Most accountants are justly proud of their technical skills. It is also common to find that some accountants undervalue the importance of ensuring that they have all the business skills they require to be profitable in the short-term and successful in the longer-term. What’s your position? Are you one of those accountants who
An increasing number of journalists and podcasters want to interview me about my views of the future for accountants. On reflection though I suspect I am sometimes a disappointing interviewee. This is not due to excess modesty as regards my conversational skills or my ability to explain and justify my predictions. On
Some accountants I know are proud of how efficiently they look after their own business affairs. Others though are embarrassed at their inefficiencies. And there are some who do not appear to give any thought as to how they are perceived. We all know the old adage that you never get a
Do you consider yourself to be a confident person generally? What about in terms of your ability to attract and win over prospective clients? And to keep clients happy and willing to pay you the fees you deserve for the work you do? Whilst many accountants I work with have a fair degree of
The biggest issue facing accountants in practice these days isn't the rise of robo-accountants, AI or cloud computing. The challenge that seems to hold many firms back is the same old chestnut it's always been. It's the difficulty in finding good people to join the firm. Almost every week I get approached by the
During my talks about the future for accountants I sometimes share a famous quote from Bill Gates. Before repeating it here, let me just offer some context. There has long been a tendency to over-hype new ideas and initiatives. Some accountants jump on the bandwagon early which is great. I don’t do
Think about ten top accountancy brands. Or at least the ones you can remember. How many of those do you think your typical client would be able to name - or would even recognise? Once you move outside of the accountancy and finance professions, brand awareness drops off very fast. Even the
When you need additional help with client work in your office, do you look beyond the idea of simply recruiting a new member of staff? Many of the smaller accountants I speak with are struggling to do everything themselves. And those who have regular help, want more but are reluctant to take on
What are you selling as an accountant? This is a simple enough question, and knowing the right answer could make a profound difference to the success of your practice. Let’s start with what you’re NOT selling. As I explained in a recent blog post, You’re not selling your time. And you’re not
Many of the accountants I speak with ask me the same question. How can they best attract new clients? I will rarely offer advice however until I have found out enough about the accountant, their firm, their services, their likes and dislikes and what they have tried previously. The simple reason is
There is an old adage that says if your practice fails to grow it will stagnate. Is that true actually? I think, it depends on what one means by ‘grow’. Grow the client base? Turnover? Profits? Range of services? Efficiency? I prefer the word 'evolve' as I'll explain below. Many years ago
Most general practitioner accountants I talk with (and I talk with a lot of them) are, obviously, generalists rather than specialists. They started out as general practitioners and stay that way as their client base has always been quite disparate. Many of those who specialise do so only because they originally trained
At last week's meeting of The Inner Circle for Accountants our headline discussion topic was: "Improving the profitability of your practice" I offered an early observation that “If you don’t have profitable clients, you don’t have a profitable practice”. What I mean by this is that if your clients do not generate a profit for you,
A popular approach to getting your attention (and often your money) is to instruct you that there is 'one thing' you must do. What do they say? Many journalists, consultants and sales people assert that there is just 'one thing' you must do to remain in practice, to generate new clients, to increase your fees or
This was the headline to a question I was asked recently. I have summarised the question below and expanded on my reply and advice as this may help other accountants too. Question How can accountants use LinkedIn for marketing purpose? I have a company page, I have a profile, I am in some groups but
This is the first of what I anticipate will become a series of cloud accounting related blog posts. Back in 2009 I disagreed with those commentators who were warning accountants about an urgent need to embrace cloud accounting technology. The alternative, warned these merchants of doom, was that accountants who failed to embrace the cloud
I forget how long ago I added the word 'debunker' to the list of my roles/activities. It's on my business card, my marketing materials, my online profiles and on the title slide for many of my presentations. I was first asked what I mean by 'debunker' when I was facilitating a workshop for an international
One of my talks for accountants, and much of the advice I share generally, concerns WHY it's important to STAND OUT from your competitors - and HOW easy this is to do when you put your mind to it. A related question I've never really addressed in detail is WHO do you need to STAND
This was another question I was asked during a recent interview. This post is drawn from the notes I made before giving my answer on air. Many accountants and bookkeepers reference their best source of new business as being referrals and recommendations. So let's deal with this first. Tools I would recommend here include: Linkedin
I recently heard John Hardy the Founder of FASTER Health and Fitness introduce his business. He mentioned he throught there were similarities with accountants. I have taken what he said and adapted it to provide some lessons for accountants from the business side of personal training and fitness. 1 Personality John has noted that a
Unlike some commentators, I entirely accept that many accountants have some clients who want nothing more than a basic compliance service. And that you get very frustrated to be told by consultants that you should offer your clients advisory services. After all, you know your clients don't want, cannot afford and will not value such
One of the reasons I do what I do is to help accountants win more clients. And one of the ways you can do this is to identify what makes you different to the competition. Yes, the raw service you provide may be the same but this is only part of the story. Every accountant I
Many an otherwise savvy sole practitioner tells me about similar problems with their client base. "They won't pay higher fees, they don't want additional services and they leave everything to the last minute" If you have clients like this, you're not alone. Often it's a direct consequence of how desperate you were to take on
At this week's meeting of The Inner Circle for Accountants our headline discussion topic was: "Improving the profitability of your practice" Members had identified this as a key issue they shared. It was also one of the most common concerns expressed in a recent survey I ran of accountants who want to feel more successful.
I was asked two related questions during a recent interview. This post is drawn from the notes I made before giving my answers on air. 1. With so many businesses competing with each other online, has it become more important to put more personality into your practice? The smaller your practice the more important
