Alex on clients and planning beyond the numbers:

But I think if people took that actually seriously and actually get to know your client, you get to learn so much about their like personal circumstances, about what they want to achieve, what their goals are, not just about business, but about, you know, what they want for their families, for their children, and things like that. And so, therefore, you then can plan in advance, like long term.

— Alex Falcon-Huerta, CEO & Founder, Soaring Falcon

What can accountants and bookkeepers learn from one of the world’s most recognisable interviewers? Quite a lot, as it turns out. In this episode of the Accounting Apps Podcast, I’m joined by Alex Falcon Huerta to unpack Louis Theroux’s Xerocon London keynote and explore how his interviewing techniques translate surprisingly well into client relationships. We discuss listening properly, asking simple questions, allowing silence into conversations, understanding the person behind the numbers, and recognising the privileged position accountants and bookkeepers hold when clients trust us with their financial lives.

• Understand the person behind the numbers. Financial information only tells part of a client’s story. Understanding their family, ambitions, long-term goals and personal circumstances can help accountants provide more meaningful advice and support.
• Build trust through genuine human connection. Being present, making eye contact and listening carefully can strengthen client relationships. We also explore how recording and transcription technology can actually help us become more present rather than more distracted.
• Ask the simple questions and embrace silence. Louis Theroux’s approach reminds us that we don’t always need to demonstrate how much we know. Asking an obvious or seemingly naive question can uncover valuable information, while leaving a little silence can give clients the space to share something we might never have thought to ask.
• Recognise the responsibility that comes with financial trust. Accountants and bookkeepers often know things about clients that even their friends and family don’t know. That privileged access brings responsibility, from protecting confidentiality to helping clients understand cash flow, tax obligations, financial performance and the consequences of important decisions.
• Use conversations to uncover opportunities to help. Clients may not realise the breadth of services their accountant can provide. By listening to what is happening in their business and their life, we can identify opportunities around systems, processes, growth, technology, mergers, acquisitions and longer-term planning.

What stayed with me from Louis Theroux’s Xerocon conversation was the importance of curiosity. Accountants and bookkeepers have extraordinary access to the real story behind a business, but numbers alone don’t necessarily tell us what our clients are trying to achieve. Sometimes we need to stop preparing the next question, listen to what is actually being said, and give people enough space to tell us what really matters.

Alex and I also explore how technology fits into this increasingly human conversation. AI, meeting transcription and recording tools can support better client service, training and knowledge sharing, but they shouldn’t replace our judgement, empathy or curiosity. Perhaps one of the most useful lessons we can take from a professional interviewer is beautifully simple: listen more closely, ask better questions and get to know the human behind the numbers.

Website: https://www.louistheroux.com/ 

Podcast: https://www.louistheroux.com/podcasts

Heather Smith

Hello and welcome to the Accounting Apps podcast. My name is Heather Smith, and I am your host. Today, we are going to have a conversation about Louis Theroux’s talk at London Xerocon. So I was very excited when I heard Louis Theroux was going to be one of the guest speakers at London Xerocon, and actually, it was the deciding factor in me buying a ticket, buying a flight across, because I just was like, “Wow, an opportunity to hear him talk in front of a community of accountants and bookkeepers, fabulous.

I actually thought he was going to talk about the manosphere, which is something that I sort of have a sort of a side interest in. However, he didn’t. What he did talk about was into his life, interviewing techniques, and about the accounting and bookkeeping community and how they sort of can learn from what he has done and apply that to their own relationships with accountant with their clients, which I thought was such a marvellous topic to bring him in on because he’s interviewed such a vast array of people in the industry, but to bring those techniques, how can we bring those techniques into speaking with our clients?

Joining me today is someone very familiar to the podcast, Alex Falcon-Huerta. Good morning and welcome, Alex.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Good morning, Heather. Thank you so much for having me on the podcast again. Always enjoyable and very, very insightful. So thank you.

Heather Smith

Alex and I, are going to have a conversation. We both sat front row of this keynote talk. It happened on day two, and Alex and I are going to sort of go through and have a conversation of sort of some of the key highlights for us, and how you as accountants and bookkeepers can embrace some of these ideas and concepts, and use them when working and dealing with your clients.

Heather Smith

If you met someone who didn’t know Louis Theroux, how would you describe him?

Alex Falcon-Huerta

I knew you were going to ask me something like that.

Heather Smith

So he’s a journalist, the BBC journalist. He creates a lot of TV. I think was it right to say they’re TV programmes.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Yeah. So he’s like a journalist, but a broadcaster. He writes him he writes documentaries, and you know he’s he’s involved in quite a lot. He’s very obviously very well known in within the UK and globally, as you flew all the way over from Australia specifically to see Louis Theroux.

Heather Smith

Yeah.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

But he’s I guess he’s somebody who people would inspire to, and probably if they were in his shoes, you know, they would want to like he would be like their mentor, I would say.

Heather Smith

Oh, that would be amazing. But also, his I think he’d make a marvellous dinner guest.

