#67 Small town heart, global reach – Building Omne with Candice Mullins

TRANSCRIPT: THE bizval PODCAST
Guest: Candice Mullins, Founder and CEO — Omne
Host: Graham Stephen, CEO and Co-Founder, bizval

---

[00:00:44] Graham Stephen: Welcome to the bizval Podcast. I’m Graham Stephen, the CEO of bizvalglobal.com. And as always, we’re here to interview founders, movers and shakers, entrepreneurs, and today I’m absolutely delighted to have with me, for those South Africans, Leanne Manis, sorry, Candace.

[00:01:04] Graham Stephen: We were just chatting, chatting before the show. Leanne Manners is a well-known South Africa presenter, radio personality, and we were just having a little bit of a laugh, because as Candace came on the show, I said, you know who you look like? And she’s… yeah, before I even mentioned it, she’s like, she gets asked for the selfies all the time. So, Candace, it’s wonderful to have you here. Candace is the…

[00:01:26] Graham Stephen: Co-founder and managing director of Omni. And we’ll go into that a little bit later, but Candace, great to have you on the show.

[00:01:33] Candice Mullins: Thank you so much for having me, and thank you so much for the compliment that I looked like Leanne Manis, but as said, it’s not the first time I’ve heard that.

[00:01:41] Graham Stephen: So, listen, there’s high expectations then, I guess, for this discussion, but today we’re going to be talking a little bit about your personal journey.

[00:01:51] Graham Stephen: For our international listeners, you know, you grew up in Johannesburg, big city in South Africa, and you studied then in the Eastern Cape, which, you know, is a bit more rural, small town, and you decided to base your business in a small town.

[00:02:08] Graham Stephen: When you founded Omni. So, today’s chat’s gonna be a little bit about that, you know, your founding story. I think this is a really cool angle, and you know, maybe you were ahead of your time, because I think post-COVID, we saw a lot of people moving from the city, but you did this, like, you know, 15, 20 years before that, so…

[00:02:26] Graham Stephen: Today we want to kind of go into that, the story about Omni, a little bit about your story, and we’ll dive right in.

[00:02:36] Candice Mullins: Fantastic.

[00:02:36] Graham Stephen: Great, so Candace, let’s start at the beginning. Okay, you grew up in Johannesburg, big city, went to school there.

[00:02:43] Graham Stephen: And then, for your university studies, you moved to Gramstown, which, or now known as Macondo, which was effectively a university town. Tell us a little about your early years, you know, what shaped you, what drew you into accounting and tax work? Yeah, let’s start at the beginning.

[00:03:01] Candice Mullins: It’s quite interesting that you ask that, and to be very honest with you, accounting was so far off my radar. I mean, I loved animals, I thought that I would do zoology.

[00:03:11] Candice Mullins: the attraction about Rhodes was that it was a university town. In those days, you know, you had the Maritsburg and Rhodes University as English-speaking small universities, and I loved the appeal of Rhodes because it was small, and obviously a lot of my friends went there, and although I didn’t go with accounting in mind, I didn’t do accounting at school, I…

[00:03:35] Candice Mullins: I accidentally landed on accounting, because I found out that I was good at it. So, eventually, although I wanted to start with a BSc, and I actually even delved into law, when I finally did accounting in my first… in my… this was actually my second year of university, I was just good at it. I was just natural at it, which I… which I suppose I should have expected.

[00:03:58] Candice Mullins: Considering that my dad and my stepdad were both chartered accountants, so, it was easy for me, and my boyfriend at the time was doing the back, so it was the path I followed. It was the path of least resistance, and I really found that I enjoyed it.

[00:04:16] Graham Stephen: Yeah, I guess back in those days as well, I mean, I can relate, you know, like, nowadays there’s just so many options in terms of careers, I mean, YouTubers and all sorts of things. Back then, you know, it was a case of you become an accountant, a lawyer, you know, maybe a teacher or a doctor. That was kind of your choice, right?

[00:04:34] Graham Stephen: A scientist was, like, a little bit off the wall. But you moved to Grahamstown, I guess, small town. You know, for some of our international listeners, you know, university towns have a bit of a reputation for.

[00:04:46] Graham Stephen: were kind of maybe being a little bit of party towns. I went to a university just down the road, so our big adversaries at inter-university days was Rhodes University, so…

[00:04:58] Graham Stephen: You know, all the stories that go along… along with that. But… but how was that sort of adjustment period for you, coming from big city.

[00:05:05] Graham Stephen: you know, two small university towns? Like, what were some of the, sort of, you know, challenges you have to go through in making that transition? Or was it just like, hey, phase of life, I’m a student, I’m going to just fit in, you know, or was that.

[00:05:19] Candice Mullins: So, yeah, it’s… It’s quite funny, because I used to be called City Girl. I mean, it was so ridiculous. In fact, I think… I don’t think of myself as a city girl, but I suppose I was. But I adapted to small town. I was so comfortable very, very soon.

[00:05:37] Candice Mullins: Apart from the weather, because you have 5, 6, 10 seasons in one day in Grahamstown, Nakonda. Yeah. But… but I love the small town, and it was the first time that I started experiencing community. What is real community?

[00:05:52] Candice Mullins: And, by the time that I was in my debacco, where I actually met my partner, which we’ll talk about, you know, my business partner, Simon White.

[00:06:02] Candice Mullins: I… I had fallen in love with small-town living. I had fallen in love with community living, and in actual fact, I had met, at that stage, a farmer.

[00:06:13] Candice Mullins: And a lot of my time now was spent in this sort of country districts and, you know, the little country clubs, and just seeing how people rallied together in communities, and how they work together.

[00:06:27] Candice Mullins: And a lot of the thinking and a lot of the value system that’s now in Omni was because of what I recognized as being in a small town. It’s authentic.

