Practice Success Podcast

Dawn Brolin's Keys to a Successful Work-Life Balance

• Canopy • Season 1 • Episode 8

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Dawn Brolin, CEO of Powerful Accounting provides valuable insights into achieving success and work-life balance in the accounting profession. She encourages accountants to prioritize mindset, set boundaries, embrace technology, and cultivate relationships with clients for long-term success. 

KC Brothers:

The practice success podcast powered by Canopy is back. And today we are talking to the designated motivator for accounting professionals, Dawn Brolin. Dawn is also the CEO of Powerful Accounting and a certified fraud examiner. She is sharing how the right mindset can change everything in your practice and your life, and how maximizing your technology choices can ultimately help you achieve better work life balance. Enjoy the episode. And as Don says, let's go. Welcome to an episode of Canopy Practice Success. I'm KC Brothers and I'm here with Don Brolin. I can say a good friend, right?

Dawn Brolin:

Absolutely. Yes. KC, we've, we've spent, spent some time together mostly educating people because we care so much about how people are running their practice.

KC Brothers:

Well, and we've nerded out on a few things together. Yeah. Geek. Yeah. And, and it's just too fun. Yeah. Why don't you give an introduction of yourself really quick.

Dawn Brolin:

So, yeah. KC, hi, I'm so glad to be here with you. I'm Dawn Brolin. I'm a CPA and a Certified Fraud Examiner out of Wyndham, Connecticut. I have a small practice with three employees. We have around 250 clients currently. Um, we've moved into relationship pricing, which is a big thing now. They like call it subscription pricing

KC Brothers:

or value based,

Dawn Brolin:

whatever, many names, many names. I call it relationship pricing because I believe I'm building a relationship with my clients, understanding them not just at the financial level, but at their goals, their personal life, which does tie into their business. Um, and it's just been a really exciting last year or two of kind of pulling that together.

KC Brothers:

Yeah. Well, and you do more than just that too. You've got. A website, you've got All sorts of other things. Tell us a little bit about the things you have on the side as well that just fuel your passions.

Dawn Brolin:

Yeah. So I, I've really worked hard at identifying my practice and, and facilitating implementing technology, understanding where I want to be as far as the clients go, where does my staff want to be? How did, how much do they want to work? And so we've really worked together as a culture, though, though, only three people, we work really closely together to make sure we're maximizing our time, but also having a personal life outside of that. And one of the things I've developed is what I call my tech stack. You know, it's, it's all about, I'm a designated motivator, which I really love. And my passion, my fuel that fuels my passion is helping other practitioners kind of straighten out the way they're operating, not just in the office, but helping them understand that you could actually be outside the office and still be productive. What? I know you can, you can leave your office. That's my tip of the day,

KC Brothers:

right? Well, and, and in a day, I mean, the pandemic has done some great things for us in terms of work life balance, integration, whatever you want to call it, but it can also be hard. I remember early on the company I was working at, we'd have. These quarterly, uh, company meetings and they would have people submit questions beforehand. And almost every time someone was asking about, or making a comment, whether it's phrased in a comment or a question, the idea of it's hard to draw boundaries because my Slack is always on or my emails on my phone and my computer. And, and it blew my mind. It was personality wise. It's just not something that. I've struggled with, but I know several people do like, how do I. Work, provide, um, or even they get so much joy out of it and, and maybe over involve themselves in it that, and sacrifices other things. How do, how do you recommend going about drawing a balance and why a balance is important?

Dawn Brolin:

Sure. Yeah. The balance, it's all, I think it's more boundaries, setting boundaries for yourself when you're in your work environment. I don't have notifications on my phone. I don't have a vibrate on my phone. I don't have an alert on my, you do have a, I have an Apple watch. And what do you do there for this? I'll wear it when I want to, when I'm at my desk and I'm at work, I'm not wearing it. It's sitting on the charger. Right. And my phone is my desk phone. Yeah. We still have a desk phone. I turn landline. Well, it's an internet fiber optic thing. And so I turn that volume down as well. I don't have alerts or sounds on my computer. So if an email comes in, I don't hear it,

KC Brothers:

I leave mine on do not disturb too, so that I can get to that deep think because I want to be able to be present when I'm working and reserve my time post work for other things.