Heather Smith

An actual fact: our bookshelves at home are filled with Paul Theroux, who is his father, who’s an author. So we have actually, you know, we started. I don’t know whether we’re in the olden days or stuff, but we have a lot of his books at home. He actually wrote the Mosquito Coast, which I think starred Harrison Ford.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Oh, wow.

Heather Smith

Yeah, so a wonderful pedigree there, and Louis Theroux has interviewed a wide spectrum of people. I just he has his own podcast, so I do encourage you to listen to that. I just listened to his interview with Melanie C., Spice Girls. Oh, very cool. He has a wide variety, and he also has a he has a wide variety of guests. He also has a production company called Mindhouse Productions, and he was on the stage and he was interviewed by Kate Hayward. Is that

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Oh, very cool.

Heather Smith

He has a wide variety, and he also has a he has a wide variety of guests. He also has a production company called Mindhouse Productions, and he was on the stage and he was interviewed by Kate Hayward. Is that correct?

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Kate Haywood. Yeah,

Heather Smith

Kate, who is the managing director of Xero UK, is that correct?

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Yes.

Heather Smith

Yeah. Fabulous. Fabulous.

Heather Smith

Let me get started, and kind of what I’m going to do is touch on some of the things that he said, and Alex is going to jump in with any insights or thoughts that she has around that.

Heather Smith

He speaks to lots of people, okay, and he recognises as we know accountants speak to lots of clients. One thing he highlighted is that we need to understand the person behind the numbers.

The finances of someone only tell part of the story.

Louis encouraged us to take the time to understand what’s happening in the client’s life, because that often explains a bit more about what’s happening with those numbers. What’s your take on that?

Alex Falcon-Huerta

I mean, obviously, it’s very very true, and I within like my firm and my practice, we have what we call KYCs, which is just like an obligation that we all have to do. But I think if people took that actually seriously and actually get to know your client, and you get to learn so much about their like personal circumstances, about what they want to achieve, what their goals are-not just about business, but about you know what they want for their families, for their children, and things like that. And so, therefore, you then can plan in advance, like long term.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

And so, it’s okay. They want to make sure that they’ve got funds there for university for their kids, and their kids are like two and three. And so, it’s like their long-term plan is making sure they can fund that, and so in what we do when we look at numbers, we’re not just looking at their day-to-day finances. You know, we we do that all the time. It’s what do we need to do to help them achieve their long-term plan to help them with their kids so that they can go to uni and feel comfortable that they they can fund that, so there was definitely a lot of truth in that. And when you speak to clients on a regular basis, actually things come out on a literally daily. And it was again what he was saying is, you know, you trust your accountant, you tell your accountant everything, and it’s true. And there’s a number of times like people say, you know, I’m going through this. I want to buy this. I want to get this. I want to achieve that. And so that’s nothing to do with their business, but it’s their business that’s going to fund it.

Heather Smith

Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, you know, and he he absolutely did. And I think if we if we look at clients as a long on a long term basis, and and ask these questions. They’re going to remain sticky. And look, my my conversation here is not about. It’s trying to give the client the best experience. But if they know you’re invested in their long term plans and their long term understandings, they’re not just coming to you for a transactional tax return.

Heather Smith

It is a long-term invested, and my relationship with my tax accountant is like that. He knows everything. He knows everything that he needs to know, and and he will sort of sit there and take the time to do that. So yes, so understand the person behind the numbers. Now, along alongside what you were saying there, he talked about building trust through genuine human connection. Don’t we love that in a world of with this AI revelation going on around us?

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Yeah.

Heather Smith

So trust comes from being present, making eye contact, showing respect, listening carefully.

Heather Smith

Listening is such an important trait, and treating people as people rather than as a transactional tax return or whatever you’re dealing with them for. What were your thoughts on that?

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Yeah, like I think when we when we obviously have those conversations with people. We get to know them, not like I said before, like not just about what they want for business, but in their personal life. And so, building those relationships, you can help them achieve more because you’re getting to know them as an individual. And so, having again, like having those face to face, like relationships. It’s you know I travelled to New Zealand. I’ve travelled to Australia. I met people face to face.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

When they come to the UK, they feel comfortable because they’ve already met me face-to-face. But if they had just flown over and had never met me, it’s like you don’t know the conversation or how to start, and so for me, what I’ve recognised is that that they feel comfortable because they’ve met you. I’m a familiar face when they come over here, and so it’s like, right, okay, what can we do? How can we achieve it? How can we explore the UK market? And so I definitely know that’s worked for me.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

And then again, focusing on the existing client base rather than trying to get like loads of clients like all at the same time, which I know a lot of firms do. But it’s when you get to know them, you can increase their scope of work, as well as then increasing what you do as your practice as well. So there’s there’s so much around having that human interaction.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Having said that, people who are now tapping into AI are trusting AI, which is quite scary because we know that can be wrong. But it’s like there is a trust element with human. But now, you know, my support ticket system, you know, those amounts, those ticket systems have gone down because people are relying on, you know, Claude on ChatGPT because they’re trusting that.

Heather Smith

People are asking you fewer questions through your support system because they’re going to ChatGPT?

