Episode 139: Resilience, Grit & Communication Can Get You Through the Ups & Downs with Sarah Acton from BILL
Resilience, grit, and communication are your pillars to get through the greatest tribulation you will face, especially in business. Taking those pillars in your business will make a great difference in running it and making sure it succeeds. In this episode, Sarah Acton, the Chief Marketing Officer at BILL, shares the lessons she learned from her curious mother and a business owner's father. She reveals the value of resilience, grit, and communication when things take a drastic turn. Sarah brings a wealth of wisdom in this episode. Learn from her today!
To learn more about BILL and their Accountant Partner Program, please visit bill.com/for-accountants.
We are honored that FloQast sponsored this episode. FloQast is a provider of close management software created by accountants for accountants to help them close faster.
Learn more here: https://floqast.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahdacton
https://www.bill.com/for-accountants
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Resilience, Grit & Communication Can Get You Through the Ups & Downs with Sarah Acton from BILL
Welcome to this episode of Breaking Beliefs where I interviewed Sarah Acton, who is the Chief Marketing Officer at BILL. She brings over 25 years of experience in marketing and brand-building work in both consumer and business markets. Prior to BILL, she led both marketing and sales at Athos, a wearable company in the athletic performance space. Sarah was also responsible for global brand oversight during pivotal periods of growth at LinkedIn and consumer marketing leadership at Yahoo.
An entrepreneur at heart, Sarah was the owner of a small retail business where she had firsthand experience with the rewards and challenges of running a business. She holds an MBA from Northwestern University and Kellogg School of Management and a BS in Marketing from Tulane University.
During this episode, we learned all about Sarah's background and how the mix of having a mother who was curious and a father who was a small business owner gave Sarah lessons that she still uses now in her work and her personal life. She is learning to nurture those around her by being curious and caring while getting in tune with the resilience and grit of a small business owner when needed, when things don't go as planned, but giving yourself grace and knowing that you have within you the power to turn things around.
This episode is sponsored by BILL. BILL is a leader in financial automation software for small and mid-sized businesses. They're dedicated to automating the future of finance so business can thrive. Hundreds of thousands of businesses trust BILL solutions to manage financial workflows, including payables, receivables, and spend and expense management. To learn more about Bill and their accounting partner program, please visit BIll.com/for-accountants.
I want to thank BILL for sponsoring this episode and supporting the work that we do at the B3 Method Institute. I have been involved with BILL as a customer, as well as a supporter of the work that they've done to automate tasks so that we can spend more time with our clients and nurture those human relationships. You're going to learn so many great takeaways from this interview. I'm excited for you to learn it. If you find this episode helpful to you, please share it with your friend, review our podcast, and subscribe to any podcast channel that you listen to.
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I'm here with Sarah Acton from BILL. Sarah, I’m glad you could join me. Do you want to give a background on what you do at BILL before we get started?
Thank you for having me. I’m excited about our conversation. I am the Chief Marketing Officer at BILL, and I have been with the company for about two years as a Chief Marketing Officer. My job is to help the world discover who we are, how we can help small businesses and accountants solve their problems, and bring that message of financial automation to the world.
I've been a long-time fan of BILL. I’m happy to have you here. What this is about is to understand you and how you got to be where you are now and the belief systems that aligned and didn't align as you went through your life and as a leader. Where did you grow up? What were your parents' occupations?
I was born in a suburb of Chicago, but when I was four, we moved to Miami, Florida. As the story goes, my dad, who was an intellectual property attorney, got tired of the winters. He said, “Where can I go where there aren't many people who do what I do?” The market opportunity was ripe, and Miami was the place. I grew up in Miami. My dad was an intellectual property attorney. He had his own firm. He was a small business owner, which we can talk about. My mom stayed home with us for a while. She then went back to work. She was an executive assistant for several CEOs at startups, which gave me a window into the world of technology.
