The Authentic Advisor Podcast – essential topics, practical insights from leading business advisors.
The Authentic Advisor Podcast – essential topics, practical insights from leading business advisors.
Mindshop
Unit 8, 20 Cato St, Hawthorn East 3123
Victoria, Australia
+61 3 8807 0163
How to get the most out of your Mindshop membership? ↓
1. How much time should I allocate to do the learning as a Mindshop advisor?
The time to allocate depends on the speed of results you are seeking and size of the goals set for high performance.
Allocating 8-12 hours a month minimum for a Mindshop advisor to move through the courses, work with their coach and attend training days would be a good guide.
2. What tips would you give for somebody to get the most from being a Mindshop advisor?
Use on your own firm first to build confidence and real war stories. Then use on friendly clients. Ensure you book in to all the training days when the annual schedule is released.
✓ Push yourself outside your comfort zone and say ‘yes’ to new opportunities to use the tools. As
✓ confidence grows ensure you have clarity to your model and pricing.
✓ Practice, practice, practice using the tools in client meetings to build fluency.
✓ Allocate time each week or at a minimum each month to work through the courses, participate in the discussion forum, interact with your coach and look at tools needed for client meetings.
✓ Have a clear and realistic goal in mind. Success as a business advisor takes years of practice and capability building.
3. How quickly do advisors get results?
Within the first 2-3 months most advisors have won new client work or started using the tools internally on their own strategies and plans. It all depends on the goals and focus of each advisor and pace at which they seek to apply the learning.
Mindshop is not a magic bullet so lasting results do take time after months of practice, learning and adaption of approaches in the market.
4. How do I get my team to understand the basics of business advisory?
How do I get my team to understand the basics of business advisory?
One way is using our start tier of access to Mindshop Online which provides access to the complimentary advisory fundamentals course. This tier is free to any team member. Containing a series of modules, team members can discover the basics of listening, questioning skills, problem solving and simple strategy.
Another way is to run lunch and learn sessions (or other training sessions) around the core Mindshop methodologies and tools with the team.
5. Can I use the insights I learn from Mindshop on our firm itself?
Absolutely. It is the most effective way to build confidence plus capability in the tools and where quick wins occur.
6. How long do people normally stay involved with Mindshop on average?
On average, Mindshop members stay involved for 7–10 years, with many engaging for significantly longer. This unusually high retention rate (especially in the advisory and coaching industry) reflects the long-term value that members see in the platform and community.
Here’s why advisors tend to stick around:
Continuous Learning & Capability Building
The nature of advisory work is constantly evolving. Mindshop offers ongoing access to new tools, training, and the latest leading edge thinking, so members stay sharp and relevant.
Many treat Mindshop as their advisory R&D department, supporting lifelong learning.
Flexible Support As Their Firm Evolves
Whether you’re just starting out or scaling a mature advisory business, Mindshop adapts with you.
Members dip into different resources over time.
Trusted Peer Community
A major retention factor is the global peer network.
Long-term members value the chance to share ideas, solve problems, and collaborate.
Proven ROI and Efficiency
Mindshop gives advisors the ability to deliver more value in less time, with structured tools and diagnostics.
As clients grow to expect strategic advice, staying with Mindshop helps members scale without burning out or constantly reinventing their approach.
Personalised Coaching & Accountability
Ongoing access to experienced Mindshop coaches is a powerful retention lever. Members consistently cite coaching as a key factor in staying focused and making progress.
Practical Insight
Mindshop isn’t a short-term program or a one-off course. It’s more like an ‘advisory operating system’ that evolves with the advisor and their firm. That’s why most members don’t just renew, they embed it into how they run their business.
If you’re thinking about whether it’s a fit, the better question might be ‘Do I want a long-term system and community to scale my advisory impact?’
What does it mean for you? ↓
1. What’s Business Advisory?
The word ‘advisory’ is often overused and can mean different things to different people. Advisory can mean financial advice, corporate finance, personal, wealth, compliance and many other varieties. When we say ‘Business Advisory’ we relate that broadly to developing and implementing strategy, problem solving, change management and helping clients with growth and profit.
2. Do accounting firms have people that do advisory full-time?
Yes and no. Some larger accounting firms do have people dedicated full-time to business advisory, but it’s far from universal. For most it’s a small portion of what they do alongside their compliance and niche services. Whether a firm has full-time advisory specialists depends on its size, maturity, strategic focus, and resourcing model.
Here’s a breakdown of what’s common:
Larger Accounting Firms
Mid-sized Firms
Smaller Firms / Regional Practices
3. What are some of the practical challenges holding firms back?
Forward-thinking firms are:
If your firm is exploring how to scale advisory services, the real question isn’t ‘Should we have someone full-time?’ – it’s ‘How do we design an efficient, scalable advisory model that isn’t dependent on a few champions?’
