The inaugural meeting of The Inner Circle for Accountants was evidently a success last week. I have summarised below some of the key takeaways. We met at Soho House in London and Members clearly valued the mix of shared peer-led insights together with, as one said, "the independent common sense you always get from Mark
I'm a big fan of Linkedin as it can be a very effective online business networking tool. I always wince when I hear it being spoken of as a social networking site in the same breath as facebook, twitter and pinterest. It's quite distinct and, in my experience, is generally used in a very different
If you are on Linkedin you will get connection requests from people you don't know. And you will also get plenty of bland connection requests from people you're not sure whether or not you know. It's very tempting to treat such connection requests in the same way as other unsolicited messages. But that would be
Every so often someone asks how I allocate my time across all of the social media with which I am involved. What follows is the current answer. It's my third blog post on the subject. The first was in 2010 and the second was in April 2012. I started to use social media in 2006.
I rarely use this blog to advertise my business activities. But this is a special occasion. The Inner Circle helps accountants build a more successful practice. Priorities --> Progress --> Profits Over the last few years I have spent much time participating in and facilitating groups of tax experts and of entrepreneurs. In fact, when
This time last year I reviewed my website and blog stats for 2012. That provides some comparison for this review of the 2013 stats. In summary, visitor numbers and blog posts read are all significantly up on previous years. I am delighted that an increasing number of accountants seem to find what I write to
Tomorrow I will post a full review of the visitor activity on this website and blog. It may be of interest if you are into blogging. For now here are the top 10 blog posts from 2013 - ranked by the number of times they were read (according to my wordpress stats). Feel free to
Recently I was asked to help promote a new service for accountants. It has been around for a year or so but hasn't really taken off in that time. I wrote back and explained my reservations - which are much as they were when I first heard of the launch last year. It may be
Please indulge me for a moment. Six years ago today I launched the Tax Advice Network as the UK's first virtual tax practice. A unique facility allowing accountants to access their choice of vetted independent specialist tax advisers, whenever a client's problems required such expertise. My first business plan showed that the Network's various income
Everyone has their own preferences. I've summarised the options for you below. Do pick whichever suits you best: 1. Subscribe to my 3Rs ideas notes as I regularly include references back to the most recent blog posts here. Simply complete the sign-up box on the right of your screen. 2. Subscribe to the email notification
The old cliche 'people buy from people they know, like and trust' is especially pertinent when you are an accountant keen to generate additional clients. To a large extent it matters not whether you are part of a bigger company/firm or you run your own practice - although the effect is even more pronounced in the smallest
Three months ago I mentioned, in passing, that this website/blog "had significantly more visitors (>19,000) and more page views (>30,000) in April than ever before." I am delighted to note that those April figures were no blip. July 2013 saw the highest number of unique visitors to this website and blog: 20,754 And the number
I was thrilled to be seated with Robert when he was announced as the winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Taxation Awards ceremony last night. I am proud to count him as a friend and as one of my tax mentors. In the light of last night's award I think it appropriate to share
I am both astonished and disappointed by the number of people who assume accountants are boring. Some of them have accountants, but most I suspect, do not and are simply repeating the stereotyping they have heard others reference. This is evident from the increasing number of young people who routinely tweet variations on the
It's now 7 years since I started the transition into a portfolio career and next month I will be speaking about this at an event organised by ICAEW. Full details here>>> Starting at 5.30pm on the evening of 13 May at One Moorgate Place in London, this event will be of use and value
I had to laugh when I saw this headline in the Times on Saturday: "Barrister loses dispute over tax avoidance". I checked it out and it's true. A leading Tax Counsel has failed in his claims that a LEGAL tax avoidance scheme reduced his tax bill. In other words, it was ineffective. Ten years ago
If you had to choose, which three adjectives do you think best describe you, as a person, as an accountant? I doubt you would opt to include 'Boring' as one of the three. It can be quite instructive to write down the three words you choose and then to ask other people how they would
"Boring is Easy, everyone can be boring". Don't take my word for it. Listen to this pep talk from Kid President: Kid President is actually 9-year-old boy, Robbie Nova, who was born with Osteogenesis Imperfecta ("Brittle Bone syndrome"). His video has been seen by over 17 million people at the time of writing and is
Online profiles are everywhere now. They appear on many firms' websites, on social networking sites and on Linkedin. Actually pretty much all of the points below apply equally to any printed profile or CV you might produce too. When you’re writing yours please don’t focus on the boring stuff – where you were born, what
Last month I received what appears to be a genuine endorsement of all my work to make this blog useful, relevant, commercial and valuable to ambitious accountants. I was initially a tad cynical but this blog really is the fourth in a list of the Top 30 Accounting and Finance Blogs of 2012. The note I received last week from
Someone who is perceived as Boring is often also perceived as possessing a host of very POSITIVE qualities. It sort of goes with the territory. So, ‘boring’ accountants tend also to be: methodical disciplined knowledgeable professional scrupulous honest ethical trustworthy detail focused serious cautious predictable reliable and they like lists! ;-) These are all positive qualities
If you're either a busy accountant and/or a regular at networking events, you probably get asked this question all of the time. You may also be asked by friends and family, ex-colleagues and prospective clients as well as by your bank manager, suppliers and potential advocates. How carefully have you thought about the way
There needs to be a special reason to give over this blog to someone else's words. This is one such occasion. It's important for accountants to be able to debate the tax news stories of the moment with confidence and conviction - based on the facts. This has become increasingly difficult in recent months, as
Just felt I should recognise this as no one else will do so. The top ten blog posts since I started this blog in April 2006 have been: Three elements of communication - and the so called "7%-38%-55% Rule" 7388 Examples of good facebook pages for accountants 7075 Twitter 4929 The Easter Bunny shows us how NOT to
Over the holiday period I went through many hundreds of business cards I have collected over the last few years. That led me to post a reminder that: 'No one refers work to a business card'. This was a follow up to an earlier post with the same title. Having reviewed all of these cards,