[00:06:37] Candice Mullins: It’s helpful, it’s about team, it’s about empathy, it’s about all the things that were inherently in my value system, which blossomed when I found myself in this small town. And then, having met Simon White in my honors year.

[00:06:55] Candice Mullins: also with a very similar value system, I could see, because he grew up in Granstown. It, it planted a seed.

[00:07:04] Graham Stephen: Hmm. Yeah, I think we’re going to dive into that a little bit later, because, you know, I think.

[00:07:08] Candice Mullins: Mmm.

[00:07:08] Graham Stephen: sort of early experiences, they lay the foundations for, you know, the value systems of our businesses, and, you know, even though you’re living in a small town, and something we’ll talk about just now, is you’ve always had a very sort of global

[00:07:23] Graham Stephen: outlook. You know, we were chatting before the show with your boys being off to Aspen and ski schools, and all those sorts of things, you know, and I think that unique combination is, I think, what truly makes Omni really impactful. So, we’re going to get into that a little bit later, but let’s go back to those early days. You qualified as a… as an accountant.

[00:07:42] Graham Stephen: You did your articles, sort of in a small town practice. And I guess in those days, you know, like, there was all this pressure to be a Big Four articles, do your training in a Big Four business. You did your sort of heavy lifting, if you want to call it that, in a smaller firm.

[00:08:01] Graham Stephen: How do you think that shaped you? You know, what were some of the experiences through that which kind of laid the foundation for where you are today?

[00:08:10] Candice Mullins: Yeah, it’s very interesting. I actually started my articles at Deloitte with… with the, as I call him, Sykes, Simon White.

[00:08:17] Candice Mullins: And… I was miserable. So I was at Deloitte in Woodmead.

[00:08:24] Candice Mullins: I didn’t like the… the Big Four experience. I found… I found that I… I was a number, that I wanted more ex… you know, we didn’t even see a tax return in that year, for example, and tax was certainly my passion.

[00:08:40] Candice Mullins: Then, you know, when I decided to move back to the Eastern Cape, I transferred my articles to what was then Kisher Hoffman PKF in Little Grahamstown, and that is when I really enjoyed the article experience. I was given a lot more autonomy.

[00:09:00] Candice Mullins: My… the partner in charge of me at the time was James Brunt. Sadly, he’s no longer with us. But he allowed us to sort of pave our way and develop our own working papers, and funny enough, I think I was one of the first clerks to have a laptop, and I’m not joking. And we were using Lotus 123, and I designed the auditing working papers on that, and I really, really felt

[00:09:23] Candice Mullins: I felt alive. And because I was touching the audit experience, and I was getting tax experience, and I was getting even a little bit of accounting, forecasting, budgeting experience, and I was dealing with the clients themselves, face-to-face.

[00:09:41] Candice Mullins: in a small community, I just… I really enjoyed that experience, and… and also, I had a very nice team that I worked with as well. So, there were so many pluses around it, and I learned so much more, I felt, in the small-town experience. And, you know, in fact, I was… I was even managing a lot of the clients at that stage, because the partner in charge said, okay, you go for it.

[00:10:09] Graham Stephen: So, it was… it was a very good experience. Yeah, and I think, I think a few things in that is, one is, I think part of the challenge with the big firms and that is, you know, you almost specialize too early. You have to kind of make a choice, you know.

[00:10:24] Graham Stephen: big four, it’s like, are you going into banking, or insurance, or… and sometimes you don’t have a choice of which of those divisions you get put in, and…

[00:10:33] Candice Mullins: That’s so true.

[00:10:34] Graham Stephen: Very structured, but you, you kind of… you know, you had space to learn, you had space to experiment. You know, I guess the stakes are probably a lot lower when you’re auditing, you know, the small-town country club, as opposed to when you’re auditing one of the big

[00:10:47] Graham Stephen: five banks, for argument’s sake, you know? So you have that space to kind of, yeah, make mistakes without it, changing the world, so to speak.

[00:10:57] Candice Mullins: No, 100%. I mean, I realized quite early, when I was at Deloitte, that I was not going to be a big corporate animal.

[00:11:03] Candice Mullins: I didn’t want to be… I like being a big fish in a small pond, rather than a small fish in a big pond, and I have to admit, and I’m putting my hand up high, but that… that was what I… it was in my comfort zone. And I felt I could have far more of an impact there, and you can see your impact. It’s far more tangible.

[00:11:22] Graham Stephen: Absolutely. So, look, we spoke about your background, and tell us a little bit of what happened after articles, and then what led to, you know, your decision to start Omni, and specifically, you know, by now we know you’re a small-town girl at heart, you’re not a city girl.

[00:11:38] Graham Stephen: You know, so what happened after articles, what took you to the journey of starting Omni, and then why specifically, you know, start in a small town?

[00:11:50] Candice Mullins: Slow… interestingly enough, when I was… when I was at, you know, the… when I was doing my articles, I was approached by Rhodes University, and, I think it was Kevin Marie at the time, and Lilla Stack, who were my direct bosses when I moved there.

[00:12:11] Candice Mullins: they… they really dangled the carrots, and they said, you know, you should really consider, you know, the academic life, and it’s wonderful, and, you know, you can have your babies, and all those sorts of things. So, it was quite enticing at the time.

