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AI Is Rewriting the Economics of Accounting Software

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Intuit just reported $21.4 billion in annual revenue, 14% growth, and about $4.5 billion in profit. Wall Street punished the stock anyway.

On Episode 503 of The Accounting Podcast, hosts Blake Oliver and David Leary examine why with Hector Garcia, a CPA, firm owner, and QuickBooks educator. They also speak with Britten Ratcliff, an accounting student and public member of the New Mexico Public Accountancy Board.

Their discussion points to a larger shift. AI is speeding up work inside accounting and tax software, but it’s also changing where pricing power, value, and competitive advantage come from.

 

TurboTax Faces a Pricing Squeeze

Intuit’s results don’t look like a crisis at first. TurboTax Live revenue rose 37% and now represents 53% of TurboTax revenue. But Intuit forecast only 9% to 10% companywide growth for fiscal 2027, with TurboTax revenue expected to grow just 2% to 3%.

Hector sees the stock decline as part of a broader market reaction to AI’s effect on software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies. Intuit’s price-to-earnings ratio fell sharply from its July 2025 peak, following a path similar to Adobe’s. “The market is reacting to the impact that AI has on SaaS,” he said.

There is also a direct pricing problem. Intuit acknowledged that it’s losing do-it-yourself filers to cheaper competitors. Price is now the leading reason customers leave TurboTax.

Blake estimated that an AI agent could complete a simple return using about 25 cents of tokens. That makes prices of $100 or more difficult to defend, especially when startups can use AI instead of rebuilding decades of rules-based software. David remained skeptical that millions of taxpayers will quickly abandon a familiar product for a chatbot, however. For many households, taxes are too important to make that switch casually.

Hector suggested a barbell strategy: offer more free filing at the low end while moving customers with greater needs toward premium help or Intuit’s small-business products. In his view, Schedule C filers could become customers for QuickBooks Payments and Payroll. He noted that QuickBooks generates about $12 billion in revenue, compared with roughly $5 billion from TurboTax.

That strategy connects with Intuit’s tests of QuickBooks Free and QuickBooks Lite. The free version allows a few invoices each month and encourages users to adopt payments. Both products can serve as stepping stones to the $38-per-month Simple Start plan.

Human-Assisted AI May Be Only a Bridge

Lower prices create another problem: human support is expensive.

Hector described a conversation with a TurboTax seasonal worker about her hours, pay, and time spent answering customer questions. His rough calculation suggested that a $100 return requiring 90 minutes of phone support leaves little or no margin.

A more sustainable model, he argued, could charge little or nothing for AI-based preparation. Customers would interact with a chatbot while tax professionals reviewed the conversation and return behind the scenes. Full access to a professional would cost much more.

“I honestly think it’s a bridge. I don’t think that’s a strategy,” Hector said of the current AI-plus-expert model. He expects a clearer split between low-cost automation and much more expensive professional service.

Thomson Reuters Is Building Around Trusted Data

While Intuit wrestles with pricing, Thomson Reuters is taking a different approach to AI. It purchased an open-weight model and trained it on 175 years of proprietary material from Westlaw, Practical Law, Checkpoint, and Reuters.

That paywalled content includes analysis created by subject-matter experts. Thomson Reuters also brought in partner-level practitioners to build grading standards. Lawyers spent thousands of hours comparing outputs, while 1,500 attorney editors helped identify errors.

The company reported a 0.914 score for following instructions. In deep research, the model scored 0.83 for factuality, compared with 0.65 and 0.68 for two leading models using the open web. This measure tested whether claims were supported by their cited sources.

“I want dumb AI, like AI that only knows accounting,” David said, summarizing the appeal. Blake offered a better label: a specialist that performs well in one field and declines tasks outside it.

For Hector, adoption comes down to two questions: Is client data safe, and are answers grounded in authoritative information? Yet quality alone may not be enough. He argued that professional AI should be built directly into tools firms already trust, such as Microsoft 365, rather than forcing accountants to connect and manage separate agents.

AI-Native ERPs Still Must Overcome Switching Costs

The same tension appears in the ERP market. Rillet raised $100 million at a $1 billion valuation with about 600 customers. During the same period, private equity firm Silver Lake reportedly pursued Workday at a $51 billion valuation.

David contrasted the valuations to show that major investors still see value in established systems. Hector added that Intuit Enterprise Suite reached $145 million in revenue within two years without raising outside capital for the product. He argued that Intuit, like Thomson Reuters, benefits from years of customer and transaction data.

Blake countered that companies won’t replace an ERP merely to get a better general ledger. They may switch if automation lets them avoid major hiring costs. Rillet’s fundraising announcement claimed that some customers operate large finance functions with only a few people or close their books in three days. The hosts noted that those claims had not been independently verified.

Tokens Could Become a Direct Cost

This leads to a new accounting question: How should businesses classify AI spending?

Three years ago, few companies had separate budgets for ChatGPT, Claude, or AI tokens. Hector said executives now want that spending to grow when it can reduce labor costs. He predicted that ERPs with strong built-in AI could win by replacing separate chatbot subscriptions.

He also argued that tokens may shift from fixed software overhead to a variable cost tied to sales and production. “All of a sudden, we have a brand-new direct cost that never existed,” he said. Blake suggested that accountants may need new cost accounting methods to track it.

Efficiency Cannot Replace Professional Development

The cost of automation is not limited to software budgets. Britten Ratcliff said young professionals worry that AI and private equity-backed efficiency efforts are eliminating the entry-level work that once taught people how accounting operates.

Reviewing last year’s audit file or completing basic analyst tasks may be repetitive, but those assignments build context and judgment. If firms automate them, they’ll need new ways to teach junior employees.

Britten sees a similar gap in accounting education. He took cost accounting before gaining any exposure to manufacturing, and he criticized homework systems that look little like real financial statements. Students need technical skills, he argued, but they also need to understand how businesses work.

That may be the episode’s central message. AI can lower costs and reshape software, but accounting firms still compete through trust, judgment, and business understanding. As Hector put it, the claim that AI can do everything accountants do is still a narrative, and the profession doesn’t have to surrender to it.

Listen to the full discussion on Episode 503 of The Accounting Podcast.

How to keep Intuit Experts from duplicating the work your firm already does

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Alicia Katz Pollock wore her “Strange New Worlds” T-shirt from Scaling New Heights to record this episode of The Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast for a reason. QuickBooks Live is gone as a brand, and Intuit is restructuring how its employees help QuickBooks users.

As of July 29, 2026, Intuit Expert Services became a native feature within QuickBooks Online plans rather than a separate add-on. Dan DeLong of School of Bookkeeping and Matthew “Spot” Fulton of Parkway Business Solutions joined Alicia for this episode to examine the change.

Their central question is: Is this simply a new name, or is Intuit changing its role in clients’ books?

 

The new model focuses on businesses without accountants

QuickBooks Live offered assisted bookkeeping, cleanup, and full-service options. Intuit Experts has a narrower focus, covering onboarding new businesses, supporting AI-driven categorization, and reviewing books.

These services mainly target businesses without an accountant. Alicia estimated that about 70% of QuickBooks files have no accountant user attached. Accounting professionals may assume most businesses have bookkeeping support because that’s what we see in our own client lists. In reality, many owners sign up for QuickBooks and try to manage it on their own.

Intuit says its employed experts are QuickBooks-certified professionals with an average of 10 years of bookkeeping experience. Their work is meant to build a bridge to an accountant, not replace one. Beginning in January 2027, it expects the Intuit Pro Partner Accountants Program to match businesses with participating firms.

To understand where that bridge begins, however, we need to look at the services now included in QBO.

Three services move Intuit further into the books

Intuit introduced three ongoing Expert Services:

  1. Books Check-In. An annual meeting with an Intuit bookkeeping expert to review the books, discuss AI-flagged issues, and help clean up the chart of accounts. It’s included with Essentials and Plus.
  2. Smart Expert Categorization. AI-assisted transaction categorization with expert verification in the background. It’s included with Plus and is part of the Advanced service described below.
  3. Expert Books Upkeep. Continuous automated bookkeeping with expert validation and posting, regular accuracy checks, and quarterly review meetings. It’s included with Advanced.

As Dan observed, this looks like two services plus a package that combines them. The exact scope is still unclear. Does expert verification mean reviewing the AI’s suggestions, managing the bank feed, or correcting mistakes? Matthew asked, “Who fixes their errors?” 

Pricing raised another open question. Alicia believes these features may help explain recent subscription price increases, but that was her interpretation rather than a confirmed pricing explanation from Intuit. If a business doesn’t use the services, Matthew asked, can it pay less? 

Those unknowns make Intuit’s new controls especially important.

The controls depend on attachment and billing

Intuit promises, “For every client connected to an accountant, these services are disabled by default.”

For attached clients, Intuit says it will suppress marketing for overlapping services. That includes in-product prompts, emails, banner and web ads, dashboard messages, tests, and outbound sales.

Who can enable the services depends on billing:

  • On client-billed accounts, the option is hidden in the Settings. Either the client or an attached accountant can enable them. Clients who turn it on see a message advising them to check with their accountant before proceeding.
  • On firm-billed accounts, only the billing accountant can enable the services. The client sees a locked setting and must contact the firm.

Alicia argued that a warning isn’t the same as approval. She asked Intuit to require both the client and accountant to approve activation. Until then, firms should verify the settings themselves.

One control covers all three services. If multiple accountants are connected, the billing relationship determines who controls the setting. Accountants also receive read-only access to the Expert Hub, where they can see service progress, scheduled calls, and summaries.

Intelligent Onboarding creates a separate overlap risk

Intelligent Onboarding is separate from the three ongoing services. Every brand new QuickBooks customer can access setup support from day one, even when Intuit doesn’t yet know whether the business has an accountant.

The program expands onboarding support from 30 to 90 days and may include several expert calls. Intuit Experts can also help configure QuickBooks Payments, Bill Pay, and Workforce.

That could save firms hours of basic setup. But CAS practices need to be proactive: t could also duplicate a service you already provide, create a chart of accounts that doesn’t match your approach, or connect a client to Intuit products before you discuss alternatives.

Intuit’s goal is to complete the “foundational work” before an accountant meets with the client. Alicia pushed back on part of that idea. Refining the chart of accounts is usually the firm’s job. 

The practical response is to define onboarding in your engagement letter and kickoff meeting. Tell clients what you handle, what kinds of questions they can send throught Intuit, what services they should avoid activating, and when you will review any work completed by Intuit.

Your firm needs to defend its boundary

Intuit acknowledged that QuickBooks Live “created friction between Intuit and accounting firms.” The hosts are cautious because Intuit previously promised not to market QuickBooks Live to accountants’ clients, yet firms still encountered that marketing.

This version has stronger safeguards, but firms should test them rather than assume they work. Start with this checklist:

  1. Confirm every client is attached through QBO Accountant or Intuit Accountant Suite
  2. Identify client-billed and firm-billed subscriptions
  3. Review the Expert Services control in each client file
  4. Coordinate access when multiple accountants are attached
  5. Decide whether each service supports or duplicates your engagement
  6. Explain the new options to clients before they activate anything
  7. Watch the Pro Partner Accountants Program as its January 2027 launch approaches

Automation may take over more categorization and routine review. That leaves firms to handle judgment, interpretation, and client conversations—work software can’t do on its own.

Listen to the full episode for Alicia, Dan, and Matthew’s full discussion of the controls, unanswered questions, and next steps for accounting firms.

Alicia Katz Pollock’s Royalwise OWLS (On-Demand Web-based Learning Solutions) is the industry’s premier portal for top-notch QuickBooks Online training with CPE for accounting firms, bookkeepers, and small business owners. Visit Royalwise OWLS, where learning QBO is a HOOT! 

Is the QuickBooks Online Price Increase Buying Your Clients Anything?

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A QuickBooks Online user took to Reddit to complain that Intuit raised his price by 41% without giving him anything new.

Alicia Katz Pollock saw it differently. Standing in her bathroom, she dictated a multi-page response listing features that shipped during the past year. She calculated the user’s increase at under 22%. That was still a meaningful jump, but it wasn’t 41%, and it didn’t come with “nothing.”

In Episode 155 of The Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast, Alicia and Matthew “Spot” Fulton examine that gap between price and perceived value. Their larger point is that while we were rebuilding muscle memory around QuickBooks Online’s redesigned interface, Intuit was changing the product underneath it.

