My guest today is Robin Thieme, the Founder of KBS CFO, which is an outsourced CFO and accounting department solution for growing sustainable and profitable businesses. She has over 30 years of financial and accounting experience, a passion for the efficiencies that new technologies enable, and a dedication to small businesses. One of the things that really impresses me about Robin and KBS is that she was creating a virtual organization long before cloud computing was a mainstream term – and she takes the same innovative and thoughtful approach to establishing efficiencies and solutions that fit the current business environment for her clients. The old mindset – although many still use it – is that having a CFO is too much money for a small- to medium-sized business. As it turns out, Robin says, small businesses have some pretty big problems or big decisions, too! And they may not need a full-time CFO, but they do still need someone to help guide them financially. “We're really meeting a need of businesses that are struggling to run their businesses; they love what they do, and are really good at it, but just need some help on the back end.” An Anticipatory CPA & OrganizationYou know Robin is a member of the Maryland Association of CPAs because she describes herself as an “anticipatory CPA” – something we’ve talked about in past episodes with Bill Sheridan, as well as other guests. Robin defines an anticipatory CPA as “one who is looking out towards the future, anticipating trends, and is really focused on what's going to happen next, instead of being a historian for our clients... And, ultimately, when you think about it, from its most basic elements, a successful business should always be thinking about where they're going and not where they've been. So, I live in that world,” and we should all be living in this world. Everywhere in the accounting and finance profession, and really almost any profession, people are having conversations about change; changing demographics, changing technologies, changing societal expectations, etc. And, especially when it comes to technology, our profession tends to see this change as a threat – but that’s just our fear of the unknown talking.  Robin compares this to autonomous vehicles, something that still feels futuristic and foreign to many of us, although there are already autonomous vehicles driving on our roads. Robin envisions a future where not only do autonomous vehicles become popular, but it might even become illegal for humans to drive because it will be a safety risk.  And you know what? That change doesn’t hurt our ability to commute or get places – it gives us more time! The same thing is true for the technologies that are going to transform the way we do work in our profession, although the transition might be difficult to wrap our heads around. So, what will you do to become more future-ready? What steps will you take to change your mindset and get out of your comfort zone? What risks are you willing to accept in order to be prepared for tomorrow – all the while knowing that, in order to enact change, it takes baby steps?  Resources:Learn more at https://www.kbscfo.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kensingtonbusinesssolutionsTwitter: https://twitter.com/kbscfoLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kbscfo/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices