YouSaid · the spoken record

Jeff Jones

lines on the record: 34
first: 2020-11-02
most recent: 2020-11-02
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Get us everything digitally. We do all of the work. You do nothing. We give it to you to review digitally. You sign and pay digitally. But because we did the work, we stand behind you in case a question comes up or a problem arises. So deploying smart automation in humans is happening at those three levels for us today.”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When people talk about virtual services, it can mean different things. And we're delivering multiple levels of this today. Level one is it's automated chatbots that get smarter and smarter through AI. And so you can just get self-help in a digital product with really great answers. Level one. Level two is I want to talk to somebody live because there's so many nuances of tax. And so today with a product we have called online assist, you can push a button. We have a one minute SLA service level agreement for how fast you get connected to a human. And they give you unlimited answers to your questions. Level three is I don't want to do any of this stuff, but I don't have time to go to an office. You can connect with us digitally.”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Value creation is when you and I talk to each other and I'm able to offer you advice because of what I know about you that's relevant and personal to you to help you achieve what you want to achieve. That's where we talk about it as doing everything humanly possible, our human advantage. And I think that's the shift that we're not running from we're leaning into because we have 80,000 tax professionals that are extraordinary at what they do. And I want them to spend more time providing help and value and less time on entering stuff in the keyboard.”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think the jobs will change, and we see that already. I mean, we're deploying ML in multiple different ways in the business today on automation of processes, on something really important like how to provide the most impactful tax tips and recommendations to a client. So I think what we see happening is the part about data entry and the part about forms and data, that part of the job will dramatically change.”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think what keeps me going and what I talk a lot about with the team is we have a common purpose and we have each other. When those two things stay close and aligned and tight, then anything's possible”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We'll keep in mind for our business and why I came here was to lead a transformation of a very successful company really to ensure its viability for the future. Every day there's something at stake for us. We are improving the quality of what we do. We're improving the way we connect with people. We're improving how we serve consumers and small business owners. And doing that as a public company has a lot at stake. We're guided by our customers, and we have duty to our investors. That's really how I show up every day thinking about that relationship. Then when you put that in front of the backdrop of And societal unrest and racial inequity and the pandemic still alive, it's really hard. I definitely have those days of being stressed out.”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it's the most important thing we've talked about so far because we're in an environment right now that no one's ever been in. It's easy to lift your head up and just see a world that seems like it's on fire. I'm really blessed to have a comfortable home with great relationships and kids. And that's not true for everybody. Every time I have a town hall with our team, I starter and on the topic of mindfulness and well-being. And I try to role model that through something simple like how I spend my time and going for walks in the middle of the day and refusing to take calls at certain times. And something that simple to make people understand, I'm asking you to take care of yourself. This is a hard game that we want to play for a long time. And we have to take care of ourselves and we have to take care of each other.”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So if you go to hrblock.com right now, you'll see at the top of our website a really simple banner that encourages people to register and vote. We have a big platform, and we think it's important no matter what your beliefs are, to use your voice. And so we do that. We obviously encourage people internally through internal communications to vote. But what we don't do is advocate for a candidate or even the line of weighing in on is mail-in voting safe or not because that is political. So we just said we're not going to have that debate. We're just going to encourage everyone to use your voice, register and make sure you vote.”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't judge it through that lens. I have such a strong belief that as a CEO and as a company, in this case, given who we serve and given how many black associates we have, we had no choice. And if there is somebody who disagrees with that, it's not political to me. It's about humanity. And that's just a really important line that not everyone will agree with, but it's a stance we've taken.”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And he said yes. And so we reverse course and we changed the image. You could have imagined all the debates leave it up. It looks bad if we take it down. We made a mistake. And I made another mistake by unintentionally feeling like I was offloading that decision on him. And that was the wrong thing to do.”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is this right or wrong to use this image? And we consulted with that associate and he consulted with his pastor, with his friends, with his wife, and ultimately said, I feel so proud of what we're doing. I'm comfortable with this image of me being on the post. Long story short, he got a lot of flack for that. And so he and I had a private conversation where I said to him, do you want us to take it down? And as soon as I said it, Bob, I realized I'd made a mistake Because I now put the decision on him. Literally in the moment, I said, I'm erase that. Are you okay if I take it down?”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, so A, you learn that as a leader, no matter what your beliefs or what you stand, if you are staying true to being an inclusive environment, you have to listen to everyone. Everyone has to have a voice. You've got to create the space to debate. That doesn't mean everyone has the same decision-making, obviously. I'm accountable for everything we decide to do, and that's the standard I hold myself to. But that's just a reminder creating the space for those conversations is really hard. And when you hear from people how much they disagree with you, it hurts. But it's what leadership is about. We also made a mistake where in one of my LinkedIn posts, we featured an image with the post. And the image was of a black associate who's wearing his block pride t-shirt. And we had a long debate about”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that prompted a conversation, which prompted another email, which prompted a convening to say, we have so many African American associates. They are all hurting right now. And we have to do something about that. We cannot be quiet here. So we weren't. And I took a public stand. The company, with my voice took a public stand, we made very specific sets of actions and commitments we were making. We're reporting back on all those things. But Bob, like the country, that wasn't met with uniform support. I got emails. I got phone calls. I had people on all social media that work with us say I disagree. Or the famous All Lives Matter, not Black Lives Matter. And why are we supporting that organization? I think this is a place where I always listen. I will engage with anybody that wants to have a respected conversation. But I also was clear that we have a set of values as a company.”