 

The price increase needs context

As of August 2026, monthly prices are now:

  • Simple Start: $38 (unchanged)
  • Essentials: $85
  • Plus: $140
  • Advanced: $340

The new prices took effect for new subscriptions on August 1. Existing subscriptions generally change with a later billing cycle, while recent subscribers receive six months of price protection. Alicia and Matthew also cautioned that exact features and timing can vary by plan and renewal date.

That explains the bill, but do the added tools create enough value for each client?

Improvements can save real time

Bank feeds offer one of the clearest examples. Alicia explained the new categorization system learns file by file. At first, results may disappoint because the system hasn’t seen enough transaction history yet to understand the business’s requirements. Once it recognizes recurring activity, accuracy improves.

Not every firm will benefit equally. If you enter every transaction before opening the feed and use it only for matching, smarter suggestions may not change your process much. Other firms may gain hours from improvements such as:

  • PayPal matching connects a deposit with the related PayPal sale
  • Bank-feed columns can be moved, resized, and saved
  • Locked parent accounts keep transactions in the correct subaccounts
  • Statement uploads recover missing transactions without a CSV file
  • Drag-and-drop receipt attachments on bank-feed lines

The wider interface is also more flexible. Users can customize dashboards, shortcuts, bookmarks, and search filters. Natural-language search can handle requests with several conditions instead of forcing you to build each filter manually.

Those changes may feel small one at a time. Together, they can remove repeated cleanup work.

New workflows solve familiar accounting problems

The strongest value case appears when QuickBooks replaces a workaround or outside app.

With document capture, you can upload bills and invoices and have QuickBooks extract details like the vendor, date, terms, bill number, category, description, and line information. Matthew said the tool has been 100% accurate so far for one construction client’s needs. He hasn’t tested product-and-service matching, and Alicia reported that she hadn’t gotten line items to map consistently, so there’s still room for improvement..

Customer deposits through Estimates now provide a true unearned-revenue workflow. A deposit can connect to an estimate or invoice and remain a liability until the business performs the work. That’s cleaner than recording a sales receipt and subtracting it later.

QuickBooks also added recurring invoice payments that customers authorize themselves. Your firm doesn’t have to collect their card or bank information. Automated reminders, payment notifications, and bulk edits to invoice terms can further reduce collections work.

Inventory is no longer limited to Plus. You can add it to Simple Start or Essentials for $40 per month. Moving-average costing may help Desktop users migrate, while item receipts add a step between purchase orders and bills. Alicia warned that this workflow is either-or. Once you enable item receipts, you can’t use bills for inventory.

Reporting and Bill Pay can change the plan calculation

Modern reports now support richer charts, reusable filters, formulas, and anomaly indicators on the profit and loss statement and balance sheet. KPI scorecards and prebuilt dashboards move from Advanced into Essentials and Plus. Conversational business intelligence can answer questions like, “What is my liquidity ratio?” However, the hosts noted limited access and usage, and they hadn’t yet seen how added charges might work in practice.

Bill Pay also changed substantially. ACH limits and the $0.50 ACH fee were removed. Premium costs $15 per month and adds bulk scheduling and 1099 features. Elite fell from $90 to $45 per month outside Advanced and adds approvals, payment releases, roles, and permissions. Elite is now included with Advanced as part of the price increase

For Matthew, that could let a client replace an outside bill-pay app. The client could pay less while keeping payments and matching in one system.

The Customer Hub CRM is an opportunity

The new Customer Hub has a variety of tools to manage your leads and sales pipelines, including integrations to gmail and Outlook, a system to gather reviews and feedback, scheduling & meeting tools, and the ability to sign contracts.

For companies that don’t have a pipeline system, these tools can increase appointments and cashflow. For companies with subscriptions to Docusign or PandaDocs, there’s cost savings right there.

Better automation requires better controls

Convenience also creates risk. Alicia heard reports of bad actors placing fake bills inside QuickBooks files and waiting for someone to pay them.

She recommends turning on bill approvals through Advanced or Bill Pay Elite, and having someone other than the bookkeeper approve payments. A bookkeeper may not recognize an unfamiliar vendor, but an owner is more likely to question a suspicious $90,000 bill.

Firms should also:

  • Require multifactor authentication or an authenticator app
  • Review roles and permissions instead of granting broad access
  • Check credit card receivables for recurring sales receipts that appeared to process but never charged

These guardrails turn automation into a controlled process rather than an open door.

Accountants must translate features into client value

The increase is substantial, and unused features don’t justify a higher price. Our job is to identify which tools a client can use, estimate the time or outside-app costs they may save, and confirm availability in the client’s exact plan.

We also need to keep watching. QuickBooks fixes can appear without a major announcement. Alicia recommended checking the QuickBooks Canny board for development boards and release notes. The new Resolution Center also shows support contacts and their outcomes, helping accountants review advice given to clients.

You don’t need to defend every increase, but honestly evaluate the value gained from:

  • Inventory the features available to each client
  • Test the tools that could improve their workflow
  • Add approvals and security controls before expanding automation
  • Explain what changed—and downgrade the plan if the value is not there

For the full feature-by-feature discussion, listen to the full episode.

Alicia Katz Pollock’s Royalwise OWLS (On-Demand Web-based Learning Solutions) is the industry’s premier portal for top-notch QuickBooks Online training with CPE for accounting firms, bookkeepers, and small business owners. Visit Royalwise OWLS, where learning QBO is a HOOT! 

Your Firm Feels Broken When the Business Model Doesn’t Match Your Values

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Between 2017 and 2019, Sandra Koch was searching for a way to fix what she called her “broken accounting firm.” She tested popular industry models, including selling tax plans. Instead of finding clarity, she felt confused and stressed. The approaches required her to become someone she wasn’t.

That experience raised an important question: What if recurring friction isn’t a sign that you need more discipline, another app, or a better implementation plan? What if the model simply doesn’t fit your values?

In a recent episode of Who’s Really the BOSS?, Sandra explains how she shaped Aurora Consulting Group around her beliefs about clients, employees, and work. Founded in San Diego in 2011, the firm is now based in Visalia, California. Sandra lives in Baja California Sur, Mexico, and leads a fully remote, six-person team spread across Mexico, California, and Indiana.

Aurora earns revenue in the low $700,000 range. It primarily serves service businesses with $1 million to $5 million in revenue, providing accounting, tax, advisory, and operations-management support.

 

Stop forcing someone else’s model onto your firm

For years, Sandra operated with a small team, but without the professional community and support system she later realized she needed. She looked outside the firm for answers and tried several approaches that didn’t work for her.

“If I try to twist myself into something I’m not, that’s inauthentic,” she says. “It’s going to fail.”

Her point isn’t that tax planning or any other service model is wrong. The problem comes when a model clashes with what you believe about client service, leadership, or work. Even strong execution can’t make a poor fit feel natural.

When your firm keeps “grinding gears,” consider asking:

  • What do we believe excellent client service requires?
  • What kind of workplace do we want to create?
  • Which services truly help our clients?
  • Do poor execution or poor alignment cause this frustration?

Once your values are clear, technology and operating decisions become easier to evaluate.

Let technology support the work

Aurora uses a practical, cloud-based technology stack. Karbon holds client work and email. Clients use QuickBooks Online, while the firm uses ProConnect Tax, Ignition, Ramp, and either Gusto or Rippling. The team also checks Google Workspace before purchasing another tool. Google Forms, for example, often meets its needs without an added subscription.

Sandra adopted cloud software early. After H&R Block purchased RedGear Technologies in January 2012, she had about two weeks to replace her tax software. Intuit was the only company that could import her client data within that window, so she moved to ProConnect. She also began testing QuickBooks Online before it included bank reconciliation because she believed Intuit would continue improving it.

The firm takes an equally practical approach to AI:

  • Blue J supports tax and accounting research and helps explain technical topics to clients
  • ChatGPT and Claude support creative, subjective, and organizational work. For objective claims, Sandra says, “It’s our job to prove it.”
  • EasyLlama provides security, AI, empathy, and customer service training in one place

Technology supports remote work, but a healthy workplace requires trust and attention to people.

Build flexibility around real lives

Every Aurora role has a job description, but Sandra recognizes every employee is different. When one employee’s abilities and strengths didn’t match the role or Sandra’s expectations, the mismatch stressed the team.

Instead of pushing the employee to perform within the same structure, Aurora stripped down and rebuilt the role around the person’s strengths. “We couldn’t see it because of the chaos the mismatch caused,” Sandra explains.

That same care shapes the firm’s schedule. Everyone must attend the Tuesday team meeting at 10 a.m. Beyond that (and California wage-and-hour requirements), Aurora doesn’t require employees to work set days or hours. Employees block unavailable time on their calendars, communicate their schedules, and remain available for necessary meetings.

That flexibility allowed one employee to work half days for two weeks so she could attend her child’s playoff games. Sandra reasons the employee won’t regret those half days years from now, but she would regret missing the games.

However, flexibility only works when clear service standards protect clients.

Turn responsiveness into a shared responsibility

Aurora uses Grasshopper for its phone system. Calls to the general line ring across the company, so any employee can answer. Everyone also monitors the shared client text line. A written policy says that if a message remains unanswered for an hour, someone must alert the intended recipient.

Karbon helps the firm track email response times, and every employee includes a booking link in their email signature. Each client also works with three contacts: a client service manager, a controller, and a CFO. If one person is unavailable, the relationship doesn’t stall.

Podcast host Rachel Dillon highlighted a lesson firm leaders often overlook: Employees can’t follow a rule that exists only in the owner’s head. If the same issue keeps causing frustration, ask whether you’ve documented and communicated the expectation.

But responsiveness is about more than speed. When Aurora learned that a client had lost a family member, the team shared that context so everyone would approach future conversations with care. As Sandra’s story shows, people remember when somebody notices.

Give every team meeting a clear purpose

Aurora’s Tuesday meeting begins with a team member reading the firm’s mission and values. Employees then share work highs and lows, discuss what they need help with, and celebrate progress. The meeting also includes a book discussion, announcements, personal milestones, and “happies and crappies.”

Client problems are intentionally absent. Aurora once discussed them during staff meetings, but the meetings became too long and left employees discouraged. Client issues now go to separate meetings. The weekly team meeting’s purpose is to be a pep rally that builds connection.

That reflects Sandra’s larger message, which is every system, from meeting agendas to response policies, should support the way you want to work.

Build from conviction, not convention

Sandra’s experience offers five lessons:

  1. Define your values before choosing services, systems, or management practices
  2. Treat recurring friction as a warning that something may not fit
  3. Support flexibility with clear schedules and written standards
  4. Shape roles around people’s strengths whenever possible
  5. Keep technology purposeful and verify objective AI-generated information

“When you match your firm to your value system,” Sandra says, “everything’s just smooth.”

Your firm doesn’t need to look like everyone else’s. It needs to serve clients well while remaining authentic and sustainable for you and your team.

Listen to the full episode to hear Sandra Koch’s full story and learn how Aurora puts these principles into practice.

Rachel and Marcus Dillon, CPA, own a national, remote client accounting and advisory services firm, Dillon Business Advisors, with a team of 28 professionals. Their latest organization, Collective by DBA, supports and guides accounting firm owners and leaders with Streamlined OS, an operating system for accounting firms, mastermind groups, and one-on-one advisory.

The Case for Building Your Accounting Career Around the Person You Are

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Halfway through the second day of an accounting conference, Jean Zick often feels her brain slow down. The lights, conversations, and crowded schedule drain her energy. Her type-A instinct tells her to attend every session because she paid to be there. But experience tells her to take a break.

That push and pull is at the heart of Episode 35 of She Counts. Nancy McClelland and Melissa Miller Furgeson, sitting in for Questian Telka, share two conversations recorded at the Theater of Public Speaking Curtain Call retreat. Jean explains how she learned to work with her introversion. Terri Warren describes how a layoff and two strokes forced her to redefine success.

Their circumstances are different, but their message is the same. Understanding yourself gives you more choices. You can stop pushing against who you are and start building a career that fits.

 

Naming what drains you turns judgment into useful information

Jean was sensitive to sound as a child. She was also shy, timid, and quick to cry. Years later, after staying home while her children were young, she returned to the business world and began her career as a CFO. Networking came with the job, but large conferences left her depleted.

“This is just really draining me of energy,” she remembers thinking. “I need to do something about it.”

Jean learned that introverts and extroverts respond differently to stimulation. An extrovert may enter a bright, crowded room and think, Bring it on. An introvert may wonder, Where can I hide? Neither response is a defect.