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Yeah, because they’re yeah.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Then they’re like solely relying on that. And so when we know it’s not always 100% accurate, and therefore they’re trusting that information as 100% genuine, and that can be quite scary.

Heather Smith

Yeah, absolutely. Let let our listeners know what technology you’re using for a support system.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Oh, so just my tickets are just coming in. Sorry, when I say my my support system, so that I just have a we have a structured email system coming into Gmail and use Streak, and then so we have everything labelled, and so we know like the the amount of tickets or say emails that are coming in, and then like for example, we would have had say 30 in one month for how do you do this? How do you do this?

Alex Falcon-Huerta

And then all of a sudden, now that’s completely reduced. We will just have kind of high-level queries or confirmation of ChatGPT said this. Is this correct? Or oh, I’ve seen this, and people are running all their stuff through GPT or ChatGPT or Claude and checking and saying, oh, is this accurate? Even though we prepared it.

Heather Smith

Yeah, goodness. Yeah, and we need to be aware of that, don’t we?

Alex Falcon-Huerta

We do.

Heather Smith

We do. So also in terms of this making eye contact, being present, we do have AI-powered online recording systems, or you can actually have them on your phone recording systems, and they are a good way to record the conversation, get a transcript of the conversation, but be present. And a lot of people are telling me that that’s a way that they’re helping them be present.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Yeah, exactly. And I guess you know I’m I’m probably like the worst for that because I love recording stuff or my video version, and then I tried to pay attention at the same time, so like my videos to the right of me, so I can physically see them. Like I was trying to record Louis Theroux on some of the conversation, but then at the same time I wanted to concentrate like face to face. And so yeah, I guess it’s just making sure that you’ve got the balance and the recording tools on our on our phones nowadays, that works really well.

Heather Smith

Yeah, absolutely. So one of the things he also said was, when you’re listening, be fully present. Don’t be, and and he said of himself, he didn’t want to plan the next question, think about the next question. He needed to be present in how they were responding and the nuances of their response. Pay attention to what they’re saying, especially where something is carrying emotional weight.

Heather Smith

I just read in the SBAABTA Facebook group someone put a big post up about she’d had a she thought she was going into an easy meeting turned out to be quite a traumatic meeting in that a long term client had passed away, but she was dealing with all the family members and she felt so bad but good that they trusted her and they knew that she had a great relationship with them.

Heather Smith

To that, how do you navigate thinking about the next question, preparing for that while being fully present with listening?

Alex Falcon-Huerta

I think like when you have an ongoing relationship with clients and you have ongoing touch points, you do get to know them pretty well, and including what’s going on in their life and their personal lives and their circumstances, when you have meetings, 100% agree. It’s you’re either listening to what they’re saying, so you can digest and you can process, and then you can deliver anything that they need from that, even though they don’t realise that you can potentially help.

Heather Smith

Yes. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. And I was listening to a podcast yesterday, and someone was talking. I think it was an advert within the podcast, and it said, “You can probably, if you’re dealing with a client, they may be contemplating selling their business. Do you know that? And you could potentially help them sell their business. Yeah. And as an accountant, earn a lot of money from that process, and you’re probably the best placed person for that process. But they don’t even know that you can offer that service.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Yeah.

Heather Smith

there was just an advert that popped into them.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

No, that’s fine. But like, it’s true. It’s like they don’t. When you know, in the early days, people used to say to me, “Oh, like I need this one. I need like tax. I need payroll. And then when they rounded off all these other services that they were potentially looking for, I said, “Did you realise I did I did that? And they said, “No.” And therefore, I changed my branding and my website, and I removed all the the compliance work, and I transferred over to the consulting work purely because I needed clients to understand that we’re just not about compliance. We offer all these business services because ACCA qualified. We are trained to help a client from start all the way to the end: mergers, acquisitions, consulting, growth, technology, systems, processes, people management, HR. We’re trained in every single area of business, so I didn’t want to just allow clients to think that we just offer payroll and tax.

Heather Smith

Yeah, and I think many. If you are a focused, dedicated, the only thing in your your remit is you want to do tax compliant, and that’s perfectly fine. But I do think that there is a wide branding limitation placed on accountants that you know we did the studies. We did the work. We we come to us if you’ve got any questions. Come to us, and and through having these authentic, I’m listening to you conversations when they’re at the path thinking of what they need to do. Ask us. Drop us a line. Book an appointment rather than go somewhere else. At least touch base with us on anything.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

But that’s the thing because a lot of people wouldn’t touch base. They wouldn’t make appointments because everybody’s extremely busy. They wouldn’t think. By the way, I need to reach out to my accountant a lot of the time, and so that’s why I would reach out to them. I would call them. I would WhatsApp them. I would pop in to see them, or face to face, or travel the world and say, “Oh, how is everything going? And then before you know it, the scope of work then increases, and you’re supporting that client. And so, when people talk about growth and about business, it’s not always necessarily adding on, you know, you know, 10 clients or 20 clients. It’s about taking care of your existing clients.

Heather Smith

Yeah, and I think I want to highlight what you said earlier: grow your clients bigger, grow what services you offer the clients bigger. That’s actually probably far simpler strategy than engaging 10 more clients.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Well, they grow. We grow.

Heather Smith

Absolutely, absolutely. So another thing that Louis Theroux talked about and his interviewing advice was sometimes you need to be the idiot in the room. Sometimes you need to ask the simple questions, the obvious questions, the naive questions, to actually uncover the most valuable insight. Don’t assume everyone understands what you understand.

What are your thoughts on that advice of being ‘the idiot in the room’, Alex?

Alex Falcon-Huerta

That’s my space.

Heather Smith

Offering some silence there.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Another tip from Louis. So, I network a lot, and I go to conferences, and I would know sometimes one person or two, sometimes lots of them, and it’s really important for me as a person, individual to meet new people and to understand what they do. And so, most of the times in those circumstances, they wouldn’t know me or what I do. And so, I do believe that asking those basic questions would helps me and it helps them. So you can’t go into a technical conversation straight away with somebody when you just don’t know what they do. And so, if I was to step into a room and speak to somebody that I wouldn’t know, it needs to be basic questions so I can learn them.

Heather Smith

Yeah.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

It’s really important for me to engage and listen to them.

Heather Smith

And I think sometimes it’s down to confidence in terms of, like, for some people, just hearing me say sometimes you need to be in the idiot in the room would be really jarring to them because they’re an accountant or they’re a bookkeeper and they’re they’re very studied and they’ve done lots of qualifications and they know a lot about things. But pulling back and just starting out with how’s your day been? How about you talk me through your inventory situation at the moment? I don’t exactly understand what’s going on there, and that could be all of two sentences of them, but that can sort of set off lots of lights in your head about how we could, how you could potentially help them in that particular area.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Exactly. Yeah. So I mean, recently somebody said they just do procurement in their job. And so, and they’re employed, and I said, “Yes, absolutely fine. You know, you can explain to me your process. I can understand what you do, and I can then offer you some advice on how to make that efficient. So it doesn’t necessarily need to be another business owner. It can be literally anybody in their role who goes back to their office and is potentially doing something in a long-winded way, and they just simply not aware of efficient processes and systems that they can implement.

Heather Smith

Ah, yeah, absolutely. It surprises me how many people say, “I’ve been working for the last 30 years, and I suddenly put my head up. I’ve never been to a conference. I accidentally found your podcast or something you wrote about, and how can I improve this procurement process? And you say, have you heard of ApprovalMax, which can has robust approvals and can automate the whole flow and can push the information in, or Dext, which can again remove all data entry. And there’s lots of there’s Apron, there’s lots of solutions out there like that, and they have no idea. No, just manually data entering, and you tell them something, and they they contact you, and they’re like…

Alex Falcon-Huerta

No.

Heather Smith

I just manually data entering, and you tell them something, and they they contact you, and they’re like…

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Yes.

Heather Smith

Four hours back a week, and you’re like…

Alex Falcon-Huerta

I think sometimes people go into a job and they’re trained by a person, and they’re not necessarily trained in that type line of work. They take on that role, and they don’t realise because they’re again lack of confidence, lack of skill. They’re not technically qualified, and so they just do the job as they’ve been shown, and they have no idea that there are different angles, possibilities, systems that they can bring in.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

And again, lots of people think because they’re not in a position to make those decisions or to take over, they’re scared to go forward. So yeah, so having those conversations with new people listening really opens the doors, and again, can potentially open doors for you as a business owner because you can step into that business, irrespective of whether they’re employed or a business owner.

Heather Smith

Absolutely, absolutely.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Projectwork.

Heather Smith

Oh, the Projectworks is the spice of our accountants and bookkeepers’ life. So one of the things, and you know, Louis’s work is primarily as an interviewer, whereas us as accountants and bookkeepers is not primarily that. But one of the things he did emphasise is know when to guide the conversation and know when to be silent, which you just used that technique before, so silence can actually create some big breakthroughs.

Would you like to touch on the technique of knowing how to be silent?

Alex Falcon-Huerta

I did find that bit interesting because, I mean, I suppose most of the time, again, for us as an accountant or entrepreneur, or you know, you do need to be in a position to listen because you need to be able to guide that person through the next phase. Usually, because they’re coming to you for advice. So when you have the space, it allows you to think, and it allows you to decide on what the correct response is going to be, and sometimes we don’t always know the answer straight away, and so having those gaps, I think, allows the brain to process the information before you respond. So you give the best advice you can.

Heather Smith

Yeah, absolutely, and I think he actually talked about that in his particular situation. I think he was talking to a rapper, and he forgot the next question he was going to ask. So he actually then sort of fell into this silence. But the rapper then jumped into this quite deep and emotional story that he would never have actually got to because these questions would never have led there. So, of course, we don’t want you’re you’re not interviewing a rapper, etc. But it might just give people, and it’s it’s it’s 15 seconds of silence, and it might just give people sort of, yeah. I also want to talk to you about this, or I also want to talk to you about that. And I did want to just pull back and talk about know when to guide the conversations.