Are you still in Florida or have you moved since?
No. We came to a strange turn of events. My mom and my two sisters made our way out to California. We went from one ocean to another ocean through different twists and turns. We are always a tight family. We wanted to be together. My mom and older sister are ten minutes away from me, and my younger sister is about 45 minutes.
You had two sisters. Are you the oldest?
I am in the middle in all of the middle-child ways.
It's all true.
Not all of it, but a lot of it.
What did you do when you were little? Where did you spend your time?
When I was young, I've always been active. My mom will be the first person to tell you, and now my husband will tell you. I don't sit down for long. I've always been active and found my way to dance very young. I danced all through elementary school, high school, and college. There was the creative and the physical component of that, but I was always on dance teams. That was one of my first leadership positions, and I got many lessons from that.
I’m guessing they were all girls. It's not easy to get all the girls to agree and get along sometimes. How did you go about doing that?
You didn't realize it at the time, but there were some lessons in EQ that I learned early. We were a nationally competitive dance team in high school. When I was leading the team, we had a squad of almost 70 girls. It’s a good sized. There were the components around learning how to lead a team, how to be both equal parts of a listener to understand how to resolve conflict or how to motivate and be the one who has to say, “No, this is what we're doing. We're all going to get on board.” There are many opportunities to start early to figure out who I want to be as a leader.
What did you learn? What was one of your biggest struggles that comes to mind that taught you something that you bring into now?
There is no one-size-fits-all for motivation. It's true in the professional world. We're all motivated by different things. Part of your job as a leader is to tap into what motivates any one individual and even as a team. There are individual and team motivations. I'm going to add one more. In my senior year, I got injured a week before nationals. That was a lesson for me in resilience. I had to figure out what the team still needed. Separating myself from what I was going through from how to make sure that the team was successful to the resilience of coming back from injury is a good lesson.
Resilience: Part of your job as a leader is to tap into what motivates everyone.
It’s not about you. It’s how you serve others. A big thing in leadership is how I can help versus how this is about me. You've waited all those years for that moment, for your senior year to be where you are, and to separate the emotion from that. How did you still show up with a smile?
This is a lesson or language that I learned later on in life, credit to my yoga teacher. One of the things that I have tried to live by is you can't control circumstances, but you can control how you react to those circumstances. I believe that challenges in life are solvable. When you bring positivity and a framework for everything like we can work our way through this, you can manifest that.
Let's go back to your dad. Your dad moved to a state where he didn't have many connections if he was going for the weather. What did you see with him starting up a business? What was your life like with your dad being an attorney? I'm sure he was working long hours to get that going.
It's funny when you asked the question about where I spent my time. I also spent a lot of time in his office. I would be in his office later when I was in high school. I would work there in the summers, but I spent a lot of time in his office. In the beginning, he still had clients in Chicago. There was back and forth and some travel.
There were ups and downs in his business. I remember years where when he didn't think I was listening. You'd hear the conversations with his accountant, who was one of his trusted advisors. I watched that combination of him wanting to create a practice that reflected him and his beliefs and how he thought the profession could serve customers and the community but also challenges in that. Not all the years were great. For every client, that was fantastic, there were others that were challenges.
That's true for professional services or any business. This comes to an important thing around personal purpose and holding true to why you're in business. This is sometimes why people get strung out with their business because they're not staying focused on why they went into business. That's a harder choice because to turn down or walk away from a business that doesn't align with the work you want to be doing is a hard thing as a business owner because you're supporting your family or whoever invested in you. Those are hard choices to make. What were some of the choices that you saw him make?
There were a couple of clients that I can remember. There was one longstanding client. Every once in a while, I would hear my dad complain about it. They had a familial relationship. They would push on each other, but it was part of what made it work. I remember one time when I was young, I was like, “Why do you work with him?”
