Leadership, Culture and Growth

Today, our guest is Dave Olsen. Dave is founder and CEO of Nimbl and Nimbl Staffing. Nimbl is a remote team based in the U.S., Canada and Philippines that provides bookkeeping, tax, and FP&A services. And Nimbl Staffing provides full-time Philippines-based bookkeepers and administrative staff to North American companies. Dave, welcome to The Unique CPA. 

Thank you. It’s great to be here. 

Yeah! You and I met for the first time, what, two weeks ago or something?

Yeah, Scaling New Heights. I’ve heard your name for a long time, but it was good to finally meet in person. 

Yeah. And I had heard your name as well. I know you were recently on my buddy, Scott Scarano’s podcast, Accounting High, and Scott’s always an interesting guy to talk to for sure.

He is. Yeah. He has a great take on the industry and it’s been fun to be on his podcast. 

Yep. So why don’t you give us a little more insight on, into Nimbl. So just give us a little background, what it is. You know, I read the bio page, but give us in your words a little more on that, both Nimbl and and Nimbl Staffing.z

Yeah, I think the, how it evolved is kind of relevant to the topic we’re going to be covering today. But basically it evolved from me jumping off from Big Four auditing to being a contract CFO for quite a few years before gradually building a full bookkeeping and tax business under that CFO umbrella. And then along the way, as part of building that team, we built a team in the Philippines to handle the bookkeeping. And other companies, especially accounting firms heard that we were doing that, heard that we had the office and the infrastructure there. And so they asked if we could hire full time people for them and place them in our office. So we went ahead and did that, even though it wasn’t the intention of, you know, creating a separate business that way. But like as happens in a lot of businesses, it just evolved that way. And, um, yeah, it has worked out, worked out from there. 

Alright. So you do full service tax and accounting for companies.

Yeah. Full service. So we do all the, what some people call CAS, the bookkeeping, payables, payroll, all that. And then we do the full service tax. And then we also have a FP&A and a CFO team as well. 

Okay. So FP&A, I’ve heard it a lot. I’m dumb. So I don’t understand what these things mean. Explain FP&A to me. 

Yeah. It’s an acronym for Financial Planning and Analysis. And essentially it’s a fancy way of saying cashflow projections, financial modeling, basically with, if the CAS or the accounting part of it is looking back, the FP&A is looking ahead, doing our best to predict cash and future results. 

That’s amazing. You just maybe understand that in two sentences. So I appreciate that because I’ve been, cause I was talking with someone else about FP&A last year, last August, and, and I was like, I don’t know what that is. Can you explain it? And I didn’t get the explanation. Now, you just did it in two seconds. Alright. This is what we said before the podcast: I feel if I’m learning, other people are learning. They all probably knew what that was, but thank you for educating me. 

Yeah, we actually, as we started that team, we struggled with what to call it just for that very reason, because, you know, FP&A specialist, that kind of thing, they know what that is, but clients have no idea what that means. And so we actually call that team “strategic finance.” And I don’t know if that helps clients to understand, but it’s really about being strategic about the future. And we call it that instead of CFO too, because we’re intentionally creating more of a productized offering rather than really customized, you know, high end CFO services. So that’s where we’re looking to place it. 

Okay. And let’s get a little bit of history, ’cause you said setting the stage is probably good for the conversation. I haven’t teased the conversation yet, but I will—we’re going to talk about leadership and people experience as we go a little bit today, we’ll see where we go down that. But Nimbl itself is older than the, I mean, you expanded it starting five years ago or something. And does that tie into the whole leadership and people experience we’re going to talk about? Is this, you know, when you look to start hiring people on to decide this was going to be more than just you or you and a couple of people, was that one of the key things is, is looking at the people and the leadership end of things?

