EP210: Carl Reader - What You Need To Know About Business Strategy

Michael Palmer: It's not an easy shift to go through because we were all recruited on skills, but actually we've got to look for that raw talent and motivation and find the right people, not the people who can do the job. You're listening to The Successful Bookkeeper with your host, Michael Palmer. Listen each week as inspiring guests share their secrets of success to help you increase your confidence, work smarter, and build a business you love. This episode of The Successful Bookkeeper is brought to you by purebookkeeping.com, the proven system to grow your bookkeeping business. Welcome back to The Successful Bookkeeper Podcast. I am your host, Michael Palmer, and today's show is going to be a fantastic one. Our guest is the head of accounting at Practice Ignition for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. He has over 23 years of experience in the accounting industry, and during that time has provided advice to small and large enterprises throughout the United Kingdom, Europe, and North America. He's also a massive advocate for small business owners around the world. Carl Reader, welcome to the podcast. Hey, Michael, thank you so much for having me. It's great to have you, and, and I've been following you for a while., and I absolutely love the work you do and your message. And I'm excited to share with our listeners your story if they haven't already learned about you. Sure. So should I kick off with a bit of background? I would love to go there.

Carl Reader: Fantastic. So, um, so yeah, Michael, thank you so much for the introduction because you, um, introduced me far better than I ever could. You know, I, I just tend to give a bit of backstory and it gets a bit messy. But yeah, Michael, as you've said, so I serve as head of accounting for Practice Ignition for the EMEA region. I also serve as chairman for D&T, which is my accountancy firm that I joined back in 2002, bought the firm out in '07 and built it. So we scaled from 8 employees to about 60. So it's now a multimillion turnover firm. I serve as chair of the practitioners panel for the ACCA, which is the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants. And yeah, I do a fair bit on the side as well touched on. So I've written a couple of books and speak on podcasts like this, but also on radio. I do columns in the national press, and I tend to stick my nose in where it's not wanted. I think it's the best way of putting it, Michael. Nice, nice. Well, tell, tell us a little bit about those early days