He articulated to me. He's like, “Sarah, he has a vision. He is motivated by solving real problems for customers. I can see how I can help.” I was like, “I get that.” I remember other times when there were clients that my dad made the choice to part ways with. It was because what they were looking for wasn't what motivated my dad to get into business. There is value alignment. When you get there, amazing things can happen, but it's not always perfect.
I’m using the example of the client that he was motivated by. Even though it was a struggle, he's learning. There's something when you're growing from something and still benefiting and feeling like you can help achieve their mission. There's a bigger purpose in the work that you do. How did that start shaping some of the things you were thinking about for yourself? Did you want to be an attorney when you were younger?
I didn't. We do have some in the family. I didn't see the creativity in the work that he did until much later. I was like, “There's a ton of creativity.” I was drawn to marketing early in my career. My mom will tell you stories of how I would run around the house and sing jingles from commercials. I was fascinated by this idea, and part of this goes back to my dad. It’s the intersection between what is that thing you're creating that solves a real problem and how you tell the world about it. How do you help the world see the solution to the problem? It was inspired by my dad's work, but I found my path through the communications side of it.
Resilience: Help the world see the solution to the problem.
What did you learn from watching your mom?
My mom is one of the most curious people. She's a voracious reader. I cannot play Scrabble with her because, to this day, she will come up with words. I'm like, “That's not a word,” but it’s a word. My mom was always incredibly curious and had a way of connecting concepts for us as kids and even as adults, where she would be able to articulate or explain.
This may sound strange, but we often talked about economics at the table because she had economics in university and post-grad. We'd talk about economics and how it influences communities. I got from her that curiosity and seeking to understand before passing judgment. We would come in with something, and she'd be like, “Why? Have you thought about it from their perspective?” That was an important life lesson.
Are your parents divorced?
They are divorced. My dad has passed. My mom is still with us, but at different stages, we came out to California with my mom. My dad came later. For a while, we were all out here. They divorced when I was 8 or 9.
Was it normal for you? Do you remember that time in your life when you had to figure out the survival skills of that change?
Going back to these lessons of EQ, you don't realize at that age. You know what's happening. Someone has told you the words. I had friends. I was like, “Is it going to be like Julie's and Emily's situations?” The reality is every family dynamic is different. A lot of it was navigating and creating the space to ask questions. As humans, a lot of the power of inquisition, curiosity, and seeking to understand can fuel any emotionally charged situation.
It is important in whatever age. This is whether you're leading an organization or young, but giving that space to ask questions also provides healing or understanding. In the absence of no communication, people decide for themselves what the issue is. With your mom's curiosity, was that something that she opened up for you during that time?
It's a cliched phrase, but no question is a bad question, and no question is a stupid question. That was something that was drilled into us early on. There weren't guardrails to that, especially with my mom. Nothing was off limits. There's security and safety in that. You can ask anything. She or I may not have an answer, but the question is always a good question.
In organizations, where it goes wrong is when there's no communication or allowing people to ask questions. They start thinking, “Is this company going to get shut down? Are we going to get bought out?” All the rumors start without opening the door as a leader and not keeping everything behind a closed door because it's usually not as interesting as people think.
Sometimes, we think about communication as mistakenly. You can think about communication as a one-way door. The door that comes back is where there is incredible insight. As a leader, having people around you will ask the hard and tricky questions. There's such power in that. You're 100% right. As leaders, at least for me, the things I hear when I hear things are like, “Don't waste emotional energy on that. That's not a thing.” You need that feedback loop to be able to address that.
You don't even know what's going on inside someone's head if you don't open the conversation. You moved to California when you were eight.
No, we stayed in Florida. I moved to California after graduate school. I've been here for over twenty years.
What were your plans? Did you initially go to college for marketing? What did you initially go for?
I'm one of those rare or weird people, but I went to college to study business and get a degree in Marketing. I came after school and started working in the agency world to get my feet wet. I hadn't planned to come out to California, but when I was in graduate school, my mom had a heart attack. She's all good. It is one of those moments where I’m like, “Do I want to be away from my family? Do I want to figure out a way to get back there?” That was a turning point.