Yeah. That journey really is key because it was just probably about 10 years, it was really just me and a few of the offshore bookkeepers. And at the time when I started, I wasn’t really looking to create a business. It was more just, you know, I started with a job as a startup CFO and then, as I branched out to other companies, it was more like multiple jobs as opposed to building a business. So it was really 10 years of evolution for me to really understand that I could look at this like a business, and then what does it mean to be a leader of a business? And I think that’s typical of a lot of accountants’ journeys, is we start out as technicians and we may grow either intentionally or unintentionally, and we’re kind of left without a lot of guidance, a lot of direction of what does it mean to be a leader? What does it mean to actually build a business as opposed to building a practice? 

And I think even in the industry as a whole, and I don’t know how intentional this is, and this is just my perspective on it, you know, we call them accounting firms and accounting practices. And to me, that applies, technicians doing work as opposed to building companies or building businesses. And that’s some of the distinction that I’ve seen and I’ve applied. Again, sometimes by chance, sometimes by a little bit of luck is really looking to build a business and not, not build just a practice as an extension of me.

Yeah. I’ve heard that so many times lately from more, what I call modern startup firms, you know. The legacy firms, I’m not sure. Some of them are there, some of them are not, but so many times people talk about, like you said, the firm, or, you know, this is what we do, and they don’t look at it as—I’m surprised to hear they don’t even realize they have a business. This accounting firm is actually a business that you as the leader, and we’ll talk about leader, should be concentrating on running that business. And some of the Best firms I’ve seen out there, the managing partners have no client responsibility. The client is the firm. And I just love that fact that they’re looking at that as a business.

So let’s talk about leadership then. So when you went into this, you wanted to have a different mindset. You wanted to change the way you looked at it. And so, you know, how did you start? Where’d you go? Did you start with defining what leadership means? Did you start with educating yourself? Where’d we go from there?

Yeah, there’s a lot to say. And one really pivotal point I think is it was 2017 in the summer. And so this is about six months before I actually started hiring people in the U.S. And I had a prospect come along who had an executive coaching business and he was looking for a CFO, and looking for accounting. So I sat down with him and you know, because of his nature as an executive coach, he ended up asking me more about my business than I was finding out about his as far as what I needed to do to quote him for the work. And he’s asking me about my goals and I was telling him basically that I see a huge opportunity in what I’m doing, I love what I’m doing, have the beginnings of a system that I felt like I could scale if I put some attention into it. But you know, I had a great life. I had a great lifestyle, had a family. I thought, I don’t see how I can actually build a business and maintain the lifestyle and the future, the family priority, and all that, that I wanted. 

And he just, he looked at me and it’s so simple, but it was a profound moment for me. Something just kind of hit me to the core for some reason. And he said, why can’t you have both? And again, so simple, seems like an offhand meaningless comment, but it changed everything for me. And that’s when, you know, as he is an executive coach, you know, he fortunately hired me, maybe he saw my small thinking, but he maybe saw some potential in what was possible, and began to learn from him about leadership and you know, how to make that possible. And it really, it’s all about people. What I imagined building a business, it was all about me. Like I had to do everything, I had to build this up and it was all on me. And what I learned from him, it’s not that. Leadership is bringing on people, is creating the vision, and bringing people on board that align with that vision and, you know, share the load and sharing the rewards of building. And that was really the starting point of my leadership journey. 

That’s awesome. So as you were doing this then, and you decided it’s time to bring in U.S. based employees as well, and looking at leadership a different way, your coach is  there telling you that, you know, you can have both, uh, the business and the life. And so that’s a big thing around me, personally, around corporate culture, business culture, which I think is extremely important. So did you intentionally then go say, this is the type of culture we want to create? 

Yeah. And I can’t say that I was perfect at it and I’m still not perfect at it. I’m learning too, I’m a student just as much as anyone else. But what I looked at, I kind of had the advantage of having a lot of time, I guess I had that 10 years of kind of building my own service and figuring out the system and kind of dabbling in the business with a few offshore people. And it felt like I had a good foundation. So when I was ready to hire us people, I could do it with some intention. And that was a big part of what I looked at before hiring those—what kind of culture do I intend to build with that? What kind of experience do I want to create for the team? And I definitely wasn’t, I wouldn’t say as intentional as I am now in doing that, but it was at least a starting point, and, you know, a big part of that culture is really defining why do I exist? What is the purpose for the business and what are the values and the virtues that we, that I would like to kind of put out there, in the world. And, you know, in defining that, then attempting to bring people on that align with that culture, and that somewhat follow the virtues, or do follow the virtues, but are workable and willing to learn and become better in those areas.

So do you have, I mean, the mission statement that everybody sees when they come in, the virtue statements, the whatever statements, I mean, how do people know that they’re going to be in line with what your vision is? 

Yeah. And I can’t remember actually exactly how we had it back then, but we do have that now. We have our purpose statement, our vision, and really the biggest thing we communicate on an ongoing basis is our core virtues. They’re basically equivalent to core values, but we call them core virtues, and it actually comes from Ben Horowitz’s book, What You Do Is Who You Are. It’s a book all about culture and I highly recommend it. The reason he calls it “virtues” is he feels like that’s more of an action. Like, we embody those, this is who we are, as opposed to, this is just an ideal of who we, what we value or who we think, what we think is good. 

So he says, “what you do is who you are,” is that what you said?

That’s the title of the book is What You Do Is Who You Are. 

Okay. And I’m going to not argue with that yet. But my thought is when, is he saying my job title is who I am or what I do outside of work is who I am?

So it’s been a while since I’ve read the book. So I can’t remember exactly all the ins and outs of how that title comes in, but it’s basically saying the culture—you want to create the culture of doing who you are and who you’d like to be in a business.

So as you’re saying you, you’re saying the business. So okay, I can see that. ’Cause for me, the people I work with are not the, you know, tax consultant or the cost segregation specialist or the R&D tax credit specialist or whatever they are, the mountain biker, the hiker, the. craft beer enthusiast, the musician, the artist, that’s who they are. But I’m guessing you have that same mindset that people do. 

For sure. Yeah. It doesn’t say that your work defines who you are. I think more concisely, if I could attempt to communicate what he’s saying is it’s about what you do and how you actually operate is your culture, not what you say it is.

Yeah. I can understand. That makes a lot more sense. Okay. See, you’re educating me nonstop here. This is awesome. And I’ll have to go read this book too, ’cause culture is such an important thing in my mind. I dabble with trying to define culture. And it’s really hard for me to do because it is kind of just what you do. And so defining it, I kind of agree with that. Defining it’s really tough for me. I know it, I have it in my brain. It’s hard for me to say what it is because it’s just what we do rather than what I say. I guess that kind of ties in with him. 

Yeah, for sure. And I think one reason it’s hard is because I think it becomes, culture becomes a combination of how intentional we are about it, what we say it should be, and then what actually happens in the business. And hopefully we can align those as much as possible. But, you know, I think sometimes it evolves over time where it doesn’t carry out exactly as we say it is. And that’s the job of the leader, is to notice that happening and to either, you know, let it evolve if it’s kind of in a useful way or to rein it back in or redirect it if it’s not going in a way that the leader sees it as useful.

Okay, so let’s get back, after my sidetrack, then let’s get back to leadership. Because there’s a few other things that we talked about ahead of time on leadership and the importance, and things we could do. But one of the things that you had mentioned to me earlier, and I think this is, this is perfect is, you know, creating leadership structure that doesn’t rely on the owner because if it relies on you and sometimes you and you’re gone, then what happens to the business? So I’ve talked to other people about this, but building a sustainable firm, it can survive without you. So what’s your thoughts on that leadership structure? 

Yeah, I really think it can be looked at as simple as separating the ownership hat from the management hat. And that could be the same people, like especially in accounting, it’s usually the owners who are actually operating the business, but when they don’t make a distinction between those hats, I think it gets really, really confusing. So, and the way I like to look at that is we follow the corporate model within Nimbl. And corporate, meaning not a corporate entity, but a corporate structure. So instead of having a partnership model where we have, you know, a bunch of partners, and you know, down from there, we have a, you know, CEO, president, C suite, VP, director structure. And to me, that makes it easier to separate the management hat. So I, as a CEO, I’m wearing that hat. I’m also an owner and I can wear that hat separately when I’m meeting with my partner in discussing the direction of the business or the overall strategy, separate from the day to day operations.

