Practice Success Podcast

Nancy McClelland on Balancing Passion, Work, and Maintaining the Human Touch in AI

• Canopy • Season 1 • Episode 7

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Nancy McClelland, CPA & Owner of The Dancing Accountant discusses how she balances her love for dance, her passion for her profession, and her commitment to creating a caring and supportive workplace. It explores the opportunities and challenges presented by AI in accounting, showcasing Nancy's enthusiasm for embracing technology while also prioritizing the human element.

KC Brothers:

Welcome to a new episode of the Practice Success Podcast powered by Canopy. Today we are talking to Nancy McClellan, a CPA who is also known as the Dancing Accountant. Nancy shares how she is intentional about the growth of her fur and the clients she serves so she can follow her joy and not necessarily grow for growth's sake. She also shares how she is incorporating her true passion, dance. her professional life as a speaker to help small business owners and other accounting professionals. Welcome to an episode of Canopy Practice Success. I'm KC Brothers and I'm here with Nancy McClellan, otherwise known as The Dancing Accountant. Will you give an introduction of yourself, what you do today and your nickname?

Nancy McClelland:

Yes, definitely. Um, I was hoping you were going to ask about the Dancing Accountant nickname. Um, so we run a firm called The Dancing Accountant. There are eight of us. Um, it's a hyper local firm in our neighborhood of, of Logan Square, Chicago. Um, almost all of our clients are from this, this neighborhood that we've been deeply entrenched in for years. Uh, but our team members are all over the country because it's 100 percent remote. And, um, we celebrated our 21st anniversary last year.

KC Brothers:

Yeah, you did. You're legal now. You could, like, go drinking.

Nancy McClelland:

That was actually the theme of our party. I am not kidding you. You're so on point. I love that. We had a blowout. a blowout block party. It was fantastic. Like the local chamber of commerce and so many of the clients, you know, the small businesses in our neighborhood are clients of ours. So like, we had a client who's a band we had just, oh, it was amazing. And yeah, the theme was, we're finally legal to drink. So there was plenty of drinking. It was great. Um, but it was actually that little neighborhood that gave me my name in a sense because, um, I actually do dance. I'm, I'm, um, in three different troops and, um, one of them is a 1960s go go dancing troop. Fun. It's so much fun. You know, like. Yeah, Nancy Sinatra. These boots are made for walking. Yeah, and we were doing a gig in a local park That is a pro bono client to find and I was in full costume You know had my my boots up to here and my little mini skirt and everything like this We were teaching little kids how to go go dance. It was so much fun People like bring picnics and you know, have a good time. So I walk up for this event And there's a client of mine, with her kids, talking to another client of mine, picnicking together, and she says, Look kids, it's the dancing accountant. And I was like, well forget Nancy McClelland, LLC. Which is what I did then. Up to that point, I mean it was just... It was just on point, actually the anniversary of that day just happened a few days ago and she sent me like the little Facebook memory of that photo for that. It was great.

KC Brothers:

Now you are the Dancing Accountant.

Nancy McClelland:

I'm the Dancing Accountant. You know, it's, it's kind of wonderful. Um, I never would have expected that just changing my name like that would end up becoming like a, a brand of sorts. But, um, You know, people, they remember your personalities, they remember, um, maybe the color of your hair, or they'll remember, you know, some quirk about your sense of humor or something like that, but they don't necessarily remember your name, but when you've got the dancing accountant, uh, like it is, people, yeah, people remember that. I also love to dance like tonight we're having this prom. I have got all the red tulle. I've got this amazing prom dress, um, that was, belonged to a dear friend of mine that she actually wore to her prom. Correct. And, um, yeah, it's so much fun. And you also end up with really wonderful experiences where, um, like I was actually the first guest on John Garrett from, uh, What's Your Anne? He, he, I was the first guest on his podcast, which was really exciting and, um, got to tell the story about how I met Misty Mejia. at SleaterCon and Doug Sleater because it said the dancing accountant on my tag and he went, are you really a dancer? And I was like, well, yeah, why? He grabbed my hand and Misty was in the process of teaching everybody how to do a flash mob for like the intro the next morning. Yeah. And she's been a friend ever since. So. It's all because of, I wouldn't have had those opportunities if it hadn't been for the name.

KC Brothers:

Well, it just goes to show you're more than what you do eight to five.

Nancy McClelland:

Absolutely. Which is John Garriott's whole idea. You know, what's your and what you're, I'm an accountant, you know, I'm a CPA and a dancer. And so, I mean, I'm sure you have an and what's your and?

KC Brothers:

Mom, baker, biker.

Nancy McClelland:

There are so many. Yeah. I think it really, um, it really. Um, is nice for when I'm, um, when I'm working with clients or I'm thinking about somebody that I might be, um, you know, my potential client, if they're not interested in working with somebody because it's like a silly name or something like that, well, that, I mean, I'm not interested.

KC Brothers:

Yeah. Let, let them self select.

Nancy McClelland:

Exactly. And so that actually works out really well too. Most of my clients love it. And not only do they love it, I have to say. Um, even though with, um, even though with, with one of my groups, Fabulous Leaders of Fitness, we performed to like really large crowds. The gigs where I get nervous are the small ones that are at client locations, like a client's bar or cafe or something like that. Like those events, um, they terrify me because I think, well, Are the clients not going to take me seriously anymore because I'm wearing a fringe dress and a fascinator? But they love it.

KC Brothers:

Well, and it's an invitation for them to be human. We all, we all have something weird, something that we might not. Show right away to people, especially in professional contexts.

Nancy McClelland:

Absolutely. Yeah, and rather than hiding that, you know, Letting that blossom, letting that come out, you know, it's one of the reasons I love Conferences like Scaling New Heights is that you realize that Our whole our whole industry is like that. There are so many people who are colorful in so many different ways

KC Brothers:

Yeah, and that there isn't as much as people want to put an accountant in a box Yeah, if you are a numbers person you are boring you are Whatever they might list off like

Nancy McClelland:

bean counter being a perfect one for canopy I know you guys had a coffee stand. Yeah at the that's going

KC Brothers:

but we all make our own molds. We all go through this life so differently and have our differentiators and the things that Set us apart and help us serve our clients in unique ways, and the ways that they want, like you were saying, like them self selecting in or out, in or out, because of the, the signal that your business name is sending. I love that. Yeah. Something that, um, I'm curious how you're handling right now, especially in the context of being a unique brand. Um, but then, you know, still having all of these more traditional bits of accounting going on is AI. Um, what, what are your thoughts with using AI? In accounting, how does it help you stand out, differentiate yourself? Can it? What, what does that look like for you?

Nancy McClelland:

Obviously, accounting, bookkeeping, tax, advisory, um, you know, all of the areas in which we work, we, we, we do the full arc of, um, of services for our clients. It's fertile ground, I mean, for AI involvement, for automation, obviously. Um, otherwise, you probably wouldn't be asking that question. And for us personally, we're really excited about it because our biggest challenge is, um, staffing for sure. I mean, I guess it's kind of a boring, a boring thing to say is our biggest challenge because it's, it's like almost everybody's biggest challenge right now. And I mean, we have. We have eight incredible team members. I love every single person on our team. Um, but hiring for the senior accounting positions and for the CPA positions, it's just hard. It's, it's so difficult. Um, so we're really excited about embracing what IA can bring us in as much as we're, um, we're hoping to take some of the things that are on the shoulders. Of the senior members of our team and pull it off of their shoulders, put onto the shoulders of some of the more junior people on our team. Um, and AI is something that can really help us do that. Something that we can leverage and, and, um, then for the more junior level staff, we can take stuff away off of their plate that nobody needs to be doing, that we can actually have programmed away. And we're excited about that. I think where I get nervous about AI. Um, and my husband is a software developer.

KC Brothers:

So you have lots of dinner table conversations.

Nancy McClelland:

We do. A lot. A lot. And, and one of the things that, um, that he and I talk about is what is the space going to look like in the future if we remove all of these junior level tasks off for junior level people to become more mid level team members, right?

KC Brothers:

Which is great because you're leveling them up. Absolutely. You're, this is a great opportunity. Where the pain is, okay, we can't hire, we have work, we need people to do the work. But instead of seeing this as a hiring problem, you see as an efficiency problem. You make things more efficient. And a training opportunity. Yep, and then you scale them up, but then it, it does create a new problem.

Nancy McClelland:

