sam Falanga: 7:18

I was doing something the other day, a bit of something for some collateral, and it's like being in the industry and being in the counter for 18 years and I'm like, wow, that goes quick.

George: 7:28

Life goes fast yeah, my word and you've got a family as well.

Sam Falanga: 7:32

Yeah, jacob's just turned five and Sophia's seven. And my business partner, as well as my wife Alessia. She came full time into the business for Falangro Co. About four years ago now, five years ago.

George: 7:45

Is she an accountant too?

Sam Falanga: 7:47

No, she comes from an operational perspective. So she was dealing at Crowe Haworth in the operations department and also working for the CFO. Yeah, you know there was 400 employees there, so she learned. You know they went through a few acquisitions. You know she got a skill set working with the people that have done it before at a much higher level, and we've implemented policies, sops within our smaller boutique firm now. So we've taken what we learned from the large organization and put that into play, like staff reviews, kpis set KPIs, automated billing as well for clients, a production software for internal use, a better marketing. So there's a lot of things that a business needs in order to try to get to that next level and unless you've got someone dedicated to do that, the technician unfortunately probably doesn't have the time, energy or resources to do it. Yeah, absolutely so. I was very fortunate from a personal perspective. Otherwise I definitely would probably still be capped at what I know and what we could do.

George: 8:55

How have you found it working with your partner in the business? I'll throw you right under the bus now. Yeah, it's going to be reported. Depends on the audience of people who are going to see this and listen to it.

Sam Falanga: 9:04

Depends on what time of the day it is. Don't get me wrong.

George: 9:17

It's a serious question because there's a lot of. For some people it's also like oh, that's the natural thing that has to happen. Yeah, you know, you become a business owner, be an office admin or whatever it might be. So it may not necessarily be because that person is the best suited for the role, but it might be because it's just the spot to fill and they're there to do it. And also, sometimes you might be great at home but you might clash at work. So that's another thing, that as well.

Sam Falanga: 9:39

Yeah don't get me wrong, it's got its ups and downs, like anything, and, like you said, some businesses do that because it is a spot to fill. They hit the nail on the head. Where I was, you know, because of the different skill sets that we have, we were very fortunate to have that in play. And basically, you know, we are in the same office every day but we very, very rarely communicate during the day because we do try to swim in our own lanes. So, from my perspective, it's more of a client focus. You know, compliance work, making sure the managers and the firms running from day to day. And from her perspective, it's about the growth and operations and how do we make this more efficient or more effective in that regard? So don't get me wrong, we do have strategy meetings. When she says she doesn't want to talk at 1130 at night when I get home, or you know, and you just got to balance it out and you've got to try as best as possible to keep it away from home, yes, I agree, because the kids are always listening and always absorbing. So even if they you think they're on the iPads with their headphones, they're not. They're always listening. So you're talking about staff, you're talking about operating, you're talking about basically everything at home. But I think, yeah, the key for us is we've got key objectives and we sit down with the general manager and say what we want to do in the next financial year and we basically have our own KPIs that we set for all of us involved.

Sam Falanga: 11:01

So Josh, alessia and I and they're all very, very different, um, and then, as long as we focus on those don't get me wrong we have formal meetings once a week, which we call a leadership meeting. We also have meetings with our managers, which we call a management meeting, and then we have a fun just very original too. There's we're accountants, right, um, and then we have a what do you call your team meetings? Yeah, phone meeting once a month, yeah, you know. And then we, uh, we, we get in there once a month say what everyone's learned, you know, so they put on the table. We, we say how grateful we are for someone that's helped us in the team, and I think that's's very important to actually say it and face someone face to face and say thank you for helping me on this Cause. We tend to just go day by day, by day, and they need to know that everything's that they've done for them is they need gratitude as well. It's very important, so you do that with your whole team. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty cool.

Robby: 11:59

Once a month, pretty cool.

George: 12:00

Yeah, I like that. And how big is your team now? So we've got a team of 19.

Sam Falanga: 12:03

Excellent so a good-sized team, then yeah, we're fortunate to. My job now for 2025 is to look for another firm and to acquire or merge using some different terminology there, but that's one of my key KPIs.

George: 12:20

Why would you do that as opposed to employing more people?

Sam Falanga: 12:25

Because if someone's set up like you said, they've already got the trust of the client, and it would be what I had to do in 2010 with Joe, and I know that we can do that. I know that we're at Flangering Co. We've got probably the best systems in place because of the skill set of Alessia and Josh and the production software that we've implemented. Some of the apps we know better than some of the staff that work at that organization as well, because when we've tried to do something, we've got the mentality that we do it. We do it well and don't get me wrong you'll get the wrong app early on and you've spent some time on it, but if it's not good for your organization, you have to bite the bullet and just say it's not good for your organization. You have to bite the bullet and just say it's not good for us. Cut ties, yeah, unfortunately. Yeah, and you've spent money on it. Yeah, you've spent a lot of time, and time is money but you've just got to say this is not what I thought it was going to be for my organization and then to find an alternative, which again, then you've got to reset, but you better and learning about what your business actually needs.

Sam Falanga: 13:24

So we're fortunate that we've got Carbon in place, which is a purposely built production software for accountants, and they're starting in the law industry. But we know now where every single job's up to, because there's so many things when you come on as a client. There's your BASAs, obviously once a quarter. There's your single-touch payroll lodgements, there's your super, there's your year-end tax return, there's your fringe benefits tax return. So we need to know where everything's up to. So Carbon allows us to put due dates on things and, from a higher level, we can click a few buttons on our dashboard and see where everything's up to and without that, unfortunately, you couldn't grow.

Sam Falanga: 14:00

We used to do that on Excel right. We used to do that on Excel right. We used to drop down the cells and say was it ready to start? Plan? How many people would be doing that?

George: 14:05

Yeah, we said that as well. You came to one of our trainings a few weeks months back and so you've got to have a specific software for your business. We're in construction. So I tell them don't be operating off Excel spreadsheets, don't go. Although Xero has a place, it's not necessarily the best thing for you to manage your accounting and your obligations and to track your jobs. Yeah, so what else can you use? Maybe use it in conjunction with something else, and that's. You hit the nail on the head just earlier. That's where you're going to get growth, and a lot of people are just they're stuck in the day-to-day. Like was it challenging for you that moment when you put a g, when you made the decision to put a gm on? If you have from that time, and so I could say 10 years, yeah, you've been the top dog. You do everything. Like no one does it better than me, like I'm not going to give this to someone else. Fuck, I'm going to pay for their wage. You know, all those questions come in. Uh, run us through that process.

Sam Falanga: 15:02

Of course it's going to be hard, like you're telling an accountant to spend money, but through you know we've got a mentor and a business coach and from the discovery about business is business, and you do live in your own little shell. When you're running your own organization You're not really concerned about what your competition's doing. But to step out of the business with our business coach and to be understanding that in order to get to where we want to get to, you need to put someone in that role to free up your time and you have to come to terms with that's going to come at a cost. And then it was the discussion of what type of general manager we would want in our organization to enable us to go to the next step. So we had Commonwealth Bank representatives that were high up that came for the role. We've had people that have bought and sold accounting firms. That have done it before. We had a financial planner. We had a financial planner and Josh came with the experience of knowing how to take a business from a smaller turnover up to that $10 million turnover, which is where we want to get to, and as well as the coaching aspect.