Okay, that’s, I think, something that is missed often in accounting firms and accounting firms, as we said earlier, I think sometimes get this wrong from the leadership standpoint. But the other thing that I like that you had mentioned as well, which I’d like to expand on is that, you know, your definition of leadership is leading more towards outcome and not to tasks. To me, that is more, less micromanaging. I don’t know if this is how you’re defining it, and more just letting people do their job. 

For sure. That’s how I’d really define the growth and the progression of Nimbl is going from me doing everything, to me hiring people and giving them tasks, to me hiring leaders who are capable of understanding what the outcome is and then going and figuring out themselves. And not that I don’t lead or guide or help in that process, but really they’re accountable to the outcomes. And if they’re getting the outcomes, I don’t care how they do it. And that’s really, you know, the big milestones we’ve had is when we’ve been able to hire and put those kinds of leaders in place. And it’s really, I’d say the last six months, actually, that we’ve put a defined leadership team in place, let’s say, you know, in a full way where I’m stepping back and just leading to outcomes and not really, other than understanding what’s going on day to day, not really involved in directing what goes on day to day.

Yep. And that’s a big thing with me because I am to the point in my career where I am trying to get everything off my plate other than the things I like doing. But I don’t tell people this has to be done this way at this time or anything. It’s just like, hey, in fact, just hired an assistant today. You and I were talking about it before we went live. I am extremely excited about this. And one of the biggest things she’s doing is taking over my email, so I am no longer a slave to email and I am—which I was terrible at anyways. But basically she’s just going to go through and, you know, no, uh, no rules, just go through and check it. But, so many other things.

Yeah, I think some leaders are resistant to that idea because they think, oh, does that mean I’m stepping away from the business or I’m not working as hard, or what’s the team going to think? And there could be all kinds of goals for doing that. And it’s perfectly legitimate if a leader wants to step back and really only where the ownership had and just be like a shareholder in the business and let others manage it, there’s nothing wrong with that. Or it just could mean freeing up the leader to be able to do higher value, higher leverage things. 

Exactly.

And to build a business in other areas or whatever. So there’s lots of reasons for it and no reason to shy away from it. You should lean into it. 

Yep. And I think there’s a lot of things that people that start a firm don’t realize. It’s like, okay, I started it. I have to run everything day to day. I have to meet with clients. I have to do all this stuff. I was managing partner of our firm until six years ago for the first 10 years of our business. And honestly, it was probably a very big misuse of my skills. Because one, I wasn’t skilled at running the firm, looking back now, but basically being the person that’s out promoting the brand and talking about it and education, that, I just have so much more passion for and love it so much. And we have grown tremendously since I gave up that role and took on this role. Now, I won’t say that’s just me changing roles, but it’s also my partner going into the managing partner role that he was probably born to do, and I was not. And so people just don’t be afraid of redefining your role in your business. And I think that’s just a sign of leadership. 

Yeah. And I think I heard three aspects of that in what you said. One is passion. It’s what you had passion for. And if I’m, if I’m getting this right, you have passion for it. You’re good at it. And it has the biggest impact on the business. And I think those three are super important factors in looking at where, where does the leader spend his time, his or her time.

Yep. And I, and to me personally, and again, I’m not, you’re a lot more educated on leadership than me, but for me, two of the biggest things I think are important to a leader is empathy and vulnerability, because if you have that, it’s going to show through as genuine to people, and they’re going to know that you’re open and to listen to anything that they say, and be there for them and be able to share anything. So, and I’m probably forgetting one. I think I usually say three things, but empathy, vulnerability, and something else, whatever that other one was. 

Yeah, well, those two are a great start. 

Okay. So let’s pivot then to the whole people experience. Do you always call this PX? Is this a common term that I just don’t know about?

It’s somewhat common that we just adopted, within Nimbl. We used to call it team experience. So we really break down our company into three main areas: team experience, client experience, and growth. And we’ve just discovered, and the common term for, for a client experience is CX. And we were looking for a more concise way to share our priorities. And we actually saw in the HR world that people were calling it people experience, PX, with CX, PX works out. 

