Blog

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How to train your clients

I see lots of people complaining or rolling their eyes at the behaviour of certain ‘vampire’ clients that suck far more time and resources than the average client. But what can you do?

  1. Don’t take them on in the first place. Learn to recognise them and say no right from the outset. Unless you’re a lawyer or a licensed taxi driver then you are not obliged to take on every single client who comes to you (and even these have ways of turning down work)
  2. Onboard well with a clear scope of work. Make sure that your onboarding process includes managing your clients’ expectations. Ensure that everything is set up well from the start and that clients know your working hours and who deals with what. For instance, we have a ‘reasonable use’ clause on our telephone support. If we can’t answer something straight away on the phone because it is complex or requires detailed calculations then this is an additional charge.
  3. Service level agreements. Be clear on your turnaround times for answering questions or delivering your finished project/product/services. We aim to respond to queries by next working day and ask clients to reply within 1 week. We prepare year end accounts within 8 weeks and ask clients to send information within 8 weeks of the year end.
  4. Automate reminders in your systems so that you don’t hold up starting work through lack of information.
  5. Charging more is an option but sometimes this just encourages clients to feel entitled to more of your time or to send things closer to deadlines.
  6. If all else fails ditch the client. There are plenty of good clients out there waiting to work with us.

Remember that it is your business and you get to choose who you work with.

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Can I ‘just’ pick your brain?

How often do you get asked this? People you barely know, if at all, wanting to take some of your valuable time and expertise in exchange for a coffee or less.

There are some people whom I’m happy to say “yes” to due to close relationships or help that they’ve given to me or others in the past. There are some people who only ever take and, for these, it’s a straight “no”. But, for most people, I’d love to help but I don’t have the time in between earning a living and my own community commitments.

So how can you help people without giving up too much of your precious earning time or offering discounts on your core products and services?

I do this through writing books, running courses and group coaching sessions which are all cheaper than my individual coaching. But even this is too expensive for some so I write these Tips and provide free webinars. We run 6 Better Business webinars per year for accountants and bookkeepers and 12 Minerva Money Matter webinars per year for other business owners.

As a member of ICAEW or a local accountant or business woman I’m often asked to speak in schools and for other local groups. Lots of people helped me when I started out so I’m happy to do this. For those in even greater need we give a percentage of our turnover to charity each year.

How can you give back to others? How can you have the greatest impact on most people through one to many support? Or would you prefer to sponsor an individual? Perhaps you already do something like this? Let me know how you prefer to support your local community or preferred charity.

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Trust the process

You’ve probably been there. Business is quieter than usual and you don’t know why.

When you’ve been running your business for a few years you get used to this and know that doing the right things will produce the right results but sometimes you doubt yourself or your process.

Even after this long in business I still have these wobbles.

October has been quiet for me with fewer enquiries than usual and even fewer suitable enquiries. I’ve given away a lot of free advice or referred them to another coach or accountant who was more suited to their needs.

In the background I (and my wonderful PA) continued to do the usual marketing and to prepare the new 30 day start up course for accountants and bookkeepers.

But it was still too quiet for my liking.

And then the flood gates opened, and I’ve been busy this week with enquiries for coaching, courses, and accountancy services. And a big consultancy lead that had gone quiet suddenly turned into a signed contract overnight. And now I’m wondering how I’m going to fit in all the extra work.

Such is the roller coaster of running your own business. Sometimes you just have to trust the process. Doing the right things will produce the right results.

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Are you working too hard?

With Summer holidays over and Winter drawing in I’m seeing more exhausted business owners. Although there may be particular pressures on accountants facing tax return season everybody is affected to some extent by the cost of living crisis.

Here are a few things that you can do to make your business run more smoothly so that you can take more time for yourself.

  • Software – invest in software that will free up time for you and your team. If you set it up properly it will also be less prone to mistakes than tired human beings.
  • Recruit – invest in people to share the workload
  • Training – if it’s hard to recruit at the right level then invest in training and ‘grow your own’ team who will do things your way right from the beginning. Invest in training for you and your team to help you to work more efficiently.
  • Business coach – invest in a business coach so that you have an external view on how to improve your business whether that is profitability or work-life balance. As well as accountability to help you to put all that reading and course into effect.
  • Increase your prices – we run regular (free) webinars on how and why to do this so I won’t explain this here but please contact me if you’d like more information on our next event.
  • Sack poor clients – whether you define that as unprofitable or vampire clients that suck your time your life will be much happier and profitable without them. You’ll either have more time for yourself or to take on more profitable and enjoyable work.
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Continuing professional development

This week I’ve been busy with my QAD inspection. As a chartered accountant I have these inspections regularly. Although I like to think that we do everything ‘by the book’ at Minerva Accountants I always worry that I’ve missed something. While these inspections can be quite nerve wracking they can also be reassuring when everything passes with no queries or comments. It’s also reassuring for my clients to know that our regulators are checking up on us to ensure that we reach their required standard.

As a member of ICAEW Council and speaking, writing and coaching accountants to run a better business, it is important that I set a good example myself in my own accountancy business.

One of the things they check up on is my CPD, aka continuing professional development. Complying with this is no problem for me as I write books and articles to help accountants as well as business owners so I’m always researching.

Here are just some of the areas that I read up on, attend webinars and talks, and research in depth.
• Latest tax and accounting developments to support our clients at Minerva Accountants. No mean feat with 4 ‘budgets’ already this year and MTD (Making Tax Digital) on the horizon
• Latest research into growing businesses or making them run more efficiently for my coaching clients. Also useful for running my own businesses better
• Latest coaching developments as I’m a qualified coach and mentor as well as an accountant
• Ways to improve my speaking as a member of the Professional Speaking Association
• Anything interesting as I love to expand my mind

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Education is the wing on which dreams fly

I’m not sure of the original source of this quote but it strikes me as very true.

As a chartered accountant I get hung, drawn, and quartered (or something similar) by ICAEW if I don’t keep my knowledge up to date through CPD (continuing professional development) ever year. But, as a business owner, I need to develop so many skills beyond just my accountancy ones.

I’m a member of the PSA (Professional Speaking Association) to improve my speaking skills, I used a writing coach for my first book, I have a formal coaching and mentoring qualification to help both my coaching clients and because it is a great way to help advise business owners.

And that’s without going into all the books and articles I read, some of which I recommend here.

It’s why I like to speak, write and run courses for business owners of all sorts. Yes, you’ll pay a premium for the most valuable courses (which all come with a guarantee) but I hope you’ll get a lot of benefit from the free webinars too. We run the Minerva Money Matters series for general business owners and the Better Business series for accountants and bookkeepers.

What other means do you use to educate yourself on how to run a good business that will not just survive, but thrive, through these tough times?

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What business owners can learn from cats

Bryony Thomas (author and founder of Watertight Marketing*) may liken customers to cats in the way we tempt them in but never own them. But I think business owners can learn by watching cats themselves.

Cats generally spend vast portions of their day sleeping. Many business owners don’t get enough sleep. Learn how to take better care of yourself in this, and other ways.

Cats do as little as possible and we should all learn to work more efficiently so that we can work fewer hours. The recent trial of the 4 day week has left 90% of the participants intent on adopting this as a permanent measure as they became much more productive.

Cats can become quite loud and insistent when they want food. Do you need to ask for what you want more clearly? Perhaps a little more politely though.

Cats are very good at expressing their thanks. Do we need to say thank you more? Although I wouldn’t suggest rubbing yourself all over your customers.

Cats are all about cupboard love. Whilst this isn’t a good way to develop real relationships being nice to people will definitely smooth the wheels of industry.

Many people are allergic to cats and we should accept that not everybody will like us. That’s why we tailor out marketing to the type of client where we can help most.

What qualities do you think dogs have that business owners can learn from?

*If you haven’t yet read Watertight Marketing I’m happy to recommend it. You can buy a copy here and don’t forget to register for Bryony’s free workbook.

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Good causes vs charities

Not all good causes are charities and not all charities are UK charities. Why does this matter? Only donations to UK charities are tax deductible.

Please don’t let this stop you donating to good causes around the world but I just wanted you to be aware that your donations can go further if they’re to UK charities.

I also meet a lot of people wanting to set up charities for very good causes. The regulations around running a charity are enormous so, if you’re just running a few events, it may be easier to treat it as a fundraising event for an existing charity. Why saddle yourself with all the additional accounting, admin, and audit of setting up a charity when you could use that energy to raise money for the good cause itself?

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If accounts are the language of business learn to say “hello”

It works both ways. Business owners need to understand the story that their accounts tell about their business and accountants need to be able to translate the accounts story into plain English.

Too many people are terrified of their numbers. All those crosses across school books can be quite intimidating. Start to look for the patterns. We can see at a glance if one playing card is higher than another without needing to count the hearts etc on the face of the card. Concentrate on which numbers are higher than last month, last year, or compared to budget. Know whether they should be higher or lower.

And you don’t need to look at all the numbers. Business owners should agree with their accountant and/or business coach which 2-3 numbers to focus on each time.

I feel so passionately that I even wrote a course to help explain it:
➡ Finance for Business Owners

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You are not a bank!

And, as far as I know, you are not a charity. So why are you lending clients money by allowing them extended credit or even working for free?

Here are some tips to help you collect money faster:

  • Invoice promptly. Xero can help with repeating invoices, invoicing from quotes, and invoicing from your phone while on site
  • For longer contracts consider getting paid up front or in instalments. Minerva’s clients pay us over 12 months as we are doing work for them throughout the year with monthly bookkeeping health checks and other advice as a minimum
  • Make it easy for people to pay you. Make sure that your bank details are on your invoice. Our regular clients pay by direct debit through Gocardless. We can also take payment by card and there is a button for this on our invoices or we use Zettle to take payments for booksales at conferences etc.
  • Send invoice reminders. We can help clients to set up the automated reminders in Xero. The first one is just a polite enquiry to check that they have received the invoice and that everything is alright. Later ones are more severe. If clients require more functionality we can help them with Satago or Chaser.io
  • Credit check your clients with an app like Satago.
  • Be prepared to take legal action. Clients pay for their services. Requesting services without the means to pay is like shoplifting. If they’re not paying they’re definitely not clients. Clients ghosting you is definitely a broken relationship, get paid and get out!

You work hard so you deserve to be paid.

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