In this episode of The Accountant’s Flight Plan Podcast, we sit down with Kristen Corey, founder of MediaBooks Agency, to talk about how accountants can use marketing to strengthen their brand, attract ideal clients, and communicate value beyond compliance work. With experience in both public accounting and marketing, Kristen shares how her journey from working as an auditor to owning her own marketing agency taught her the importance of storytelling and connection in the profession.
We explore how effective marketing isn’t just about visibility. It’s truly about building trust and shaping brand perception. Kristen walks us through how thoughtful communication, clear design, and consistent messaging can help firms charge what they’re truly worth and attract both clients and team members who align with their values. We also talk about how marketing is one of the most underutilized tools for creating a healthier, more scalable CPA firm.
The conversation also dives into AI and automation. Specifically, how tools like ChatGPT can help firms brainstorm ideas, refine tone, and save time on marketing tasks without losing authenticity. Kristen emphasizes that while AI can make the process more efficient, human creativity and empathy are what give marketing its edge. We close out by discussing actionable steps that can make a difference in your firm today. Building simple habits like sending regular newsletters or posting consistently on social media can make a big difference in building meaningful relationships and long-term visibility.
Key Timestamps
00:57: Introduction of Kristen Corey and her journey from auditor to marketer
03:00: Building a marketing career abroad and launching Media Books Agency
07:00: The importance of communication skills for accountants
10:10: Why every firm needs marketing, even if referrals are strong
13:05: Using AI tools like ChatGPT for tone, content, and creative brainstorming
16:31: Marketing strategies for small accounting firms under $5M
17:29: The power of newsletters and relationship-based marketing
20:41: Under-the-radar marketing tactic: consistency on social media
23:54: Funny story: catching potential fraud during an internship
27:20: Book recommendation: Extraordinary Circumstances by Cynthia Cooper
Disclaimer: The following is an unedited transcription of the episode and has not been combed for errors.
00;00;00;00 – 00;00;15;11
Kristen Corey
can you charge more and perceived value is a great way to kind of, increase your prices. So if you show that, like when I do, I don’t just email you a report or just, you know, you know, send you text messages back and forth.
00;00;15;11 – 00;00;43;03
Kristen Corey
I have a very detailed process for when I send you reports and I send you videos, and I have a website with all these teams of people, and we provide you with updates on the latest. Yeah, you know, tax, tax credits and tax code changes and all these different things. It increases the level of confidence. It shows that you’ve thought through all these different points and processes, and that people are willing to charge more for that or I’m sorry, willing to pay more for that.
00;00;43;11 – 00;00;57;08
Brannon Poe
I’m Brandon Poe, and this is the county’s Flight Plan podcast, where you can enjoy engaging conversations about mergers and acquisitions in accounting, practice management. Listen in on strategies to build a more fun and valuable accounting firm.
00;00;57;09 – 00;01;19;17
Brannon Poe
All right. Thanks for listening to another episode of Accountants Light Playing podcast. Today I have Kristin Corey, who I met, a accounting type of seminar. And, you know, I just was struck by some of the stuff that you were talking about around marketing. So Kristin has a bachelor and master’s in accounting.
00;01;19;20 – 00;01;39;17
Brannon Poe
She went into public accounting and became an auditor. But she had the opportunity to move abroad. And you started doing work, marketing work for entrepreneurs. And she quickly gained experience working with different industries like tech, fashion, legal, real estate, even a high end chocolate brand. Yeah, that’s,
00;01;39;17 – 00;01;47;20
Brannon Poe
exciting. And then your experience grew from doing PR graphic design, inbound marketing, social media management to website development.
00;01;47;22 – 00;02;10;20
Brannon Poe
And then you came back from being overseas, and you were hired by a boutique accounting company to work as both an accountant and a marketer. There’s a couple of different hats you see very often worn by the same person. So that’s when you kind of combined your two favorite industries. And then you started your own marketing agency dedicated to helping accounting firms.
