Ben Walker - Accounting and Business Automation Amidst The Pandemic

In this episode, Ben Walker, a small business accountant and founder of Inspire CA, shares with us the business strategies he and his team used to provide programs online to help the business adapt to conditions arising from the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown.He also discusses his thoughts on how automating the business using online tools helped him, his team, and their clients to thrive. He’s also supplemented this approach with strategies that help clients take advantage of business opportunities during this trying time.Episode Highlights: What is Ben's background and what does he do?Ben runs an accounting firm, Inspire CA, out of Brisbane and serves clients all over Australia. He is proud to share that his company has helped his clients save over $10 million in tax so far.What has been the company’s biggest challenge since Covid-19?How did Ben and his team overcome these challenges?"We met as a team and basically put together an approach to the stimulus releases making sure we were always on the front foot."Ben and his team hosted webinars literally the day after announcements detailing the government announcements, including details of how this would affect the clients, what can be done, and answering inquiries at a higher level."I think we went from having no course, to the live webinar, the webinar recording, and then setting this big document to help our clients through the process all up, literally, in 48 hours."On business automation and leveraging online: "We can help the market or the people following us in a massively leveraged way. And that also protects against our potential downside of this Covid, if we were to, you know, lose business or our growth plans were thrown off a bit."A couple of hundred people signed up for the courses and webinars in Ben's company. For the JobKeeper webinar alone, 500 people signed up and 200 people from this showed up.What processes and strategies were used by Ben and his team to get their business, in a sense, online within 48 hours?The team made extensive use of mind maps, checklists and support documents to get the webinar off the ground."The way I see the future with training is that we will never be the same again, but I do believe we still will do face-to-face training, but we can give so much more with complementing it with online training."How does Ben see his whole business operating in 12 months’ time?What does he think he would do differently from how he was operating pre-Covid-19?"We'll still have an office but I think we'll do a lot more of our meetings with Zoom."The online stuff has broadened their reach, or credibility even, in the market.As larger accounting firms are having to make staff redundant this is providing an opportunity for smaller more nimble firms like Inspire CA.How does Ben keep motivated each day?Useful Links: Ben Walker on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwalkerca Inspire CA on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/inspireca/Inspire CA Website: https://inspire.business/Angela Connell on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelatkconnellAngela Connell Website: https://vivacity.com.au/Education in Isolation Website: https://vivacity.com.au/podcast/Send us Fan MailSupport the showThank you for tuning in to the RTO Superhero Podcast! This podcast supports RTOs to operate with clarity and control under the 2025 Standards. Each episode breaks down compliance into practical actions you can apply in your RTO.📘 Want deeper insight into governance under the new Standards?Explore The Governance Shift: https://governance-shift.vivacity.com.au/and the 8 Critical Drivers to RTO Success: https://8-critical-drivers-book.vivacity.com.au/ Stay connected with the RTO Community: RTO Job Board FacebookRTO Job Board LinkedInRTO Community Facebook📌 Don’t forget to:✔ Subscribe so you never miss an episode✔ Share this episode with your RTO network🎙 Listen now and stay ahead of the Standards📢 Want more compliance insights?Subscribe to our EduStream YouTube Channel for FAQ sessions on the 2025 Standards🔗 Subscribe now: EduStream by Vivacity Coaching✉️ Email us at [email protected] 📞 Call us on 1300 729 455🖥️ Visit us at vivacity.au