What is #AskSpurrellCPA?

#AskSpurrellCPA are videos published on the spurrell.ca website and the Spurrell & Associates YouTube channel to help business owners with common issues. For each video we pick a topic and answer questions dealing with that topic.

Why did you start publishing the #AskSpurrellCPA videos?

At Spurrell & Associates we are passionate about helping entrepreneurs succeed. We believe the failure rate for small business owners is unnecessarily high. Although most business owners believe that their pain points are unique, it’s our experience that most entrepreneurs are experiencing issues that other entrepreneurs have already gone through. Even more importantly, there are normally proven strategies that business owners can implement to overcome these issues. With these strategies in hand, the average business owner can move forward while avoiding the costly trial and error process.

Who are these videos for?

These videos are for anyone who wants to increase their knowledge about operating a small business and increase their chance for being a successful entrepreneur. This includes clients, prospective clients, and non-clients alike. We believe they are useful for people who are planning a business, start-ups, and experienced small business owners.

Why would you give away your secrets?

Imagine if you were a mechanic and you were driving down a remote country road. You have tools in your truck and you come across a car that has broke down. You see a young couple outside of the car, with kids in the back seat. It’s cold outside. She is holding a flashlight and he is trying to change a flat tire with a small crescent wrench that looks like it was purchased at the dollar store. Are you going to keep driving? Are you going to stop and quote them your hourly rate? We’re hoping you would just stop to help for free. Thus, we believe it’s our duty to help people regardless if they are clients or not. Although it’s not practical to give endless free advice on a one on one basis to non-paying customers, we believe providing some form of free advice is our duty in this profession.

In addition to the altruistic motives, we believe a struggling small business community is bad for the economy as a whole. Roughly 5% of the Canadian population is self employed and 70% of all private sector jobs are created by small businesses. If 50% of these businesses are failing, this does not pose an ideal situation for any business, including our clients. Thus, we believe the business community as whole would be more likely to prosper if they shared information more freely, rather than viewing every detail as a “trade secret”. Although sharing some information may help competitors, ultimately, we believe a struggling economy is a bigger hurdle than some healthy competition.

Can I watch these videos and not hire my own accountant?

These videos are designed to give business owners potential strategies to address issues, rather than have the business owner try and reinvent the wheel at each speed bump. Thus, the knowledge in these videos can help speed up progress. However, beneficial results are often dependent on implementing these strategies with some level of customization to suit your particular circumstances. Failing to understand where these strategies need to be customized to suit your business could be disastrous. The only way to gain this level of understanding is to present these strategies to a Chartered Professional Accountant, who is familiar with your particular situation for guidance.

If I’m a client, why should I still watch these videos?

Even with our own client’s it’s not practical to impart all of our knowledge and experience in a one to one format. Often client meetings take more of a triage approach, in that we focus on the highest priority issues. If the client is able to learn and apply strategies on their own, this allows us to focus our efforts on strategies that require a greater degree of customization or strategies where the business owner is struggling with implementation. Thus, if clients can use these videos to learn and apply these strategies on their own, they will be more likely to accelerate their growth.

What’s a time efficient way to consume the content?

Time is always the single biggest limiting factor. No matter how much money we earn or how much financing is in place, we all only have 168 hours in the week. The length of these videos are generally around 10 to 20 minutes and all the questions in each video are grouped around a single topic. This will allow the average business owner to learn a meaningful amount on a particular topic during the natural breaks during the day. (I.e. waiting in line, eating lunch, on hold, etc.)

Additionally, most of the content on the #AskSpurrellCPA videos is useful in audio only format. Thus, if you want to pull up the video while and listen without watching, you will likely gain just as much from the content. We have a playlist on the Spurell & Associates YouTube channel if you want to loop the videos instead of having to pull up a new video each time one ends.

Who are the people in the videos and why are they so awkward?

The people in the videos are Spurrell & Associates employees or business owners. Most accountants tend to be on the introverted side. We would rather involve people on the show who have more knowledge rather than people with just style. Also, this lets people get to know the real people behind the scenes at our firm, who will be there to help you should you reach out to become one of our clients. Further, given the plethora of topics that business owners need assistance with, our focus will be on providing quality information on useful topics rather than spending copious amount of resources on editing. We are ok if we don’t win an Oscar, but we are not ok with your business failing.

What if I have a topic I would like discussed on #AskSpurrellCPA?

We would be happy to consider your topic for a future video on the show. The best way to bring forward a topic, is to leave a comment on one of the shows on the YouTube channel.

Are you looking for guests on #AskSpurrellCPA?

We would absolutely love to have other entrepreneurs on the show. Simply reach out to us at info@spurrell.ca.