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's one of the most important debates we have with our board and as a company because I view there to be a spectrum from what I would just loosely judge doing the right thing. All the way to corporate activism. In the case of all of the social unrest and racial inequity that the country is dealing with, that to me is just good business and personal and the right thing to do. Just a quick story a couple days after George Floyd's murder, I just sent an email out to a handful of our revenue leaders. Three of our four revenue leaders are black. And I just said them a note and said, how are you doing? Early in the morning and they couldn't believe I asked. They responded back and I could feel all of the emotion in the email saying I'm not doing well.”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, in the company locations, in general, we have a set of standard operating procedures. Those are very clearly defined things that we instruct against and measure at the local level, though an office leader, for example, we really entrust them to make the kind of decisions to deal with the things that come up individually with a client that may have an issue or someone that may be dissatisfied, those things we entrust our team to solve with the client, and we don't try to put a lot of policies in place there.”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, right off the bat, in a franchise business, there is a very clear defined set of governing documents that we cannot mandate things. So they have a lot of flexibility. That's about a third of the business we help them with providing, for example, coming up in this tax season plexiglass and masks to take that cost off their plate. And we talk a lot about our purpose as a company is to provide help and inspire confidence in our clients and communities. And so through that lens of purpose People generally know how to do the right things. They're guided by the same principle, even though we can't always mandate with franchisees exactly what to do.”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so there are things they can do day to day to watch cost and manage cash flow and think about ratios in their business. And that's why, again, we encourage them to get help. There are so many resources and they may not have access to raising money, but controlling the dollars they have are fully in their control.”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, it's hard to say if it's good or bad. I think it has always been true. When we think about small business owners, we're not thinking about the tech elite on the coast that have access to private equity or VC funds. I mean, we're talking about the lawn mowing shop or the flower shop. They don't have the same access to capital. It's why it's so important to get help with your financials. When we do someone's taxes as a small business owner, we give them a P&L review. And as shocking as it is, many of them have never seen their own P&L.”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In general, I think we understand the risk pretty well. You track the number of starts and closes in small business owners. You look at job creation and unemployment. Keep in mind that pre-COVID, there were about 31 million small business owners in America, about a hundred thousand new started every month, and about ninety percent of them were service based businesses. Service based businesses have been hit for sure, but the retail based, the shop, the restaurant, et cetera, those are the ones that have struggled the most. But I think we have a pretty good handle on that problem.”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Normally for a lot of retailers the holiday season is a very important part of their year. And one of the things that we learned also was the average small business owner has really struggled with the transition. And so they see this crossroads where they know they need to connect more digitally with their customers. They were really unprepared to do that. And they're kind of going at it every single day. They don't ask for help. You probably saw that in the study. Mean they don't take the time to ask for help, and there are so many resources that could be helping them more.”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's absolutely true. And one of the things I know about small business owners is you have a sense of confidence in yourself. But you also really just solve problems that are right in front of you. You're working the front line. You're working on marketing, you're paying the bills, you're doing everything. And so you never get a chance to step back and think about how do I solve this problem in a more lasting way. So I know that's what small business owners are feeling today is that pressure of what's in front of me. And even though they've been through this now for several months, every day there's more uncertainty about are we in the clear, are we not?”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We experience bankruptcy when I was a high school kid. And so my mom and dad taught me so much about work ethic and service and hustle. They were uneducated. They didn't graduate from college, but always found a way. And that included having to rebuild from scratch because they went bankrupt and lost everything or franchisees who every single day put ownership on the line. It's really important to me personally that I lead this company from that same set of values of what it means to be an owner and what it means to put it on the line and what it means to serve others.”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so we are embedded in the fabrics of communities. And despite the tragedy that's happening to small business owners today, I mean, we are incredibly bullish on small business and the power of entrepreneurship to drive this country. And so it's really all those reasons together.”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, most people don't know that in about 1945-46. Henry Block borrowed $5,000 to start a company doing bookkeeping for small businesses So literally from the very beginning of the company, we have been serving small businesses. Today, about a third of our business is franchised. So we have about 1,200 independent small business owners inside the block family. I myself am the son of mom and pop entrepreneurs. It's how I grew up restaurants, nightclubs, video rental stores, tanning salon owners. So I literally come from a family of owning and running small businesses. This company has a really important platform we call Make Every Block Better. And that is what we call our community impact platform. We operate in every single congressional district in America.”