00;02;10;21 – 00;02;31;13
Unknown
So very cool story. And welcome, Kristen. Yeah. No, thank you for having me. Yeah. No, just an easy, easy. Just switch between two industries. Why not? Yeah, it’s. I mean, if you think about it, it’s sort of what I did. You know, I was an accountant, too. I was an auditor. And now marketing CPA firms, we sell CPA firms is our primary business.
00;02;31;13 – 00;02;55;23
Brannon Poe
So, and I kind of think in some ways we are a marketing company since, yeah, we create a lot of marketing, we create a lot of content. We do inbound, we do social, you know, so I can very much relate to your career path. The overseas part. I’m interested in your take on that. How long did you live overseas?
00;02;55;25 – 00;03;21;21
Kristen Corey
Yeah, so I was overseas for two years. And this was in 2016, 2016 to 2018. And remote work wasn’t a thing back then. It’s very it’s it was very different from kind of like the online world today with the accounting industry. And so, yeah. No, I, I mean, I was in France. I did not speak French when it came to job opportunities.
00;03;21;22 – 00;03;42;13
Kristen Corey
Online was really the only option. And I did a few other things, like before trying out market like I did, like teaching English online, which was awful. And, you know, just trying to find random odd jobs and online marketing was really, like the most welcoming just because of the nature of, like, the platform. It’s online marketing.
00;03;42;15 – 00;04;09;27
Kristen Corey
And so yeah, yeah, I built experience there primarily on Upwork. Oh, yeah. Upwork again is very different today from what it was all those years ago. But yeah. Yeah, that’s, that was kind of, my introduction to marketing, just kind of like a desperate need to work. So was it just kind of happenstance, like how how did you did you choose marketing or did it kind of fall in your lap at school or an accident that you got into it, or.
00;04;10;04 – 00;04;27;11
Kristen Corey
Yeah. Well, that that’s the thing is, like, I left public accounting with like a master’s in accounting and, like, experience and, like, trying to switch to a new industry. I remember I applied to a job to write like, note card, like study note cards for high school students. It was a random job and I got like denied for that.
00;04;27;13 – 00;04;45;20
Kristen Corey
And I’m thinking, I have this great experience. Like, why is it so hard to find a job online right now? And I actually got a random email from like, an app company. It was. I don’t know if it’s still operating. It was called Glam Outfit. And did you ever watch, like, clue? Clueless. Like from the 90s?
00;04;45;23 – 00;05;03;14
Unknown
I vaguely remember that. Okay. There’s a scene in clueless where she has. She’s like, in the future, and she’s all, like, rich and fancy. And she has this, like, digital closet where she can see what she looks like in the clothes. And that was the idea behind the app. And it was like this, like really cool developer from San Francisco.
00;05;03;14 – 00;05;20;21
Unknown
And they just sent an email blast out to all their users. I was one of the users. Guilty. And they’re looking for someone to join their marketing team. And I was one of the few people that responded. It was an internship. It was unpaid. And so that was like my first like, I need to do something. I need to build a resume.
00;05;20;24 – 00;05;48;12
Unknown
I’ll work for free. Fine. I’m not doing anything. And so that was my first kind of experience is like, okay, I’m living abroad. I don’t have any work. Let me try working for this app. I found online, and, yeah, it was it was really cool. Just because, like, you know, the owner had a background in PR, and that was just my first education, was writing these blog posts, telling me how to reach out to different publications, social media content on Twitter.
00;05;48;15 – 00;06;08;15
Unknown
And yeah, it was just my first exposure, but it kind of just kind of, stacked on top of my experience. From there, I was like, okay, I can write blog content. Let me go see what I can find online. I stumbled upon Upwork, you know, didn’t wrote blog post for very, very little pay. And over time, like, I just, I got better.
00;06;08;15 – 00;06;25;10
Unknown
I got a stack of clients and kind of like, you do the thing where you’re like, you keep getting better clients, so you let the other clients go. Yeah. I mean, in about two years, I was actually I was turning down work pretty frequently. Oh. That’s great. So. Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome. I just think about writing, like, you know, you start writing.
