After hundreds of conversations with sole practitioners over the years, I’ve noticed something unexpected about the mistakes they admit to having made.
I’m thinking specifically about the accountants who guest on my podcast. My co-host and I always ask them to reflect on the mistakes they made whilst building their practice and the lessons they learned along the way.
Here’s the thing: many of the same issues come up time after time.
They talk about underpricing. Weak boundaries. The wrong clients. Isolation. Marketing that never quite worked. Opportunities they hesitated to pursue. Decisions that seemed small at the time but quietly shaped the future of their practice.
What I would stress is that most of the choices that now look like mistakes felt entirely reasonable when they were made. The problem wasn’t that they were obviously wrong. It’s that the consequences only became visible after several years.
The biggest challenges are rarely accounting related
Technical competence matters, of course.
Without it, nothing else works.
But once you’ve reached a certain level of professional capability, technical knowledge is rarely the constraint holding a practice back.
Most sole practitioners I encounter are already good accountants. Their clients are generally well served and their compliance work is completed to a high standard.
The challenges that create frustration, stress and stagnation tend to sit elsewhere:
- HMRC rules and processes (about which we can do very little)
- Client selection
- Pricing
- Positioning
- Boundaries
- Confidence
These are the areas that often determine whether a practice becomes enjoyable and profitable, or simply becomes a demanding job with increasing responsibilities.
The next stage of development is often less about becoming a better accountant and more about becoming a better practice owner.
The questions that reveal more than technical discussions
When I’m working one-to-one with an accountant, I have never felt the need to explore their technical capability.
Instead, I start by asking what they want to be different? Where do they want to get to? What are their aims and ambitions?
Those conversations often uncover patterns. And those patterns tend to repeat themselves surprisingly often. Unsurprisingly perhaps, theses patterns are much the same as the issues identified on the podcast.
The lessons I hear most frequently
Although every practice is different, the reflections accountants share usually fall into a handful of familiar themes.
1. The wrong clients create unrecorded costs
Poor-fit clients consume far more than billable hours. They drain energy, create frustration and often distract attention from better opportunities.
Many accountants tell me they wish they had been more selective sooner.
2. Underpricing is usually gradual rather than deliberate
Although undercharging at the outset is endemic, few accountants consciously decide to build a low-fee practice.
More often, low fees stay low. Then there’s a discount here, a compromise there, and eventually the business becomes overly busy without becoming sufficiently profitable or enjoyable.
3. Boundaries shape the practice more than intentions
Clients naturally adapt to the standards and availability you provide.
Many accountants discover that being overly flexible and willing to help out can result in their good nature being exploited. This can be another reason they end up feeling overworked, under-appreciated and less profitable than they deserve to be.
4. Clear marketing beats impressive marketing
The accountants who attract the right clients most consistently are rarely those with standard websites and generic marketing messages.
Counter-intuitively, more focused messages tend to engage more prospects. People respond when they can identify with a message that feels specific and relevant rather than the generic guff found on so many accountancy websites.
The same principle applies at networking events. The messages that land best tend to be those where the accountant communicates clearly and focuses on client problems and case study examples rather than generic descriptions of their services.
5. Visibility matters more than perfection
Waiting until everything feels ready can become a surprisingly effective way of standing still.
Many successful sole practitioners can point to a period when they started showing up before they felt fully prepared.
6. Isolation distorts judgement
This lesson appears repeatedly.
Without peers to compare experiences with, it’s easy to assume that your challenges are unique or that everyone else has things figured out. The result is often stagnation rather than action.
Almost every meeting of my Sole Practice Club ends with members commenting on how reassuring it is to discover they are not alone, that others have faced the same issues, and how motivated they feel to try new approaches.
7. Advisory confidence develops through practice, not permission
A surprising number of accountants tell me they wish they had become more confident advisers earlier.
Not by launching a major consultancy offering, but by asking better questions, making clearer recommendations and recognising the value of their own judgement. Advisory work can cover a wide range of issues from conversations about how to matter manage disallowable expenses through to heavyweight CFO style business and strategy advice.
8. Growth is not synonymous with more clients
Most of the accountants that want to work with me are NOT chasing growth as such. More often the want more control, better profitability or less stress.
More (random) clients can sometimes move them further away from those goals rather than closer.
9. Leaving it too long before adopting practice management software
One interviewee put it perfectly. He said he wished he’d started using practice management software when he had ten clients.
In reality, by the time he got around to it, he had more than 100 clients and quickly realised how much more efficient he could have been years earlier.
I should add that plenty of accountants run successful practices without anything more than well-structured spreadsheets, diary management and organised email systems. However, those accountants tend to be exceptionally organised and are only rarely still focused on winning significant numbers of new clients.
10. Today’s decisions create tomorrow’s practice
Perhaps the most important lesson of all is that small decisions compound.
The clients you accept, the standards you tolerate and the boundaries you enforce eventually become part of your firm’s identity.
The practice you’re building today is training the practice owner you’ll become tomorrow.
What ties all of these lessons together?
The common thread running through every one of these observations is that none of them relate directly to accounting services or technical skills.
They are practice ownership problems.
They involve judgement rather than knowledge. Perspective rather than information. Decision-making rather than technical expertise.
That’s why they can be so difficult to solve alone.
Most sole practitioners already know more than enough to run a competent practice. What they often need is a sounding board. Someone who can challenge assumptions, spot patterns and ask the questions that are easy to avoid when you’re making every decision yourself.
Looking back, many accountants tell me they wish they had found that perspective earlier.
Not because they lacked technical knowledge.
Because they lacked distance.
If any of these lessons feel familiar, perhaps the next step is simply a conversation. Sometimes a discussion helps clarify what is really holding a practice back and what needs to change next. In some cases that leads to a 1-2-1 mentoring relationship. In others, accountants discover that the peer support, shared experience and honest conversations inside the Sole Practice Club provide exactly the perspective they have been missing.