“We are all on one big spectrum,” Jean says. “There’s nothing wrong with you. We’re just wired differently.”

Her process includes:

  1. Identify the situations that overwhelm or drain you
  2. Accept your response instead of asking what is wrong with you
  3. Recognize that response as a signal
  4. Decide what would help you participate without exhausting yourself

Nancy describes herself as an extreme extrovert and recognized the same pattern from the other side. She’d judged her own “spazzy extroversion” as a failure. Professional expectations can make anyone feel as though they show up incorrectly.

Once we stop making that judgment, we can move from shame to strategy.

Plan for participation instead of relying on endurance

Jean doesn’t try to turn herself into someone who loves entering a room full of strangers. Instead, she plans for the way her energy works.

Her conference strategies include:

  • Find a wing person. Ask someone comfortable meeting people to make introductions. Nancy and Sharrin Fuller have even invited conference attendees to find them when they need that support.
  • Attend first-timer events. At Scaling New Heights, volunteers at the first-timers breakfast help newcomers make an initial connection and continue checking on them during the conference.
  • Schedule breaks in advance. Don’t wait until you’re completely depleted.
  • Reset your body and mind. Jean may step outside, walk, drink water, and eat a snack before returning.

“In the early conferences, I felt like I was hiding,” Jean says. “When I do that now, I know I’m using it to re-energize.”

The action may look the same, but its meaning has changed. Taking a break is a deliberate way to remain engaged.

Jean also encourages introverts to recognize their strengths. They may be empathetic listeners, comfortable with silence, thoughtful questioners, and builders of deep one-on-one relationships. Nancy may briefly meet 50 people at an event, while her introverted husband ends the evening knowing what is really happening in a few friends’ lives.

Those strengths can also shape how firms build stronger teams.

Smaller spaces can create stronger working relationships

When Jean joined a large networking organization, she didn’t try to meet everyone. She joined a committee and gradually got to know eight or 10 people.

She uses the same approach in her fully virtual firm, whose employees work across 12 or 13 states. Slack’s Donut app pairs two colleagues for a 30-minute monthly conversation with one rule: Don’t talk about work. Her firm also holds a monthly team meeting, smaller client-service meetings, and check-in huddles every other week.

During large virtual meetings, employees begin with a three-to-five-minute icebreaker in breakout rooms of about three people. That smaller setting helps them warm up before returning to the full group.

For firm leaders, the lesson is not to assume one social format works for everyone. Use pairs, committees, mentorship programs, and small groups to make connection easier. When colleagues know one another, collaboration becomes more natural.

Jean learned to design work around how she’s wired. Terri’s challenge was learning to work with the person she had become.

A change in capacity calls for a new definition of success

Being laid off from public accounting “totally shattered everything I knew about myself,” Terri says. She built her identity around the idea of “Drive, drive, drive. Push, push, push. Work, work, work.”

With help from her community, she rebuilt her confidence and created success within her own walls. Her daughter captured that confidence in a bright pink cape covered with sparkles, crystals, and pom-poms.

Then Terri had a stroke and spent 12 months in rehabilitation. About a year-and-a-half later, she had a second stroke. Still determined to prove that the strokes wouldn’t define her, she worked 10 times harder for four months.

Eventually, she hit a wall. Work the old Terri could have done easily now drained her. Refusing to accept her deficits had become part of the problem.

“I was in the way,” she says.

Terri created a new scoreboard. She no longer needed “layers and layers and layers of work and clients” to prove she was successful. Instead, she could use her expertise to train and coach others. When her body told her to stop, she could put away the computer for the day.

Her cape became reversible. One side was bright pink, but the other used darker greens, blues, and purples with smaller sparkles. Terri was still stubborn, valuable, and fully herself. Her new definition of success simply looked different.

Build a career for the person you are today

Terri closes with two reminders: “Be graceful with yourself,” and use the GROW model (goal, reality, options, and will) to examine your needs, capacity, and choices.

Together, Jean and Terri offer four actions:

  • Notice what drains or overwhelms you
  • Stop treating your response as a personal failure
  • Put support and boundaries in place before exhaustion arrives
  • Revisit success when your life or capacity changes

You don’t owe the profession a version of yourself that no longer fits. Listen to the full episode of She Counts, then ask: What are you still asking of yourself that no longer fits who you are?