Dawn Brolin:

Yeah. What's really important is why fine people will say, well, you're really busy. And I'm like, I'm not busy. I'm productive. And there's a really big difference. I've been in the office during tax season, during busy season. They call it busy. It should never be busy season. It should be productive season. Right? Because

KC Brothers:

Well then is productive season not just all year?

Dawn Brolin:

It is all year. But people call tax season busy season. It's like, no. What we have to learn to do is set priorities and set boundaries with the way we operate and the way we approach our day. When you come in first thing in the morning, do not jump into your email. Why are you doing that?

KC Brothers:

You're fresh. Yeah. Your brain is. It's been revitalized with sleep. Email is, is it really the first thing you want to do?

Dawn Brolin:

I don't ever want to do email actually ever because I can come into the office and I've, I mean, I've been in practice for 24 years. I come in the office and girl, this girl can sustain an 8am to 10pm workday if I'm just being busy. I'm not being productive. Anyone can sit in a chair for 12, 14 hours and do stuff. It's about coming in. For me, I come in, the first thing I do is I look at what needs to be accomplished today. What are those top, maybe three, four, five priorities that in order for me to leave that office, those have to get done. Because here's the thing. I don't recall the last time I got in my office and went, Oh, I don't have anything to do. There's, there's, Oh yeah, I wonder what I'm gonna do today. And it's because we have this, it's, it's been historically a stigmatism that if you're an accounting professional, regardless of what you do, you got to work during busy season, 80 hours. That's not a badge of honor back in the, you know, and that's been the history. Historically, that's how people and people still today, that's how they operate. I find it. I would rather be productive for a four to five hour workday. six if we get crazy than to be busy for a 12 hour workday and they're very different and it's because of their habits. Yes. It's all about your habits.

KC Brothers:

I find too that I can make a decision beforehand and it takes away the time it takes to make a decision. The moment I know I need to do something, I use my calendar like a to do list. And I block time out because I'm not good at saying no. And if I can already see my bandwidth as articulated from a 9 to 5 p. m. day, and have things allocated appropriately, then when someone comes to me and says, Hey KC! Can you do this thing? I instantly look at my calendar and see if there's wiggle room, if there's white space, or if it's like, okay, I can, it's going to have to wait till next week. Is that okay? Right. Yeah. You got to draw those boundaries.

Dawn Brolin:

And that's what, you know, a lot of times what I've really learned over the last few years since we've, since COVID, where we were bombarded with questions, bombarded with unknowns. Both from the government side and the client side. We were kind of the middleman to all of that and keeping, I feel like keeping the country financially stable in a lot of ways because people couldn't figure out how to get their stimulus check. You found people who were non filers coming out of the woodwork because they couldn't get their stimulus check unless they filed or they reported something through the website. Half of them did it wrong and then we had amend returns and it was a train wreck. So we were under that, I'll call it duress for lack of a better description. And. I felt like as I went through that process, I understood that, you know what, I'm going to set priorities because mentally lots of practitioners, I watched Facebook like crazy depression, frustration. Exhaustion, just losing it and the pain, I'm going to call it pain and suffering of the practitioner. And so through that process, I just started to realize, okay, I'm going to make sure I tighten this up. I'm not going to be in this office 12 hours a day. And so through that, my mental process, the setting of the boundaries are keys. You mentioned white space. I love what you said about blocking your kid. I call it calendar blocking. And it doesn't, like I even have a half an hour every day in my day, a break, we put it in there. That just means nobody book anything. And there's been situations where, Hey, someone will call, Oh, I need this done like next week. Can it be done? I'll tell you what I can get to you in two weeks or three weeks. And if that doesn't satisfy you, it's okay. I love to help you out. I'll get you to somebody else that maybe has a little more bandwidth. And I found that not accepting every single thing that came across my desk and saying, guess what? No, that's a boundary. No is a boundary.