It creates a new problem, which is where is your next generation, I'll call it, of, of junior level staff going to come from? Right? Because We learn by doing a lot of the time and there's a sort of, I don't apprentice master relationship or a journeyman kind of thing where you're learning how to do things and then you go to the next level and then you're learning how to do those who go to the next level. Once those stepping stones are gone because AI has removed them, for example. We no longer do manual bank reconciliations anymore. That would be absolutely ludicrous. But training on bank reconciliations by doing it manually is this amazing way to really understand the process. The hands on. It's not just check marks. Muscle memory. Yeah. Yeah. You're, you're actually, you're actually learning the concept of why would, why would a bank balance look different than the balance that's at the end of the statement? Well, you know, you've got outstanding transactions and, and you can see those outstanding transactions. When you're doing it manually, um, I know some people who've trained on doing taxes manually because they don't want to just have their junior level staff be like, Oh, the software will take care of it. Like, no, you've got to understand all of this. If we take a whole nother section of manual tasks away, which is great and wonderful. Where's that learning curve coming from? Wait, how are, how are junior level folks ever going to get. Entry jobs or get to mid level. How are we going to help them along that path? I mean it it I think that that is something that I'm not hearing enough people talking about and to that end. I think that We're also not educating enough as far as the usage of language is concerned and a I I think in the past 20 years We've seen with chat and texts and, um, you know, you're emailing, shortening, worrying about, yeah, just fill in the rest of the sentence, skipping, yeah, suggestion, or it tells you when your grammar is not great, or,

KC Brothers:

and so it does it for you, so you're not figuring it out in your brain and calculating what you're saying, yeah,

Nancy McClelland:

so as a result, you know, there's been less of an emphasis on language skills. Well, With AI, it is absolutely essential that when you're talking to them, you know, and you're asking for what you want, well, first you have to visualize what it is you want.

KC Brothers:

Which may be the single hardest thing that any human can do. Absolutely. What do you want?

Nancy McClelland:

So you've got to visualize it. Then you've got to be able to describe it. Yes. Right. Accurately. Accurately. Clearly. And in a detailed way, but also... Um, in a way that is going to show nuance, it's going to, um, have color, it's going to have, um, you know, your style or your angle, your perspective, these are very difficult things for us to be able to say, to use our words out loud, especially when we've been having, you know, a bot fill in the rest of the words for us for a really long time. Um, and so then we have to evaluate the product once it comes out the other end. And it's not going to necessarily match what we wanted.

KC Brothers:

The feedback that doesn't undo what you already did, but just furthers it closer and closer to what it is you want.

Nancy McClelland:

And it's going to be an iterative process. We expect that to happen. I, I do think that those are two of the challenges of AI that, um, aren't being talked about as much as I would like to hear them be talked about in the short term. I mean, I couldn't be more delighted because my staff is excited about it, you know? Yeah. I'm excited about it. Um, there's a tool by Hector Garcia called Write Tool in, um, QuickBooks Online that I just love. Um, and one of the things that it's doing, for example, if you go to the bottom of a report, there's a button you can click. And it will help you write out an analysis of the financial that you're looking at in, in real words. So, I mean, this is something that we've been, we've been having, um, And, you know, we've been having one of our junior team members go through and, you know, my husband who's on our team has created these wonderful macros where we export financials and highlight the variances that are within, you know, certain, um, certain parameters. And uh, then a junior member goes in and looks at all of that, writes it all up, does her best to, you know, interpret them. And then it goes to a senior person to review that work and add some depth to it. And, um. And, you know, now, WriteTool actually lets you do the junior level part on, it's just automated. It's just, and it's fantastic. And it's not always 100 percent right every time, but it learns. So, I mean, that kind of thing, like, we, We're like, bring it on. This is great. We're really excited about embracing that for our firm.

KC Brothers:

So not only are you saying the AI will impact how we find, like, not necessarily how we find, but maybe the level of knowledge and skill someone might have coming into a junior level position and then what that means Well, I guess this would be the next piece is what does that mean for the firm onboarding that individual? And how can you ensure that, um, with the skills that they've gained, whether it's been in college or experience is adequate? Um, or how can you? Yeah, give help in that process.

Nancy McClelland:

I, I think evaluation, um, it becomes easier and more difficult at the same time once I, AI gets involved. Evaluating, um, hard skills gets a lot easier. It really does. Evaluating soft skills, um, for example, In our company, we have, um, a culture where we don't bring anybody on board that we don't truly, genuinely like as a human being. We want to be friends with each other, we want to support each other, we want to be on a team together. Um, I don't know that AI is going to do a really great job in evaluating resumes as far as that's concerned. At least not yet. Maybe it'll get there. Um, and so, um, identifying those folks, bringing them on board in the, in the first place, I mean, it's, there's still a very human aspect to that, and I think there should be a really human aspect to that. It's something that I'm not excited to, to give that part up to AI anytime soon.

KC Brothers:

No, I mean, relationships, I don't know that, I mean, maybe I'll eat my words in 20 years, but I don't, I don't, I don't know that computers can replace relationship building and assessments and all of that. But I mean, speaking of 20 years from now, I mean, AI has disrupted a lot just in the past six months. It's been around for a while, but it's made some serious progress recently

Nancy McClelland:

and made some serious headlines recently, too. I think it's been out there and it's been, you know, it, it, it hit the big time.