Heather Smith

There are a number of technology solutions and support out there to help you guide conversations. So you may use some, Alex. And I’m just thinking off the top of my head. First of all, you could have your own template. I believe the Gap has something. I think Brief has something. I think Fathom has something. I think Clarity HQ has things that help you guide a client conversation.

Do you use tech solutions and support to guide conversations?

Alex Falcon-Huerta

And for me personally, no. I’m quite intuitive. I’d say I’d say considerable amount, and so I would use my intuition a lot to guide conversation. I’m normally good at working out what their needs are and their requirements, and strategically can think ahead based on work experience, etc. And I think again that’s come from 30 years, scarily enough, of you know working within this industry. But I do appreciate that there’s lots of people out there that are new into the world that would need that support, and so I do think that they are good systems to have in place. I just they just follow like a checklist, and that’s what you have to be careful of because you’re essentially not always thinking about the client and their genuine individual experiences of what they need.

Heather Smith

And one of the things that has sort of I’ve recently realised, and goodness, I’m just I’ve just thought of another business idea for you to start in my head. When we use these video recording with video transcribing tools, they can be a really good way to train staff on conversations with clients, on intuition, on how to navigate those questions, and we perhaps can get AI to take all those tools and say, “This is the way Alex asks her questions”.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

I mean, I mean, this is absolutely true, and actually, already do this. So, believe it or not. So, I mean, I’ve been using Bluedot AI for some time, and I, I do, I use it to train my staff and to give them information. And often we always say, “What’s what would Alex say? What’s use Alex’s tone? And it’s not because I want everybody to sound like me. It’s just basically taking my. It’s like a brain dump, essentially. Of okay, this is how the business. That this is like the branding of the business and how I’ve worked with clients, and it’s because I can see that that’s been successful. If it was rubbish, I would say right, let’s not use that. But there’s areas where I know, okay, this part has worked really, really well, and so it’s really good to take that format and to bring it forward into what you do.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

But I definitely would like. I do like people to work, you know, from their own side of things as well, and not just always take it from my perspective. Yeah, because it is important to have both sides. Be human, understand the branding. What is blue.so? blue.is a recording tool. Oh, so it does screenshots. So it’s like an equivalent to Loom. Okay. So I actually moved from Loom to Blue Dot, and then it connects to Notion, and it connects to, and it pulls things through. So you have like you can search like conversation within all the meetings and all sorts of things. So and then again share it with the team and record for clients as well. So they’ve got recordings, and they tend to appreciate a video of how how do I do this?

Heather Smith

Absolutely, absolutely. And I think sometimes when people are starting out in a business, they know there’s KPIs that they’re trying to achieve, and sometimes they may think I have to get each get through each client interview. Tick tick tick tick tick. Next one. Tick tick tick tick. Next one. And sometimes hearing the nuance of the way you’re having your meetings with clients helps them understand that they can say, “Hey, how was your day? And they can have space and they can have time for inflection about touching on other things rather than just getting everything out as precisely in a very accounting and bookkeeping way. We’re like, get the data, get the data, get the data, put the data somewhere. Yeah.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Yeah, it’s very true.

Heather Smith

It’s using the technology to help us be more human.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Exactly. Yeah.

Heather Smith

And upskilling people faster.

Heather Smith

One of the things Louis was very, he actually came out right at the start and said, “What a privileged place to be in as an accountant, a bookkeeper, because people do not share their financial information with anyone but the accountant and bookkeeper. They don’t, really. They pretend by having a fancy car or a fancy house.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Yeah.

Heather Smith

But as accountants, we we we both know that someone with a fancy car and fancy house doesn’t necessarily have the money to afford the fancy cars and fancy house. But he did observe that accountants often know more about people’s lives than more about their lives and about their money, and with that becomes significant response.

In dealing with your clients, what were your thoughts on that?

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Yeah, like it’s very true. I think he did quote on there about you know people put their life on social media and their vulnerabilities, but they don’t say oh I am you know 50,000 pounds overdrawn or I have got a massive loan to support my you know to support my business, and I think if people were a bit more financially savvy and they knew how to read accounts, and people like a lot of people out there do compare and they do check and they think, oh, that person’s doing really well. How do they achieve it? And they don’t necessarily know how they’ve achieved it. They don’t know that they’ve had to get remortgaged, or they’ve had to get a loan, or they’ve had to finance. We know how they’ve done it, and we know how they’ve achieved it.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

And we might not necessarily agree or think, okay, that’s the right thing to do. But that business owner has made those decisions, irrespective of what advice they’ve been given, and so they could be in a situation where we have to then support them either way, and so it can be a heavy responsibility, especially when you know somebody’s made a decision to remortgage their property, or when they’ve decided to take mortgage after mortgage, etc. for financing, or they’ve got investors, and it’s quite heavy, and so again, it’s taken them through those journeys and supporting them as an individual, as a business owner, or to their or to their board to report it. But again, it’s we are ethically bound not to share data, not to share information, and so therefore they know that they can fully trust us. But it’s not something they’re going to publicly share unless it goes onto company’s house.