You've had a number of things up until that point that you had to get through to find that resilience, such as moving to Florida from Chicago and from your dad having a business and learning about that. Your mom is having a heart attack. What did you find inside of yourself to still focus on what was important to you but be able to balance all those things and not get taken back by all of this?
There is a lot of what happens in our lives that we have more control over than sometimes we think. It's evolved, but learning early what are the things in my life or the relationships that give me energy batteries. You can't limit all of the things that are energy detractors, but how can I limit their impact on me and try to make sure that I'm checking in with myself honestly about the balance? There are times when I'm like, “I have got to go to a yoga class. My battery is draining. I need to find some time.” Knowing what adds and detracts and trying to be conscious of managing them before you get into a place where you're empty.
In yoga, we call that equilibrium. You're trying to figure out what you can do to bring yourself back into balance. It's having that inner awareness of when you're off because many of us can go through life. Anytime emotions or feelings pop up, we push them down. We have to show up each day. We still have to show up to work, our family, and friends. It is important to figure out what we need to do for ourselves to bring that back into balance. How do you think that you've learned that skill for yourself, and why?
There's part of it that goes back to having to navigate my parents getting divorced. There were lots of ups and downs in that. That was a kickstart for thinking about it. I would find myself even at home. When I was little, I would go off and dance for a while. I think I was a sunflower in a former life. I like sunshine on my face.
It started in not a cognitive and natural way. As I got older, I would read or talk to people I admired, people in the family, and those who'd gone through struggles like my dad. His business went up and down. We had a neighbor across the street who owned a small business. Their business went up and down. Seeing other people navigate challenges and talking to them about it like, “How do you do it? How do you still show up with positivity?” It started organically, but I’m more mindful about it now.
You have a mix, from my observation. Your mom taught you how to ask those questions. Instead of watching your dad go through those ups and downs, hearing his story, or listening to his conversation with his accountant, you asked the question of why. You saw your dad come out okay. Being a business owner is hard. You do it because you believe in something or you want to go after a passion, but there are many ups and downs in a business. When you see how someone navigates in the way of, “We're going to be fine, move forward, step back, and brainstorm,” whatever that is, you are learning that process by questioning and taking in the lessons yourself. How do you think that started helping you as you started getting into your own career?
I would have these conversations with my mom. We would talk like, “I'm going to do this thing. This thing is happening at work.” She would ask smart probing questions because she knew me well, but she could see where I was struggling with something. That self-reflection on both what I need right now, but who am I and how can I serve?
It took me a while in my career to realize. You'd have conversations about a project and a job. It’s like, “That's amazing, but I'm not the best person for that.” That's okay. Being able to say, “I'm good at these things. These are the things that give me the energy,” Being able to tune in to that and help guide my career has been one of those things that I give my mom a lot of credit for.
There are two things there. One, a lot of people come to you with their problems a lot of times, but they don't want you to solve them. Your mom was asking you to find the solution inside because she might have had an answer, but you might not have taken it if she had given you the answer. You find that a lot with people as you grow in your career. They come to complain about something or they're frustrated about something, but they don't want you to answer it yourself.
Secondly, this aspect of still having confidence and knowing you don't have to do everything is part of your dance team. You have to figure out who can do which skills the best, but in collective, you're a national champion, but as an individual, you know on your own that maybe that wouldn't have been the case. You needed the other people to get you there or when you're injured, who could step up for you.
The idea of how all the puzzle pieces fit together and how it's not complete without them. Part of the opportunity we have as leaders is helping teams understand how every piece is required to get to the end output. One of the most rewarding things is watching a team achieve something together. The pure joy that comes from that and that sense of accomplishment, especially on things that are challenging where they have to find some grit, is a rewarding part of what I get to do.