Sam Falanga: 16:16

So we know that in accounting compliance will probably be null and void in a few years because of AI. And don't get me wrong, there will still be some transactions that we need to help clients with, but we're seeing it through a lot of automation now. So it was about what we need to change now. So in three years or five years or 10 years, we're not made redundant in that regard and, from his perspective, coming from that MBA background, we're learning how to coach each client and we're passing that down to our managers and also our accountants now. So when they get into a room with their client, it's not about here's your tax return and sign off and here's your BAS and these are your numbers, which is historical data anyway.

George: 16:57

And it's also what 90% of the accountants do out there as well.

Sam Falanga: 17:02

It's more about how do you you know what the clients wants to do in the future and how do we facilitate and help that? From our learnings from our coach, from MBA, from all of our experiences, like, we put our managers through some management courses as well. So everyone's always constantly learning. In our firm we do some soft skill training. So you do your monthly tax training, of course, with tax updates and things, but every year we get in and we get the staff to do some soft skill three-day training, which is most important, about leadership, communication, focus, how to even separate and not worry about their emails so much, but actually concentrate. So those things are vitally important for us to always improve every staff member's personal development.

Sam Falanga: 17:49

But yeah, going back to the question in order to let go of the reins of the firm was very, very difficult from a personal perspective. Like you said, george, you're in there every day, you're doing everything, you know everyone, but if you don't do that, you can't grow. So I've been able, you know, sitting here today to enable me to come down to Melbourne and do the podcast. I never would have been able to do that three years ago. Yeah, take a whole day off.

Robby: 18:14

On a Monday, yeah, or Wednesday, which is when it comes out. I want to touch on what you spoke about with AI. So where do you see, I guess, because a lot of what you do is, whilst there is some level of creativity, a lot of it is rule following right, like in the sense of absolutely one plus two equals three. Yep, which is something that can ease very easily, be replaced by machine learning, yep. How much of an impact do you think ai is going to have in your space, and what are you guys doing, I guess, to make sure that you don't get made redundant?

Sam Falanga: 18:57

Absolutely, yeah, 100%. For us, compliance, like I said, will probably be so much it will be automated. We've already seen that you can put rules on certain transactions through the subscription softwares that we've got through MyOB and Xero and BGO for super funds. So we're already starting to see that it can be automated. What our job is is to teach the client about what their numbers mean, and that's where we differentiate ourself. We want to from the point of discovery, from the first time we meet any potential client. It's more about us awareing them of their own numbers because they become. They come into business being a good technician, it might be a carpenter or someone that's really good at coding.

Sam Falanga: 19:43

That was the same for myself, except you know, coming from the accountant stage, you sort of learn about numbers, but they might be in marketing or hospitality and our job is to teach them what those numbers mean. So, yes, you've got the automation. Yes, the buses could be automated. Potentially the tax returns will be automated one day. We're not seeing that just yet. But it's about identifying to the client what they mean and how they can improve their bottom line, because it's not always about the top and turnover and revenue. It's about what you keep.

Sam Falanga: 20:15

It's about what you get at the bottom right. So our job is to educate them and give them a fast course on what their books look like. And every client's going to be different, every size is going to be different, every industry is different, but numbers is relatively the same and understanding the numbers is relatively the same across all industries.

Robby: 20:35

Yeah, and you get a pretty good insight into like so doing what we do as well. We get a pretty good insight into people's businesses from the front end, right Like from the acquisition end. Yeah, and what I find is most people have no idea about their numbers.

Sam Falanga: 20:50

Unfortunately, yeah, yeah, if you ask them what a balance sheet was, because you don't get taught it right. You finish out of high school, they might go to TAFE or they might go to, they might do, a university degree. But to actually sit down with them and say what their balance sheet is, which you know is just as important as their profit and loss More important is their cashflow statement. More important than that is do they? Have they got a budget or a forecast? And people think it's not for me to do? Right, I build the house, I make, make the bread, I'd serve the customer in hospitality Doing the do, doing the do right.

Sam Falanga: 21:23

But unless you take those couple of hours and sort of sit down with them and explain them to them, I don't think they could ever go to the next level in their business or they could increase their net, because they never look at their expenses, they never go through and say I don't actually need this, it's just what I had. Like a subscription, right, they get a subscription for a magazine or something the fin review, but they're not even using it. How often are they reviewing those? So we sit down with them and sort of go through those key pointers Cause, like I said, it's not about just, you know, just getting more rev. It's about making you most efficient as possible, and that's where the training comes in that we constantly do even for myself, coming off the back of, we're always constantly learning, and then we can give that information to all of our clients. Yeah, nice.

Robby: 22:16

I think I did this. One of the best things you can do is I went and paid or paid for a bookkeeper to sit down with them and just went through three hours of just books. Yep, like, teach me how you do your job. It's fantastic, yeah, yeah. So like I need to understand this shit. Yeah, you know what I mean. I need to understand different chart of accounts. I need to understand how the balance sheet works, how you reconcile things. What's this, what's that? What's a direct cost? What's an expense? You know what can we spend on certain things? What can we claim, what's not? How are we going to make sure we don't get in trouble? And I think it's been one of the most beneficial things, uh, we've done to date, just to understand. So, because then you can look at a pnl and say, okay, cool, hey, this is why we didn't make money this month, or this is why we're extremely profitable this month.

Sam Falanga: 23:02

Who's going to know your business better than you? Not the accountant, not the bookkeeper. You're going to know what your transactions are, what you're spending money on, and you've also got the control of that Clarity. Yeah, absolutely, and, like you said, there is always going to be a fine line between what you can and can't claim in that regard, but you need to understand your own numbers.

Robby: 23:21

Super important.

Sam Falanga: 23:22

Yeah.

George: 23:23

And I think it comes with a, and now that you've done that, you feel was it hard.

Robby: 23:29

To do, to understand, no, but I'm a very numbers guy, yeah.

George: 23:38

But do you think so? I would look at that. If everyone's not doing it to me that says there's a level of anxiety and a level of I'm dumb, like I don't know these things. It's too hard basket. So they ignore it because there's money in the account every month. So they're like, okay, I must be doing all right, but really they don't know how much money is in the account at the end of the quarter or whatever it might be, once they've got to pay their BAS or whatever.

Sam Falanga: 23:58

Or.

George: 23:58

PAYG, yeah, all that sort of stuff. All that sort of stuff, so it can leave them in a bit of a hole, and then they all of a sudden think they're making half a million dollars and it comes down to 50. Yeah, and so what the hell have I been working on? No, absolutely.

Sam Falanga: 24:11

The goal is to teach the client about numbers and we do that through Zoom or meeting physically and just going through, like you did, robbie, with your bookkeeper and understanding their transactions and understanding what's coming up. And the BAS sometimes going quarterly might not be a good thing. The PAYG payments that they have to make to the ATO for the wages tax every quarter might not be suiting their cashflow position. And, like you said, you've got a hundred grand and then all of a sudden you get a $48,000 bass bill, right, that they didn't anticipate. And there's no stupid questions.

Sam Falanga: 24:46

All of our customers I prefer that they ask questions. Yeah, don't pretend to know it all. Correct, like if you asked me to draw a string line or build a wall or do a truss, I'm kidding myself, right, I'm an accountant. I wouldn't know how to do that. But if I had to do something or learn that because I know that's good for me going forward, I would spend the time in order investigating what I needed to learn. Because these guys are in business, they're in business, they've made a decision, they're not working for someone, they're in business for the rest of their time, right? Yeah, so I don't ever see any downfall in asking what they think is a stupid question to learn, and the only way they're going to do that is to have the confidence to say I don't understand it. Can you teach me?

