GMAP PODCAST WITH Doug Sleeter

Also Available On

Show Summary

Doug Sleeter joins us for Episode 4 of the Grow My Accounting Practice Podcast!

Our Guest

Doug Sleeter (@DougSleeter) is a passionate leader of innovation and change in the small business accounting technology world. As a CPA firm veteran and former Apple Computer Evangelist, Doug has melded his two great passions (accounting and technology) to guide developers in the innovation of new products and to educate and lead accounting professionals who serve small businesses.

Doug is best known for his expertise in QuickBooks as well as driving the adoption of online accounting and small business process solutions. In the early 1990s, Doug was a pioneer in developing the first QuickBooks seminars in the country and has since built the largest group of accounting software consultants in the small business accounting profession. Doug serves on several advisory boards for technology companies and has consulted with numerous industry leaders including Intuit, Sage, Apple, and Adobe Systems.

Doug is the publisher of the Sleeter Report blog and writes a regular column in The CPA Practice Advisor. He is the author of numerous books and courseware materials including The QuickBooks Consultant’s Reference Guide, college textbooks such as QuickBooks Complete, QuickBooks Fundamentals, The QuickBooks Step-by-Step Teaching System, and Intuit’s QuickBooks Fundamentals Learning Guide.

The CPA Practice Advisor has recognized Doug as one of the “Top 25 Thought Leaders” in the accounting profession for the past several years and he has been named to Accounting Today’s “Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting” each year 2008 through 2014. He was recently awarded the 2013 Small Business Influence Champion award.

Highly sought for his ability to engage and educate accounting professionals, Doug presents at various accounting events throughout the year including those held by the AICPA and numerous State CPA societies. Doug also hosts an Accounting Solutions Conference and Tradeshow attended by hundreds of accounting professionals, industry leaders and technology developers.

Doug attended both the University of California Santa Cruz and Santa Clara University and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Computer Information Systems. Doug’s hobbies include travel, golf, racquetball, and reading. He lives with his family in Pleasanton – a northern California suburb of San Francisco.

Show Quotes

The biggest thing an accounting practice can do is grow your skill sets. In this changing world, your skill is the biggest determinant of how and if you will grow your accounting practice. Doug has been rated in the top 100 most influential people in accounting in the country more than once. His focus is always on helping the other guy. His focus is not on money, it is on value and his customer. When you are focused on adding money to the world the end result will lead to success.

When Doug started his business, he had a passion for small business. Seeing the potential in the growing technology of the time, he began to teach his clients something big that they didn’t even know they needed. “Today we are all mired in the web. We have apps everywhere. I like to call it the ‘Chunkification’ of the business process. When considering how the world works today, we have to rethink the process in a clients office.” Technology has dramatically improved the efficiency. It has completely changed how we think and operate. “As an accountant we need to really be on top of things like that”.

Pick your skills and improve your specialization. The more you specialize, the more money you’ll make. “Think agility trumps ability.” If you want to grow you must maintain agile, always looking up and around at the next new thing. Improving processes by learning, investigating, and making decisions about these new things before the general community.

The top reason a client hires an accounting professional is for their expertise and prompted but also proactive, strategic advice. You cannot be reactive and expect success, you now need to become a proactive person. Some of us are not naturally as proactive but that is what it is going to take in the next ten years. Are you willing to engage other professionals or are you just sitting back and waiting for them to talk to you.