Meet An Industry Leader
Ben Stokes
Executive Search & Recruitment - helping organisations gain competitive advantage by hiring high performing leaders
Nathan Hood, Co-Founder of Carbon Group
At Boston Stanley, we would never admit to having favourite clients, but one of our favourites is definitely Carbon Group.
A genuine success story of the accounting and financial services sector, we sat down with Co-Founder Nathan Hood to chat through Carbon, business and life…..
To what do you attribute the growth of Carbon Group?
“We’ve been proud of the growth of the business, Carbon started with 13 staff 5 years ago and today we employ 111 people.
I think our growth is a result of a few factors. Firstly, neither myself or Jamie (my business partner and the other Co-Founder of Carbon Group) come from a traditional large/mid tier accounting firm. This is important because we haven’t been ‘indoctrinated’ into the traditional accounting model (which works as well) but it means we don’t have a pre conceived bias towards the way things have always been done.
I attribute a lot of the success of the business to our commitment to taking action. Yes from time to time we stumble across some good ideas (and some bad ones) but I believe we’re both good at making decisions decisively and executing on them.”
What would you consider to be your biggest failure to date?
“At 23, I bought into the practice I was working at for $500,000 alongside a good colleague of mine. Soon after my colleague decided it wasn’t for him and I brought him out for another $500,000. So at a young age I had $1m of debt. The debt was financed against the business and mum and dad agreed to go guarantor for part of the loan.
This purchase was under a standard 12-month retention period. Shortly after 12 months, the retiring Partner I purchased the business from systematically went about trying to win back all of his clients, kick us out of the leased premises and even took our PO box, which was still connected to his name. Being younger and not as experienced, we took heavy losses of around 80% of what I had originally purchased.
I was faced with 2 options… fight in court for a year and try to recoup some of my lost purchase or ignore the games and rebuild. My business partner and I at the time (Dom), with the support of Macquarie took option 2 and spent the next 2 years rebuilding. Trying to recover from that meant spending my working week trying to win new business and doing the work at night and all weekend. We went 6 months without taking a single dollar out of the business after that.”
If you were in charge of the accounting industry for a day and could make one change, industry wide, what would it be?
“Mine would be related to the massive void created between the removal of the accounting exemption and the strict additional compliance requirements that the royal commission drove in financial planning. As a result, good advice will largely be out of reach of everyday Australians and it’s something that doesn’t sit well with me.”
What advice would you give accountants in the early stages of their career?
“Learn from people who come up with strategies and solve problems for clients. Computers and automation will replace most compliance-based roles within their working life, so only accountants who help clients with growth, strategic structuring and tax minimisation are likely to flourish in the long run.”
We always get positive feedback on Carbon’s culture. What do you do differently?
“Around 20% of our people have equity in the business. We believe this leads to higher engagement.
We don’t use timesheets, we empower our staff to manage their workloads. If people want to start and finish early, they can. If they want to take a longer lunch break but work back if they need to get work done, they do. Our focus is on work life integration.
Also, I know a lot of firms say it but we genuinely have a lot of fun here, and that’s not just having fun stuff (table tennis table etc) in the office collecting dust, they’re actually used and that’s driven from the partners down so the team knows that having fun is actively encouraged.”
What advice would you give clients considering starting out in business?
“Take action, everything looks hard the first time you do it but most people are paralysed by the fear of failure and do nothing. Buying a house is a daunting process and seems complex first time around but once you have purchased one, the second one is easier and the third easier still. Take action and learn from experience.
Making decisions quickly and decisively and not looking backwards is critical. More often than not I would rather make the wrong decision, but make it quickly and decisively than take a long time to arrive at the right decision and not implement it with conviction. You can get a lot more done by being decisive and not looking backwards.
Finally having clarity about what you are setting out to achieve with your business and why. We spent 6 months figuring out what Carbon would be before we launched. Lots of changes and tweaks were made along the way but by doing the ground work and relaying that with clarity to staff, keeps everyone moving in the same direction.”
Do you have mentors? Where do you go for advice?
“I have never had any one particular mentor, no. I find myself wanting to learn from people I meet. I consciously try and extract the best elements from people I respect in business and benchmark myself against those. The luxury of being a Partner of an accounting firm is that I get to meet a lot of successful business owners and can leverage the knowledge/strengths/insights that comes from those interactions.
Outside of work, I make a conscious effort to surround myself with people that I can learn from. I have been a member of EO (Entrepreneurs Organisation) recently sitting on the WA Board and also sit on a few start up business boards and have learnt a huge amount from those experiences.”
What are you passionate about?
“Helping people succeed by sharing knowledge”.
Greatest threats and opportunities regarding technology in the accounting industry?
“The greatest opportunity is increased margins for early adopters of smart technology but it’s a double-edged sword, if you look at Xero, it can help drive efficiencies but it could also give birth to an increase in ‘coffee shop accountants’ working in silos. This could weaken the industry with a race to the bottom regarding fees.
The automation of compliance work by technology will continue to remove a reasonably large part of the industry’s service offering. The opportunity is to build an advisory based business that is focussed on providing clients with strategic advice and smart structuring to sharpen the bottom line.”
What legacy do you want to leave via Carbon?
“I want the business to be seen as one that is leading positive change in the industry. On a personal level I really enjoy helping clients and staff achieve financial success.”
What is the biggest lesson you learned from your parents?
“Growing up, my dad owned a bakery and I would often work casually in customer service. When I was 11, he absolutely tore me to shreds. I was serving customers while waiting to go to a friend’s house. When it was time to leave, a customer walked in and instead of serving them I quickly walked out the back to get ready to leave. Once the customer realised I wasn’t going to serve them, they naturally walked out also.
The whole way to my friend’s house, my dad drilled me about how customer service is everything for his business and how that customer would now tell their 10 friends about that poor experience who would then each tell their 10 friends the same. My 1 action has cost him potentially 100 customers who would be unlikely to ever come into our store again all because I wanted to get to my friend’s house quicker.
I have never forgotten this important lesson and carry it with me to this day.”
Favourite travel destination?
“Japan.”
Owner and Managing Director of Design Synergy, a Perth-based building design and architectural drafting company.
5 年Informative- some good questions and frank answers.
People and Culture Advisor
5 年Great post Ben - loved reading this.
2024 Australian Bookkeeper of the Year Finalist. Registered BAS Agent and Bookkeeping Specialist with over 20 years experience, delivering exceptional, old fashioned personal service to clients.
5 年Absolutely love this!
President WASM Alumni | Resources Equity Analyst at Euroz Hartleys Limited |
5 年Great interview Benny. Love the last part about customer service. Very true!