00;06;25;13 – 00;06;50;26
Unknown
I feel like auditing in some ways makes you become a decent writer. Like it? It’s. You have to practice saying things very succinctly so that other people can understand them when they come in. Yeah. And so I don’t know if that helped you or not, but, I was an auditor and I come to think and think about, like, an early auditor, how difficult it was to word some of those, procedures that I was completing as an auditor, you know.
00;06;50;27 – 00;07;14;09
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. Well, I my I’m actually from my family is all writers. My father and my sister, they’re both published authors. And so, just my entire life, being able to speak well and communicate well, even with ChatGPT today, it is so important. You’re not always going to have the robots there to help you. And and so, yeah, I mean, being able to communicate, it’s a big part of marketing.
00;07;14;12 – 00;07;30;05
Unknown
I think a lot of people are intimidated by it, but being able to present yourself well is important. I think at any job, any job, any field, it doesn’t matter that accountants are mainly numbers. You need to know how to communicate. Otherwise people aren’t going to really find, I think, a ton of value in what you do.
00;07;30;07 – 00;07;54;06
Unknown
Yeah. Well, how do you think? You know, you’ve worked in different industries too, like you’ve worked from chocolate to, you know, fashion and legal now accounting. How do you feel that the cross pollination has occurred. Meaning like you’ve worked in these different the experience you might gain and selling chocolates can carry over to how you market in accounting firms.
00;07;54;06 – 00;08;17;18
Unknown
Like, has there been a benefit to you, do you think by working in so many different industries? I would say if, if anything, it’s made it very clear that accountants are who I like to work with. From time to time, I’m tempted to dabble in different industries. Like, I’ll find a cool business. I’ll be like, oh, like, I’ll just submit a proposal or I’ll see if they want.
00;08;17;20 – 00;08;44;11
Unknown
And time and time again, I’m like, what did I do? Like, I want to I want to go back and work. And I think if you have, a portfolio of clients where everyone is very different industries, it’s somehow it’s somehow difficult to see the consistencies between the same industries. But when you work with one single industry and you, every once in a while, pull in different clients, you definitely see, the similarities with the accounting field.
00;08;44;14 – 00;09;03;16
Unknown
And so, you know, a lot of those different experiences, I credit them. They helped me get better at, what you know, I do today or, you know, get into the field of what I do day, but, yeah, I know accountants are who I like working with. And I think just having been having done this for years, I think that’s been the best kind of experience.
00;09;03;16 – 00;09;25;22
Unknown
Credibility booster is just continuing to double down on like. Yeah. So so we like working with. Yeah. And you understand the industry well because you were you know came from it. So yeah that doesn’t hurt either right. Like yeah. No no I mean that’s the thing is like, you know, we’ll be able to brainstorm in ways that other marketers can’t.
00;09;25;24 – 00;09;39;14
Unknown
For example, I had a client a year ago and they’re focusing very much on their local community and wanting to get accounting clients from there. And they wanted to have like, a calendar. And there were two business owners and they’re kind of going at it. And one of them is like, we need to have a calendar of local events.
00;09;39;14 – 00;10;00;19
Unknown
And they’re like, what does that have to do with accounting? Why do we need to have a local event calendar? And I’m like, okay, what have we combined local events with tax deadlines. So at least there’s some overlap. And they both lit up and they’re like, oh my gosh. Like that’s so like yeah we can talk about estimated taxes and not every that wouldn’t be top of mind for every marketer that the accounting calendar doesn’t really change.
00;10;00;19 – 00;10;10;14
Unknown
But it is important. And so I think we’re at in unexpected ways, we’re able to add brainstorming ideas. Just because we’ve been working with accountants
00;10;10;14 – 00;10;24;28
Unknown
for so long. Yeah. What do you say to accountants that think they don’t need marketing? Because I run into those people I like? I can’t tell you how many times I’m talking to a seller or someone who’s thinking about exiting, you know, an established practice owner, right?
00;10;24;29 – 00;10;42;11
Unknown
Yeah. Like, oh, we don’t we get all of our business from referrals. We don’t do any marketing. And it’s it’s a like a badge of honor. What do you what do you say to that? Yeah. So, I have two follow up questions for that. One is every single client you have, the best client you’ve ever had.
00;10;42;14 – 00;10;51;03
Unknown
If the answer’s no, then there’s probably some room for some filtering and shuffling out the, you know, the not so great client. So that’s the first thing. The second thing is,
00;10;51;03 – 00;11;06;16
Unknown
can you charge more and perceived value is a great way to kind of, increase your prices. So if you show that, like when I do, I don’t just email you a report or just, you know, you know, send you text messages back and forth.
00;11;06;16 – 00;11;34;08
Unknown
I have a very detailed process for when I send you reports and I send you videos, and I have a website with all these teams of people, and we provide you with updates on the latest. Yeah, you know, tax, tax credits and tax code changes and all these different things. It increases the level of confidence. It shows that you’ve thought through all these different points and processes, and that people are willing to charge more for that or I’m sorry, willing to pay more for that.
00;11;34;17 – 00;11;48;08
Unknown
And so those are my two questions. Usually it’s like, are all your clients your favorite client clients? Usually not. And if you think you can charge more marketing, branding, that perceived value is a great way to kind of increase your prices and make more money that way.
00;11;48;08 – 00;12;03;23
Unknown
Yeah, I think another one is, staff like you can attract people to your team, your website, you know, yeah, people who are looking to come work with the team will look at that website, and that’ll tell them a lot about the culture of the business.
00;12;03;23 – 00;12;23;18
Unknown
And so it can be used as a recruiting tool. Yeah. Yeah. That’s how I found when I came back from, France to the States. That’s how I found my first online job in an accounting. I was trying to find online firms. And so, yeah, it’s a great place to kind of show, you know, the vibe of what your firm is.
00;12;23;18 – 00;12;42;10
Unknown
Are you small and boutique? Are you large? Do you have a huge team? Are you virtual? What are your values? All those different things people are going to dive into. Whether it’s a new team member or a new client or, you know, someone that you’re thinking about partnering with or being on a podcast, people are definitely going to be looking at your website and the value that you project there.
00;12;42;12 – 00;13;05;14
Unknown
Yeah. And the you know, what happens when you get a referral. That person is probably going to just pull you up on the website, pull up your website. That’s the first impression once they get the referral. Yeah. All right I hot topic right now. We just released a podcast on I. Yeah. And what do you think?
00;13;05;17 – 00;13;32;00
Unknown
How do you think accountants can leverage AI in marketing? Leverage AI and market? Oh, there’s there’s so many different ways. I mean, I know whenever you think of AI, everyone immediately goes to ChatGPT, which, yes, ChatGPT is quite, quite amazing. But there’s also a ton of other ways. So for example, if you were to record a YouTube video or a podcast or a webinar, I can take that video, chop it up into a bunch of different clips and you can post that on online.
00;13;32;02 – 00;13;53;24
Unknown
What I can also do is take that video, take that transcript. And let’s say you’re working with a marketer who cannot nail down your tone, but you have a 30 minute webinar, podcast, whatever long form piece of content that you just talked for, you know, those 30 minutes, take that transcript, put it into ChatGPT or any, and just say, hey, you know, pick up my tone here.
00;13;53;26 – 00;14;17;11
Unknown
Now write 12 social media posts based on that tone. Now we can replicate the tone without having to think and really dissect and really, like, listen to podcasts over and over. We’re letting the machine do all that. And so, yeah, I mean, there’s a ton that you can do with AI. There’s apps that’ll now take a, an outline and make it into like a PowerPoint and slide deck, whatever you want to call it today.
00;14;17;13 – 00;14;42;01
Unknown
PowerPoint presentation. And yeah, there’s a ton of different ways. I think the biggest thing for me is, just be skeptical at first. I have definitely used AI apps where I’m like, it’s not there yet. I see it, I see, I see the goal. But, yeah, I’m there’s plenty of AI apps that I’m not quite on board with yet, but there’s still a lot you can do and a lot, a lot of different ways you can create pretty efficient processes.
