Once described by a Deloitte partner as an “Aussie upstart who can get things done,” Sharon McClafferty’s journey from childhood dreams to the CEO of Slipstream Group showcases her passion for empowering leaders and fostering growth in the accounting industry.
How did you start down this career path?
I’ve wanted to work for one of “the big eight” accounting firms for as long as I can remember, I’m on film as a four-year-old with this dream (possibly influenced by my father who was a partner at EY). That goal was realised after university with a project management job at Deloitte in London.
After 5 years in London, at Deloitte and then at an international Investment Bank, I moved back to Australia and wanted a more relaxed life. I returned to small business working for a coaching organisation that serviced accounting firms in Australia and NZ. The goals of that business changed to focus more on building and selling technology, my passion was seeing owners of accounting firms get life changing results.
In 2015, I teamed up with my co-founder and we set out to build a coaching business that was worthy of working with wonderful clients and helping them build better businesses and better lives. We grew from 3 people to now 20, and about halfway along that journey we decided to appoint a leader. Initially we looked externally for that role but our external business coach at the time laughed at us and said ‘Sharon is the CEO, no one else is ever going to care about your business and your clients more than she already does’.
What inspires you in your role/industry? Why?
What inspires me is meeting owners of accounting firms who find themselves entrenched in the day-to-day tasks of being senior accountants when what they want to do is get off the tools and lead and grow the business. Then I get to witness the transition from ‘fee earner’ to leader. There are others who are seeking an escape from groundhog day, with the same results and low growth for many years in a row, I love being the catalyst for change. As Richard Branson says, “The brave may not live forever but the cautious do not live at all”.
It’s hugely rewarding seeing the profound impact we have on our clients' businesses and lives. Some of the transformations are unbelievable like living on credit cards personally because the business cashflow and profitability was volatile, to cutting those credit cards and now making more than $1M in profit per year. It’s not just the huge transformations that inspire me it’s also just seeing people realise that change is within their control and seeing them take deliberate steps towards the business and life that they want.
I am very grateful to spend time with people before, during and after they achieve significant results. The average profit increase for a sole owner accounting firm that we work with is 68% in their first full financial year of working with Slipstream – first 12 months for single-owner accounting firms. I love that we get to celebrate this, it’s not something that our clients can share at the neighbourhood BBQ, we are the people they celebrate this with and it has a significant, positive and lasting impact on their lives.
What's your approach to customer service that separates you from the rest?
All of our coaches have owned, operated and successfully sold their own accounting and/or financial planning business so we know the types of challenges our clients are facing from first-hand experience. We take the time to find out what their goals and dreams for the future are and we revisit this ideal future regularly as it evolves and becomes clearer.
Our approach to serving our clients is deeply rooted in our values of being worthy, bold and memorable. We want to be the provider of choice for high quality firms and capable people, but we must be worthy of working with those clients and worthy of quality team members and the opportunities that cross our desks. We want to ask the bold questions of our clients and ourselves. Finally, we want to be memorable, I want clients to look back on their business journey over the decades and say “wow, those were the years we engaged Slipstream and look what it did to our results, look what we implemented that made the rest of our story possible.”
How do you innovate and stay ahead of industry trends?
I'd describe myself as an early adopter but not an innovator. The core of what we do is to create better businesses and better business people. So I’m not overly worried about moving with business trends or getting distracted by the new shiny widget. The fundamentals of business do not change with the latest zeitgeist.
That said, I’m fortunate to hang out with a cohort of brilliant innovators and I read a lot of industry news to stay up to date on big picture issues.
Internally we are always asking questions about how we can add more value and remove friction. If you continue to ask tough questions of your own business to uncover core issues (not just symptoms) and you implement solutions, then that’s a culture of continuous improvement and innovation. Most of my team are more innovative than I am.
What is the toughest challenge you've faced in your role? How did you overcome it?
Friday 13 March 2020 we realised, at its core, Slipstream was a face-to-face events and community business. Our delivery model was simply not fit for purpose in the pandemic and lock-down world. However, we didn’t want to ‘pivot’ to be a fully online/virtual business. Part of the magic we have created over the years for people and business leaders has been developing real, in person, lasting connections and we didn’t want to zig along with the rest of the world.
Sounds cliche but we overcame this with regular and honest client communications. We advised clients that we didn’t want to move to a 100% virtual model but to walk that fine and constantly moving line we needed their permission for us to be nimble. We told clients that we might have to move dates and locations on short notice in pursuit of in person rather than virtual delivery. We chose to be agile rather than defeatist and in reality, that resulted in some very memorable events where our clients in a particular state were able to gather in person, but the coach had to dial in from interstate. We ran hybrid events so those who could get there had that in person option.
I loved that the “CEO updates” I was sending out to our client base during 2020 on a fortnightly basis were forming the basis of communications that our clients then sent to their client base. Simply repurposed with a different by-line.
Our coaches have all run their own firms so we were asking ourselves, what would we want from a coach during tough times? How can we add more value and make life easier for our clients?
I’m certain that if we had coaches who had not led businesses and teams through tough times themselves then the pandemic would have been the beginning of the end for us. Today we are more than triple the size we were on 13 March 2020.
What are some of your goals for the next 5 years?
We set a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) initially of having 80 people tell us that engaging Slipstream has changed their life. We are very soon going to achieve that milestone and we haven’t worked out what the next BHAG will be. What I’m certain about is that we will not stray from our core mission which is to significantly improve the lives of the owners of accounting and financial planning businesses. Right now, we are working with 90 firms around Australia and the vision has always been to focus on results for our clients over scale for ourselves. That said, we are committed to helping more people run better businesses and live better lives. Slipstream currently has a team of 20 incredibly capable people and 8 years of proven results so within 5 years we’d like to be working with 200 firms and celebrating their transformations.
About Slipstream Group
Slipstream Group is a leading provider of coaching services for the owners of accounting, financial planning, and multidisciplinary firms, empowering them to achieve their potential. With practical expertise and years of coaching experience, Slipstream Group provides tailored guidance to help its clients make informed decisions to achieve their life goals and drive sustainable success. For more information, please visit www.slipstreamgroup.com.au.
We love tracking our firm's financial performance and seeing them grow. We've just crunched the numbers for our single-owner accounting firms and our 2 – 6 owner firms in their first 12 months with us, and the results are pretty awesome:
|
Single-owner firms |
2 – 6 owner firms |
|
|
Average revenue |
From $1,341,795 to $1,590,157 |
From $2,920,161 to $3,149,522 |
|
Average profits* |
From $248,594 to $388,179 |
From $719,315 to $876,374 |
|
Average margins |
From 18.53% to 24.41% |
From 22.84% to 27.10% |
*Profit = EBIT after the owner’s salary standardised at $150K and after Slipstream coaching fees.
Curious to hear the stories behind these numbers? Check out the full results for our single owner firms and our 2 – 6 partner firms for a detailed look and some inspiring client stories.
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