[00:12:27] Candice Mullins: to… to move to Rhodes University, and they offered me a lovely… a lovely start package, and a lot of freedom, and that’s what I decided to do. So I… I ended up moving to Rhodes University. I was a senior lecturer there for 7 years. But then I also quickly learned that

[00:12:46] Candice Mullins: academic… the academic world is also not a world that I wanted to be in, but the best part about it was

[00:12:54] Candice Mullins: I built a really, really good foundation in tax knowledge. and accounting knowledge. I lectured Accounting 3 for the most part, and I did lecture a little bit of Tax 1 during my stint there, and I had my two babies while I was working there. Funny enough, I have made lifelong friends out of those students. So many of those students still get hold of me today, and I’ve met them along the way through my partners, through work, through all sorts of

[00:13:24] Candice Mullins: platforms and networking platforms, and they come up to me at airports and all sorts of places. Oh, Candace, it’s so lovely to see you! You were such an inspiration, and I’m so glad if I changed 5 people’s

[00:13:39] Candice Mullins: lives, and it was great. And I also could give them the sort of experience of the Big Four versus small town, and it was so lovely to relay my life experience up until that point with them. Although I wasn’t that much older than my students at the time.

[00:13:58] Candice Mullins: Because, you know, there was sort of maybe a five, six-year gap between me and them, but it was a fun time, and I embedded my technical knowledge over that time. And, I did… I did quite a lot, you know, we did academic papers, we were encouraged to do research, I started my tax art… my tax master’s.

[00:14:17] Candice Mullins: I still haven’t finished it to this day, and that’s one regret I have. I might revisit it at some stage.

[00:14:24] Candice Mullins: But something intervened, and I… I was encouraged at the time to moonlight, because, you know, again, as a life of academic, you know, it’s… it’s… economically, it’s not a great life choice if you’re wanting to send children to private schools, etc.

[00:14:44] Candice Mullins: So, we were encouraged to moonlight, and I did have some work that I was engaged in at the time. And even at that point, I had exposure to

[00:14:58] Candice Mullins: what we now find ourselves specializing in are ecotourism, conservation, you know, game reserves, and… and I was consulting with a lot of those sort of organizations, both international clients and local… local… here’s my… my…

[00:15:17] Candice Mullins: Yeah, peace, sorry. Both international clients and local, but it’s sort of set the path to where a lot of our client base sits to this day.

[00:15:29] Candice Mullins: One of the experiences I had and interacted with was, I’m not going to mention his name, because I don’t want to, obviously, that’s client privilege, but a great entrepreneur, property developer, approached me, and he actually said, would you like to come and work for me?

[00:15:50] Candice Mullins: And I said, no, I’ll tell you what, I’m not gonna work for you, I’d like to open my own practice, and you can be my first client.

[00:15:58] Candice Mullins: And he had, I think, about 40 companies at the time. And we literally opened the tax house at the time. At that time, I had another business partner, who joined me, and we opened the tax house. And that was in 2006, and the tax house eventually evolved into Omni, which it is today, and Simon White is now my partner, and he joined Omni in 2015.

[00:16:25] Graham Stephen: Okay, so, I mean, it’s quite a backstory, you know, and I say, it’s amazing how, you know, these kind of pieces sometimes just kind of fall into place, whether it’s, what do you call, synchronicity or serendipity, you know, so even… even going and building that base of knowledge in…

[00:16:42] Graham Stephen: You know, university, you know, kind of laid a foundation you say, dealing with international clients, you need to know tax law, you need to know all those things. You may not have known it at the time, you know, to start a family, and, you know, maybe that’s something we can talk about a little bit later, you know, as being a mom, and kind of getting… not getting that stuff out the way, but being able to build a life, and build a solid foundation for what you’ve built now, and I think…

[00:17:05] Graham Stephen: it’s easy to look at it through the rearview mirror. I guess at that time, you weren’t sitting there with this grand plan of saying, hey, one day I’m going to be this

[00:17:13] Graham Stephen: you know, like, powerful businesswoman, running a fantastic business and that, but you kind of went with the flow, you saw the opportunities when they came up, and I love that story with your former client, where you said, listen.

[00:17:25] Graham Stephen: you know, be my first client. You know, so often you get just one person who kind of is that catalyst to start something. And as you said, you started as the tax house, and that was 2006, so we’re almost coming up on your 20-year anniversary, which is…

[00:17:43] Candice Mullins: Normal.

[00:17:43] Graham Stephen: Which is next year, yeah. And Simon joined in 2015, so that was kind of, like, 9 years down the line. So, let’s jump to that. And Simon, obviously, is a key part of Omni, so you almost had sort of a bit of a shift from TaxHouse, and you created Omni sort of around the mid-2000… what, 2015?

[00:18:06] Graham Stephen: Let’s talk a little bit about that change. One is, you know, why did, you know, you decide to bring Simon into the business, and why did you decide to rebrand at that stage?

[00:18:17] Candice Mullins: I know that you’ve brought us forward, but to understand where that happened, I’m going to take you back a little bit. So, when we studied at Rhodes, so he actually did his undergrad at Meritsburg, and then he did his honors at Rhodes, and we were in our, the back class together.

[00:18:34] Candice Mullins: He was a big rower, so he always used to be, like, the poor guy, because he was rowing, and then he’d run into the class.

[00:18:39] Graham Stephen: Up at 4.30am.

[00:18:41] Candice Mullins: I, I, I was, yeah, I was there first, and you know, I got the great seats, and I sat… we had a horseshoe kind of room, and he was always closest to the poor lecturer, but anyway, we had a good laugh about that.

[00:18:54] Graham Stephen: But he and I…

[00:18:58] Candice Mullins: we always had a connection, like, and we… we actually… he said to me, I’m gonna literally go out to the big world, and I’m… I’m gonna do the whole corporate… corporate thing, and I mean, he did so well in corporate. He… he really, really did. He was, FD of builders, you know, under the Massmart group. He, he worked for breweries for a while, and he made many, many connections.

[00:19:22] Candice Mullins: in that world, as did I when I was an academic. And I think those two worlds

[00:19:28] Candice Mullins: have helped us a lot in the platforms and the networking where we are today. But we always had the conversation, even when he was in his commercial space, and he used to come back to Graveston to visit his parents, or his dad, on Table Farm.

[00:19:43] Candice Mullins: cans, cans, when are we gonna do this together? And we really sort of had a long, long discussion, and we… we knew each other pretty well by then.

[00:19:52] Candice Mullins: We’ve obviously learned some more about each other, because you really do when you’re in business together, but we knew that we were very different, and in a good way. You know, it’s really, really important, and we identified we had complementary skill sets, you know, and.

[00:20:09] Graham Stephen: Yep.

[00:20:09] Candice Mullins: And although we had the complementary skill sets, I understood that we also had the same value system and the same goal set in mind. So, when he said, listen, I’m doing this, his kids were old enough, and a big pool in Gramstown is other private schools here. Both of our children went to St. Andrews, or his… I’ve only got boys, but he’s got, you know, two girls, DSG and St. Andrews.

[00:20:34] Candice Mullins: It’s a fabulous school. Simon’s son is 6th generation, my son’s our 5th generation at this amazing school. And also, you know, there’s a whole network there that’s supported us. So, although we’re in this little town.

[00:20:50] Candice Mullins: you know, it meant… it didn’t restrict us at all with what we could do and what we could offer, and I think people knew us well enough to… to understand that just because you’re in a small town does not mean that the service offering is any less

[00:21:05] Candice Mullins: And in fact, with both of our backgrounds, in fact, 1 plus 1 equals 5, kind of thing, or 10. Yeah. And that’s what we recognized. And it was just a natural fit when he came. We actually only rebranded in, about 2029, 20, around then. Yeah. And, it… that was a very long exercise.

[00:21:30] Candice Mullins: Because you have to… what name are we going to call of ourselves, and is it available as a trademark? Is it available on SIPC? Sure, that took a long time to find the name. But when it landed, I mean, I was just trying to brainstorm, brainstorm, brainstorm. And, like, I think it was 10 or 11 o’clock at night, and I was lying in bed.

[00:21:49] Candice Mullins: And I suddenly said, Omni!

[00:21:52] Graham Stephen: That means…

[00:21:53] Candice Mullins: Everything, it’s a derivative of everything in Latin. Everything for small business. Everything financed for small to medium business. I phoned Sykes, I said, Sykes, he said, I love it! Is it available?

[00:22:07] Candice Mullins: And it was available.

[00:22:08] Graham Stephen: And then we got… once we had the name, then it was about building the brand, and… and it was a… it was a real… it was real teamwork.

[00:22:16] Candice Mullins: between him and I, but not just him and I, the whole team under us, and it was such an exciting time. And it was very good, and we obviously did quite a lot of interviews with our clients.

[00:22:30] Candice Mullins: The communities… you know, do you think we should change? And they said, yes, it’s a restrictive name, the tax house, when you’re doing so much more than that. So, here we are, and we have never regretted that name change. We absolutely love it. We… we… we… it’s been… it’s done us well. You know, it’s done us proud, and… and we, yeah, I’ve got my Omni shirt on, everything’s.

[00:22:52] Graham Stephen: But it’s a great brand, and we…

[00:22:55] Candice Mullins: we…

[00:22:56] Graham Stephen: Yeah, I love it. It’s short, short, sharp, to the point, you know, and you know, as you say, Tax House, whilst it says what you do, you know, they say, you guys do so much more than that, you know, you’re more than accounting partners, you’re more than tax partners, you’re more than advisors, you know, you kind of… you kind of…

[00:23:15] Graham Stephen: I think you probably, in a sense, are… you know, like, before things like fractional CFOs and all that sort of thing became, like.

[00:23:23] Graham Stephen: you know, a buzzword. You guys were doing that in any case. Yeah, I think also just to rewind a little bit, you know, we talk…

[00:23:29] Graham Stephen: as a running business out of a small town was easy. You know, nowadays, we take things like Zoom and communications there for granted, but I do want to touch on that a little bit, and I’m jumping around back. When you started this, and you had clients, you know, all over the place.

[00:23:45] Graham Stephen: It was pre-Zoom, it was pre… you know, it was dial-up internet at best, you know, you spoke about, you know, having your early-day laptops and that, so, like.

[00:23:55] Graham Stephen: what were some of the challenges back in those early days? I know I’m taking you back, Candace, but in actually not being in those physical locales? You know, was it… was it, you know, did you have to travel a lot? Did you build your client base out of the local community, then expand?

[00:24:09] Graham Stephen: You know, was it a function of networks from the schools, and, you know, Simon’s Deloitte, and Joburg, and PE Networks? Like, how did you guys actually build a client base when you were in a small town.

[00:24:22] Graham Stephen: pre… let’s call it the internet economy.

[00:24:26] Candice Mullins: I have to say, Still to this day, word of mouth is… the strongest marketing tool for us. If we do something well, and they tell their friend, and tell their friend, and tell their friend, and they come to us. You know, our focus is on owner-managed small to medium businesses, and the whole ecosystem around them.

[00:24:47] Candice Mullins: And I mean, we like to be their business partner. Obviously, we don’t offer audits. I mean, that’s not a world that we wanted to be in. We didn’t want to be in a grudge purchase environment. We literally wanted to be advisor and all of those sorts of things. The difficulty, obviously.

[00:25:07] Candice Mullins: Was the value proposition, and, you know, again,

[00:25:13] Candice Mullins: in a small town, there isn’t… there isn’t money around, you know, so you end up doing a lot more for a lot less, and that was very difficult. And that is when it was an absolute no-brainer to me to expand beyond the walls of Grahamstown, and go and seek work in the big towns, in the big cities, and try and compete with those firms there. So, yes.

[00:25:37] Candice Mullins: I certainly did a lot of traveling. And again, it was… it was wonderful for me, because I could be with my children, which is the main reason why I did stay in Grahamstown, is to be closer to my children, to be a mother to them, but yet still be able to have a career, and

[00:25:54] Candice Mullins: And a career on my own terms. A career that, that, that… that I could be in control of. I didn’t want to have a boss, I wanted to be my own boss. Although I have worked long, long hours, I was able to get a life-work balance. So there is a trade-off, in that, you know, I’m sure that if I’d done this in Joburg, I would be a lot richer now.

[00:26:18] Candice Mullins: But I’m richer for experience, and I’m richer for having had that time with my family, and for the relationships I’ve nurtured in the small community, real authentic relationships. And Omni is quintessential Eastern Cape values. We are pioneers, so a lot of what we did

[00:26:38] Candice Mullins: it was real pioneer stuff. We didn’t want to be the sort of stock-standard small-town accountant doing, you know, shuffling papers using historical pastels, and we… and especially when Sykes joined, we really went onto this whole cloud

[00:26:56] Candice Mullins: platform. And we had to really… it was so hard to sell the cloud platform, the zeros, the decks, all these things that we use, to very narrow-minded, old-fashioned

[00:27:12] Candice Mullins: Oh, no, that’s…

[00:27:13] Graham Stephen: With a double, with a double.

[00:27:14] Candice Mullins: Yeah, they don’t want to know about it. Not only that, to sell it to the staff as well. It was a very difficult thing. So we had years of toil, I must tell you, to get the buy-in for the tech stack that allowed us to be mobile, that allowed us to be better accountants, in-the-moment accountants, and even, you know, looking into the future of our clients, and really taking along this

[00:27:42] Candice Mullins: them on this evolution of their business journey with them. So we really then had a completely different mindset. And we just pushed and pushed, and we started… well, long ago, we set up a Johannesburg base, and we started staffing it up.

[00:28:03] Candice Mullins: It was very difficult to manage people remotely. And only rarely when COVID happened.

[00:28:11] Candice Mullins: We already had the structures in place. It was there. So, it was literally switching a button on.

[00:28:18] Candice Mullins: And we introduced that.

[00:28:19] Graham Stephen: You were kind of ahead of your time, in a sense. You had laid a lot of the foundations, you had put cloud technology.

[00:28:23] Candice Mullins: We had…

[00:28:24] Graham Stephen: And then when it happened, it was like, okay, you’re already remote, you didn’t have to move from Johannesburg to the small, you were already there, and

[00:28:32] Graham Stephen: And, you know, the world changed, and you were ready for it. And, you know, like, so often we talk about business as being in the right time at the right place, and I can imagine that kind of led to a period of quite… maybe explosive is the wrong word, but I mean, it’s kind of led to

[00:28:47] Graham Stephen: you know, a period of you guys going to the next level, so to speak. I love that story, because… You know, so at the time, you don’t always realize those platforms that you’re building. And in hindsight, it’s easy to look back and pretend to be all smart and think that, oh, we planned this with intent. If COVID didn’t happen.

[00:29:05] Graham Stephen: Maybe your business wouldn’t have, you know, like, had that… let’s call it that next step, but it did, and you were ready for it, right?

[00:29:13] Candice Mullins: No, we were, and I mean, to, you know, I was talking about the huge differences between Simon White and myself. I’m very instinctive, and Sykes is more the planner and the strategist, and, you know, you know, obviously, again, in line with our goals, but if I feel something in my gut, you know, I go for it. And a lot of what we did was that kind of…

[00:29:38] Candice Mullins: instinctive, think this is going to work, and not everything’s worked, you know? We… we’ve tried things that we’ve had to sunset, like our clients have done. You’ve got to try and fail.

[00:29:48] Graham Stephen: Oh, really?

[00:29:48] Candice Mullins: And then you try something else. But the best part about it is that we’re still in the Eastern Cape, and I love being here, and of course I’m in Cape. We’ve got a Cape Town presence, we’ve got a Durban presence, and we’ve got a Jobe presence.

[00:30:02] Candice Mullins: And, and I love, I love visiting, but I always love coming home, back to this authentic, community-driven, relationship-driven place.

[00:30:11] Candice Mullins: That really drives our value system, right through, you know, the relationships with our clients, our staff, and, you know, all of our associates.

[00:30:22] Graham Stephen: And that’s true authenticity, I can relate a lot to that, you know, from a bizval perspective, we obviously, you know, our core team is based in Cape Town, but we’ve got great business in the US and in the UK, and, you know, I guess it’s no different. And, you know, I think we take

[00:30:41] Graham Stephen: That’s to the world, so it’s.

[00:30:43] Candice Mullins: Absolutely.

[00:30:44] Graham Stephen: losing what you are. It’s actually about taking the good of what, you know, of what you do, and…

[00:30:50] Graham Stephen: your home and all of that sort of stuff, and then being proud of that, and serving in other NGO calls, you know, and I suppose in your business as well, you know, you do have international clients, you may not have offices in London and what have you, but you’ve got clients who’ve moved to London and have stayed with you and etc. But the home is still where the heart is, so to speak, and I think that just shines through in the way you do business, and I think from

[00:31:14] Graham Stephen: you know, when we first connected with Simon and yourselves and that. yeah, there was almost this bind. Maybe it’s because I grew up in the East of the Cape, maybe it’s something in the water there, you know, but it…

[00:31:23] Candice Mullins: Oh, I think it is, it’s in the air.

[00:31:25] Graham Stephen: Yeah.

[00:31:26] Candice Mullins: As you get off the plane in Tamera.

[00:31:31] Graham Stephen: You just…

[00:31:32] Candice Mullins: Smell it. Like, it’s in you, and you go, yay, I’m home. So, yeah, it’s very, very much like that.

[00:31:38] Graham Stephen: So, Candace, I want to just touch on a few things, and we got quite off-piste from the original, sort of, like, script that we had kind of planned out, but I think there are two things I want to drill down into. We’ve spoken a lot about Simon, and Simon’s clearly a bit more camera shy than you, because when we were setting up this,

[00:31:54] Graham Stephen: this podcast, he said, listen, Candace is the pro, she’s doing it, I’m going to be in the background. But I want to talk a little bit about, you know, you and him and your sort of, let’s call it co-founder or partner relationship.

[00:32:05] Graham Stephen: What are some of the things that really stand out? You’ve spoken about your sort of complementary skill set, but when, you know, for any business owner thinking about bringing on a co-founder or a partner, what are some of the traits that, you know, can really make a big difference to your success?

[00:32:20] Graham Stephen: And perhaps, what are some of the red flags, I guess, that entrepreneurs should watch out for when they’re selecting a co-founder or a partner?

[00:32:28] Candice Mullins: Well, the most important thing is common values. If you’ve got a common value and a common goal.

[00:32:35] Candice Mullins: you can… you can get through anything. You know, they… there obviously are… I mean, it’s like a marriage, So… so going in, I think you need to very much lay… you have to have your ANC, document drawn up, and your shareholder agreement.

[00:32:52] Candice Mullins: And that has to be very clear and understood. And it has to cater for all the worst-case scenarios. And what, you know, the hope is then that you never, ever have to use that.

[00:33:04] Candice Mullins: Yeah. But, you know, and in the beginning, because, sort of, Simon was moving…

[00:33:12] Candice Mullins: to me, not the other way around. You know, I had kind of the controlling vote. And, you know, I never had to use it. And then, eventually, we just said, well, that’s silly, let’s remove that. And we never ever had to use it. Why? Because we had mutual respect. We’ve always had mutual respect, and we really trust each other. So it’s… and those things are really, really important.

[00:33:34] Candice Mullins: The red flags is that when, you know, when the blood starts to boil.

[00:33:40] Candice Mullins: Go for a walk, remove yourself from the situation, walk around the block. And think about, really, what you’re trying to achieve, and go back to…

[00:33:49] Graham Stephen: Walk around the city, it’ll take you…

[00:33:52] Candice Mullins: Book around the edge wall. Don’t sweat, don’t sweat the small stuff. Don’t sweat the small stuff. You decide where you must hold your ground.

[00:34:01] Candice Mullins: And… and, you know, those things… You know, also, you’ve got to understand what possibly your partner is going through. You know, there may be stuff going on at home, or stresses at home, and so you’ve got to be empathetic, but mutual respect is really critical, common goals, and if there is

[00:34:23] Candice Mullins: A serious point of conflict. It needs to be nipped in the bud. It needs to be nipped in the bud. I think…

[00:34:31] Candice Mullins: regular communication does circumvent that to some degree. And don’t, you know, don’t make decisions on your own, big decisions. You know, I love the fact that on… even on smaller stuff, we consult each other all the time. We sense check.

[00:34:50] Graham Stephen: Yeah.

[00:34:51] Candice Mullins: sense-check things, especially if it’s going to affect each other. We sense-check it with each other, and with our team.

[00:34:58] Candice Mullins: And yeah, I’ve noticed sometimes the team will be split, and some people will take my side, and some people will take his side. But we actually end up always coming to the right decision. And the best part is that when you make a decision.

[00:35:14] Candice Mullins: Even if it was… contentious, but you’ve made a decision, both partners live with it, and support each other if something goes wrong. You’ve got to have each other’s back. You have to be a united front. And that’s with your clients, and it’s with your staff.

[00:35:33] Graham Stephen: Yeah, I think that’s so important, you know, I mean, just, you know, having… making those… having those tough conversations. As you say, it’s a bit like a marriage, or, you know, like any relationship. Communication’s key, alignment’s key, all of those things, and I guess, in a small town, there’s nowhere to hide either, right? You know, because

[00:35:47] Graham Stephen: Yeah, you’ve got unresolved issues at work, you get to bump into them at the local, you know, at the one restaurant in the main street, or at the school.

[00:35:55] Candice Mullins: And that’s no lie, there is only one restaurant in the main street.

[00:36:00] Graham Stephen: Candace, I want to spend just a little bit of time talking about, you know, we’ve spoken about the backstory, but I really want to talk about Omni, and what makes you different. You know, it’s not just because you’re in a small town, it’s not all of those things, but, like, just talk about…

[00:36:16] Graham Stephen: you know, why your clients stick with you? You know, why are they so loyal? What makes you different? If it’s a new client who wants to come your way?

[00:36:24] Graham Stephen: whether they’re in Joburg, London, or Cape Town, you know, like, I assume you’re still taking on new clients, you know, so… but why would… why would they come to you and… and not their local accountant down the… down the drag?

[00:36:39] Candice Mullins: I would say that it is… we are reliable, and, you know, we… you know, you… we stick to our promises.

[00:36:49] Candice Mullins: We’re very solution-orientated. So, you know, you might often, and I see this often, in fact, I saw it last week.

[00:36:57] Candice Mullins: Where, you know, you go to your accountant or your tax advisor, and they just, like, screw out a whole lot of legal jargon to you, and, you know, the client doesn’t understand it, you know, they need sort of colloquial

[00:37:12] Candice Mullins: you know, okay, let’s get down to the basics, and let’s try and get through this and understand it. So we’re very understanding of where the client is coming from, where they are in the evolution of their business. And, you know, we’re not just a generic accountant that’s just going to do the compliance. We recognize

[00:37:33] Candice Mullins: other areas, and they may not even be accounting and tax-related, but we have a relationship with someone who can help you, if it’s a marketing person, or if it’s a tech person. So, it’s really about

[00:37:45] Candice Mullins: Being reliable, we’re empathetic, we’re authentic.

[00:37:49] Graham Stephen: Hmm.

[00:37:50] Candice Mullins: And we are solution-orientated. And…

[00:37:53] Graham Stephen: I have to.

[00:37:53] Candice Mullins: We’ll never leave you hot and dry.

[00:37:56] Graham Stephen: Yeah, and I think, I think there’s something in that about, you know, whether it’s the Eastern Cape or it’s a small town, I mean, you know, anyone I know who’s come from the Eastern Cape, it is about, like.

[00:38:06] Graham Stephen: like, stuff the jargon, like, speaking language that people understand, the importance of relationships, and that’s so easy to get lost in a big city, you know, you get busy, and it’s, you know, it’s transient and all of those sorts of things, and I do think it does make a difference, and if you can take that and carry that with you wherever you are in the world.

[00:38:24] Graham Stephen: I still think it resonates with people, and today it’s particularly challenging, you know, you’ve got social media, you’ve got networks. I look at my kids and how they engage with, you know, their friends at school and all of that, and I think society is desperately, desperately seeking out real and authentic

[00:38:44] Graham Stephen: relationships. You know, that’s why I think things like AI and what have you, from an accounting point of view, it might help do some of the heavy lifting, but it’s never going to remove the need for actually having, you know, an accounting team who’s in your corner, who protects you from an unexpected tax bill, who, you know.

[00:39:03] Graham Stephen: prompts you in unplanned sort of ways, you know, and I think that’s really, really important, and I just love that. I think, and I think that’s why, you know, obviously, we partner with you guys, that whole notion of referring clients. Like, in a small town, you know when something is beyond your expertise, or there’s a specialist who does that better, and it’s about referring

[00:39:21] Graham Stephen: amongst the community. I mean, so those are principles which are just almost ingrained in the way you guys do business, and I think your clients appreciate that, right? You know, if you can’t do something, you’ll be the first to put up your hand and say, listen, actually, you know, if we’re rowing a boat, you’re probably better off having Simon in your, you know, in your eight-man team rather than you.

[00:39:44] Candice Mullins: Correct, yeah. And Simon is so good at so many things, and I like to think I’m good at so many things, but I would… I wouldn’t dare venture down his lane, and he wouldn’t venture down my lane. And, you know, obviously, our staff are the same. But, you know, what you say is also… we are living in a world that is…

[00:40:05] Candice Mullins: it’s overwhelming regulation right now, for us too, as practitioners. There’s overwhelming regulation that not one human can possibly know. So if I was to tell you what our biggest challenge is, it’s not really about a small town thing, it’s about the amount of regulation that is being thrown in our direction, from every possible angle.

[00:40:29] Candice Mullins: We’re drowning in it. And obviously, because we’re drowning in it, our clients are drowning in it. So we’re doing our best to absorb them from that blow. So we’re taking a lot of that regulation on ourselves. With a lot of pressure. I do find… I would really…

[00:40:49] Candice Mullins: love if the professional bodies would recognize the amount of pressure they’re putting on the small guys. You know, the big four, they can handle it. They’ve got a whole compliance team, you know. First of all, we can’t afford to have a whole compliance team, and… but so… so what ends up happening, we don’t… we are just… we are spending a lot of time on… on, you know, just complying with the regulation, which our… which our clients are, too.

[00:41:13] Candice Mullins: I really hope that at some point, sense prevails, and that, you know, there’s some alleviation for small business. And I certainly will be working with our professional bodies and my colleagues to try and see how we can do that.

[00:41:29] Candice Mullins: So I’m surprised on behalf of my clients, yeah. Sorry?

[00:41:33] Graham Stephen: Absolutely, and it’s not just a South African problem, you know, I mean, it’s globally, you know. You know, the small businesses are the cornerstone, you know, in terms of, you know, employment opportunities, in terms of economic…

[00:41:45] Graham Stephen: foundations, yet it’s becoming increasingly more difficult in terms of regulation. I look at our clients in the UK, even in the US, there’s so many things you need to think about, and there’s a fine for this, and a penalty for that, and I guess you guys carry that, right? And have to, you know, kind of.

[00:42:01] Candice Mullins: education.

[00:42:01] Graham Stephen: your clients in a… so it is, it is challenging. I want to kind of…

[00:42:08] Graham Stephen: bring this sort of discussion to a bit of a close, and one thing we do… I’m going to give you an opportunity, Candace, just to kind of leave some closing thoughts, but one of the things we do with all our guests is we do sort of a series of rapid-fire questions, and it’s designed to put you a little bit on the spot, but also just designed to kind of, you know.

[00:42:26] Graham Stephen: just share a little bit of a light on the real… the real you. So, I hope you’re ready. Just one word answer, what comes to mind, and we’re gonna kick off.

[00:42:37] Graham Stephen: Yep. So…

[00:42:39] Candice Mullins: Yeah, I’ll do my pace.

[00:42:41] Graham Stephen: What’s your favorite business book, and why?

[00:42:46] Candice Mullins: There’s a book called How to Work with Complicated People by Ryan Leake, and it’s… it’s a personality book.

[00:42:54] Graham Stephen: Yep.

[00:42:54] Candice Mullins: Fantastic.

[00:42:58] Graham Stephen: I must check that out. Ryan… Ryan Leak, how to work with complications? Yes, yes. Let’s give that to my team, maybe they’ll understand me a little bit better.

[00:43:09] Graham Stephen: Okay, one habit that keeps you grounded.

[00:43:14] Candice Mullins: Walking on the beach in Canton in the morning with my dog.

[00:43:19] Graham Stephen: Fantastic. Do you stay in Gramson, or do you stay just on the bank?

[00:43:22] Candice Mullins: moved to Kenton now, so…

[00:43:24] Graham Stephen: Okay.

[00:43:25] Candice Mullins: It’s a fairly new habit, but I do wake up at 5 every morning, and I do my gym, I do my walk on the beach, and then I get to Gravestown, or I work from Kenton, yes.

[00:43:38] Graham Stephen: In about 30 minutes, but you’re not sitting in bumper to bumper to bumper.

