Business Development Blog for Accountants in Practice
Every week Mark provides fresh, practical and commercial business development related insights and advice
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5 warning signs your accounting practice may be more fragile than you realise
Try balancing playing cards on their edges and building upwards. With enough patience, you can create something that...
Are you accidentally running a wantrapreneur practice?
The term *wantrapreneur* is usually credited to Noah Kagan. It describes someone who loves the idea of running a...
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AI in accountancy: Five legitimate concerns that shouldn’t stop you making progress
....And why the arguments against AI may be more useful than many of the arguments for it. There is no shortage of people telling accountants that they need to embrace artificial intelligence. You've been told it will transform your firms, revolutionise...
5 warning signs your accounting practice may be more fragile than you realise
Try balancing playing cards on their edges and building upwards. With enough patience, you can create something that looks remarkably impressive. It may even stand for quite a while. But it only takes the smallest knock for the whole structure to collapse. From a...
Are you accidentally running a wantrapreneur practice?
The term *wantrapreneur* is usually credited to Noah Kagan. It describes someone who loves the idea of running a business but never quite commits to building one properly. In the startup world, it's often used as an insult. That's not my intention here. This is a...
Why accountants should learn to speak with confidence
I have lost count of how many times I have heard stories about accountants who failed to make the most of a speaking opportunity. Most recently, this has been when a sole practitioner rejects an invitation to guest on my podcast, either because they don’t like the...
Better advisory starts with better questions — asked consistently
How many business clients do you have? Think about it for a moment. Get the number in your head. Now consider this: how many of those clients would benefit from you having a better conversation with them about where their business is going? Maybe not all of them,...
There’s one question every sole practitioner accountant should regularly ask themselves
The first time I told the following true story to a friend, I realised it had profound implications for many sole practitioner accountants. Long ago, in a firm far away.... Shortly after I was promoted to a manager role at Touche Ross (now Deloitte), I was sent on...
4 surprising business lessons accountants can learn from dentists
I know that drawing lessons from dentists might seem odd for someone who supports sole practitioner accountants as I do. But bear with me. A recent visit to the dentist inspired me to suggest that many UK accountants would run very different practices if they...
Ten conversations that make accountants more valuable to their clients
I first shared a shorter version of this post a few years ago, at a time when businesses everywhere were facing enormous uncertainty. Whilst the circumstances have changed, the need for good conversations certainly hasn't. Many accountants still focus too heavily...
How do you decide which opportunities to pursue?
I'm referring here specifically to, what I call, Unplanned Fanciful Opportunities (UFOs). Those tempting ideas that appear unexpectedly and seem as though they might solve a problem, unlock growth or open a new door. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they are simply an...
Stop copying other accountants without thinking first
Are you ever tempted to follow the apparent example of other accountants you see online or meet at events? There is nothing inherently wrong with learning from another practice. The problem begins when observation turns into imitation without first considering...
You left a large firm and started your own accounting practice. What next?
If you're a large firm refugee and you've been running your own accounting practice for a year or two, this might feel familiar.... The excitement of starting your own firm has passed. The first clients arrived, many through relationships you'd built over many...
Being PROACTIVE: more than just keeping clients informed
Are you proactive? Does your website claim that you are proactive? Do your online profiles? If they do, that's great, in theory as we all know that many clients claim to want a proactive accountant. And it also often comes up when they criticise their old...
How accountants should market to businesses that already have an accountant
I’ve seen a lot of accountant marketing over the years. I’ve also seen thousands of LinkedIn and blog posts that were clearly written in the vague hope of attracting new clients. When I work one-to-one with accountants who want more clients, I often ask which of...
AI won’t shake hands: The new client loyalty playbook
Listening to some commentators, you could be forgiven for thinking that the future of every accounting practice depends entirely on how quickly you adopt artificial intelligence (AI). Software vendors, consultants and AI advocates all seem keen to tell us what...
Eight ways to focus your marketing without boxing yourself in
There is no doubt in my mind that the more focused you can be about your ideal clients, the more likely they are to recognise you as the accountant they should approach Similarly, if you have a clear focus, it also becomes much easier for the people you meet and...