00;14;42;04 – 00;15;07;13
Unknown
Yeah. It’s, I found it is a really good editing tool to like, I had a piece of writing that I did recently, and I just asked ChatGPT to like, go paragraph by paragraph and give me suggestions. And it was it’s great for that content, not just creation, but the editing piece. Yes. Yeah. I’m discovering like all kinds of ways to play with it.
00;15;07;13 – 00;15;18;13
Unknown
And I think that’s what I tell people, like, just mess around with it and see what you can figure out. Like, it’s a giant experiment that we’re all going through right now. Yeah, yeah. No. Most definitely. I
00;15;18;13 – 00;15;25;13
Unknown
mean, one of our kind of the most fun ways we’ve been using it recently is with our websites and so, you know, let’s say we have a client who has a niche.
00;15;25;20 – 00;15;47;03
Unknown
We just did a website for a client who’s niche in, like small independent gyms and, you know, there’s little catchphrases or messaging you can think, like, have strong financials. And it sounds a little bit like cheesy. But we put into like, ChatGPT give us a bunch of slogans, headlines, messaging that we can put forward on the website.
00;15;47;05 – 00;16;04;08
Unknown
And yeah, and there was a they gave us like, you know, 30 different things that we can incorporate on the website that speaks to gym owners. It’s light in like the tacky, cheesy, like, you know, strong financials, jargon. But, and then it ties into accounting. And so it’s all those kind of different things that you can use it for.
00;16;04;09 – 00;16;14;00
Unknown
But I mean, the brainstorming is fantastic. And incorporating those different ideas, I think, it’s it’s not, not too bad at creativity. It definitely has its uses.
00;16;14;00 – 00;16;31;01
Unknown
Yeah. So how how can accountants, and what do you think most, you know, small accounting firms, let’s say less than $5 million a year in revenue, maybe 1 to 4 partners firms.
00;16;31;03 – 00;17;01;11
Unknown
What do you think? You know, what’s a good kind of baseline marketing that they need to be doing? And what could they do if they wanted to do more like like what’s what’s kind of a common plan for an accounting firm, if you will. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I think something there’s different factors that you would consider whether they want to focus on their local community or they’re open to like nationwide.
00;17;01;13 – 00;17;29;22
Unknown
Nationwide typically recommend something like LinkedIn locally typically. I would recommend focusing on local events. Who’s going to be the face of the business? But something that I include basically in every single plan we do is a newsletter. And a lot of people kind of think like, I don’t read newsletters anymore. You do what? You just don’t think of them as newsletters because you’re so, tied into the relationship with that person that you don’t think of it as a newsletter necessarily.
00;17;29;24 – 00;17;51;28
Unknown
Newsletters have but consistently the highest ROI or with like the like the last ten, 15 years. And what’s there’s so many really great benefits to them. Unlike social media, you don’t have like the engagement factor that you have to worry about too much in the sense that, if you send an email campaign to five people, those five people don’t know that they’re the only five people on the email list.
00;17;52;00 – 00;18;21;04
Unknown
Versus like LinkedIn or Instagram, engagement can just plummet. You know, the exposure that post get. So newsletter is definitely, there’s a benefit there, especially when you’re just getting started. And second, if people are opening your newsletter and reading it, they really like you. They really are finding the information that you read valuable. So, if you consider like an email campaigns, open rate, click through rate, 20% is average for the financial services industry.
00;18;21;04 – 00;18;42;04
Unknown
If you’re getting anything about that, that’s great. And so having kind of like a 30% open rate, we may think that’s bad, but that’s pretty good. And that means of of the people subscribed to your newsletter, 30 people are actually really engaged with what you have to say. And and I think that’s a great relationship builder, whether it’s with your clients or with, you know, potential leads.
00;18;42;06 – 00;19;02;16
Unknown
I actually had one client come to us a few years ago, and within like a six months time frame, they two of their partners passed away out of like 3 or 4. It was a small business and this new partner came in and she’s like, I’m new. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m worried about people leaving. Can you help us maintain the relationships with our clients?
00;19;02;18 – 00;19;24;16
Unknown
And so we put together a newsletter. It was very much like, you know, telling people about like, what’s going on in their local community. And about the firm. And, you know, it was going great. They were getting good feedback and even about I think it was like a year or two later, they had someone who was like shutting down their business, but they said, can you keep me subscribe to your newsletter just with my personal email.
00;19;24;19 – 00;19;40;22
Unknown
And so even when they’re like, I’m, you know, we’re not going to use your services anymore, I still want to hear what you have to say. And so I think, that really speaks to, I think kind of just newsletters in general. They seem like, you know, you may be deleting a lot, but I’m sure there are a few that you find really valuable.
00;19;40;24 – 00;19;47;13
Unknown
And, your, your audience, whether it’s clients or leads, there’s ways to make it really valuable to them too. Yeah,
00;19;47;13 – 00;20;02;12
Unknown
yeah, I can attest to the value of a newsletter. We we did that years, years ago and it’s still gets a good open rate. Yes. You know, people do value the content. I think you you have to be intentional about what you’re publishing, right.
00;20;02;12 – 00;20;18;10
Unknown
You can’t just I mean, if you putting out good stuff, people will open it and read it and value it. So yeah. Yeah. If you’re just saying like, hey, I posted a new blog post and but there’s ways to make it fun and engaging. You just kind of have to know your audience, know what they would click on.
00;20;18;10 – 00;20;41;10
Unknown
You can play around with it. Yeah. So yeah, there’s a lots of kind of ways to, to test things out there. Well, I know you’ve got experience like with inbound and I mean, you’ve got a range of experience. What do you think maybe is the most sort of, like under the radar, really, other than the newsletter that you mentioned?
00;20;41;10 – 00;20;53;10
Unknown
I think this kind of qualifies. Is that. But like, maybe something you’ve seen that someone does and it’s really effective, but not that many people do it.
00;20;53;12 – 00;20;56;09
Unknown
So.
00;20;56;11 – 00;21;23;08
Unknown
This is kind of hard to test and show. If you think about social media, it seems like every single person you’re following, whether it doesn’t matter the platform, it seems like they’re really good with posting. It seems like they’re posting all the time. They’re posting photos of themselves, and you feel like you are the only person that cannot get it together, that cannot post content or captions, whether it’s captions or images consistently.
00;21;23;10 – 00;21;47;06
Unknown
But if you consider how many people actually post versus the number of accounts there are, it is a very, very small percentage. Missouri, that is like the CEO of Instagram. I don’t even know his last name. I think that’s his last name. He just goes by Missouri. It’s very Beyonce out of him. Like he he was recently at a, at a conference and he asked everyone in the audience, okay, how many of you have, follow?
00;21;47;06 – 00;22;07;18
Unknown
A bunch of people are on Instagram on a daily basis. Nearly everyone raise their hand. And he said, okay, how many of you post two stories? Which is like, you know, the highlights, like kind of a quick little post. In the last five days, about half the people lowered their hands. He’s like, okay. And how many of you have posted to your feed in the last three days?
00;22;07;20 – 00;22;28;27
Unknown
Half of those people lower their hands. And at this point, you only have about you have a small handful of people that are posting on a regular basis, and so while it seems obvious and while it feels like we’re behind just being able to post on a regular basis, you’re already going to be ahead of the vast majority of people on social media.
00;22;29;00 – 00;22;45;29
Unknown
And I say it’s under the radar because I think a lot of people don’t realize how big of a piece that is, like just being able to post consistently. You know, they think everyone’s doing it. But when you consider the number of accounts out there to the number of people that are actually doing it, it’s very slim.
00;22;45;29 – 00;23;10;19
Unknown
So just being able to have that support, whether it’s, you know, you, you bring in the marketing agency or you have an admin or you have someone doing it, that’s a huge piece of it. Just that consistency piece. Well, yeah, I never thought about that. But if you think about the people that you see, you know that like I think about the people on social media that I see post regularly, like it’s not that many that kind of stick out in my head.
00;23;10;21 – 00;23;32;12
Unknown
So yeah. Yeah. If you go to your followers too, you’ll be like, oh, wow, like that person as opposed to not. They used to post every day and we’re and then they’ve suddenly disappeared like months later. And it’s hard I, I struggle with it too. You know, I don’t always have incredible thoughts to share. And so sometimes you got to look at, like, old content you did two years ago or something.
00;23;32;14 – 00;23;54;16
Unknown
You just are just busy, you know? Yeah. Yes. Why? You need an admin, like you said, or a marketing agency to help you with it. So. Yeah, I love it. All right, last couple of questions here. Do you have a funny story or an interesting story from your career or from just life in general that you can share with our audience?
00;23;54;19 – 00;24;04;00
Unknown
I, I have one because I feel like at every point every accountant could relate to this feeling. It was probably like when you’re first getting started, but like I said, I mean,
00;24;04;00 – 00;24;12;08
Unknown
like you said, I have a bachelor’s and master’s in accounting. And during, while I was in college, basically every job I did was an accounting internship.
00;24;12;08 – 00;24;30;08
Unknown
And there was one accounting internship where I was, working in one of the offices on campus, and we had a big event coming up where we had vendors and budgets and all these different things that I was tracking. And, at one point we were missing a check from a vendor. And I’m like, okay, trying to find this check.
00;24;30;08 – 00;24;47;01
Unknown
I call, you know, I call the vendor, I’m like, hey, we never received the check. And they’re like, yeah, you did. You signed it. I’m like, no, I didn’t. There’s no way I did. And they’re like, yeah, you did. Here’s the check image. They send me the check image. I look at the name and I’m like, that’s no one in my office.
00;24;47;04 – 00;25;06;09
Unknown
So I’m now Google searching. I find that they’re with the university, so I, I call I, oh, I find what office this guy works in. And they’re not answering. Not answering. And I’m like, okay, I don’t know what to do at this point. So I talk to my boss and they’re like, call the legal office. They call the legal office.
00;25;06;09 – 00;25;23;04
Unknown
And they’re like, okay, try calling accounts payable. So I call accounts payable or accounts accounts receipt. I called an accounts office, and I call them and I’m like, hi, I’m trying to find this check. It was written to this guy. It was supposed to go to our office. Do you have any idea, like tracking where it came in?
00;25;23;04 – 00;25;42;29
Unknown
Did it come through? You and I just remember the woman on the phone says, this is absolutely none of your business. And I’m like. And I get excited because I’m like, I’m an intern finding fraud. Let’s go. So I am like, okay, bye. And so I hang up. And then I eventually called the legal office again and I was like, I think I found the person.
00;25;43;01 – 00;26;03;10
Unknown
And then I talked to a very intimidating lawyer who just took down all the information and he’s like, never speak to as I’m talking on a podcast. He’s like, never speak to this to anyone again. I was like, okay, and that was it. I don’t know if like it ended up it it had to have been fraud because apparently the guy that signed the check had retired like a year ago.
00;26;03;13 – 00;26;21;08
Unknown
So I have no idea who signed the check. I have no idea if it was like the lady that yelled at me, but I’ve been writing that hi from my college intern days. And then I was an auditor, and then I left and I was like, oh, man. Like, it was. It was a great, it was a great, time at that internship, but.
00;26;21;08 – 00;26;22;29
Unknown
Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah,
00;26;22;29 – 00;26;40;17
Unknown
I know, I can see how that would. You know, you’re just starting on your career and you think, gosh, I’ve got them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was, it was a I. And then I never found fraud again. I was like, I was like, this is, this is the best career ever. And I thought auditing was going to be like, you know, every error was going to be fraud.
00;26;40;17 – 00;27;04;23
Unknown
And it’s not yeah, I that’s what I was really hoping for. But that was like the one and only time I quote unquote found fraud. I wonder if somebody got away with it. That would be. That’s I would call. I’m that lawyer. Really? Like, he was very, intimidating. I don’t think it was him, but I think he was just a lawyer talking to, like, a 21 year old college student was like, I think someone.
00;27;04;25 – 00;27;20;25
Unknown
I think someone signed a check wrong. And he’s really thinking, this girl is going to go tell everyone and, yeah, be in the school paper. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So he I think he was just trying to scare me into place, but I should have followed up and been like, where’s that check? Yeah. So yeah. That’s cool. That’s cool.
00;27;20;27 – 00;27;49;29
Unknown
All right. Last question okay. Recommendation. Do you have a book to share. Yeah. There is a great book. I also made sure I was like, accounting because I don’t know, you know, that’s the subject of the, the podcast. There’s a great book called, Extraordinary Circumstances by Cynthia Cooper. She was the world calm whistleblower during like, the Enron, like all that scandal.
00;27;50;01 – 00;28;13;21
Unknown
And it it was I actually we got she came to my college campus. We got to meet her. But it’s just one of those books that I remember because I think it was very, telling of what the potential or like, how important the job is of an accountant. That’s really why I wanted to go into accounting and auditing and why I like working with this industry, is that, I don’t know, there’s the joke of like, oh, it’s the accountant.
00;28;13;21 – 00;28;37;11
Unknown
Like, they’re not serious. They work in the basement, you know, where there’s no windows and they’re all pale and green, but it’s like, no, like the work is so important. Like this, like the work of accountants literally holds businesses together. And we know this even if everyone else doesn’t recognize it. I think the book does a great job of really just showing that, and, you know, if you have an interest in fraud and auditing, I highly recommend it.
00;28;37;14 – 00;28;55;27
Unknown
I think it’s it’s a good read. The really fun. Yeah. It sounds like fraud is like something you’re sort of interested in. It’s kind of fascinating for you. That’s good. Yeah, I want it. We had, another back to my college days. We had an FBI agent once come talk to us about how they were like an accountant, an FBI agent.
00;28;55;29 – 00;29;15;27
Unknown
And I just thought that was so cool. And then they started talking about how, like, you had to, like, have, like, shooting training and, like, being like all these, like. And I was like, okay, like, that’s not maybe like, divorces is more like my fraud, like realm. I don’t want to be, like, going into the mob, you know, restaurant in the back and like that, that was too much.
00;29;15;27 – 00;29;36;10
Unknown
But, yeah, I think definitely there’s a, there’s a lot of, opportunity, I think, just to hold people accountable in our industry. And I think that’s especially when it comes to money, people should be paid for their work. Yeah. Give them what they’re do and hold people accountable. I think that’s a really good thing. So yeah, I have you talked about the FBI agent.
00;29;36;10 – 00;29;59;20
Unknown
I have a CPA that I worked with at LA. Davis was a really good friend and colleague, and he went to work for the FBI white collar crime division. And he had to go through like a boot camp. And yeah, it’s pretty interesting, but that white collar criminals are there. They can actually be pretty violent criminals, is what he was explaining to me.
00;29;59;20 – 00;30;18;25
Unknown
Like it’s it’s like a serious, FBI, part of the FBI. Yeah, I, I, I want to I want the, I want the t, but I don’t want to be involved in, like, the violence. I just want to look through the papers and stuff and find find the fraud. But, yeah, I also have creative streaks, so this is probably the best.
00;30;18;27 – 00;30;39;20
Unknown
Very cool for me. Well, Kristen, what’s the best way for people to find you online and connect with you? Yeah, yeah. You can check out our website, media books agency.com. I’m also on LinkedIn and Instagram. At Instagram. It’s at Media Books Agency and then LinkedIn. Kristen Corey, you can find me. I think the only other Kristen Corey is a doctor.
00;30;39;20 – 00;30;48;02
Unknown
So that’s not me. But yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on our podcast. Awesome. Thank you so much, Brandon. I really enjoyed it.
00;30;48;10 – 00;31;02;22
Unknown
Thanks for listening to the Accountant’s Flight Plan podcast. You can keep the momentum going by subscribing and sharing your thoughts with us. Visit our website at PPL Group advisors.com for more resources, and tune in next time for more exciting conversations like this one.
00;31;02;24 – 00;31;08;23
Unknown
This podcast was produced and edited by Liesl Epps of her group advisors. Thanks for listening.
