Author: admin

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Are you too available?

Emails, phone calls, texts, messaging systems of every kind! Are we making ourselves too available at the expense of actually getting the work done?

I know lots of accountants suffered from this during covid with Friday evening announcements raising lots of client queries via multiple channels but it is often and issue even now.

We’re often encouraged to be available to clients the way THEY want to communicate but it’s a lot easier if we can streamline those communications.

This is how we control incoming communications at Minerva Accountants:

Mobile – This is not on my business cards. I guard my number and rely on voicemail when I’m in meetings or deep work. I block people who ring repeatedly but don’t leave a message.

Landline – this is a VOIP number which goes straight to my answering service (Answer-It.co.uk if you need a recommendation). They answer it professionally, get rid of sales calls, and email any genuine messages.

Calendly – I encourage people to book calls directly in my diary using calendly.com and so far only one person has abused this to book a sales call. Calendly links with my diary and only offers times when I am free. It emails me when a booking is made as well as putting the appointment in my diary. All bookings are for a phone call unless there is a reason to Zoom.

Webchat – this is run by real people (MeluChat.com) not bots so they can deal with some queries, book calls via calendly and email me messages.

Social media messaging systems – I’m careful who I connect with and block people who spam me this way. My usual response is to encourage people to book a call via Calendly or refer them to my website. As we have a lot of scheduled posts (we use Smarterqueue) people assume that this is an easier way to contact me but emails are always best.

WhatsApp – I don’t use this for business at all.

Course signups – these are all automated through the main website or through Thinkific. I only speak to people that we need to vet for our coaching and more expensive courses as I don’t want them to waste their money. Sign ups are forwarded to me by email and also linked to our CRM system (Active Campaign).

Emails – my favourite as I can review them when I’m free, forward them if I choose to delegate the task, link them to our practice management software, and there is a written record of what was said.

I don’t have notifications set for any of these systems as I log into emails and social media at least once a day to check for messages at a time that suits me.

To simplify outgoing communications we use helpsheets and videos. Clients often have similar queries. Whenever a client asks a question that I think may be asked again we create a Helpsheet or a training video that we can send to everybody who asks in future. It saves a lot of time and allows at least some of the replies to be delegated.

How do you control your communications in and out?

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Why to enter awards

I love judging awards as I get a sneak preview of what the best accountancy businesses are doing. It’s really exciting to see people pushing the profession forwards. This year I’m fortunate to have been asked to judge both the Accounting Excellence Awards and the Xero Awards. (My atrocious memory means that I immediately forget who has been shortlisted and who has won so you can try bribing me with chocolates as much as you like but I just can’t remember)

I also enter my books into the Business Book Awards. The Numbers Business won first place in its category in 2019 which was a really pleasant surprise for a first time author. Growing by Numbers sank without trace in 2021. And just yesterday Changing the Numbers was shortlisted in its category. We’ll find out if it wins at the big awards dinner on 16 May.  

Entering awards can feel like a lot of hassle or you may be afraid of ‘failure’ so why would you put yourself through that?

  1. Writing out your awards application helps you to realise how much good stuff your business has done.
  2. An award or shortlist helps you to stand out from your competitors
  3. Being shortlisted is as good as a win as far as your work is concerned. Making the shortlist is based on how good YOU are. The winner can depend on who else happens to have entered the same year. You might win or lose depending on your competition more than your own work.
  4. An award or shortlist is great for handling imposter syndrome
  5. An award is great for publicity as it gives you something to shout about in your local community and amongst your clients. Local papers like to hear good news although you may need a bit of an angle such as your reasons for starting the business or how you have overcome adversity.

Not all awards are created equal. Some seem to be more about making money for the organisers, either in large entry fees or selling tables at awards dinners. If the winner is dependent on paying to attend the dinner then it is not worth it.

But there are plenty of reputable awards out there.