[00:43:41] Candice Mullins: No, it’s just… it’s lovely. I listen to podcasts, and I use that time constructively.

[00:43:47] Graham Stephen: Fantastic. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

[00:43:52] Candice Mullins: this is Steve Jobs, it originated from Steve Jobs. Focus on three things that you want to achieve in one day. And you know what that is, and ignore the noise until you’ve achieved those 3 things.

[00:44:06] Graham Stephen: I love that, you know, I mean, life is so busy, and…

[00:44:10] Candice Mullins: Hmm.

[00:44:11] Graham Stephen: you know, my co-founder was Disney Graham, it’s about focus. You know, there’s so much we can do, but just…

[00:44:16] Candice Mullins: Yeah.

[00:44:16] Graham Stephen: Focus. Pick 3 things, and just keep aiming in that direction. If you weren’t in accounting or tax, what would you be doing?

[00:44:25] Candice Mullins: I’d be a photographer. I love photography.

[00:44:30] Graham Stephen: So maybe, maybe that’s your next career. I think so, I hope so.

[00:44:35] Candice Mullins: I’m hoping I’m gonna do more of the marketing, and then I’ll just do… take all the photos, yeah.

[00:44:40] Graham Stephen: Fantastic. We’ve probably covered this already, but what is, what is the, like, the one thing that you love about being based in a small town?

[00:44:49] Candice Mullins: Community, community, community.

[00:44:53] Graham Stephen: Fantastic. And then, Candace, before we wrap, you know, we’ve spoken a lot about your background, your journey, about Omni,

[00:45:03] Graham Stephen: Yeah, if you could leave one or two pieces of advice for anybody listening to the show, whether it’s an SME owner, whether it’s an accountant building out a practice, you know, what is that sort of one thing that you wish more business owners knew about their finances, or about business in general?

[00:45:23] Candice Mullins: It’s really important that when you start a business, you’re already thinking about selling it.

[00:45:31] Candice Mullins: Not to say that you’re going to sell it, but you always have to have in mind, how do I make my business the most valuable proposition it can possibly be? And we’re so busy looking at the rearview mirror that you forget to look at the… where’s your compass taking you?

[00:45:50] Graham Stephen: And you… you… it always brings you back to that line. It’s not… it’s not a straight line.

[00:45:55] Candice Mullins: And obviously, you’re going to veer off it, but you have to have a compass. And if you don’t keep that in mind, you may as well not start a business, in my view.

[00:46:08] Graham Stephen: I absolutely love that. You know, so that might not… as you say, we talk about valuation, and obviously that’s our key focus, is helping.

[00:46:14] Candice Mullins: Mmm.

[00:46:14] Graham Stephen: helping business owners understand what are the things that create value. And value may not necessarily be a number, it might be, you know, a life of freedom.

[00:46:23] Candice Mullins: Lifestyle.

[00:46:23] Graham Stephen: it might be something else, you know, and just defining that and understanding what that looks like. I mean, so many people are like, oh, I want a $100 million business, but what does that actually mean? You’ve got $100 million, you’ve played 6 rounds of golf, you’ve retired, and then what? You know, so it goes beyond just that number.

[00:46:40] Candice Mullins: And that’s why I’ve loved working with you guys, because it is such an important part of being an entrepreneur. And, we’ve really enjoyed working with you guys, too, so thank you for that.

[00:46:54] Candice Mullins: You’ve said… you’ve said you also seem to have the same value proposition as us, and are we looking forward to lots of interaction in the future?

[00:47:03] Graham Stephen: Fantastic. So, Candice, we’ve sort of come an end to the session, and yeah, I said that was the last question I’m going to ask you, but talking about that vision, we’re coming to the end of 2025 now, so we’re recording this in December. I’m just timestamping it in case somebody listens to this in March or April or whenever next year. But what is…

[00:47:24] Graham Stephen: it about next year, and the two to three years ahead that excites you about Omni. You know, you’ve built a great business, you’re serving your customers, but what’s next for you? What’s your vision over the next, sort of, 3 to 5 years?

[00:47:37] Candice Mullins: We’re very lucky, because we are in a very significant growth stage right now.

[00:47:43] Graham Stephen: So, the key is to manage that growth.

[00:47:47] Candice Mullins: in the best possible way, for the best possible outcome, for the entire team. We want to be… by this time next year, because obviously growth is always a little bit disruptive.

[00:48:00] Candice Mullins: We’re hoping to have achieved, certainly, the KPIs we’ve set for ourselves, and… and to have a very happy team, to be their employer of choice. And so those are our goals for the next year, and so we’ve got… we’ve got some work to do, but I think we’re going to get there. We’re very excited.

[00:48:18] Graham Stephen: Fantastic. I just love the clarity, I love the purpose, and, you know, it’s… it’s… it’s things which I think, yeah, bring people together. I think everybody can relate to the… to those things, you know, it’s… doesn’t have to be a grand plan to take over the world. It’s to do what you do, and do it well, and do it better, and…

[00:48:34] Graham Stephen: you know, that I’m sure resonates with a lot of your clients. So, Candace, it’s been an absolute pleasure having you today. Your story, your background, your firm’s model, the value that you bring to your clients, and I just think the authenticity and the humanity in…

[00:48:49] Graham Stephen: You know, in your story. So, you know, thank you for being with us today. To our listeners, thank you for joining in. If you’re an SME who’s looking for a partner that goes beyond compliance, even though, as Candace said, compliance is a big thing.

[00:49:04] Graham Stephen: please go and visit omne.co.za, so it’s O-M-N-E.co.za. I’m Graham Stephen from bizvalglobal.com, and until next time, keep building value, and look forward to seeing you soon.

[00:49:16] Candice Mullins: Thank you.

[00:49:19] Graham Stephen: Okay, let me… Press pause, stop.

---

END OF TRANSCRIPT