The AI-Ready Firm | Amplify S8E2

I'm Alice Gray Harrison. I'm with AGH Consulting Group, and we're a change management and business transformation strategy consultancy. That's awesome. I know AI is like a big thing right now for everybody.

What are you hearing from your clients or seeing with them when it comes to AI? Yeah, so I'm hearing a lot of buzz about AI. It was, you know, last year the buzz was, oh my God, we, how do you use this? Should we use this?

Lock it down. It's not safe. People are going to put client data in it. And this year people have kind of calmed a bit.

I'm seeing firms develop these strategy committees, and they're really putting some true thought into how their firm best can leverage it. And at the firm that I'm working with right now, they are in the process of building the business case for a chief AI officer. Wow. And so firms that are embracing it and really progressive are putting together cross-section committees.

So they're putting together, you know, people from audit. people from tax, people from consulting, people from internal operations, and they're collaborating together and beginning to build out what does AI look like for us within the firm. And then parallel with that, firms are doing a lot of work around educating their team members on how to use it. figuring out how to create cohorts to create some best practices and to share those best practices.

So I think last year was, I would say, frenzied, to say the least. And this year, people are embracing it. They're allowing it with some control, as you can imagine. I feel like it's back in the social media days when we were like, no, no, social media will keep people from doing their job.

It's distracting. Two, okay, we need to build some guidance, some guidelines, some governance around it. And so the same thing's happening with AI. That's awesome.

That's really cool. Is there anything like you're kind of seeing, you're looking ahead on with AI that maybe you're excited about for your clients or maybe they're getting excited about? I think that the automation side is going to see a lot of movement in the next year. You know, that's been around longer than we really talked about.

I mean, I can remember in I think 2000, maybe 17 or 18, my firm was going to a new audit methodology and said they built bots. Same thing, automation. But now we call it AI. But I think we're going to see even smaller firms because now there are tools where they don't have to have these highly, highly technical builders to build the bots.

They're out-of-the-box things that they can use. So I think there'll be a lot of work around that. That's cool. Josh, thank you so much for coming on the Amplify podcast here live at Summit.

This is really cool to have everybody here and we get to have these conversations, which is really fun. Yeah, it's really good to be back and to be able to kind of do this again with you guys. blessing to kind of come and just talk about what's going on in the world of accounting marketing, really. I know most people know you, but why don't you just share for everybody who you are, firm you're with, all that fun stuff.

Yeah, sure. So I'm the director of Practice Growth for Lane Gorman Trubet. We're based out of... Thank you.

Yeah, it is. It's a little bit more of a challenge right now, but I'm trying to get it, and time will tell. You got to get your feet set. Exactly.

But we have two offices, our main office in Dallas, and we have another office in Houston. So I got a great group of marketing and business developers on my team who just continue to outshine themselves and the firm. And so it's really exciting time for us. That's awesome.

I'm excited for you. Thank you. I know you got a lot of things on your plate right now, working on a lot of different things, but it seems like technology is a big one for you right now, particularly with HubSpot. So kind of share with everyone, like, what's got you excited about that and maybe some challenges you're working through and kind of how you're approaching that.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, our firm has had HubSpot since 2016. That's crazy. And really, we haven't utilized the software to its full potential.

It hasn't really gotten that full endorsement throughout the partnership and things like that. one thing that I'm trying to change right now. We're using it mostly in marketing. It's doing a great job, blah, blah, blah.

But I also have two business developers, and I'm trying to look at how do I use the tech to minimize their administrative tasks that they're trying to do. I don't need them spending 30, 40% of their time doing administrative tasks. I need them going out, meeting people, shaking hands, kissing babies, things like that. And so, you know, right now, what that I've done at the beginning of the year is just really look at our tech stack and look at HubSpot itself and see what are some ways that we can really automate and create workflows that really benefit both the sell side and the marketing side and how they both can kind of talk to each other seamlessly.