KC Brothers:

Yeah. And we can handle boundaries politely and, um, and gently and, uh, and professionally in a way that is not rude is not. Um, discouraging for you or that individual, but empowering for both of you and empowering for your staff, the people of your firm that it might be affecting too, because if you're making these decisions that then affect other people, what does that mean for your retention of that person?

Dawn Brolin:

Yeah, that is so true. And that's something that very important. Again, we're only three people, but we meet regularly and we're like, I say meet regularly when something comes up that, that I need their input from, from them, we meet as it's a five minute meeting, 10 minute, I mean, meetings, meetings, meetings, I, you know, whatever, but we're, we're getting together to make a decision as a team. Because yes, if I say, yeah, no problem, I'm going to take on this IRS case, That's going to affect Tracy and it's going to affect Nicole. And so me making that decision, it's not just about the impact it has on me, it's an impact it has on my team. And we've got to keep that in front of mind.

KC Brothers:

Yeah. So moving into that, that balance of we've, we've drawn boundaries. We are being more productive, uh, less busy, um, more intentional with our hours and hopefully getting just as much done, right? Um, what do you do with your time?

Dawn Brolin:

Well, so I know, KC, you know me, girl. You do something other than accounting? I do. I can leave my office. You have to give yourself permission. People don't do that. They're like, I'm in busy season, which is what they're calling it. And it's like, no, be in productive season and get out of your office, play pickleball, go for a horse ride. You know, I personally, as you all very well know, coach college softball during tax season. And people think I'm crazy and maybe they're right.

KC Brothers:

We're all our own kind of crazy.

Dawn Brolin:

We are. Everyone has their own kind of crazy. I look at it that I gave myself permission to be out of the office and were there consequences? Yes. Every decision that you make in life, whether whatever they are, there are consequences always good and bad. And so knowing that that fed my professional soul to be able to get out of the office and do something that I love when I would come, if I ever came back to the office, either after practice or after a game, I was a whole different mindset. Then, I've been here for 10 hours, like, I'm exhausted.

KC Brothers:

The last time I sat down to write thank you notes for a big event in my life, I was writing my address over and over again. I'm like, am I spelling drive? Is that the way you spell drive? Why does that look weird? It, I think that's English. Is that English?

Dawn Brolin:

You, you start losing your mind.

KC Brothers:

I mean, the same thing's got to happen when you're just, you're in that desk, you're surrounded by the same four walls. I mean, even if you're taking lunch at your desk and not switching up, you're not having a 30 minute break to go outside, get, get some fresh air, whatever it might be, but pattern interrupt. Get your brain to see things differently. I even think of if you have a malady or injury of sorts, like depending on the doctor you go to, they're going to see things through that lens. If you go to a surgeon, they're going to see, how can I cut? How can I do this through surgery? If you go to a physical therapist, you know, and, and that there are ways that they and, and accountants can switch things up so that you can see things new again. And not be so rote where like, I think it benefits your clients to be able to come in fresh to be able to see a bit more holistically when you're looking at whatever service you're providing them.

Dawn Brolin:

Right. And a lot of it is around my new big word is clarity. Having clarity when you're working, you know, you take a break and at night I'm a little extreme do the two hours of practice or two and a half hours between the travel time, but it can just be 10 minutes and it's not 10 minutes on your phone. It's not 10 minutes right on tick tock or Facebook or whatever you may be doing, or even on a phone call. A phone call isn't a break. You know what a break is taking a walk down the driveway to get the mail or taking your dog for a 15 minute walk or. Changing the laundry or folding the laundry or cleaning the dishes. Those are things that allow your brain to rest. You're not, it's not so intention, so intense. And so the more we can start to, and again, you can do that two, three times a day. You may not be somebody who has real big interests outside of the office and that's okay too. But what can you do for yourself? Gardening. People like to garden, go out, you know, pull some weeds, do something different. And then come back, you are so much more fresh when you take a break. It really, and I know there, I mean, there's obviously industries, uh, and corporations that require breaks. Just because you're a small firm, you're not a big corporation. You can't allow people to have breaks. Nope. Nobody told us what to do. Right. So incorporate that into your culture and let your, your staff and, and yourself give that permission. To take that time because I'm telling you people are two to three times more productive when they take breaks than to just go straight through for 12 to 14 hours.

KC Brothers:

Oh, 100%. Here's a question for you. Because in this context when we talk about uh, work life balance or flexibility and now there's more and more of us working remote. Um, which could mean different, uh, time zones, different hours. It could also mean that you're not working an eight hour day back to back, that you're working two hours here and there, or a four hour chunk here and a four hour chunk there. The hard thing is, is that people don't see how we're constructing, how we're composing those eight ish hours, and hopefully we are able to maintain it as an eight hour, and, and have a life. Go to, go and coach softball. Um, how do you see navigating that while also ensuring that your behaviors aren't accidentally communicating to team members that, okay. I just sent you an email at 9 p. m., but that happens to be because I worked four hours here, took four hours, and then worked another four hours.

Dawn Brolin:

Right. Yeah, so we are 100 percent remote. Okay. And I do, we don't track time. Yeah. I do not babysit. Oh, hallelujah. We don't have time. I don't have time. And I'm not, here's where, here's where I get concerned about whether my staff is working or not. Are they getting their job done? I don't care how long it takes them. I don't care what times they work. They send me an email at nine o'clock at night cause they're doing their thing. Doesn't mean I have to answer it. Yeah. You know, and with technology today, you can set times to send emails. We can say, you know, wait till tomorrow morning at eight o'clock, send it or nine o'clock. Because really at the end of the day, when you're. Sending an email at 11 o'clock at night. People think they have access to you at that time. But for me and my firm flexibility, I don't need to tell me necessarily when they're taking a day off. For instance, they don't have to tell me when they're going to a doctor's appointment. They don't have to make the time up. Stop worrying about how much time people are working, but rather, what are they getting done? During the day. How productive are they? I know immediately when Nicole's not doing her job. Do you know when I know that? Because you feel it. I'm looking at the financials. I'm looking at the books of a client because maybe I'm consulting with them. We're talking about things or I'm preparing a tax return or whatever the case may be. If I look at a balance sheet, I know immediately. How is this? Why is this balance sheet not, hasn't been reconciled or tied out in two months? That's when there's a problem. It's not when Oh, how come you only worked 30 hours this week? I don't care how long it takes. I just want it done and I want it done as Right. As one can be.

KC Brothers:

And it almost incentivizes them to, to like, okay, I can get my, my work done faster and free myself up. And or by getting it done faster, I can take on more complex things. Whatever it is, the individual is passionate and whatever kind of challenge or balance they're wanting in life at that point, it changes. It's so fluid for all of us throughout our careers and meeting our, them, our employees where they're at. And, and keeping that line of communication open

Dawn Brolin:

communication is so critical, right? You know, I want to know we have a new client. Come on, Nicole. Do you want another client? Do we want another relationship pricing client? Are you maxed out or you know what, give me another month to get caught up on all these other things. Let's, let's not take anyone on until August. And I think the communication is critical and you've got to check in with people, especially when they're remote. When they're remote, they're not in the other room. You can't see what they're getting done if they're asking questions. So when they're remote,

KC Brothers:

or even have little jokes here and there, like, and just still building that rapport with them.