Heather Smith

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. So, yeah. Look, and I think that’s really important. And I think that sort of to that, I think I’m a trainer by background, so I think educating people about their numbers is really important, and it’s something that that comes quite naturally to me, and I would encourage people to do that as much as possible. However, if that isn’t in your wheelhouse, which I appreciate, it’s not in everyone’s wheelhouse. Why not find someone in your business who can actually do that training and provide that further education about understanding their numbers.

Heather Smith

I had a lady who was in business, lost everything, had to pull the kids out of school, out of their private school, and you know what she did? She picked herself up, and she learnt her numbers, and she just focused on understanding her numbers, started a new business and slowly achieved everything back there, but in a realistic framework. Spending money is easy. Yeah, understanding your numbers is.

But I was so proud of her, and she was like, understanding your numbers helps you sleep at night, doesn’t it?

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Yeah, but it also helps you plan and become less stressed for predicted taxes.

Heather Smith

Yes, yeah, it does, and that’s our role. Is not just this.

Heather Smith

Disagree with me if you wish, but I think our role is to help them understand that planning, that cash flow, the taxes, and help them with that. So Louis actually said he was reluctant to engage with the financial side of running his production company. I think a lot of you know, are we going to call him creative? I think a lot of creative folks do that.

We have so many people in the creative realm who have had these horrible nightmare situations of losing their money.

So he understands that they focus on the creative. They don’t like to engage in the financial side, but he said he went through that process of learning and understanding margins, profitability, financial performance, and he knew that that was essential for long-term success.

By engaging in the financial side, Louis was able to keep doing the work he wanted to do. And it’s kind of linking those two things together, isn’t it?

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Yeah, I mean, I love creatives. I actually work with a lot of creatives, and that came from actually I worked for a firm that specialised with TV and film, so hence ended up with a lot of creative clients. And so I really understand why he essentially struggled with the financial side of things because most creatives they are not interested in finances. And what surprised me the most, and he did admit this, was that you know he was employed you know for a considerable amount of time rather than creating his own company, and it was actually his wife that encouraged him, and he finally went ahead and decided, I need to build something for myself. I need to build my IP. I need to do this, but I mean, had he have had an accountant early days to support him, to advise him, to listen to you know what his you know his KYCs, knowing what his end goal was going to be, that could have happened a lot sooner. And so, being a creative, they shy away from anything like any sort of financials, any admin, any processes, and things like that. But again, it’s reaching out to the accountant that’s suited to you, so that you can then do what you’re best at doing, and you leave the finances to the people that know what they’re doing, and then deliver correctly to the creative person, so that they feel confident and comfortable walking away, knowing that they’ve got the right setup.

Heather Smith

Yeah, absolutely, totally agree there. And I think sometimes creatives almost think it’s vulgar to learn anything about their numbers because I am being creative, and it is not for the money; it’s for the art, and I say that with much respect. Sorry if that sounded patronising, but I’m doing it for the art, and whether you value it at $0 or a million billion dollars, it is still the art, and I really, we are unlikely to have any creative creative clients looking for accountants listening to this, but I would emphasise to accountants if that is a niche area that you can work with, highlight that it’s a niche area that you can work with because it is quite a specialised field and there’s there’s lots of understanding copywriting and navigating money and and navigating where all the money streams in from is is quite quite quite a minefield. Yeah.

Heather Smith

So I have been listening to Louis Theroux’s podcast, and one of the great things about whenever they bring someone into an accounting conference like Louis, he now has learnt a bit more about the accounting industry, and he now has that sort of mulling in the back of his brain, along with everything else that he’s done, along with Melanie C and the Spice Girls and how they navigated their careers. He’s also thinking about accountants, and he recently interviewed David Byrne, who is the lead singer of Talking Heads, and he David Byrne has had a very long career. And in that interview, they actually got down into how he was monitoring his numbers and how important how important it was for his longevity.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Is he bringing out accountancy stuff now in all his interviews? Guess what? I was at Xerocon.

Heather Smith

Well, wouldn’t that be great if he just look? I don’t think he’s going to bring out accounting, but I think if he has that question in there, that’s good because now David Burns talked about it.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

He’s raising awareness.

Heather Smith

He’s raising awareness. So we have a lovely lady in Australia. I think her name’s Kylie Thompson, and she’s over in Perth, and she deals with the music industry. So she’s every image of her seems to be at a at a music concert or volunteering her time with the professional associations, but when I heard this interview, I sent it to her. I said, you know, cut those snippets out, put them on you. I didn’t say this to her, but I sent it to her. But highlighting David Byrne and what he’s saying about the industry is something that is easy for you to is more influential to your potential client than you saying it.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

I agree. Yeah, like it’s just having like again like Louis Theroux talking about like accountants and it’s like oh nobody wanted to be an accountant when they grew up. It was hilarious, and so it’s like, okay, well, we’ve got these roles. We are looking after businesses. We are advising. We we are helping and supporting, and we are helping to grow like clients to where what they want to achieve. We’re we’re part of so much, and it’s actually recognising that. And again, having someone like Louis Theroux or whoever talking about stuff like that, it’s like raising awareness of your finances are critical to your day-to-day life, and so if you don’t have a grip on your finances, that’s the difference between success and failure.