KC Brothers:

When you look forward, what, what do you see for your firm?

Nancy McClelland:

Wow. That's a great question. We're, we're actually in the process of, um, of some, some big changes that I'm excited about where we're in the process of bifurcating the firm so that I can spend more time on, uh, education, outreach, I've got an award winning blog at the dancing accountants. And, um, I'm really excited about that kind of work. I mean, I love working with our clients one on one. It's absolutely a delight. But, um, I can reach so many more people, so many more small businesses. Or even better, if I'm working, teaching, for example, concepts about tax and financial statements to bookkeepers, then they're using that with their clients. And so it's an even bigger reach. And I love that. I just, I'm so passionate about it and I get so much out of it. But in order to do that, I can't be doing all the client work also, right? I can't be as involved as I have been. And so we are slowly trying to figure out in our firm, well, how are we going to sort of extract Nancy from that so that I can focus more. On, um, you know, the public speaking and, uh, and the educational component to it. Um, and a realization that I had, I was talking actually with, um, Blake Oliver from the cloud accounting podcast last night, um, about this in our, in our firm, we've got this culture where, um, the folks who come to us and want to work with us, they are there because it's meaningful work. It's flexible work, and it's remote. They're not there because they're like, I want to work all the time. I don't want it to be like CPA firm, and I want to hit partner by age, you know, 35. It's, that is not our vibe at all. Um, we're a caring culture. We want to be there for each other. And the way it's supposed to work is, and I have to remind them about this sometimes. There was actually, it was so sweet, earlier this year, one of our team members, Um, it was going through really tough times and, um, she wrote me, she was just like, okay, here's how I'm planning on taking care of, of these clients, you know, during this time while I'm doing this and that and the other, um, here's, here's what I think the schedule is going to be like, here's going to be the timeframe. I want you to know that I do not take this lightly. And I wrote back. I know you don't take it lightly, but maybe you should, right? They're, they're working to live, not living to work. And that is what I want. When somebody has something wonderful happen in their life, I want to be able to be excited about it and support them instead of being like, oh no, what does that mean for my firm? And so we've tried really hard. It's not always easy, and I've made mistakes, but we've tried really hard to focus on The human element of the work that we're doing, man.

KC Brothers:

And just the name of your firm probably is just a constant reminder that like, this is our identity. If I'm going to identify this way outwardly to our clients, you do the same thing.

Nancy McClelland:

I got to do it inside. Yeah, absolutely. It's gotta be human focused. Um, and what I realized, Was that I, I'm doing it for everybody else in my firm and I'm not doing it for me man. Isn't that? Oh It hurts so that's what we're slowly in the process of of Trying to streamline the things that we could streamline offload the things that I can offload figure out ways to use AI and automation to help Our team members with their jobs so that I don't have to be, you know, uh, a bottleneck and the more that we can do this. And I, and I'm actually telling them, I want to be, I want to have the life that I want for you guys. Let's, let's like help you guys help me have that life as well. Help me look at this job that way as well, which can be hard because it's your baby. It's my baby. So that's the direction we're moving. Where, um, We're excited about it. We're, we're supporting each other. And, um, you know, I want, uh, I want for that kind of, because flexibility and work life harmony are not the same thing. I have a very flexible schedule, but if I take a day off during the week, during middle of the week, no problem, but I'm probably making that up on the weekend, right. You know, or I'm coming back home, uh, to the home office that night and, and I'm working and, and I need to be getting myself out of that. So that's, that's what our next. That's what our next five years are looking like.

KC Brothers:

Yeah, well, good. Congratulations. It's not, it's not an easy journey. It's not easy to say no.

Nancy McClelland:

So hard. As a matter of fact, I have a great idea for a podcast that, um, my colleague Question Telka and I are thinking about starting, um, that the first episode would be called Start With No. Yes. And the idea would be when, you know, you've got a work thing that you get, you know, excited about like, oh, it's that speaking gig that I've been excited about, or it's that, you know, shiny new client or it's whatever it is that we're excited about. Start with no. Be like, no. If the answer were no, if I started there, how would I, that make me feel? What would I be letting go of? You know, don't have the impulse be to always say yes. Start with no and then be like, okay, well, what if I didn't say no, but I said maybe. What would that look like? What if I didn't say, maybe I said yes, but it's gonna be limited in my involvement. I think it's a really great idea.

KC Brothers:

Yeah, it's a great place to end. Thank you so much.

Nancy McClelland:

No, thank you. I've really enjoyed being here. It's been such a pleasure.