Dawn Brolin:

Yeah. Give them the freedom to do their work, do their job, and don't put time constraints on them. They're going to let you know when they're overworked. But definitely check in. How's everything going? And I found with us with a smaller firm, we're able to do that better than with a larger firm. And I mean, I've been, you know, and I don't even know if that's a large firm. It's a, I guess, a decent size firm. Um, it was a lot to do all of this and a lot to understand and maintain. And so for us, it works for us. Some people want to continue growing and expanding and scaling their practice and adding more people. And that's great. That's where they are in their journey. We're all in a journey. We're on a journey. We're all on it together. Everyone's at different stages of that journey. So define what's best for you and your practice. What it would be a perfect work life. What does that look like to you? Oh, you know what? Some people do love to work 12 hour days. Go get it when I was younger. Sure. That was all in on that as I'm getting older and I'm finding that I just want a little bit more freedom in my personal life. That's how I'm setting myself up for success. If my team wants to make more money and work more, then I'm happy to have them do that. Everybody can can win together at their level. And, you know, For me, like coaching softball, my, what I love about my small team is they know it's something that drives my soul. And I want them to do things that drive their soul. Tracy loves to travel. She's a travel girl and even during tax season she'll go travel for a week on a cruise. Don't worry about it. We'll take care of it. Just have their phones forwarded to me. We'll take care of it. It's no big deal and when you create that flexible Accepting culture, you're gonna get so much more out of your team for sure a hundred percent

KC Brothers:

yeah, when you when you see each other as humans because we are more than who we are when we're sitting at a desk behind a computer and and to be To know that people see you that way too, it's so encouraging and you're like, I, I want to almost perform because, because they, they, they know me. I'm not, I'm not performing in a way that I'm putting on a show, um, but performing because I appreciate who I work with. You have that relationship and you want to see each other succeed and you see how you are interconnected and how your behaviors and your contributions affect the others.

Dawn Brolin:

It's all about support. We're all supporting each other wherever we are in our journey. You know, Nicole's a little bit younger, Tracy's a little bit older. Where are each of them in their journey in life? You know, my whole thing with Tracy, I'm just trying to hang on to her, like, I'm just hanging on as long as I can have her, knowing, you know, she's going to retire at some point. I'm always joke with her. I'm like, two more years. What do you think? 10 more dollars an hour, 30 an hour. You're on salary now. But we communicate with each other. I know where she stands, where she is at, and I'm accepting whatever I can get from her. I'll take it. Yeah. And I think that that's just a mutual respect we each have for each other, knowing that I want her to succeed professionally, but also most importantly, personally, and we have to do that.

KC Brothers:

I think our clients appreciate that too. Yeah. That, you know, the more they see their accountant as a human, I feel like maybe even the more they're willing to. They realize that they can talk to you about things and go figure as they talk to you about things Things might actually come up like oh you had a baby.

Dawn Brolin:

I kind of need to know that That's kind of key. Yeah. Well, that's funny You say that too because we do the really we are we're in this relationship pricing with our clients And we're building relationships with them the first one that I approached last October I said to, I said to them, you know, we sat down and we're talking about, Hey, listen, we don't want to do hourly billing anymore when I do these types of things. And as we're going on the conversation, one of the partners says, Oh, did you know Mark got married last weekend? Like really? Yeah. And that's because we were so focused on the work only and not the relationship of, you know, do I need to go to dinner with him on, with him and his wife on a Sunday? No, that's not what it's meant to be. What it's meant to be. is help the goals of the client and establish boundaries with the client. Hey, listen, we're doing this. You're a priority to us. Doesn't mean I'm available 24 seven before, you know, before conferences or before taking vacations, we give them a very good heads up. Hey, just want to let you know, I'm away this one week. If there's an accounting emergency, then your price is probably going to quadruple because there's no such thing. But, you know, we give them a head, be that respect of giving them the heads up, doing that with your staff, just everybody kind of working together to survive through the process. I think that that's part of it.

KC Brothers:

Yeah. I mean, setting expectations is so huge when, when everybody's on the same page, um, there's no drama. Yeah. But when, when you both know what is expected of one another, when you say, Hey client, I need X, Y, and Z because of L, M, N, O, P. Right. And you need this of me, great. This is, this is my, um, standard operating procedures. And what I'm committing to you and disclosing that up front can do wonders for, for you and helping you draw those boundaries, but, and for them that they, they see that and accept it. Yeah.