Heather Smith

Yeah, absolutely. And I’m like I’m sitting here as an old lady, but the musical acts from the 80s that I used to go to. A number of them are still touring, and I look at them, and they are enjoying life, and they’re healthy, and they’re doing it because they they had that longevity in there. Not all of them are. We’ve had a lot fall by the wayside along. Along the way, but Duran Duran are still looking very happy.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

That’s hilarious.

Heather Smith

They played at Hyde Park just before Xerocon, but I missed it. Very sad for me. Now I wanted to talk through. He Louis Theroux gave some sort of roundabout examples of questions that accountants could use, and I just wanted to throw this in, so sort of we had some sort of other words and phrases to ricochet around our mind and see whether it suits us or it doesn’t suit us. So one of them was, “What’s I’m going to try and do a little accent? What’s that all about? Didn’t sound like him at all. What’s that all about? He described asking Beastie Boys Mike D about a quote that he previously made. You said that blah blah blah blah. What’s that all about? And it’s kind of like it just opens a door. So it might be something that you need to dive into a rabbit hole over, or it might not be.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Yeah.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

I think like if a client like asked me a question or like, and I said to them, “What’s that all about? That could go two ways. It could be I’m not really listening to them. I don’t understand them, or it’s oh okay, what’s that all about? Because they’re going to tell me something more about a new venture, but if it’s about their existing stuff, that might come across as though I’m not re-listing and I don’t understand finances. So I think we need to be careful about how we use that.

Heather Smith

Fair enough. Yeah, fair enough. So one of the things that I also use is, can we circle back to what you said back then, and even if it was just in that conversation or a previous conversation, and go, can we circle back to that? Does that relate to what’s happening here? Is that the same thing? Are they entwined? So that the circle backs the question.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Yeah.

Heather Smith

He also suggests asking the obvious questions. Now, as an interviewer, and I’m obviously not at the same level as Mr. Louis Theroux. I think we say his last name differently, so he can leave a comment on our podcast going, “What are you doing talking about me? And choose who’s pronouncing his surname correctly, which is probably you because I’ve probably got an Aussie twang to it. He said, “Ask the obvious questions. Ask questions you already know the answers to because it encourages them to explain it in their own words. Again, this is hitting on his, you know, ask those simple questions to get to deeper truth.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Yeah, I guess to some degree that could work, but hopefully we’ve done that in the beginning, and we know our client. And so when you, it’s a little bit like you were saying that you can’t just go into a room and just assume everybody knows all knowledge or know you as an individual. And so when you ask that question, it needs to be that, like probably an early day question, rather than like a later on question, because he will interview people as a one off, and we in and we speak to clients on a regular basis. So I do think our questions need to be carefully curated for whichever timing or period that we’ve had them as a client.

Heather Smith

Yeah, absolutely, and in that life cycle, and mirroring interview questions for a rapper or for a Spice Girl to our client situation.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

I might try this though and see what the response is.

Heather Smith

Tell me about your performance at the London Olympics, what he didn’t make it. So one of the questions that Louis Theroux really, really enjoyed being asked at ZeroCon was, and this was from Kate Hayward: When you’re speaking, oh look, I’m almost sounding like Kate. When you’re speaking to people in different situations, there is a line between empathy for situations you don’t agree with, but you don’t ever go to endorsement. How do you hold that line? So that may not be something that we ask that we need to navigate. Maybe it is something we need to navigate, but that I thought that was a good question. There’s a line between empathy for a situation you don’t agree with, but you don’t ever go to endorsement. What do you think about that

Heather Smith

So one of the questions that Louis Theroux really, really enjoyed being asked at Xerocon was, and this was from Kate Hayward: When you’re speaking, oh look, I’m almost sounding like Kate. When you’re speaking to people in different situations, there is a line between empathy for situations you don’t agree with, but you don’t ever go to endorsement. How do you hold that line? So that may not be something that we ask that we need to navigate. Maybe it is something we need to navigate, but that I thought that was a good question.

There’s a line between empathy for a situation you don’t agree with, but you don’t ever go to endorsement. What do you think about that one?

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Yeah, I mean, I guess that’s quite a tricky one, isn’t it? Because at the moment you have to make those decisions at the time. That’s probably when he gives that you know space, has a think about it and then decides whether to respond to that or not. But it’s-I mean-I can think of situations where I know I don’t agree with something, and so I’ve had to then say, “Okay, I’ll come back to you on that, or you know, it’s-I won’t respond to that. Straight away, but give a response either way. But sometimes it can be quite tricky. But sometimes it needs like a response in writing of okay, don’t think that’s a good idea. But but it’s something that you can’t always say straight away to that person because they they could be in a situation where you know they’re just so excited and you don’t want to bring that conversation down at that moment, but it’s a later on thought or an advice that you would give them after.