That’s nice. Alright. And so let’s talk about your people experience. What are the key things? What, why is it important? What are you looking to do with your people experience? 

Yeah. So it’s really about attracting and retaining the people that can carry out the vision and that can share in the benefits of building. So it’s not just about, you know, fulfilling on the owner’s needs and making the owner wealthy. It’s about providing experience that, that is fulfilling for all the team members that allows them to, you know, big part of what we look at at Nimbl is what is the life and the lifestyle that our people want outside of work—family or hobbies or goals or whatever’s important to them. And then what are their abilities and the needs of the business? And how do we put all those together? So it doesn’t do any good if someone is, you know, meeting the needs of the business, but they’re neglecting or not meeting the needs of their life. So, it’s really about discovering both and putting those together and finding the people who align with that. 

And if someone doesn’t align with that, there’s no nothing wrong with that. That’s great. We want to find that out as quickly as we can. So we help them find a place that, you know, hopefully within the business that works for them. And if not, find them a place that’s not within Nimbl, because there’s no reason to, to hold on to people and, and kind of hold them captive, I guess. They could be free to, to make the most out of their own lives, maybe somewhere else. 

So I have a friend that when she talks about clients, the clients that she is ready to get rid of, she says she invites them to be successful elsewhere. And so similar, because you want them to be successful. You want people to thrive and enjoy what they’re doing. And if it’s not at Nimbl, well then identify that quick and help them be successful elsewhere. I think that’s awesome. 

And so from that standpoint, are there specific things you do to, I mean, obviously when we’re talking about leadership, you give them the freedom to get their work done based on results, not the test, the outcomes, not the test. Is there, I mean, is there any things like just resources you make available to people, downtime, off time, sabbaticals? I don’t know if you do anything like that. But is there things that you do specifically you think helps the PX, the people experience? 

Sure. There’s a lot to it. And we actually have a specific vision that we have outlined of what, what there are at the elements of our, our PX, our people experience. And, and then we have specific initiatives or programs or tools or whatever that help us in each one of those areas. And I can run through that briefly here. So really individual team members understand, subscribe to and see how they contribute to the Nimbl vision. So it really goes back to what we said before about leadership is setting that vision and finding people who align with that vision. 

They’re enabled to create the current and future career and lifestyle that aligns with both their desires and the company’s needs. This is, we talked about a few minutes ago, putting the individual needs and the company’s together. Have the tools, including training needed to be successful. Know where their performance stands at all times and experience of fulfillment of high performance. Are fairly compensated and share in the success they contribute to. And have the opportunity to learn, grow responsibilities, contribute to others, and be recognized for achievements.

Nice. So from that standpoint, and I read here, you have, and you just said it, but you have performance agreements. What does that mean? 

Yeah. So I’ll step back just a little bit from that, if that’s okay. One thing we’ve discovered is, as we focus just on the team experience, it’s incomplete in the people experience. I think the client experience and the team experience go hand in hand, because we discovered from our team when they’re happiest is when the client’s happy. And when they have the hardest time is when the client’s not happy. So if we, it’s like a virtuous cycle, if we can improve the client experience and improve the team experience and then vice versa. The word we use to distinguish that is, is performance. What does performance look like in the business? 

And for most of our team, that looks like serving the clients. And so we have what we call performance agreements. And basically it’s kind of like a job description, along with metrics and an agreement of what that looks like to fill on that. And if they’re not currently quite up to par on that job, it’s what’s a plan to get their timeline and steps to take and things like that. And so it really, it makes it clear on what is the employee agreeing to, and then it’s a two way thing. So this is here, here’s what the employee agrees to. And then in return, here’s what the company provides as far as compensation and benefits and support of their, the life that they want as well.

Right. And training, and things that help them in their role, I assume?

For sure.

I’m assuming that part of that is open to changing roles as well, or, you know, if there’s not a perfect fit here, but that’s a great person and they adhere to our virtues, is there a better role for them in the, within Nimbl?