And so that's what I've challenged my team to do is to really look at those things and figure out what can we do? What can we do to have both talk to each other and in ways that of, you know, when it comes to like our events that we put on, you know, whether it's the associations that we're a part of, how can we talk, you know, let the tech talk to each other and get appointments on my sales team's calendars so they can go out and, you know, qualify or unqualify. whatever leads that come in.

So yeah, do that job that they're actually really good at. Exactly. Rather than just plug in data. Yeah, exactly.

And so that's been the biggest challenge right now is just we're trying to do it smartly and, you know, come up with a 12 week plan of trying to implement this new process and in the mix, trying to get the partnership excited about this new venture. We had a lot of great business developers in the past. They had a great network, you know, a lot of people they knew, but when they left the firm, all of that went with them. Yeah.

So now I've got two business, you know, great business developers, but they don't have the network that actually left the firm. Yeah. So I gotta find a way to replace that in some way. And so, you know, in the world of our tech now, there's resources at our fingertips that can help us, you know, close that gap a little bit.

Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah, I think HubSpot's a big part of that for sure. A lot of firms, right? That becomes like your kind of central point of like, this is everything we know about every relationship we have.

And if it all ends up here, and we can track where people are at those stages and all that fun stuff as you're working on it. Yeah, exactly. It just becomes a huge, massive tool when it's done right to really start to get full visibility and also start to automate those relationships a little bit. And I think in this day and age, with a lot of, probably a lot of accounting firms, at least the ones that I've talked to here at Summit, we're all talking about our budgets.

We're talking about how our budgets have kind of shrunk this year because of maybe something that's going to be coming down the road. So it's on us as leaders to really get creative with looking at what we currently have and how do we utilize it to its best potential. And that's what it was with HubSpot. We're spending a lot of money.

It's a great program, but it is a lot of money. And my job was to look at it and say, okay, we got to get everything out of this that we can, and let's figure out how we can do that. Yeah, that's awesome. Thanks.

That's a great, some great lessons in there for a lot of firms. You know, it's a lesson for me, honestly. But being thrown into that position, I was given that ability to kind of, okay, now I'm at the, you know, the top, I can look at everything from top to bottom and see what we can do. So it's very exciting.

It's very exciting. I'm Mike Jones, CEO and managing partner of ReSound. I'm also co-founder of Kindred, which is a BD consulting and training program. We do outreach programs for professional services firms, help them with their BD and their process, so.

Really excited about that. I'm excited about ReSound as well, but get to wear two hats right now and it's really fun. And really excited to be here at Summit. Always love this.

And it's really fun this year 'cause it's in my backyard right here in Phoenix. So I love that we got to bring some of our office to Summit. It's been really cool. This is the coziest corner of Summit this year, I think.

I've definitely seen people just sitting at the chairs, taking a break. chatting with you. You also are on the podcast committee and missed that. I am, yeah.

Co-hosts of three co-hosts with you and Meg. So we're super excited about the podcast, just the podcast in general. I think there's a lot of really fun stuff we're doing this year. Obviously here at Summit, doing all these live interviews is always super fun.

We've got some really cool topics coming up. I think we've got marketing technology as a whole season. I think there's six or seven episodes that Meg's working on. that we're going to be releasing soon.

And then I'm going to be working on a season on business development technology. So I'm really excited about that, having some interesting conversations already and a few more to come. And really excited for that season to be coming out probably later this summer. But yeah, we're having a lot of fun on the podcast.

We are having a lot of fun. We've got our hats at Summit this year. I've got a few comments on them, people like them. Speaking of business development, so you want to talk about a little bit of technology and what you're working on?

Yeah, so I think some of this is just coming out of a lot of conversations I'm having with a lot of firms around how they think about business development. And one of the big challenges that a lot of firms have with business development is everyone's like, oh, I don't have the time to put in a lot of these tools. So specifically when it comes to LinkedIn Sales Navigator, I think it's a really interesting opportunity for a lot of firms. They're all very interested in it.

conversations about how they're not using it, and yet they want to. And when we talk through the process of how you use it, it's like, oh, this seems really time intensive. And the reality is, yes, like most tools, you get out of it what you put in. And so for a lot of firms, we've been talking with them about how to think maybe about business development a little bit differently than they thought about it in the past.

So when you think about traditional business development, if a partner is doing it or you've got a BD specialist doing it, They're going out, they're making connections, they're networking, they're shaking hands. It's them doing it, right? And there's a lot of value in that because at the end of the day, they're building relationships and people want to have relationships with a real human being who represents the firm, usually someone who has some expertise. And we, I really believe that that is like the cornerstone of great business development is that it's relationship first and it's built on expertise.

That's how you can become a true advisor with your clients. The challenge in like a digital environment is it takes a lot more time and effort to develop those relationships. You don't get to actually shake hands in person. You have to kind of create these moments of connection.

They're a little bit more difficult. And for a lot of partners, they're not comfortable with the technology or they just don't feel like they have time. They got to book a business to take care of, they got clients to work, and they've got events to go to. And so what we've been really thinking about is how can you start to maybe fracture some of that process and put it in different hands?

And what's really cool with a lot of digital technologies, especially like Sales Navigator with LinkedIn, or, you know, if you're using ZoomInfo or you're using Apollo, it doesn't have to be the actual partner or business developer who's sending the emails or the messages or pushing the buttons in the platform. If you have a really clear process for how, like who you want to reach out to, how you want to really add value to their lives, and particularly in their profession, and how you're going to message them, someone else can do all the button pushing.

And it can be done on your behalf with your name on it. And you can still develop those relationships in a really authentic kind of way, but actually do it at scale. And that's what I'm really excited about. There's some firms, I think, that are starting to see that and are getting on board and really starting to pursue that within their business development process.

So I know it's kind of like sort of technology related, but really it's really about process. It's about thinking differently about business development, how you can do relationship building at scale. Using the technology as a tool and not as the end-all, be-all to get what every year. It's still going to be work.

It's still going to be a lot of work, but maybe it's not the partner that needs to do the work. What's your advice for someone maybe starting down that journey and you know, they want to use it, but what would be your advice for your first step for someone to take? So I think this is pretty foundational. I think most marketers get this, but having a niche, where do you need to be focused?

If you don't have a focus on who you're trying to reach, you know, maybe think of like an industry plus a geographic region plus a job title, right? Be really focused and start there. And that might even, you know, you know, do a small region, maybe like, you know, kind of the Northeast or something. You'll find that like with one job title, like CFO within a certain industry, that's only maybe a hundred people that you really need to reach out to start thinking through a process of what actually adds value to their lives.

So if you're going on LinkedIn and you're just connecting with them and then you're saying, hey, let's let's do a meeting, it's not really adding any value to them. But if you can think through something like a roundtable exclusively to CFOs in the construction industry, well, that's really interesting, right? You circle up once a month, you talk about challenges you're having. or insights gathered from each other.

So there's some level of they get to be the expert on the panel while also receiving expertise. And you get to be featured as the connector, right? If that's that partner who's coming in and they're the one featured putting this all together, they're a great connector. They look super connected because they probably are.

And you're leveraging that on this platform like LinkedIn. So being really focused and then thinking through like, what is that really, really value added offering that really significantly helps them. And for, you know, other firms or other personnel that might be like, Hey, let's do a webinar. We do a really deep dive on a particular tax issue.

Or maybe we do a Q&A session. We've got maybe a partner who's like really good on their feet and maybe doesn't do the prepared stuff super well. Great. Put them in a Q&A.

And let these people in a private session, right? I think that's part of it, is making sure that these offers are pretty exclusive, right? They're not showing up on the LinkedIn feed. They're not showing up in the newsletter because they're actually specifically for this really targeted group that you really want to help.

Yeah. So that would probably be where I would recommend starting. Don't ever recommend just like getting Sales Navigator and then just like jumping into it without that kind of plan. I've never seen...

Well, and also, I mean, you just gave really good advice so that it's not overwhelming. You know, you get really as specific as you possibly can, and also to your relationship building point, you know, use the strengths of whomever is going to be out there. So just really keep it simple. Yep.

That's great advice. Laura, thanks for being on the Amplify podcast here at AIM Summit 2025. First off, tell us a little bit about yourself. I think most people know you here, but tell us a little bit about yourself and your firm.

I am Laura Metz. I am the current president of your 2025 president of AIM. So very proud to be doing that role. And I am a senior growth manager at HCBT.

So our firm's in Southern California and I have the flexibility work remotely out of Kansas City. Awesome. That's fantastic. Yes.

You mentioned that you've got just some exciting things at your firm. What did you want to kind of mention today as something that you're working on? Yeah, so we've really been trying to revitalize our content marketing strategy over the past couple of years since I've been with the firm. And we've seen a bit of a breakthrough in incorporating AI and other kind of tools and resources in how we gather those insights.

So we've been doing an interview-based model of using AI to copilot specifically to record some conversations, build out the transcripts, and then help us find some of those key areas and pull quotes directly from our experts' mouths. And that's really helped us to then take that one interaction and create a multitude of marketing resources and materials from articles to, again, tools and checklists and things that supplement and complement those pieces. And so the biggest rewarding thing about that was sharing those pieces once they were complete with the subject matter expert to review and finalize.

And they literally looked at them and they said, how did you do this? And it included quotes from them. And I'm reading, I'm saying, you said these things. And they went, wow.

They go, I sound pretty smart, don't I? And so it definitely checked a bunch of boxes. We were able to really put them in the champion seat, make them sound smart, even though it's their own words. But then really showcase what they're doing in a more casual setting.

Because I think if you sit down with someone and say, give me the value proposition for M&A services, they're going to freeze up and they're going to start rambling off buzzword that you don't know where they got them from. But if you really start just a conversation with them and allow them to go a bit more in-depth into what they're excited about and what they're able to questions that their clients are asking and they're able to answer and help them solve, they're much more eager and willing to kind of give us the right path.

Okay. I have to follow up. The first one, like, okay, rewind a little bit. How did you get that idea of of sort of like AI generated content or even just like recording the partners of your firm, the subject matter experts.

How did you get that kind of approved or agreed upon? You know, it's a bit incestuous because it is AIM last year, our summit last year. There was, I really do apologize. I can follow up on this.

I'm blanking on the speaker, a presenter's name, but he really walked us through content generation utilizing kind of your experts and the tools you already have at hand, and he was the first one that kind of started the idea of layering these different tools. So, you know, using one to gather the transcript or information, using the other to interpret, using the other to build out additional resources and scripts and things like that. But also from the buy-in aspect, Copilot was something that it's been a gradual kind of rollout, but our firm is definitely prioritizing that as well as Ask BlueJay.

Those are kind of our two big AI tools that we're encouraging our people to incorporate and use. And so, you know, getting the most out of them and just really trying to see gradually what their capabilities are with those tools and then how we can really make them work for us. Okay, second question is, how do you manage scheduling those conversations and convincing those subject matter experts to actually get on with you and chat? So apparently I surprised them.

So we had a conversation, I told them what I was going to do, put it on the calendar as an interview, like, you know, found the time minutes, really nothing too ridiculous. And we get on the call and we've had so many calls and interactions and conversations that we get on the call and I shared the questions I was going to ask and I started asking them and one of them literally said, Oh, so this is like an interview. And so I would say, step one, trick them. But step two, it takes so much less thinking to just say, let's just have a conversation.

Like, I'm gonna ask you some questions. And I will say the first couple questions, they were a little in their own head and kind of frazzled. And so I would say maybe with the first couple kind of easing into things, questions, make those throwaways, make those ones to kind of help them get comfortable and acclimated to the conversational style. then really so that by the time they're telling stories and moving forward, you have them in a comfortable space that they're willing to elaborate.