Dawn Brolin:

It's just, you know, what it has done is eliminated, it eliminates the hair on fire because working with your hair on fire, I don't know if you've ever tried it. I mean, maybe give it a whirlwind. It's like, is this a thing? It's not very pleasurable. It's not fun. When you're, when you've got, if you think about what we talked about, just getting into your office and how you operate as you're going. You got the mail dinging off. You got a phone ringing. You got a text. You got a buzz. You got all these things. And your heart rate's elevated. It is, it is here. And how are you supposed to think, like I said before, clarity? How can you have clarity with chaos? You have to figure out how to tame The chaos and a lot of those are just simple boundaries, simple, you know, methods or simple habits that help you minimize that craziness. And boy, I'll tell you the clients respect it. We're able to be more proactive with them. They're, we're not, they're not chasing us anymore because we're starting to really level off and say, you know what? We're setting expectations with them. They're setting expectations with us. So we know what they're expecting of us. And if we can't do the work, then, then that's on us. But having those expectations set and those boundaries have really changed how we operate and how we work together because it's your staff, your clients, all of that has to work together. There has to be mutual understanding.

KC Brothers:

I'm going to pivot here just a little bit just because you've talked a lot about relationship based pricing. Um, and then a lot about. Okay, so what if you work 30 hours a week? It's not about the hours you work, it's about the work you get done. Um, which I feel like is so different from traditional accounting mindsets. Um, very much time based, um, if it's not billable, is it, is it productive? You know, and the, even And, and seeing your worldview of my, my work day and the hours that I'm allotted, um, and not even hours. I mean, this is how we do get into 14 hours a day because you have to hit billable hours, right? Um, how, how do you then help accountants see things that traditionally would not be categorized as billable hours?

Dawn Brolin:

Yeah, that's such a concept that I've adopted and accepted within our firm is historically you're worried about the billable hour, and part of it is because am I going to make payroll this week? If there aren't enough billable hours, I'm I can't pay my people. I can't pay my bills and that becomes what you're focused on. Okay. So Nicole, if she only works 30 hours, she's only billable 30 hours. Maybe she's only billable 20 multiple times our hourly rate. What am I paying? You're constantly freaking out over the hourly moments. Those, those moments of, of hourly work where you're like, Oh, you've got to hit 40 hours of billable. So you're going to work 60 because of those 29. Billable hours, and you're doing all this math in your head, or you've got budget and spreadsheets instead of focusing on what's important, which is the deliverables. And so if we can, and I'm some, I'm going to tell you, be totally honest with you, I've always been of the, by the hour pricing up until only nine months ago. And I was so focused on getting paid hourly billing. Get my invoices out on Monday morning so I can make sure by Friday I had the payroll paid for. Year after year. Can you imagine? It's exhausting. I got anxious just as you're describing it. I saw your face! I can tell and it is it's it's it's It's not the way to live. And so when you change your business model, and it's what I love about Ron Baker, he talks about changing your business model. Everybody's worried about pricing. What about pricing? What about pricing? Change your business model. The pricing will take care of itself. Now I know people, well, how did you determine your price? Everyone? We're so stinking technical. We're so technical. Process procedure one plus one is two. Like, we're so Methodical about everything. We can't get past concepts and conceptualism or whatever the word. I just made that up. That's great. I make up words all the time. It's a fun word. I'll accept it. Thank you very much. Put that in the word bank. But at the end of the day, understanding that it's more than that. And when you change your business model to reflect the environment and the culture that you want for you, your staff, and your clients, the pricing and the money takes care of itself.

KC Brothers:

Hey, that's a great place to end. Thanks, Dawns. It's been a pleasure.

Dawn Brolin:

No, I've always, anytime I can spend with you, I'm in.