Kiwi Business Story: Kirsty Naish from Sidekick Ashburton

Kirsty Naish from Sidekick Ashburton is a Taking Your Business Forward  6 Alumni.

This Kiwi Business Story is based on a podcast from 13 May 2022, and all figures quoted are from that time. You can enjoy the complete podcast here.

Explain your business? What do you do? 

We are an Accounting and Advisory business firm, and we help any existing or new businesses with planning, budgeting, support, and then obviously all things finance and tax. We take care of the tax returns and the financial statements, but we see that as our bread and butter. That's what we must do but we pride ourselves on advisory and helping coach them and support them through their business journey.


What's one thing that you wish you knew at the start of your career journey? 

I'm going to learn a lot; I'm going to grow a lot and I'm going to fail a lot. I'm going to do that on repeat at a rapid rate and not to be afraid of that. I think I wasn't prepared for the personal growth and how fast it's been particularly as a business owner. Failing a lot, not big fails but just fails, I wasn't really prepared for that. Now I see them as all great learning experiences. I wish I was a bit more aware of it at the start. Impostor syndrome is a real big thing, particularly being a female. 

What does imposter syndrome bring up for you? How has it been part of your journey?  

I don't know if I will ever overcome it. Every groundwork that every generation makes is a step towards making it easier, but I think we're still not quite there. Sometimes I will walk into a boardroom, and I doubt my ability, but I have a lot of ability. So, it's just in your head.  

I think it's something we need to talk about a bit more. I've probably been a bit biased being a female. But I have talked to male peers, and they've all felt it in various stages of their career. A lot of them still do, even though I personally hold them in high regard. There's all that fake it till you make it or that bluff.  I've got a business mentor. He always says to me, you don't have to know everything, it's okay to admit that to a client or to someone as well, “I'll get back to you on that one”, You just can't know everything.


What is a common myth about your industry that you'd like to change? 

One myth I'd like to debunk would be, a lot of people are quite intimidated by accountants and legal professionals. Intimidated by our profession. I just wish that myth would go away, and people would feel like they were very approachable. We're here for more than what we probably let them know. We often say, we can do your tax and your finances, but we can do so much more than that. If you just open up and ask.


What's been a highlight of the journey and a challenge? 

I've got a couple of highlights, and I think hiring my first team member was exciting. Then finding an office space. They're all just steps in your journey, which have all been highlights for me. Acquiring more shareholding was a major highlight. But it was also my biggest challenge. It was learning how to develop negotiation skills, but ensuring relationships are kept strong.


What did you get out of the program? Is it anything that you implemented into your business? 

The programme I found beneficial, as I love sharing with other business owners, your wins, your learnings and your experiences. One of the sessions I found valuable was the strategy session, which I had done before, so it wasn't new to me, but it was reinforcing it again, because quite often, we do things like that, then it sits on a bookshelf and is laid to rest. That really prompted me to revisit that and then start living and breathing my strategy and getting my team's buy-in and helping them understand it and be part of it. 

After Taking Your Business Forward, we have implemented a strategy discussion, every Monday morning we now have a meeting. Another one of the sessions that I've found valuable was wellness and resilience, the circle, me and my business. Just being a working mom and being busy, that part of the programme helped me sit back and structure my life a bit better. Writing that plan on how my day should go, planning meals for the week, so lives aren’t too stressful. Working in quadrants, start working on the important and urgent quadrant rather than it all at once.


What is one thing you can commit to doing in the future to support your business and your personal growth? 

I have an external mentor that I've had for a while. So that's something that I've done and will continue to do, which is all about my business growth and personal growth. Mentors often take those thoughts that get compounded in your head and blown out of perspective, especially with impostor syndrome, those thoughts can just compound and eat you alive. When you verbally have that conversation with someone external or someone that's not in the business, you realise you're blowing it out of proportion, or you're reading it wrong, and it's so refreshing.