Were you in the accounting profession prior to BILL and the small business world?
I was not. I was a small business owner. I owned a retail store for about two and a half years. Several months into the store, there was a woman who owned a scrapbooking store close by. I was like, “She looks like she's killing it. What is she doing?” I would pick her brain. I remember one day I went over there, and I was like, “Do you have an accountant? Do I need an accountant?” She was like, “Yes, I have a referral for you.” I learned that. I watched my dad, and that was part of it. I have amazing respect, admiration, and some empathy for how important and sometimes how both of those professions are not easy.
What things have you learned since being at BILL as far as the journey of small business owners and accountants between your experience and observing the customers there to help and serve them? This is always the balance in business. It’s serving internally and externally. What have been your observations in this role?
There are a lot of observations that have rung true for decades. Small businesses are incredibly resilient. They are passionate about the work that they do. As I talk to firms and customers of accounting firms, there is a trust there that is foundational. When you're talking about small business owners and the lifeblood of their business, there has to be a deep sense of trust.
Resilience: Small businesses are incredibly resilient. They are passionate about their work. There is trust between accounting firms and their customers.
The circumstances evolve. People went through COVID. The dynamics change, but the resiliency that it takes to start a practice and a company or to run a company and practice, the trusted relationships and communities are fuel and are like battery rechargers. I was at the digital CPA conference, and what a sense of community. That's not a new thing. That goes back a long time. Seeing people get their batteries recharged by that sense of community is inspiring.
With automation, the whole purpose of it is to bring more community and human connection to the surface rather than take it away. It's when we can take away some of the tasks that take us away from the relationship. That's what is important. There are many great stories you've shared. I'd like to close with some rapid-fire questions. You can pick a category, which is family, health, and spiritual. Things or actions I don't have that I want with my health.
I am working on sleeping more. I shared it in a company meeting because it’s public accountability. I've figured out it is one of those things that's a battery recharger. It is for any human, like any being, for me specifically. I’m trying to be more protective of the control that I have over making sure that I get the rest I need.
Things or actions I do have that I want to keep with my health.
I would say my yoga practice. It's been a constant source of battery recharging. I've tried lots of things, but it occupies a space for me that is unique and I find incredibly valuable.
Things are actions that I don't have that I don't want to have as far as my health.
I'm still working on self-criticism. I am a work in progress. We all are, but the negative voice is something I'm working on.
Many of us have that. It comes back to awareness and bringing ourselves back to equilibrium. Is there anything that we didn't cover that you want people to walk away with from this conversation before we close?
One of the things I think a lot about, and through conversations with customers, folks at the company, and peers is finding moments to give ourselves grace when things don't go exactly the way that we planned. It is a key to see the path forward. It's something I think a lot about. As you commented, people are coming, and they're not looking for answers but a moment of grace to give themselves room to figure out the answer on their own.
Resilience: People may not be looking for answers, but maybe just a moment of grace to give themselves the room to figure out the answer on their own.
Thank you so much for sharing your story. There are many things for people to walk away with. I appreciate all that BILL does for the accountant community, but also small businesses in general. Thank you for coming on.
It’s my pleasure. Thank you for having me.
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For the mindful moments of this interview that I had with Sarah. There were many great takeaways in her story of what she learned from her parents from the trials and tribulations that she had and the accomplishments that she had. We talked about both of her parents and what she took away from each one.
The first one was her father who had moved from Chicago to Miami to open up his law office there on intellectual property. She worked in his office and observed how he made decisions, how he worked with clients, and what was important to him. An important thing we often get away from when we're in business is we forget why. Why are we there every day? What is the value that we are trying to create?
The problem is when we go off of our purpose and get distracted, or we start making decisions to take a business that isn't aligned with that purpose, what happens is we find less interest in the things that we are doing. We might feel that feeling of being burnt out or run down. What makes it good to get back to your purpose is you find that energy again.
We talked a lot about observing what our energy is and how we get our energy back to equilibrium. The only person that can do that is you. In order for us to do that, we have to go internal. We have to give ourselves space and stillness to better connect with what is going on inside of us and realize when we diverge from what's important to us.
The other thing that we talked about was her mom. Her mom is a curious person, asking a lot of questions and teaching her from a young age to look within to find those answers. We all can give somebody an answer, but it may not resonate with them because it's not the way that they think or feel. It is the way that we solve something in our life, but it isn't necessarily the way that all people solve things because each of us walks in our own shoes and has our own experiences and background, and we all make decisions based on what that journey has been and what we're used to.
It's important when we are going through these decision processes or trying to solve something in our life that we question ourselves and give ourselves space to understand why we're even feeling the way we are. Sometimes, when we give ourselves that space and that stillness, we can be surprised by what we uncover about ourselves, what is missing, and where we need to fill those gaps in our lives. One of the things that Sarah talked about was the times when things were hard. How did she get the resilience to recover from those tough times? It's learning these lessons, but one of the things internally to her is that she is a high-energy person.
If she feels her energy is low or depleted, she knows that she has to do something to bring her energy back into balance and understand what is detracting from her energy because her natural state is not to be like that. When we are aware of what our natural state is, get more awareness of what is going on for ourselves, and give ourselves space to ask those hard questions, it's important that we figure out what things could bring us back in balance. What are those things that we could remove that are taking away our energy?
One of the things that she talked about was her mom asking certain questions, and this is important. When we give ourselves stillness, do that self-reflection and ask ourselves, “What do I need right now?” What I need right now is not necessarily what I needed yesterday, five or twenty years ago. We shift all of the time and transition and don't even realize that.
It's important that we get to who we are, what our purpose is, what we need to do right now to shift something, and how we can serve. We don't always want to be self-focused and we're not thinking about how to serve others around us. That might be our family members, people we work with, or our community, whatever that is defined as for you.
How can we do that? When we serve others, we get energy from that. It is important to understand that if we want to be resilient, go through the ups and downs, and come out on top, how do we do that? We have to be passionate about the things that we do. We also have to communicate and be curious about ourselves and the people around us. We have to understand internally for ourselves. Where are we off? What is our energy? What can we do to shift that?
I hope that you enjoyed this episode. I know I did. Sarah shared some great stories and takeaways. I always appreciate the vulnerability of the people who are guests on the show and tell their stories because that's never easy. It's not something we normally do. We often don't think about ourselves during the day, and we're letting the day happen to us. For all of my guests and Sarah who have been vulnerable, I appreciate it, and it helps us all when we show that transparency with the people around us.
I hope you also enjoyed this episode. If it resonated with you, please share it with those around you. Subscribe and give it a review. As a reminder, this episode was sponsored by BILL, which is a leader in financial automation software for small and mid-size businesses dedicated to automating the future of finance so businesses can thrive. Hundreds of thousands of businesses trust bill solutions to manage financial workflows, including payables, receivables, spent, and expense management.
To learn more about BILL and its accountant partner program, please visit BILL.com/for-accountants. I want to thank all of you. Your support means so much to us. It gives us the energy to keep living in our purpose and sharing more with you. Remember that the energy we create is the energy we create for those around us.
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About Sarah Acton
Sarah Acton, the Chief Marketing Officer at BILL, brings more than 25 years of experience in marketing and brand-building work in both consumer and business markets. Prior to BILL, she led both marketing and sales at Athos, a wearables company in the athletic performance space. Sarah was also responsible for global brand oversight during pivotal periods of growth at LinkedIn and consumer marketing leadership at Yahoo!. An entrepreneur at heart, Sarah was the owner of a small retail business where she had first-hand experience with the rewards and challenges of running a business. Sarah holds an MBA from Northwestern University – Kellogg School of Management and a B.S. in Marketing from Tulane University.