Both the awards I judge and enter are open to anyone whether you can be there in person or not. And, if you can afford it, you can treat your team to a great night out to celebrate all their hard work. Or take along some clients to remind them that they have chosen to work with a (potential) award winner.

So go ahead and enter those awards. And let me know if you need a hand to prepare your entries.

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The baby bear amount

Not too much, not too little, but just right.

If you’re reading this then you’re probably like me and read/watch a lot of other business advice books and other resources. Some appear to repeat the same ideas and other appear to offer exactly the opposite suggestions and sometimes it can be hard to figure out what is right for your business.

Should I invest in this course/software which will all but guarantee success or should I save my money and bootstrap? Although I’m generally in favour of wise spending I often have bootstrap moments.

Should I work longer hours just to ‘get ahead’ or would I be better off spending quality time resting like an athlete recovering from a sprint. After all, you can’t sprint a marathon.

You are not the same person as me and your business is not like mine. Mentoring can only get you so far by sharing my expertise. That’s why I’m so pleased that my qualification is coaching AND mentoring. People come to me for my expertise as a mentor who has been there, got the t-shirt and even written the book but the coaching techniques help me to focus on YOUR business for maximum impact. Together we can stop any prevarication, financial waste, and work out the best strategy and actions for your business.

When you’re running your own business it’s too easy to get bogged down in the day to day which is why I also use a business coach to help me view my business more objectively. So far, so good.

What else do you do to devise your business strategy and to keep on track between too much and too little, too sweet and too salty?

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I want you to pay more tax

If you make more profit you will usually end up paying more tax BUT you also get to keep more for yourself so everybody wins.

Whilst Minerva Accountants is mainly about the compliance work of keeping businesses legal and providing management information the main business, Hudson Business Advice, is about helping business owners to build a better business.

Whether you want more profits, more time, or to increase the value of your business prior to sale you need to do the same sort of things,
– Systemise the business so that it can run independently of you and can be scaled more easily
– Automate where appropriate as this will minimise manual errors and save time
– Let go and delegate, whether to employees, outsourced services, or experts

You can come along to our free webinars or join me on one of our courses or group or individual coaching. The accountability ensures that you will take action to improve your business. And pay more tax.

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Who should really be on Honours Lists?

Every time an Honours List is published e.g. New Year or the Queen’s (now King’s) birthday there is always somebody moaning that the recipients are less deserving than a local or national community hero.

And every year I tell the complainant that they can nominate those heroes.

If there is anybody that you think is deserving of an honour then you can use this link to put their name forward.

Who would you nominate?

How good would they feel?

What other awards can you nominate people for in your industry or local community?

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Late payment? It’s just not good enough!

Most of my clients pay me by direct debit on a monthly contract but I recently took on a speaking engagement at short notice to help somebody out. It was a substantial fee but there wasn’t time to take a deposit so I squeezed in 4 days of preparation, rehearsal, travel, and delivery before I finally invoiced the full amount.

When the due date passed I sent a polite automated reminder from Xero and then rang the organiser in case there was a problem with the invoice. Just as well because it turned out the bookkeeper had paid the wrong person!

Mistakes happen and the other supplier who received my payment had immediately notified my customer. But the company hadn’t bothered to contact me to explain or to offer any apology.

This made me ‘a bit grumpy’ but I got even grumpier when I had to keep chasing each week. This was definitely not a business that I wanted to work with again. I always pay my own suppliers promptly as they are usually small businesses like mine.

So, as the law allows, I raised an invoice for interest on late payment of 8% over base rate plus £70 debt collection charge. Eventually the original invoice was paid and, after further chasing, the penalty invoices were paid too.

Even if people know that they are entitled to claim this interest and debt collection charge not many people actually bother. And many cancel the interest once the main invoice is paid. Why?

It is important to ensure that small businesses are paid promptly and part of that is making it more painful for the defaulters than for the unpaid victims. Let’s all make sure that we charge interest and collection fees so that we gradually get larger businesses to comply with their agreed payment terms.

