The life-changing impact of good mentorship. A conversation with Jamie Johns.

Jamie Johns is the CEO & Founder of Australian firm, Sky Accountants. He also co-founded Wize Mentoring, along with Ed Chan and Brenton Ward to provide business coaching and personal development services to accounting firm owners who want to elevate their practice. In this episode, Jamie and Stuart discuss Jamie’s entrepreneurial journey to accountancy and business coaching, the life-changing impact of good mentors, and how Wize Mentoring is shaping the next generation of accounting talent and leaders.

Together they discuss:

• Friendy catchup with Jamie Johns (1:00)
• California has a larger GDP than Australia (02:49)
• How Jamie went into business instead of farming (05:38)
• The technology landscape in the late 90s and early 2000s (07:53)
• The early days of MYOB and accounting software (16:39)
• Teaching QuickBooks to local small businesses (17:37)
• The path to entrepreneurship (18:59)
• How Jamie’s first client built a sunglasses empire as a bricklayer (20:10)
• The devastating struggles of scaling up (29:59)
• Two motivators that kept Jamie going (32:36)
• Life-changing mentorship from Ed Chan (35:50)
• Growing Wize Mentoring (38:41)
• Booming mentoring services for accounting firms (40:16)
• Cooking up WizeTalent (43:07)
• The hiring methodology of Topgrading (43:37)
• Talents without borders (45:04)