The who, what, when and why of expert coaching from Mindshop. ↓
1. Do we get to pick our support coach?
We don’t allow advisors to ‘pick’ their coach as each coach is active in the field so only has a limited amount of time dedicated to support Mindshop advisors but we’re happy to have a discussion and will see if we can accommodate your coaching preference.
2. How often can I speak to my support coach? What does 24/7 mean?
We recognise that issues, questions or client opportunities each advisor needs help with don’t appear in a clean ‘monthly’ rhythm and can be a few during a week and then nothing for a few months. Therefore the ability to submit an action post or question confidentially via Mindshop Online to your coach is available 24/7. Depending on the schedule of each coach, they may be back to you within minutes or in the next 24-48 hours if a more detailed response is required. Our preference is for all correspondence to be captured in Mindshop Online for the benefit of advisors and the coach.
During the induction phase and if required every couple of months a call would be held with your support coach to check the progress of your goals, plans and actions as well as answer any questions you have about implementing Mindshop. At a minimum, each coach will be seeking to touch base (even if just via an action post) each 90 days if they have not heard from you.
What’s covered, how’s it delivered? ↓
1. What topics are covered by Mindshop’s Online Training? What is the format?
Mindshop courses are action orientated, to directly address learning and development needs of advisors, their teams and clients. Mindshop online courses cover a wide range of essential business topics:
A. Foundation
Business Advisory Fundamentals, Effective Communication, Problem Solving Foundations, Strategic Planning, Winning New Business as an Advisor.
B. Advanced
Advanced Sales Skills, Agile Teams & Implementation, Attraction & Retention, Change Success Mastery, Coaching & Accountability, Facilitation & Presentation Skills, Leadership Performance, Marketing Strategies, Personal Resilience, Personal Success, Problem Solving Advanced, Profit Improvement, Time & Priority Mastery.
C. Specialist
Business Intuition, Lean Management, Mindshop Online Essentials, Self Confidence.
Each course includes explanatory videos, written & visual learning materials, self-paced workbooks and case study self assessment tasks.
2. How long does it take to complete each online training course?
Each course takes between 6 to 12 hours to complete depending on the number of modules.
3. What is covered during Mindshop’s face-to-face regional training days?
Topics for each training day vary and are determined by a global training needs analysis completed at the start of each calendar year. These topics can be on areas such as: facilitation skills, new advisory service lines, best practice from peers, sales approaches, new tools, leadership, agility, growth, profit and more.
Each training day is led by an experienced Mindshop advisor who facilitates a practical workshop rather than a lecture to provide opportunities for advisors to learn new skills, work on their firm and network with peers.
What type of business advisory services does Mindshop help me deliver? ↓
1. What types of services does Mindshop help me deliver?
Mindshop helps advisors deliver a wide range of practical, high-impact business advisory services designed for accounting firms, consultants, and coaches who want to deepen client relationships and grow recurring revenue streams. Here’s a breakdown of the typical main types of pre-built services Mindshop offers, supporting you with a complete set of go-to-market & delivery tools for:
2. What types of clients are Mindshop pre-built services suitable for?
If you’re targeting specific industries or client types, Mindshop’s approach is flexible enough to tailor these services for mid-market businesses, family enterprises, or growth-focused SMEs.
Get information on onboarding, branding, and info on what’s included. ↓
1. Do you support very large firms with multiple offices?
Yes. We would tailor a support program using our Enterprise package with multiple internal champions as Mindshop advisors who leverage the resources with the wider advisory team. Often we work with the learning and development team internally to gain alignment to their goals.
2. What happens after we complete our application form to join the Mindshop Program?
The team will confirm receipt of the application form. Your induction process will start at the allocated start date where:
✓ An email outlining the induction process will be received by each Mindshop advisor
✓ A joining pack will be sent
✓ Access is provided to Mindshop Online
✓ Induction calls are booked with the head office team and your support coach
3. Can we brand the Mindshop material as our own?
We want all advisors to have their own brand on what they take to market and we ask when using Mindshop material they include the small ‘powered by Mindshop’ logo to recognise its origin.
4. Can I train other business advisors with Mindshop’s material?
Our terms and conditions provide clarity on this, we do not allow our material to be taken and used with our target markets in what could be seen in the market as a competitive offering to Mindshop.
5. Can multiple people log on with my Mindshop advisor password?
No. This is not allowed in our membership terms and conditions.
6. Do you offer any financial diagnostic products?
No. We prefer to focus on our strengths and always happy to recommend any of the myriad of great financial diagnostic or dashboard software available in the market.
7. Why do people leave Mindshop? What is your churn rate of members each year?
Most leave Mindshop due to retirement, not doing ‘advisory’ any longer, selling their firm, going back into the corporate market or perceiving the value is not there to continue. We have a healthy churn rate of under 10% a year but continue to grow each year.
8. How long do Mindshop advisors typically stay on board?
Your average tenure is 7.5 years for a Mindshop advisor and over 30% of the network have been with us for 10 years or more with some over 25 years. We have a focus on shaping our support offering to attract and retain the best of the best advisors.