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that's a real important key that everyone can do and feel like you're more in control of what's happening with your taxes.”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's a great question. And there's two things I would tell people number one is, unfortunately, given the rise in unemployment. To remember just because you are unemployed does not mean you are free from filing taxes, but really the single biggest tip that I give everybody, and this generally doesn't apply to the most high income people, but for the average person, you can control your tax outcome in a way that most people don't understand. So if you think about tax planning and you're strategic about your withholdings on your W4, you can really make a decision. Do I want to get a bigger refund or do I want to have more money in my check every pay period? And it is shocking, Bob, how many people never change their W4, never think about that planning decision, changes in their life. They just keep it the same.”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I won't get too tax wonky on you, but they're about 150 million people a year in America that pay taxes and about 80 million of them get help from somebody. And so for those people that want help from somebody, historically, they've gone to a physical place and they have met with someone in person and all is good. But now what's possible is our tax professionals can work from home or the consumer can use their mobile device to upload all of their documents to us. They can review online, approve online, pay online, engage with their tax pro online. So over time, the footprint may look different. So there are strange dynamics about financial products and privacy and the sensitive nature that I think a lot of people have comfort from that human interaction, but we absolutely see it. Changing”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. And just rewind, I just celebrated my third anniversary in this role in one of the very first things we did was begin making significant investments in all facets of our technology stack in order to enable these kind of capabilities. So thank goodness we had been on this journey and in many ways we're prepared. We absolutely saw really more consumers and more of our tax professionals using these capabilities than ever before. And we expect that to continue. For several years, we heard from our customers that they weren't interested in seeing their tax pro on video. So we didn't have video turned on. And we absolutely think that has tipped, and we will absolutely have video in place for the upcoming tax season because the whole world has gotten accustomed to something that literally 12 months ago wasn't important.”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So on top of all this is the economic uncertainty, unemployment, job loss. So people needed their refunds more than ever. So we really had to make sure we could still serve people. And there were days when we put in place thousands, literally thousands of different operating models at a very local level to stay open and serve clients. But you zoom out and realize we learned a lot, people innovated a lot. They're incredibly resilient. And at the end of the day, we were able to serve more clients this year than we did a year ago. And that's before the issue of moving the tax deadline kicked into place.”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, the punchline is we ended up growing the business about 3% through all this, but there was very, very, very difficult days. But I think like so many companies did, the beginning was what's happening and how serious is this and what do we need to do and what's the right direction? And we run a large digital business, but we also have 10,000 physical locations with tax professionals serving other people in person. And so there were days and weeks of just incredible uncertainty. Every city, county, and state having different operating orders in place. And we basically came down to a few principles. Number one is protect our people. Do everything we can to keep them safe. But also remember, we're in the business of helping people get refunds.”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, thank you for skipping over the target data breach which preceded Uber, I think, for a man that turned 53 today. I've been through my share of crises. But that's the world we live in. I think one of the great lessons for me is we live in a tumultuous, uncertain, unpredictable world. And even though those three situations target Uber and the pandemic are all totally different, there are absolutely key learnings and themes that I think are important to learn from because there will be something else.”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Ended up growing the business about 3% through all this. When you hear from people how much they disagree with you, it hurts. But it's what leadership is about. Really important to me personally that I lead this company from that same set of values of what it means to be an owner and what it means to put it on the line and what it means to serve others.”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Folks, Jeff Berman here. I am thrilled to share some of the new names who will be joining us at this year's Masters of Scale Summit. This may be our biggest stage yet. Read Hastings, Meredith Whitaker, Van Jones, Amjad Massad, and more will be there with us october twentieth through twenty second in San Francisco. If you're building something great or you want to build something great, we want you there with us too. Join us at masters of scale.com slash apply 26. That's masters of scale. com slash apply twenty six. Every day there's something at stake. About 150 million people a year in America that pay taxes, and about 80 million of them get help from somebody else. We are improving the quality of what we do. We're improving the way we connect with people. We're improving how we serve consumers and small business owners.”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The very best founders I know are brilliant at building systems. They connect teams, they remove bottlenecks, and they eliminate single points of failure. And yet, when it comes to their own wealth, most are running a disconnected stack. A tax accountant here and a state attorney there, a wealth manager who doesn't talk to either one of them. Creative planning was built to fix exactly that. One integrated team of tax professionals, state planners, investment specialists all coordinated by a dedicated wealth manager who sees your full financial picture and keeps every piece working together. Proactive tax efficiency, state strategy investments all under one roof, creative planning where wealth works together. Learn more at creative planning dot com slash masters of scale.”
2020-11-02 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT