Category: Business

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Be a Joy Seeker 

Marie Condo goes through homes clearing out anything that isn’t essential unless the client can honestly answer the question ‘Does this bring me joy?’ 

My suggestion is that we should do the same with our businesses. Weighing up profit and passion. 

Some work we do because it is highly profitable but, if you’re like most business owners, there’s probably some work that barely breaks even. You can either stop doing it or find a way to do it more profitably, perhaps by automating it? This may be the nature of the work or the particular clients, so it is worth reviewing both each year. 

Some work we do because we love it. Coaching is my passion, and I love seeing the result of my advice in clients reclaiming their work-life balance or taking holidays after making their businesses more profitable. 

Ideally you would only do things that fall into both categories but sometimes they only manage one. Once you’re making enough money to cover your essentials I’d focus on your passion. If we do this, we will generally do a better job and be able to increase our fees.  

If something is neither profitable nor enjoyable then you should stop providing that service or pass on that client. And you should carry out this review each year until you have a profitable business that you love.

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Building a business can be as painful as walking on Lego 

I read this somewhere last week and it is so true. Whilst there are great highs on the roller coaster of business there are also some real lows. 

So what can you do?

When you identify a problem that is likely to recur in some form then it is worth spending time to make changes to prevent it. But sometimes the solution is not really obvious. 

It may help to work through this with a coach, a colleague, or on your own by asking some simple questions 

  1. What exactly is happening? 
  1. When did this issue start? 
  1. What is the impact? 
  1. What changed recently that might have triggered this? 
  1. Have we had a similar problem before? How did we resolve it? 
  1. What outcome do I want to achieve? 
  1. Is this realistic given any current constraints? 

Here’s to using your Lego creatively instead of as an instrument of torture. 

Business confidence monitor 

The Q3 ICAEW Business Confidence Monitor is here and shows the increased tax burden are holding back business and economic growth 

ICAEW Business Confidence Monitor | ICAEW 

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Accountant: therapist or dentist? 

When I set up my first accountancy business one of my old school friends, now living in USA, told me that a visit to her accountant felt like a visit to her dentist. As I’m one of those people who is terrified of the dentist (in spite of never needing treatment) I was determined that my business would be nothing like that. 

When we had offices I invested in a decent coffee machine and we ensured that clients could charge their phones while visiting. 

When we used to provide monthly envelopes for clients to send in their invoices for bookkeeping I chose some that felt quite velvety (even though they were four times the price of the others) so that clients would have a bit of niceness. 

We send welcome gifts of chocolates from a local business (obviously we had to sample them first!) and birthday cards by a local artist. 

Now we are busy building an app for clients to calculate how much tax they need to save and how much is available for dividends. 

What can you do to make your clients’ experience smoother? 

Business confidence monitor 

The Q3 ICAEW Business Confidence Monitor is here and shows the increased tax burden are holding back business and economic growth 

ICAEW Business Confidence Monitor | ICAEW 

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Charge what you’re worth, not what your competitors are worth 

Pricing is often difficult when you first start your business, and you may well have based your initial prices on what your competitors charge. But you soon learn where you sit amongst the competition. 

At Minerva Accountants we charge slightly higher than others and have testimonials from clients that we are ‘worth it’ as well as other success stories. They might just say that we’re easier to deal with or perhaps quantify it by saying that coaching has helped them save three years in growing their business. There are also the silent testimonials when clients return with a new business or refer others to us. 

So where do you sit in the hierarchy of your competition? 

And is that reflected in your prices? 

In order to increase your prices, you may first need to raise your services to a higher level or, if you’re already ahead of your competitors, you may need to differentiate yourself more to your prospects. As accountants we’re often seen as offering the same commodity service as any other accountant. People think we just fill in tax forms once a year and keep them legal. 

But we can do soooo much more.  

We can spend time learning about the business and identifying where profits are being left on the table. We can help clients to pluck the low hanging fruit. Or build a ladder to harvest the higher rewards too. This is where we get most satisfaction and provide most value. When we move beyond hassle-free accounts to more profitable clients. 

First, improve the value of your offering, then promote it widely.  

How can you differentiate your yourself? 

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Main character energy 

It’s time to be the main character in your story. Step into the limelight and claim it for yourself and your business 

I often talk about your team but it is also important that YOU are able to lead them well.  

This means: 

  • Looking after your own physical and mental health 
  • Having a clear direction 
  • Inspiring your team 
  • Providing yourself with the tools and skills that you need to execute your plan 
  • Promoting yourself as the face of your business 

I’ve written all sorts of articles on how you can improve yourself in all these areas so you can either search the website for these, read my books, or invest some of your hard-earned cash and sign up for some business coaching to help you with any of these. (‘Do nothing’ is also a very comfortable option) 

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The Club Tropicana business model 

Apologies, I’ve forgotten where I first heard this description, but according to Wham, at Club Tropicana drinks are free! 

And many businesses appear to be adopting the same model. We often do it ourselves. 

We give away free books, free webinars, free speaking gigs, newsletters like this, blog posts, free discovery calls, etc. Because we don’t value our time enough.  

So this week I’d like you to work out the time and cost of everything that you give away for free. And then compare it to the number of new clients that you have acquired in the last 12 months. What is your cost of acquisition per client? Or per £1 of turnover? 

Most of this fails to convert, not because it isn’t useful, but because we’re targeting the wrong people (if they’re relying on your free stuff they’re probably ‘tyre-kickers’ and not likely to pay for your prime products/services) or because we’re too British about money and sales to give a clear ‘call to action’  

So here is our big, fat CALL TO ACTION 

Accountants and bookkeepers: go to our website and choose one of our courses or book some coaching (individual is the best value but we have group coaching for those on a budget) 

Business owners: stop wishing for a better business and book yourself a Clarity Business Advice session where we can pull up your numbers, identify where you can improve profitability etc, and send you away with an action plan (and maybe book some coaching too) 

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I’m not a disrupter! 

I don’t ‘move fast and break things’. 

And I don’t believe that many of my successful entrepreneur friends are either. 

Agile business development is not about revolution and guillotines. It’s about agility and being open to change and innovation.  

I’m acknowledged as an ‘early adopter’ by the founders of Xero who led large scale cloud adoption in the UK. And I’m an award winning author and speaker on subjects of running a modern business and delivering advisory services for practice and client success. 

I believe in building a business on solid foundations supplemented by innovation. Our team never do anything just because ‘we’ve always done it that way’. Instead we systemise, automate, and delegate and then put a friendly, human front end onto the latest technology. 

I’m far from traditional but I’m not a rebel either. 

Where do you sit on the innovation spectrum? 

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Are you goal oriented or process oriented? ​​

Do you get excited by the end goal or do you take the time to enjoy the journey.

Although I like to have a Big Hairy Audacious Goal, I actually get most pleasure from the things I learn on the journey. 

This was brought home to me as I tend to relax by watching something easy on TV just before bed (currently on season 4 of Stargate SG1 if you’re interested) and I’ve recently taken up crochet again to keep my hands occupied while my brain is gently slowing down. 

I’ve chosen a simple pattern for a cardigan as my goal. I haven’t crocheted regularly for decades so a few days later I was about 20 rows in before realising that my tensions were all wrong and the garment would end up at least 20% too big for me. That’s assuming that it will ever be good enough for me to wear anyway. 

As with business problems I went back to my primary motivation to decide what to do. My true purpose was to occupy my hands and the time already spent was a ‘sunk cost’ irrespective of my next action.   The solution was obviously to start again and reuse the wool with nothing lost except time. 

But that time wasn’t wasted! I had learned things from the first attempt that will make the second turn better. I have remembered how to crochet, I will watch the tension more closely and measure earlier and, if all else fails, I will have a third attempt with a smaller needle or rework the pattern to aim for a smaller size. 

Business is the same. It may seem a little more important with more at stake but there’s often a simple way to rescue an apparent disaster (just ask some of my coaching clients how much better they feel after we’ve worked through a gnarly problem together) and lots of learning to be had along the way, 

What’s the biggest problem in your business at the moment? 

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World Entrepreneurs’ Day

I’m writing this on World Entrepreneurs’ Day and, although you’ll be reading it a little later, it’s definitely something worth celebrating.  

So put something fizzy in the fridge because we’re about to play the Entrepreneurs’ Drinking Game. 

As you may know I currently run three businesses* (with two successful exits behind me). In order to make constant progress it’s essential to focus on the future and what’s next. How else can you move forwards? This comes at the cost of reflections and we rarely pause to appreciate how far we’ve come.  

This is why I encourage entrepreneurs to enter awards. Even if preparing a draft application it forces you to review how far you’ve come. This gives you a different perspective on your journey.  

So open your laptop now for a quick check in and compare where you are now with your business 12 months or 5 years ago. Take the time to enjoy your wins, appreciate what you’ve already achieved, and maybe spot more opportunities for growth (we are entrepreneurs after all 😉) 

  • How is your turnover looking? 
  • How is your profitability (despite rising costs) 
  • Do you have a good team around you? 
  • How is your general business network? 
  • How much of your day to day work is automated? (Did I just catch you thinking about what still needs to be automated? Remember to look back on what you have already done!) 
  • How have your working hours changed? 
  • How is your work-life balance generally? 

Take a sip for everything that has moved forward in your business.  

Share your successes with me. I always like to hear when (and how) others are doing well. And, if your business hasn’t moved forward the way you hoped, just reply to this email with HELP NEEDED and I’ll show you how we can make progress together. 

Here’s to celebrating your journey. 

*Details of my current businesses if you’re curious: 

  1. Minerva Accountants provide the usual accountancy services plus Clarity business advice sessions
  2. Hudson Business Advice is a consultancy offering speaking, writing, and coaching services to help accountants and small business owners to run a better business 
  3. Minerva Technology is a small fintech which is more of side hustle as it has a single app in development (at the moment) 
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Why we love Xero  

At Minerva Accounts most of our clients are on Xero.

I chose this back in 2012 after an abortive attempt to move to the cloud with another software provider. Back then Sage and Quickbooks were still providing great desktop software but hadn’t really made any viable inroads into cloud software. At that time Xero stood head and shoulders above their competitors (in my opinion)

Roll forward to 2025 and the gap has now closed. I still think Xero is the best all rounder for small businesses under £10million turnover but I’m not in a hurry to migrate business owners who are happy with a different product. We’re accountants who act in the best interests of our clients; not software resellers.

The advantage of focusing on one software is that we can all learn it inside out and even make it sing and dance (that may be an exaggeration but do try typing a sales invoice with the description ‘I want a Unicorn!’ if you want t smile) If clients are better served by another software, due to either functionality or their personal preference, we refer them to another accountant. We NEVER force businesses to move to Xero just for our convenience.

Take a look at the new Xero Simple for MTD which is just £7 per month. You get a lot of the functionality of big Xero but for a fraction of the price.