George: 25:31

Yeah, well, it's the skills that got you to where you are and not the skills that you need to get you where you need to be Correct, and that's what a lot of people fall short on, I believe. And it's also, you know, we've all three of us have had the same level of mentoring. It's that's what you're going at and you're searching for and you're paying for. Yeah, how, how much of um, how influential has that been to you and your business and your decisions, with how you're moving forward, with everything? Like even just the point of could be a simple management course, like how important is investing in your own training and development as a business owner?

Sam Falanga: 26:05

It's mandated, you have to do it. It's a cost of business. Yeah, anyone that thinks that they know it all, or I dealt with a lot of different clients and I have done in a lot of different industries. And you sort of get a lot of different clients and I have done in a lot of different industries and you sort of get a touch of everything and you sort of know your own, your your own boss. But without that mentorship and without speaking to other people that have done it before, you wouldn't have the the foreseeable future of where you could get to and how quick like I could go on my own journey and Flangren Co could go on its own journey. But it's like having a mentor you could fast track it, you save years.

George: 26:47

Yeah, exactly.

Robby: 26:48

That's the whole point. Right, Like you're buying time.

Sam Falanga: 26:51

You're buying time right and for next to nothing because your mentors die. Yeah, comparatively, again, I don't like to spend money, but coaching's sometimes not cheap and it shouldn't be for a reason, because they've got all their skills and experiences and they're giving it to you in three days. Hypothetically, it's like someone that writes a book over 10 years and you can consume all of that information in five or six hours.

Robby: 27:16

Yeah, tell people that all the time. No brainer Don't read a book. Someone spent 30 years of their life learning all this stuff. They put it into a book. You can read it in a week. Yeah, Spend the fucking week.

Sam Falanga: 27:29

We're on Netflix and we're on Instagram and we're on Facebook, which is, don't get me wrong, it's important for a business to be on those social platforms, whether you're a consumer or a creator. Yeah, that's where it comes down to Watching someone in Zimbabwe build a house as their host.

Robby: 27:46

Trying to build, you know, trying to build your brand. Yeah, those Zimbabwe houses, though, they're pretty good.

Sam Falanga: 27:51

Definitely entertaining, yeah, but, like you said, the mentorship of what we chose to, you know, get into, which is now going on three years, has, I believe, fast-tracked us most definitely. And now someone telling us to put in a GM. I probably wouldn't have come up with that because a lot of accounting firms don't have general managers and putting that in, like you said, robbie, buys you back time it also would have been like you probably would have been okay had you not put him in.

George: 28:19

Yeah, I mean, you probably would have been okay had you not put him in. You know what I mean? You probably would have kept making money. You probably would have done all right for yourself.

Robby: 28:22

Yeah.

George: 28:22

Like you don't know what you don't know, you don't know what was going to take you longer. You probably just thought, oh, this is the trajectory of how long it's going to take me, and it's not until you do it that you go I will never not have an employee. And then you go that senior management. Okay, I'm going to put on this senior manager now. I will never not have that senior manager. And then it just gets you building again your GM on. It's like I will never not have a GM. So it's critical. People are probably one of the most fundamental things that you need to bring into your business for it to grow.

Sam Falanga: 29:00

Like you said, you sit on the comfy mattress because you've got a level of income that's suitable for your lifestyle, but no one kicks your ass as a business owner. Yeah, you don't have to answer to anyone. Correct, right? You collect the money, you're paying your bills, you're paying yourself a wage, but no one's there to go. Can you double? Why haven't you doubled? Why haven't you done an acquisition? Why haven't you got a GM? Because you don't know what you don't know. And that's what we say to our clients, right, you don't know what you don't know.

Sam Falanga: 29:30

So it's not only from a learning perspective, but also someone to make you accountable. You know, you know you've got a call or a meeting with your manager, your coach, in, say, three months, how quickly you do things. It's like homework or a school assignment. It was always left to the last minute, right? But if that due date never came, you would never do that school assignment, you would never have done your homework if you didn't have a due date. So I think that's also an added benefit of having a mentor. Is the accountability yeah, because otherwise who are you accountable to if you run your own business? Yeah, no one. And then you can learn other things about what you actually wanted to achieve in your life Because, like myself, it was a flip of a coin of what degree I went into after school.

George: 30:13

I didn't know what I wanted to be Decide what the rest of your life looks like. At 18 years old, that's right.

Sam Falanga: 30:24

And now it's about what I want to do and what my family wants to be able to achieve and what I want to do with Alessia. And is that accounting? Absolutely it's helping small business, but it's helping instead of one-to-one. We want to now go on the journey of one-to-many and we've come up with ideas because we've just come out of some training at the moment, but it's like a free community event to teach people how to use Xero. So, like you, Robbie, you sat down one-on-one with your bookkeeper but if I could do that in a room with 200 people, so all of these small business owners just knew the fundamentals of Xero to allow them to pull their own profit and loss without waiting for their accountant to send them a report. Them to pull their own profit and loss without waiting for their accountant to send them a report. You know just that instruction on how to, or how super works, or how GST works. Because you ask business owners what's GST or P-O-Y-G? They've been in business for a while. They don't even understand it.

Robby: 31:11

You know what's hard about that, though. Yep, it's not fun. No, do you know what I mean? Yeah, like, why did you become an accountant?

Sam Falanga: 31:22

Became an accountant because I wanted to. I always had a thing for numbers, so business studies through school. I wanted to become a physio but I didn't get the grades Very different.

Robby: 31:34

Yeah, very different, right? Let me rub you back and talk to you about your P&L.

Sam Falanga: 31:39

There's a niche for that. Maybe in two years' time. While you're getting a massage, I can talk to you about what you're listening to A massage and a bass at the same time.

Robby: 31:48

I don't think there's any businesses that do that, so it's a great idea.

Sam Falanga: 31:52

It was more about, yeah, numbers focused. I always had a thing for numbers and attention to detail and as an accountant, you need both. You need to understand what they represent, because our goal is to provide clients with financial freedom and whatever that brings for them. Our journey is to facilitate and assist with that.

Robby: 32:14

Yeah, I think the advantage for you, though, is people never want to do it themselves because it's not fun. Yeah, I mean, so they will always, always, almost, be a need for you. Yeah, you know what I mean In the sense of come in and do it. But yeah, the difficulty would be like how do we make this enjoyable Cause if?

Sam Falanga: 32:32

Well, zero, with the light willow on there.

Robby: 32:40

When you open up zero, it's a light blue for a yeah, yeah, right, right, it's your day. Um, because, like, with all due respect, I couldn't think of and and I'm I was eager to learn my numbers, but I could nothing of anything worse than going to a day and sitting down with a group of people and learning about zero. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, it just sounds like the most, like it would just sounds very mundane.

George: 32:56

It's dry, yeah. It'll get to the point, though, where the pain exceeds that, and that's what that's the people that see.

Robby: 33:01

Here's the thing with the pain. You don't see it because they don't know it, they can't read it. And you can see their pain because you're like, hey, man, look what the fuck's this number, what's this, and what have you spent here and look at this and that doesn't stack up, and but they can't. If they can't see it, if you don't know what's hurting you? People eat sugar every day, dude. Do you know what I mean? Like they eat the worst foods, but because the pain is so slow to come around, they still do it.

Sam Falanga: 33:25

There is a growing like. Before no one listened to podcasts, no one did training, no one did coaching, Like you think. About 10 years ago no one did those things, Do you think?

Robby: 33:33

no one did them, or do you think that you just do it more now? I don't think anyone listens.

George: 33:38

I reckon less people would have done yeah.

Robby: 33:40

The podcast went around 20 years ago.

Sam Falanga: 33:42

Tony Robbins has been around for a long time. Right, I understand that, but even you know he's the mentor of the mentors in that regard. But I think there's more because of social media. They're finding it more and even our business owners are wanting to learn, and part of that is understanding your numbers, because if they do give a shit about their number, they need to understand it, and you're finding that there's a bigger transition of them wanting to learn Because of even the government bringing in myGov and all of this and the ATO on your.

Sam Falanga: 34:15

You get your own business portal now instead of coming through the tax agent portal. They're starting to understand the importance of, and they're learning because the government's forcing them to do that. So we can't nominate a new client and go on our tax agent portal and put the client on there anymore. We have to make you an authorized agent of your own business and then you authorize us. Is that on the ASIC portal? No, tax agent portal? I have no idea what that is.

Sam Falanga: 34:40

Yeah, so if you come across as a client, it's basically you have to go and set up your own myGov For the business, for the business. Yeah, so everyone had their own personal myGov, but there's a business gov now, and then no clients had this, and now you have to go and authorize yourself. So then you see all of your lodgements that are outstanding, you see all your BASs, you see your own debt. So you can't say to the ATO and I believe that's the reason I didn't know, because before it was my tax agent it's the same as ASIC slip and late fees.

Sam Falanga: 35:10

With ASIC, I didn't get it. There's no more excuses from the ATO's perspective. Because you set up your business gov, you've got to monitor your own business. So then, therefore, if you're monitoring our business, the next step is to understand what needs to go in that lodgment, and I agree it's totally dry, it's accounting, but it is becoming, you know, more and more important because there's so many small businesses out there in australia I think we're one of the highest in the world per capita and there's more knowledge out there, and people are starting to talk about, you know, trainers and coaches. Do you think that, though?

Robby: 35:46

Cause I I always have this conflict, personal conflict Cause I used to think when I first got into and we've all done lots of different training, have you done any Terry Robbins stuff?

Robby: 35:58

Oh, yeah, we've done a few, yeah, so that was what one of my first when I first got introduced into the space, right, and I did the whole Tony Robbins thing and I thought I was under this impression that, oh, everyone seems to be generally like, oh, all of a sudden, the people you hang around now into that space and you start to think everyone's like the world is learning.

Robby: 36:19

Yep, you know what I mean. And I went on this massive health kick and I was like man Maccas is going down, like cause, you think everyone is doing this thing, but you're so we live in our own heads, right, yeah, uh, and then you realize like, oh my God, you drive past a McDonald's at 6 PM and it's jamming and you're like these guys wouldn't they UPW, didn't I say what Tony said? And then I think, because we're all so into that space, we think that everyone's keen on learning and that and I just don't know how true it is, because there's still a lot of people you talk to and they have no idea and that's okay. We all started there. But I think there's a lot of people who aren't willing to take that next step.

Sam Falanga: 37:02

You know, and you'd see it in the, in the construction space, I see it in the marketplace, I'm sure you see it a lot with people we do when they first come on board the the transition there has been that you used to send your bank data to your accountant, who used to manually put it in into your accounting platform, so there was a lot of you know. We used to manually put it in into your accounting platform, so there was a lot of you know we used to. I can hand on heart type in every number, every key on the keyboard, because we used to enter bank statements. Now, with the automation of bank feeds, that came in a long time ago. Now you have the capability to get up to date.

Sam Falanga: 37:33

Everyone's got their own Xero platform because the accountant says go and get Xero or the bookkeeper says go and get Xero. It's our job now and to maybe get the awareness out there because we might be living in our own little zone where we know about coaches and mentors and up-to-dates and things like that and knowledge for the small business owner. But I think I still believe that there's more awareness from everyone out there and people are not just staying in the technician stage of their business. They're wanting to learn more.

Robby: 38:04

I really hope you're right. Yeah, yeah, because it would only be beneficial for everyone. Yeah, or it's our job to get it out there.

Sam Falanga: 38:11

That's why you know that's part of our journey. And and again, if we did run a seminar on zero and no one turned up, we'd sort of get that. But how do we make that fun? We'll take that feedback, so I appreciate that.

Robby: 38:26

Yeah, do like a no-pants seminar or something. Yeah, maybe just undesign me.

George: 38:32

Beers and numbers.

Robby: 38:33

Beers and numbers there you go Beers and numbers. It's like the paint and sip thing yeah, you've seen those. Sip and paint, yeah, or whatever it is, paint and see you, you know. And Picasso, yeah, that's best.

Sam Falanga: 38:46

I like that. But it's our job to get the awareness out there because we care about the clients, we care about them understanding their own numbers and they have the tools to be able to do it. And they think it's hard, don't get me wrong. But as soon as you sit down with them, they're like oh, this is pretty easy, I could do my own bookkeeping. Yeah, you know, they might not want to save a couple of dollars, which I agree. Then they should be looking at that because they're going to know their business and their transactions better than anyone.

George: 39:10

Maybe initially, yeah, but then their time won't serve them.

Robby: 39:13

Correct, correct, actually I truly believe that there is. Every business owner should do their bookkeeping at the start, just to get a wrap your head around it, to know that, okay, cool, I understand how this, because it's a very important part of your business. Okay, cool, I understand how this, because it's a very important part of business oh, absolutely ridiculously important part, and I understand how this works. Now I don't have to do it anymore after that. But until you have your head wrapped around it and you know where every dollar is going, and you should know that we spend this much on subs and this much on this and this much on general expenses and this the unit rent is this much, and yeah, you should know. The first.

Robby: 39:46

The thing that made me realize I didn't know my numbers was someone asked me what my gp was and I just looked at him. That's a gp. Yep, george passes, um, yeah, and I was like, oh, it's probably x, yeah, and that's like 90 of the people. Yeah, I was like it's probably around here, and then they're like, yeah, but what is it? I'm like I don't know off the top of my head, yeah. And then he's like do you have it broken down per service? And I was like, oh, no, okay, do you know what I mean? Not at all, yeah, and then that was the thing that I need to learn about this shit.

Sam Falanga: 40:17

Once you come in and then you sort of understand that need to format, then you can know where your GP is, because we see so many clients come on board with their chart of accounts is wrong. So even though they're allocating correctly in subscriptions or rubbish removal, we see that below the general profit line.

Robby: 40:48

Yeah, so it should be in a direct cost.

Sam Falanga: 40:50

Correct. Yeah, so it's about changing that from day one and helping the client to set up their chart of accounts and, like I said, with the availability that they have, they're probably on zero once a day anyway. Or, like we were going before, about the role of your business partner that might be your spouse, your business partner that might be your spouse In construction, we find that the gentleman's always on site and she's helping with the books. That's where we sit in the room with her and him in that regard. But it's about education and fixing their chart of accounts because once it's in, it's so simple, the allocation wise is so simple and because of automation, you can put rules on Bunnings and Mitre 10 and subby names and things like that to automate, to reduce their compliance costs. But again, our goal is to make sure that they know their own number, know your NGP, know your net.

George: 41:43

Recently, when you just walked in here before you just got back from overseas and you mentioned that you had three weeks away and you did not read a single email or phone call, or not read, you didn't respond to a single email or phone call whilst you were away.

Sam Falanga: 42:00

Yeah, so it's been a long journey in order to get that. So the goal of this trip which, very fortunate to say, was that the team need to be up and running by themselves, and that starts with your mobile phone. I've had the same mobile phone number from day one right. So, across the 15,000 clients that we've helped, everyone's got that mobile number, so everyone would ring it. It didn't really matter for them, because everything's vitally important. That's the office number.