Yeah, definitely. Part of that is we define career paths. So within the company is, what does this look like at each level and role in the business? What are the metrics and the responsibilities of the role of what’s a compensation range? So it gives people a clear picture of what can the future look like as they grow. And we also distinguish people leadership and client leadership. So, you know, just because someone doesn’t want to, or isn’t great at leading people, it doesn’t mean they can’t progress within the company of, you know, being an exceptional client service person and taking on more clients or higher level or, more complicated clients. So that’s one path. And the other path is that people leadership and taking on more responsibility in that way. 

Alright. Nice. So based on everything we were talking about so far and the pivot or the change or the 10 years in business, and then you decided it was time to really expand this, starting in 2018 and going through the leadership and how you want that to be structured and look and make sure that people experience and obviously the client, the PX and the CX. And so based on all that, you know, did you at the time, or do you now have a plan? This is where we see Nimbl going. This is, you know, and I’m assuming it’s not rigid. It’s flexible, but you know, what is the plan for the future now based on you setting the stage with all these different aspects of the business?

Yeah. How I see the future has definitely evolved over that time. When we first started five years ago, we had no idea, like, what does that look like? What are the possibilities? And, you know, it’s growing a lot bigger and faster than I could have expected. And sometimes I think goals can sell us short sometimes, kind of limits what’s possible. But so the way I look at that is, we’ve grown to almost 100 people between the US and the Philippines, and we’re close to $5 million in annual revenue. I used to think more in terms of numbers, like where we want to be in terms of a certain number. And I’ve shifted my thinking, and I think it’s important to have a number because that kind of drives the rest of the business. If we’re going to be at a certain level, here’s what we need as far as people and training and infrastructure to support that.

But to me, what’s more important is providing that team, that people experience, that client experience, and what rate can we grow that allows us to provide that exceptional experience, to be indispensable to our clients, to have them not be able to imagine building their businesses without us and our team, like not imagine, can’t imagine not working for Nimbl because it’s been so great for their career and their lives. So as we break down that CX, that PX, and then the growth is a third element is what level of growth supports that. 

And to me, growth is important because it provides opportunities for our team to grow. So that impacts the team experience. If we’re just stagnant, then you know, if we’re hiring good people, most people want to progress and grow, and we have to have the growth to support that. And then from the client experience, we want to be able to expand the impact that we’re having. If we’re providing that great experience, we’re going to want to provide that experience for more business owners. So yeah. For what that looks like in the future, again, it can evolve and change, but, where we’d like to be is within three years, be closer to $10 million in annual revenue. And then again, just a number to help us organize around what does it look like to be, be a $10 million company. 

Right, right. And leading with the client experience and the people experience and make sure those don’t get watered down as the growth comes in. I think that’s great. 

Alright. Well, I got two last questions for you, unless you want, I think you just did give a nice wrap on that. So I’m going to ask you two last questions before we close up here today. First is, and everybody gets this and you know, we just talked about, and I think I know the answer to this cause I did a little research, but we just talked about business and what you’re doing. And I think you’re doing an amazing job, and making that change five years ago. But when you’re not thinking business and your personal people experience, what do you enjoy doing that’s not work related?

Yeah. So family is everything to me. So I’ve got three kids, 19, 17 and 15. So, you know, everything I do revolves around that. And as much as possible, I’d like to involve my family in outdoor activities, so do a lot of mountain biking, running and walking, hiking in the Utah mountains and, snowboarding to pass the winter. So that’s my ideal. 

Yep. I had a feeling that was your answer. So that’s awesome. And then if anybody wants to find out more about what you’re doing, about you personally, about Nimbl, where would they look?

Yeah. If you search Dave Olsen Nimbl, Nimbl without an E on LinkedIn, you can all come up, and I’d be happy to connect on there. Our website is TrustNimbl.com. 

Nice. Well, I’m very excited to watch how things keep evolving with Nimbl. It’s a pretty cool story. I like the fact you’re leading with that leadership and the people experience and the client experience, but making sure they all go hand in hand. So Dave, thank you so much for being here today. 

Yeah, thank you. It’s been a pleasure.