Heather Smith

And I suppose also to that we’re free. We as accountants commit to being ethical, to holding, to having integrity, and that is sort of core fundamentals of of who we are as accountants and bookkeepers. And if someone proposes something that we question the ethics of, it could be two ways. It could be yeah, this is unethical, or it could be they are quite confused in what they’re using the wrong words. They’re quite confused in the situation. They may not understand it, and that’s what they’ve proposed. And I guess sometimes we have to question that or extrapolate the information.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Exactly. And I guess you know in today’s world, you know there are a number of you know forms of income or streams of income that people earn, and in today’s world, we might not necessarily agree with, but it’s become extremely successful. And so, again, where we’re trained ethically is like, do you take that client on? Do you listen to what they do? Like, you know, there’s so so many things of that could be like a successful, you know, niche business for an accountant to do, and so it’s it is quite tricky because you’ve got one side that says to you, “I need to be ethical. I should do this. I shouldn’t do that. But then you’ve got the other side that says, “But they’re doing extremely well. They’re entrepreneurial. They’re going to be successful, and you want to help them in their journey. So in those situations, it’s like, “What do I do? And of course, there’s going to be accountants that are happy with that, but there’s going to be accountants that are not. Yeah, and so yeah, so you’ll you’ll continue to question that, but I think in the end you’ll decide what’s right for you.

Heather Smith

Absolutely, I don’t, as a policy, never ever deal with gambling clients, but I will just recommend them on. I am not. I. It is for personal reasons. We had a horrible gambling situation in my family. Not that my family members gambled. Someone else did, and they stole a lot of money from the family. But it is not of judgement. It’s. I’m not your fit for this. I read, I just read and listen to things about accounting. But I read yesterday that this mother was in like a retail store, and she went up and she said, “Oh, my daughter wants to buy these shoes. She saved up the money and she wants to buy them. And so he rang it up, and she said, “No, there shouldn’t be VAT on it because she’s a child. She shouldn’t have to pay VAT.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Brilliant.

Heather Smith

But clearly, she just had no understanding how the VAT system worked, and it’s just whoever is buying pays the VAT. And the fact that it was a child, even if it was the child’s money, they still pay the VAT. So yeah, that that was kind of an interesting one. Yeah, so so I think that sort of rounds up the things that I kind of wanted to pull out and talk about with Louis Theroux in Australia. We we have a fly advert, Louis the Fly, Louis the Fly, Louis the Fly. So I kept thinking of that when Louis Theroux was there.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

That’s really funny. You should have stood up and sing it to him.

Heather Smith

Hey, I’m the Aussie in the room. Let me talk to you about the fly song. And it’s like, and then you go and get. I’m pretty sure it’s Morteen, and you have to, well, you kill Louis with mortine. So stay away from mortine. Spray Louis Theroux. But ah, it was such a fabulous talk, and I was so grateful to be there with you, Alex, listening to his conversation. And I’m very much enjoying his podcast as well.

Did you have any final thoughts about it?

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Yeah, I just think you know, obviously, like you say, it was really such an enjoyable you know interview, and there was a lot of learnings from his what he had to say to us, you know, at Xerocon, considering he’d never spoken to accountants or a bunch of accountants before, and irrespective of you know his status of what he does, it’s interesting. Even though you know he’s wass employed paying BBC like all of his funds and things like that, then he eventually got to a stage where he’s like, “Wow, I I need to build up my own IP in this stage.” And even though it was much later on, like I did find that quite surprising.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

But the fact is, he had done something about it, and now he’s created his own thing. And it’s something that I continuously encourage my clients. So I was grateful for him just sharing that, because not everybody, as you say, would share finances. But he did share that with us, and I think that was quite an important takeaway for us.

Heather Smith

Absolutely, and if he’d have had a conversation with an accountant earlier on in his career, he might be a lot wealthier.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

Exactly my point. Yes.

Heather Smith

Are you offering your accounting services to Mr Theroux?

Alex Falcon-Huerta

100%

Heather Smith

Louis Theroux, please get in contact with Alex Falcon-Huerta.

Alex Falcon-Huerta

I used to give tax advice to Richard Hammond at one point, so who knows?

Heather Smith

Oh, I’m fully endorse it. So look, very grateful for Xerocon for inviting Louis Theroux to speak. I think it was, I think it was such a genius idea. Whoever came up with that to invite him to speak at Xerocon, as I said, I thought he was going to talk on the manosphere. I bought a ticket from Australia to come and hear and talk on the manosphere, and he didn’t. So, but the talk was very, very, and not that the manosphere is very, very dark and depressing, and so that that was completely fine.

Heather Smith

I thought I might be able to the good juju from attending Xerocon might have helped me get through the conversation. But I actually really really enjoyed it. Very appreciative. Well done to Kate for extracting all that information and just thank you so much, Alex, for your generosity in chatting with me and sort of unpacking this and with your insight. I really appreciate it, and I hope our listeners just really benefit from Alex and Heather not meeting Louis Theroux.

Heather Smith

You’ve given me your final words, so I will just drop in. Please continue to be a part of the conversation. Can I encourage you to hit subscribe to the podcast if you did like it? Please share it with someone on socials or send them an email about the podcast. I encourage you to join the Accounting Apps community and jump across and subscribe to the Accounting Apps newsletter at accountingapps.io. And I’m your host Heather Smith. Thank you for listening to the Accounting Apps podcast.