Details of your payment rights are here.

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Paperless at last!

Finally we’re a 100% paperless office. A nice man came and took all my archives for bulk shredding yesterday. I’m now giving away so much stationery that I’ve accumulated over the years of three businesses.

Top tip with going paperless is to start TODAY as the old stuff will work its way out in 6 years and you can get it all securely shredded in bulk as we did. We didn’t waste time and money scanning paper just to archive it. The fact that we’ve never looked at them since shows that this was the right decision.

We scan anything coming in and save it in the appropriate client or admin file. We sign everything online and have Signable for anything that doesn’t get signed through our accounts/tax software.

I have no printer. In an emergency I can take a USB to my local post office and pay 50p per sheet. (It makes me laugh that ICAEW needed to approve my letterhead before granting my practising certificate.)

What’s holding you back from going paperless? Or have you already done it?

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Pricing for the hassle factor

I’ve just received an email from my web hosting company to say that they will be charging me more.

The reason is that two of my websites use software that is about to become obsolete so the hosting company will charge me an extra support fee from 5 February unless I upgrade.

This software has a two year life so I’ve already upgraded it once with the help of the hosting company (Fasthosts provide much better support for the tiny monthly fee that I pay them and they’re lovely to deal with). It’s not too difficult but I imagine that many people just ignore a simple message that their site will be unsupported. This way I have a financial incentive to make sure that I do the upgrade promptly. And, if I don’t, the hosting company get some extra income as they’d probably end up sorting out the mess anyway.

Which reminded me that, although Minerva Accountants is supposed to be a Xero only business, we do have one client using an older cloud bookkeeping software with less functionality. This means that we’re unable to offer as good a service. Of course I justified it to myself at the time but now, with the benefit of hindsight, I realise that I was wrong and should have followed my own advice! So I’m going to offer to help my client to migrate to Xero for a better service or to increase the fee to support an ageing app.

Where have you broken your own rules and regretted the lack of efficiency? Should you correct this even if it means losing the client?

How about joining one of our strategic planning days to streamline your business for 2023?

This year we’re running two (although you can join either one). Fri 27 January will be for any business and Wed 22 February will focus on accountants/bookkeepers. Find out more here.

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Connecting with people

Have you read ‘The 5 Love Languages’ by Gary Chapman? He talks about the 5 main ways that people demonstrate their love and how they prefer to receive love. It can be applied to all sorts of relationships including parenting. My favourite is acts of service, so I like to do things for people I care for, hence the cooking. I’m not a great gift giver so those thoughtful people who show affection by giving beautifully wrapped gifts probably think I’m a bit reserved.

As always we need to understand how other people view the world so that we can communicate with them in a way that they understand.

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How do you make big decisions?

Some people make quick decisions and some people prefer to take their time. Some people make good decisions and others not so good. In my experience the amount of time taken to reach a decision doesn’t show much correlation with the quality of the decision.

When faced with big decisions what do you do?

I usually make a list of pros and cons to be sure that I’ve considered everything and then discover that the length of each list reflects my subconscious preference. So, for me, this is a mixture of a head and also a heart decision.

I can work out any numbers but, like most accountants, I can usually make those numbers support my decision by tweaking the assumptions. This is why I don’t believe it’s worth spending too much time on projections because I can control the inputs to get the results I want. On paper at least. (It is still worth doing rough projections to ensure that you’re not way off target)

When it comes to business decisions I compare the possible outcomes with my initial business objectives to see which will get me closer to my goal. This has proved to be quite reliable in the past.

Another way is to spend 24 hours imagining that you’ve taken option A. This helps you to clarify the implications of that choice as well as to understand how you are likely to feel. Then spend 24 hours imagining that you’ve taken the alternative. This gives insight into which choice will make you happier.

How do you make decisions? Logically or following your gut instinct?

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