George: 42:25

Yeah.

Sam Falanga: 42:27

Everyone would ring if they're going to buy a new car. What color socks to wear? Should I sack this person? This person's not working out, should I hire? So you get calls all throughout the day.

Sam Falanga: 42:37

So my first goal was to leave that mobile number at work. So what we've done over the past few years with an executive assistant is to sort of transition, the client communication being centralized. Because to sort of transition, you know the client communication being centralized Because, as a business owner, you get Facebook Messenger, text message, email, phone call, whatsapp, and you get lost. And then you turn around at the end of the day as a business owner, you're like what the hell did I do? I didn't do anything, but I answered a lot of communication. You're very reactive, yeah.

Sam Falanga: 43:10

So it was about trying to centralize all of that. And again, as an accountant, as a technician in accounting, I didn't know how to plan and I'll put my hand up. I didn't know how to centralize all of my communication because I was just available to everyone. And then that was the goal of this trip. Everything comes through Margaret, our executive assistant, and then she can dissect what's vitally important for myself. So I spoke to Margaret often while I was overseas, but things that could just go to the staff or to the team were directed to them appropriately. Because sometimes in business you're like, should I delegate it? Oh, fuck it, I'll just do it myself.

George: 43:51

Yeah, because it's quicker, it's quicker.

Sam Falanga: 43:53

But when you've put in parameters in place and processes in place, that this is the way that we need to move forward, because it not only grows yourself but it grows your team. So everyone stepped up while I was away, which is great, because you have an addiction to your phone and that's where your time goes and your emails. Yeah, the first thing I've done for the past 13, 14 years of running their own business is, first thing every morning is you look at other people's agendas? Yeah, how can I help you? How they can advise you. Files, fixed payroll issues, lodgements, too much tax, not not enough tax. Help me with the banks it's.

Robby: 44:31

It's a nice feeling to clear out your inboxer. Yeah, it is. Yeah, like it's like oh, okay, like that's. That's one of the things I need to do today and it's kind of sorted for now and it'll fill up again soon. Yeah, but like I've just I've ticked it off and I've cleaned it up a little bit. It's gonna get dirty again, but I've cleaned it up, yeah I know what the thing is with emails, though.

George: 44:47

They'll never stop. You'll die. The next day your inbox will be full. Yeah, you know what I mean.

Sam Falanga: 44:52

And it's about giving those to the team members that have the capabilities to answer those questions and I find once you do that with the right training, their reply is better than mine anyway, because they've got more time time.

George: 45:04

Yeah, yeah, my favorite type of email and I'm pretty sure it's your type of email too it's when I get an email from someone that said hey, george, been listening to the podcast for quite some time and just want to let you know that I've subscribed Very much, so I know it's your favorite and after this episode, it's going to be Sam's favorite too. Yeah, and people can do that at any time and also email us as well, especially Sam direct. Let him know, yeah, call his home. Call his home. Give him his number, his new personal number.

Sam Falanga: 45:34

No, no, that's only for us, George, Otherwise I'll have to go get another one. Yeah, so were you speaking to your GM whilst you were away, yeah, so you've obviously got to touch base and you know you've got to let the gm grow as well. Yeah, josh doesn't come from an accounting background, uh, like we've mentioned, but he threw himself in to learn that. But he's got, you know, the managers there in place if there is a technical question. He's not gonna be able to spend his time on that but it's also now he.

George: 46:02

it's same. He's effectively a business owner and he now knows the numbers. Yeah, you know what I mean. So it's the same thing for him. Even though he's not an accountant, he can tell you yeah, this is where our GP is, this is our balance sheet, like, these are all the things that he needs to know, and he can report that to you. Yeah, yeah, but it's like.

Robby: 46:17

I think what you're saying is he can't. If there's a technical issue with a client, he can't solve it. Yeah, because it's not his. It's like I can't build a house. Greg's probably run a building business.

George: 46:27

Yeah, do you know what I mean? Same as me. I'm not a qualified carpenter, but the funny thing is I mean I can probably not the best example I can still I still tell people what to do, but to physically do it I probably wouldn't be able to or I'd be significantly slower than someone that's been doing it for 10, to move yourself away.

Sam Falanga: 46:47

So hire great people and get out of their way. Something that we've learned, right, and one of the best things coming back was we've got staff members that are starting with and she's like, yeah, I'm working for fine green card. I was like, oh, that's great. And I was like, hey, josh, and he's like, yeah, we've got it sorted, don't worry about it, it's done.

Robby: 47:15

That's the greatest feeling in the world. I can't wait to do that.

Sam Falanga: 47:23

When, when clients walk in and you don't know them, that's the best feeling.

Robby: 47:28

Yeah, because you're like so this is it now. Yeah.

Sam Falanga: 47:31

But it's like we're growing without Samuel Falanga and Alessia Falanga in the business, which is unbelievable and it's great. The manager might have got the referral, solidified the client. They've gone on an onboarding process, signed up to our engagements and you're just like. This is now working. So it's one thing to run the business as it is, but to grow it while you're not in it is the goal. To have more revenue without you, I believe, is the ultimate goal.

Robby: 48:04

It stipulates that you built a system that is actually working, correct, like it's like a machine, yeah, right, and it's actually. It's got the acquisition People are coming in. It's got the ability to fill the work yeah, you know what I mean. It's all. There's two sides to business, right. It's team, like employees. It's both people-based employees and clients, yep, and if you've got this and you've got that, this thing can grow to whatever you want it to be at the end of the day, right.

Sam Falanga: 48:29

Yeah, but I think that was one of our greatest achievements. Like you're seeing clients come on board while you're not there yeah, that's great. And, like you said, you've built the process and you've built the team to be able to do that. Coming back, and also, like I said, you walk in and there's a new team member and the desk is set up and everything's set up for them. And again, it comes down to your process. Building your operations from that perspective is where we've been, or what we've been spending our time and resources in for the last few years is building that process, our SOPs internally and it's like it's a big journey, Massive yeah.

Robby: 49:07

It's not like oh yeah, I'll do it in 90 days, Like I'll have done my next quarter. It's like it's almost never ending, yeah.

Sam Falanga: 49:16

Unless you've got someone to focus on something like that, like the implementation of a production software and get don't get me wrong, we haven't got it perfect, but we've probably got a perfect from you know, we get feedback from Carbon directly and we've probably got a better than 99 percent of accounting firms of our size because we've spent the time in it to understand it. It's like people that rely on, from a construction perspective, pro core or builder exact or builder trend. They think they're just going to plug this thing in. It's not. It's going to run itself. Unless you understand it and tailor it towards your own business, you're going to be blaming the software. Ah, dude, dude, the people do CRMs all the time?

Robby: 49:48

Yeah, exactly right, all the time. Oh, it's too expensive. It didn't work. I just signed up to HubSpot. Everything's fixed. We're like that's not how this works. Yeah, do you know what I mean?

Sam Falanga: 49:57

Yeah, so, and again we had to. You know from mentoring, putting the CRM to your business, spot on To your business, how you do things Exactly and the steps involved in onboarding. It might be simple, but you can imagine from our perspective name, date of birth, tax file number, bringing them on through a tax agent portal, asic, abr, ato. So there's so many things that you've got to do. Put the checklist into your CRM, where the referral come from. You know their kids' names, their favorite cup of tea, birthdays, birthdays yeah, that's what we've been spending our last solid two to three years and Josh and Alessia are in charge of that and it's now coming to fruition for all of that. Now you can add on the marketing side to Salesforce with Pardo, and that's where we're starting to see what we can do Is that.

Sam Falanga: 50:48

Salesforce. Yeah, yeah, we had to get it tailored. We had to get an external developer to tailor it to Phalangra and Co, and again, an additional cost up front. However, we've heard from clients and other people out there, unless you tailor it, you've sort of got a box, um which won't suit, and then you'll end up blaming the software, which we didn't want to do. So you spend a little bit more to get it tailored and now you know where leads came in, which is vitally important, who the referral was, because it's sometimes really good, because you get raving fans right. So if they're referring you, why don't you just sit down with them or take them to dinner or take them on a boat or give them something extra at Christmas, because they're your raving fans about getting you new business? And without Salesforce, it's just like Joe Bloggs referred me, Joe Bloggs referred me and it's just like oh, thanks, thanks, thanks.

Robby: 51:40

Yeah, but now you've got this data behind it. It's like a place where you can go and look and say, okay, cool, who's giving us the most referrals? Correct, we've got five tickets to this game. Who are we going to? Which client are we going to, exactly right?

Sam Falanga: 51:50

And that's where it's not always oh, someone's a good client. It's more about everything's about data.

George: 51:56

And there's the fun part of your business too, Because how good does it feel doing that? You know, call them. Hey, just want to show my here's five VIP tickets to the basketball.

Sam Falanga: 52:06

Only if I can go.

George: 52:07

It's an excuse. You go honey. Sorry, it's a business Like I've got to go, I've got to go.

Sam Falanga: 52:13

Yeah, but yeah, data for us and now analyzing data, because when you grow, you need to be able to manage things from a high level and unless you've got those you know processes or subscriptions or CRMs in place, it's all lick the finger and put it into the wind about where things have come from or where things are up to. We're constantly reviewing from a high level and also implementation of dashboards. Once you've got the data, can it even be facilitated or put into another dashboard? That's easier for the business owners to review. So for us, it's like where are all the bosses up to right now, with a couple of weeks left? Do I need to get back and roll my sleeves up and help the team out? Do I need to sit down with the managers? Is that something you're willing to do? Absolutely.

George: 53:00

You don't ever turn around and say, nah, fuck it, I'm the CEO now, bitch, like you do it.

Sam Falanga: 53:04

No, no.

Sam Falanga: 53:04

So once a week, you know, for the full day, I sit with both managers with any roadblocks that they've got.

Sam Falanga: 53:11

We've got one manager who's been there for two and a half years and one that's been there for seven years. So you've got everyone has roadblocks and it's about helping them grow, just to get the job out and if that means that the client's got to come in. But the next goal for them is, and for myself is, to make sure that I'm not in any client meetings, not only taking calls, but any client meetings. Only at my discretion will I have, you know, want to jump in and don't get me wrong, I love to jump into every meeting, right, because I love to talk. But again, trying to let go of that to do other things, like the community event or helping HSC students go one level deeper, and trying to let go of that to do other things like the community event or helping HSE students go one level deeper and trying to teach the HSE students what a P&L and a balance sheet and GST and what life's really about, rather than technical.

George: 53:59

That's where I see our next that's where our system fails as well, doesn't it? Yeah, it never teaches you those financial management, even personal funds or business funds. We're never taught any of that, yeah. So unless you've got, you know, someone in your of your caliber that's an accountant that has that background, that you could probably teach your kids like your kids, I dare say, will know this stuff. You know what I mean, but the, the general public don't ever really get exposed to that. It's like what's your pythagoras theorem and yeah, and all this sort of stuff, which, okay, that's fine, it's part of the curriculum, but there are other elements that need to be incorporated into that.

Sam Falanga: 54:32

Yeah, we see that right, Obviously, university I was doing philosophies of theories.

George: 54:36

Yeah, like what the fuck.

Sam Falanga: 54:37

We spent six months discussing In your accounting degree, in the accounting degree. What is that? The history of accounting? What a waste of time. The history of accounting what a waste of time, what a waste. And then you didn't use it. You didn't use it, tye, oh yeah, you're the abacus. Yeah, you couldn't put one up on your wall, but you need the hands-on experience. Yeah, I agree with that. That's why I believe in TAFE is a much better system than it is for university.

George: 55:03

I agree completely with that because I did both. I I agree completely with that because I did both. I went to TAFE and then transferred into the degree and I still, to this day, say the TAFE. I learned a lot more because it was practical. I was being taught by builders and they were saying no, you do it this way, not that way, whereas in uni, when we got there and I got into third year straight up, it was this is the theory, learn it. Test on Monday.

Sam Falanga: 55:24

That's it. You ask an accounting graduate how to do an individual tax return. They don't know.

George: 55:30

See, that's a massive failure, isn't it on the system? If you're an accountant and you can't do that, you have to learn when you're on the tools. That's a massive failure. You'd want them to have a level of competence. They may not be able to do it very well, but Xero should have a trial version for school. Do you what I mean?

Sam Falanga: 55:47

yeah, and that's what I think I'm saying. Some of these. You know like we're doing some reading. You hear about starbucks implementing a starbucks university yeah, um, and targets, you know target training and you know, when you walk into a jb hi-fi, the representative helping you knows the product, yeah, and knows it well. That comes down to. And again, I agree, that's on the tools, so to speak.

Sam Falanga: 56:12

But I think something needs to change in terms of the universities. Because they're coming out of uni and trying to live in Sydney or Melbourne, they need to be on a certain wage to live in those cities anyway. So you're getting a grad that walks up After the Hextet as well, yeah, once $88,000. And you're saying, grad that walks up to the Hextet yeah, once, eighty eight thousand dollars. And you're saying, do you know how to do a tax return? They're like no, but I could tell you about the history of accounting. Yeah, it's like oh, that, or you know so. But again, on the sometimes from learnings as well, george, it's you hire for attitude and you can teach rest yeah, I was huge on that too, because I've recently hired a few people.

George: 56:50

The other thing that I've recently come across, too, is attitude is also a skill. You can teach attitude as well. Yeah, and once I took that into consideration, it wasn't all just about focusing on attitude. No, because skill is important too. I want my next hire to be my best hire. I want them to come in, dominate, bring new shit in, better shit, and then that way I can step back a little bit more, not to say attitude is important but I think it's also a trainable item too.

Sam Falanga: 57:17

Yeah, I think, like you said, there's different levels of you bringing in an intermediate accountant as opposed to a senior as opposed to a manager. Obviously, there's a technical skill that needs to happen, but now it's more about for us, it's about we can teach them. We've got the skills, the managers, the resources to be able to teach them, but for someone to come in with the right attitude for us is key.

George: 57:41

The beauty about that as well is you'll start to get the name in the industry for yourself and then you also become a destination accounting firm. People will want to come and work with you. They'll see your branding, They'll hear of it because it's a small industry, and people will hear oh Falanga, offer this, this, this and this. Oh man, you might be paying them less, but look at all the opportunity that they get to learn.

Sam Falanga: 58:00

That's exactly correct.

George: 58:01

Yeah, or you might be paying them really well and still giving them that opportunity to learn, so it's hugely beneficial for you.

Sam Falanga: 58:08

And we're seeing that. We're seeing a lot of graduates not only just focus on the big four like the Deloitte, the PwC, the KPMG, because they're understanding that culture, to them, is important.

George: 58:18

Yeah, I mean, I've spoken to a lot of friends who used to work at those organizations and it's like working 15-hour days. Yeah, you know, for like hell it 15-hour days, it ends up working out to be $5 an hour once you take a chip. Iteration with them. It's like a business owner, right? Yeah, exactly, the intent is for them to one day be partner after 10, 15 years in that role. That's all they're taught, but they don't walk out with that practical experience. Everything's got to get burnt out too.

Sam Falanga: 58:44

Everything's got its ups and downs. Unfortunately, I did that. You are one in say 5,000 or 400 or whatever that number is, so you do become a bit of a number, that's very competitive between all your peers as well. They want that next promotion and that's why I stay back so late. That's it Because you leave at 8pm and you're like why is everyone still here?

George: 59:03

It's afternoon shift. Yeah, you're just starting.

Sam Falanga: 59:07

Because of the competition, yeah, and from an accounting perspective, the person with the highest utilization or the most number of hours billed sort of gets the bigger pay rise or the promotion. So that's where it's at, rather than worrying about what the client cares about, and that's human interaction, I believe. How many meetings did they have one-on-one with the client? How many face-to-faces did they have, rather than how many meetings did they have one-on-one with a client? How many face-to-faces did they have, rather than how many hours they just built?

George: 59:31

It'd be interesting to see if those organizations are still like that, would you know? Because you would think that there's a lot more culturally influenced or influences from the external factors. Now about not working 15, 18-hour days.

Robby: 59:45

I think some of them still have like a. They've got their own department now Culture and research, yeah, but they would still want. Some people want to, and also like the brand is so like, for example, I think, when you think, when you talk about that sort of stuff, my mind instantly goes to like the US and investment bankers and things like that, and they supposedly do insane hours, like Goldman Sachs, goldman Sachs and, and it's like just having a role. There is the win, yeah, not the work-life balance. None of that. It's about look at where I work, yeah, you know what I mean. Status, yeah, and it's that's the win for everyone Not being home at five o'clock.

Sam Falanga: 1:00:22

No one cares. Yeah, they like to have that feeling and to say one day they'll put on their resume, but they don't need to put on their resume if they're still there. That's true, and I was in that. I did that. How would you look at?

George: 1:00:35

a candidate coming to work for you that had that on their resume, you'd know that they had A level of work ethic, I suppose.

Sam Falanga: 1:00:43

Yeah, they had the technical ability, the work ethic, but that's not going to the top of the pile in our regard. It needs to be someone that's personable, because small business you need to be personable, you need to understand them, you need to put on different hats. You'd have a meeting in the morning with a baker. In the afternoon you're talking to a solicitor. They're different conversations because you can teach them numbers, you can teach the accountant numbers and you know all of the technical things that you need to learn in accounting. But unless you can communicate that to the client, what's the point? Yeah, and that's why we're you know we're construction heavily focused in that regard, because you know that was what Joe had from day one and you know referral brings referral. But it's about how to teach the builder, about how to scale, because again you become a mini mentor. Yeah, without a doubt.

Sam Falanga: 1:01:42

Yeah, and become a mini coach, and that's our next journey is to even help them even more. And now they might still be using Excel, but have they thought of yeah, and unless they get some help in the implementation, it's just going to overwhelm them.

Sam Falanga: 1:01:56

Well, their growth is also your growth too, correct? Yeah, and we see that all the time. And then they become a raving fan, and a raving fan brings in their mate, or who brings in their mate, who brings in their cousin. So, yeah, that's the way that we've built our business from day one. Now we're starting to, you know, try to build a brand and, like you said, you start getting candidates. Call us. Yeah, because it's going to be hopefully easier to employ once you build a brand. So that's our next journey, because you need to learn how to build that. And then what type, you know? You want to be the real technical accountant with a suit and tie, or do you want to be the accountant that's wearing flip-flops? So part of our understanding is where we want to sit. Just still look professional and have a professional nature in our contents. Professional, but be personable and not wearing flip-flops in the office or dogs in the office or anything like that, but have that. Where we want to sit in the market?

George: 1:02:51

Well, I know a guy so let me know yeah, me too. And also just to bring it back one they're called thongs, not flip-flops. Nah, I like flip-flops. Yeah, flip-flop Friday, kiwis, flip-flop Friday. I've always called them thongs. Do you have dogs in the office here?

Robby: 1:03:06

I wouldn't care. There's been plenty of videos of dogs. Oh yeah, we did.

George: 1:03:10

George's lap. That's right. We had a couple podcast episodes with my dog here. We've got a dog here. I don't mind too much, as long as they don't make a mess whilst they're in here. Dogs are cool. Yeah, they can brighten up your day. Yeah absolutely.

Sam Falanga: 1:03:22

Someone's flat are expensive, so pets and everything, grooming, and Is that financial advice there? Don't have a kid, get a dog.

George: 1:03:32

Yeah, there you go. If you learn nothing today, there you go.

Sam Falanga: 1:03:36

Get into business Regarding pets or dogs especially dudes.

Robby: 1:03:42

People spend so much on their dogs.

George: 1:03:44

man, my wife gets our dog people food. She eats better than me. Yeah, what's her name? Waffle Waffle. Yeah, that's people food. Maybe to some people you saw where I was going with that. What's the?

Robby: 1:04:01

I'm just going to leave it, leave it, yeah. What's the? What's the focus of 2025 for yourself and for langer and co?

Sam Falanga: 1:04:11

2025 brings, you know, opportunity that we've never seen before because of the time. So, now that you know, I am comfortable as a business owner to say that it is running by itself. It's given us the time to build brand, build awareness, um, and also to realize who I am as an individual and to get more time back with the kids. You know I've missed a lot. Like you know, you're doing certain things. You're working late nights. You're not doing school drop-off and pick-up. You know we're the last ones to pick the kids up at 10 to 6 because of after-school care. You're just getting there on time for kindy.

Sam Falanga: 1:04:46

So now it's about to manipulate my week to focus around family. Yeah, that's awesome, and that might mean that I get back on late at night after they've gone to sleep, because they're very routined and we try to get them down by 7, 7.30. And maybe that means that I need to jump on or do something. But fortunate enough, with all the effort we've put in from day one, I don't really have to do the technical things. I can just meet with the gm and the ea and the managers and obviously try to just work on our culture and work on, you know, building this brand. Now, 2025 also brings that we want to start a mortgage lending in-house. So I've gone out and started my diploma Nice.

Robby: 1:05:30

Yeah.

Sam Falanga: 1:05:32

So clients often ask who do you refer for finance? And we've got four or five brokers that we refer work to. But in order to help the client a little bit more and I want to my ultimate goal from day one was to have a business depot so you have all of the services like a one-stop shop.

Robby: 1:05:51

Someone's got one of those I can't remember who it is, so they do everything.

Sam Falanga: 1:05:54

Yep, so you've got Blue Rock down here in Melbourne. We've actually in Sydney. It's actually called Business Depot. Yeah, but they work a little bit different. They just refer, so they white label everything. Yeah, you want to have it actually. I want to actually have it like I'm the mortgage broker. I can help you straight away. And there's don't get me wrong, there's conflicts of interest there that we can alleviate. There's, you know, privacy things that we might not be able to pass across. But we've got to try to help the client even more and with quick responses, because everyone's always waiting for their accountant, they're waiting for the mortgage broker. They feel like they're in between their bookkeeper and their accountant. So that's why we also, you know, for some of our clients we do in-house bookkeeping for them, because the client feels like, oh, my accountant's not agreeing with my bookkeeper and my bookkeeper is saying and then it was like a divorce, yeah, it's a full on thing, right, there's so many fingers in one pie.

Robby: 1:06:45

Yeah, you know they're saying this. They're saying that from outside. We experienced that with, uh, like I've got a client we work with now, um, they're a builder in Sydney, yeah, and they have recently, uh, engaged a builder coach, yep, and we've been doing their marketing for probably six months now and we're doing like we're doing great, really good results. And now the builder coach wants to change everything we're doing. And I'm like, dude, he's the coach, like he can do whatever he wants from your operations perspective. He knows nothing about the internet. He's 104.

Robby: 1:07:19

Don't sit down Like and I'll, I'll push back, cause I'll be like why would we shy away from what we've been doing? That's working? And you're sure this makes no results. Yeah, and getting results, this makes no sense. Like, yeah, yeah, and I explain as well. I'll say like, do you want me to just be a puppet here? Do you want me to tell you the truth? And I'm like no, tell me the truth. And I'm like okay, cool, this is at the end of the day, we'll do whatever you want. It's your business, but I need to tell you that you have a good notion. The next best step. Yeah, you know what I mean. And then it's like push back, push back, push back, and then you have a meeting together and it's awkward.

Sam Falanga: 1:07:48

Yeah, and we get that too right.

George: 1:07:50

If you've got conviction and you know what you're saying is right, like you have an obligation to say well, no, no, I know this shit, dude. Like don't fuck around. I'm telling you, this is what we do and we're professionals. Right, you engaged us because we know what we're doing.

Robby: 1:08:02

It's like it'd be like hiring a builder and telling them no, no, you don't do the thing like that, do it like this. Yeah, and they're like're happy to listen to you for this part, and sometimes coaches comes in business coaches and they'll be in and out.

Sam Falanga: 1:08:37

Yeah, you know they come in with great ideas but if they've got you know 50 clients that they're helping, they can't give the time to the client anyway.

Robby: 1:08:45

And then they're also always asking us yeah, and I think sometimes they can come give the time to the client anyway, and then they're always asking us yeah, and I think sometimes they can come in and try and show that they're providing as much value upfront, yeah, I mean. And then I do this change, I change it and it's like hey, like you rock in the boat relax and the client will obviously work out what's best for them and in the longer term.

Sam Falanga: 1:09:03

They know that if you've got proven results yesterday, you're going to have them tomorrow with the same person. But yeah, it's the same as a bookkeeper in the account. And then the mortgage broker is saying one thing about where to buy the next investment property and we're saying no, because of tax and because of the structure involved. It's best here. So we need to try get the loan under this existing entity. It's not go and set up a new one because that's easier for the broker. It's about making sure that that works in their current structure. It's the same as when the client goes to the car yard right, even though it's best for them to buy it in their personal name because of ease of finance, they'll put it under the company.

Robby: 1:09:41

It's best not to buy it in their personal name.

Sam Falanga: 1:09:43

Sometimes, yeah.

Sam Falanga: 1:09:54

So if you've got an expensive car that's not being used predominantly for business use, yeah, and by expensive I mean more than $100, $120 or up above from that, which is easy to do now, sometimes, because of fringe benefits, it's actually better for them to put it under their own name.

Sam Falanga: 1:10:04

We can still claim a certain percentage if they're an employee, to say that they use it. However, because of fringe benefits and the way that the tax rates are and because of the requirements of logbooks, financially it works out better for the client as a group because you remember the associated individual and the company and the trust are basically part of the group structure as a whole. So we make sure that some you know that's why we're so open and we have in our engagements we don't charge for correspondence and emails because we want them to ring when they're at the car yard to say I'm about to put pen to paper. Who should I be financing it through? Yeah, you know, and that's why we were also going back to it. You need the quick response time because they're not going to wait for this car, because they're like this is the last car left in new south wales.

Robby: 1:10:52

I'm gonna eat it today and I have to pick it up. Yeah, then you take two days to get back. And they were like I'm just, I've just, I've just got a car, yeah, signed done paid deposits.

Sam Falanga: 1:10:57

So sometimes you do sit in the middle as a you know, as a client, and we try to, you know, remove that by doing in-house bookkeeping and having really good contacts. And sometimes we're following up the mortgage broker on behalf of the client because we don't want them to feel like they're in the middle. And same as financial planning. We offer financial planning and we sit down with the financial planner and the client at the same time because of you know, to make sure that the outcome is best for the client.

Robby: 1:11:25

Yeah Well, that should be everyone's thing in the business.

Sam Falanga: 1:11:28

And unfortunately it's like here's a referral, go and manage that now. Here's a lawyer, go and manage that now. Because we constantly want feedback of the people that we refer or who we refer to. What was their service like. Because we only care for the client, Because we know you might go and get a mortgage one right, which is a quick relationship with that person, but we give the referral, we've got the client for the next 10, 15 or forever hopefully.

Robby: 1:11:55

Yeah.

Sam Falanga: 1:11:55

But they've just got that one. So we give the referral, they give a bad service and then all of a sudden we look like the bad person.

Robby: 1:12:01

Yeah, it tarnishes your name.

Sam Falanga: 1:12:03

Yeah.

George: 1:12:04

So you've been in business now for 13 years, did you say, going on 14, yeah, excellent. Obviously you've learned a lot during that time. Most of our listeners would be business owners. What's one or two solid pieces of advice that you could give people listening that own a business right now?

Sam Falanga: 1:12:23

Like I said, you need to know your numbers. It doesn't matter what industry, what you've done in the past, you need to know your numbers. It doesn't matter what industry, what you've done in the past, you need to spend time. If you don't know your numbers and you don't understand them, you need to spend some money in learning them. Time and money Sitting down with your accountant and say, listen, I want three hours of your time. What is that going to cost me? A couple of hundred bucks. Give me that time and no stupid question, no brainer.

George: 1:12:47

That's right $300. Like Rob is with his bookkeeper, it's like a no brainer for that small amount, even if it's a thousand, even if it's 5,000, like it's a no brainer to a business to be investing that, to get that advice.

Robby: 1:12:59

If you plan on sticking around in the business world, it pays dividends. Yeah, that's it.

George: 1:13:05

So say now people want to find you. Where could they find you? On socials.

Sam Falanga: 1:13:11

Yeah, so we're on Instagram, we're on Facebook. It's not my new number. What's your tag? Falangaco, Yep let's spell it for everyone F-A-L-A-N-G-A-C-O. Yep, so yeah, look us up, get in touch.

George: 1:13:28

You know, we're always open and just to clarify you're a national business too. You know you do stuff interstate.

Sam Falanga: 1:13:31

I know you're based in Sydney, yeah, but it feels like Melbourne's my second home down here, at least once a month now, which is great.

George: 1:13:37

Yeah, yeah, that's excellent, all right, and do you have a personal or a professional page as well that you use? Everything's through Phalangra, everything's through.

Sam Falanga: 1:13:44

Phalangra's through Phalanga. Yeah, yeah, excellent. Yeah, we're trying to, like I said, make sure that everything comes through the same funnel. Yeah, too many lines of communication.

George: 1:13:52

Excellent, excellent Mate, it's been an absolute pleasure having a chat with you and you coming down making all the way down from or, yeah, down from Sydney, and we're stoked to keep watching your journey and see you going from strength to strength. I think every time we speak to you, your team's grown by X amount of people and turnover. So love watching it, love what you're about and I think there's significant value to all your clients and what you're doing, because you're just trying not to be the norm accounting firm. You actually care about your clients and you want to see their success and growth.

Sam Falanga: 1:14:25

And I appreciate your time, Robbie and George. I hope I've given everyone out there a bit of value and a bit of context and a couple of things to help them move forward personally and professionally.

George: 1:14:34

Awesome. Alright, that's a wrap. Thank you very much. Thanks, guys. Thanks for watching. See you next time. Bye, bye, bye, everybody.