february2021 - 15

THE MILLENNIAL ADVISOR

Mind-Bending:

The Move From Accountant
to Advisor in 2021
GARRETT WAGNER, CPA

CEO/Founder, C3 Evolution Group
garrett.wagner@cpapracticeadvisor.com

How far did you get?
Did your hands make it past your
knees? Don't worry, I'm in this camp
with you. Did you make it to your
ankles? Wow, even better. Maybe you
do a lot of yoga, and you touched
the ground on your first attempt -
maybe even put your palm on the
floor. Truly impressive!
As you well may know from
working out or past experience, if
you try this again a second time,
something wonderful happens.
On the second try, and then the
third and fourth, your flexibility
increases. Your muscles and soft
tissue warm up, their memories
come alive, and you find you can
reach further than each previous
effort.
Like the development of our
physical flexibility, as we head into
2021, we can work on increasing our
mental flexibility.
If 2020 were any indication, 2021
may come with its own fair share
of surprises. By sharpening our
mental flexibility, we can be ready
for what comes next and to reach
farther, more easily and quickly. Just
like we practice touching our knees,
then our ankles, then the ground, we
can expand our mental agility and
preparedness for what these times
hold in store.
By having mental flexibility, we
can shift our roles as accountant,
solely focused on the past, into
advisors, ready to help clients deal
with complexities and unpredictable
changes.

LET'S START WITH a little test. Wherever you are now, stand
up and try and touch your toes. Go ahead, give it a try.
CREDITS, DEBITS, RISK &
REWARD
For many accountants, this concept
of becoming flexible people of action
is something new. Frankly, it sounds
a bit risky, doesn't it?
By largely staying focused on
the past and the defined nature
of debits and credits, we remain
in the relatively safety of having
all the inputs. No matter how bad
the accounting was done for an
organization, the debits always equal
the credits. All the transactions
and data recorded in the general
ledger are just that-they have
been recorded. They may have been
recorded incorrectly, but they were
recorded, nonetheless.
Contrast this to the everchanging challenges we faced in
2020, or around the CARES act,
the PPP program, and so on...
Unfortunately, we never had all
the data. Our clients needed our
input-our opinions and our bestguess as to what to do.
Based on this, to grow our skills,
we must accept that we simply
cannot know everything.
Step 1 is accepting that gray areas
aren't easy facts for us as accountants
to accept. When we look at consultants
across any industry or organization,
they are not all-seeing or all-knowing.
They use what data they can get and
make assumptions based on what
they can know, plus past case history
or experience, plus the tea leaves or
models of predictability. That is what
they are paid to do.

When you are tasked to give
proactive, forward-looking advice,
you can never plan for and project a
fully baked future. Your client knows
it, and it is you who is uncomfortable
with it-not the client.
Instead, you need to focus on
doing the best you can with what
you have to work with. The year
2020 taught us that. It forced us to
" make do " with the ever-changing
PPP loans and their oftentimes asyet-unknown forgiveness policies.
Given what we know now, we may
have done a few things differently.
But we make the best decision we
can with the information we have
at the time. I did not hear many
firms telling their clients, " We will
not provide any advice about this
program, because there are too many
unknowns. You are on your own. "

JUST A LITTLE RESPECT
Think of it this way. You advise what
is the best solution, not the right
answer. Given your vast knowledge
and insight, and based on what is in
front of you.
We cannot fail our clients by
refusing to give them advice because
we don't know all the answers. The
world cannot stop turning. In this
new way of thinking, we work to
understand all the " known knowns "
and think through their possible
outcomes. We do some " game
theory, " thinking through what we
know, what we do not know, the
variables, and how these may play
out short- and long-term.

FEBRUARY 2021 ■

Once we map out those
equations, we are ready to make a
recommendation. Like consultants,
this is what we are paid for-this
is why respect is given and how it
gets earned.
While 2020 did not progress
as anyone had thought, it forced
us to adapt. We shifted overnight
from accounting and into advising.
We stumbled onto an otherworldly financial playing field. We
immediately tested and re-tested our
mental flexibility. The end result was
that we provided forward-looking
advice, even if it seemed we were
using the scientific method rather
than a proven model.
As we head into 2021, let's build
on these skills. Push yourself past
that little voice in your head-the
one that says you need to know
100 percent of everything to make
a recommendation. Because those
days are gone, my friends.
Each time you can make a
strategic decision without knowing
everything for certain, you have
increased your mental flexibility.
And pretty soon, you will be palms
down on the floor-the most flexible,
strategic accountant in the house. ■

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february2021

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