Tag: business owner

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How does your price compare?

Compare to what?

How would you compare the price of a dress from Primark to one from Prada? How would you compare the cost of a smart phone to an old flip phone?

Business owners might try to compare accountants’ fees because they don’t understand that there are very different types of accountants with different expertise offering a variety of services in their ‘standard’ package.

So how can you differentiate yourself from your competitors?


• Testimonials from satisfied clients allow you to demonstrate your quality. Encourage your clients to leave Linked In testimonials or ask them if you can use the lovely thing they just said/wrote about you in your marketing.


• Case studies allow prospective clients to picture themselves working with you. We don’t just fill in those pesky forms known as tax returns. Think about how you help your clients and then ask them to help with a case study. We use Angela at PR the Write Way – Getting you the recognition you deserve to write these for us.


• Awards. This one is tricky for me as I can’t enter the awards that, as an established accountant, I’m often invited to judge.


• Net promoter score. What percentage of your existing clients would recommend you to others? When did you last ask them? (Whoops, we need to get this up to date)


• Niche. If you have a niche you should share content specific for this audience to demonstrate your expertise eg I coach all sorts of business owners but about half of them are accountants so I my content (and 2 of my 3 books) at them.

What other ways can you differentiate yourself from your competitors?

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Forget your carbon footprint

Okay, that’s a bit of a ‘clickbaity’ title so I’d better elaborate.

Hopefully you’re already trying to minimise the carbon footprint of your business and your home life but, once you’ve made the main changes, there are diminishing returns.

This is where we’re at now with a paperless, remote business minimising travel and using public transport or waking/cycling where appropriate. Yes, there’s more to be done but it is getting harder so we’re offsetting the rest while we work on it and switching our attention to our digital footprint.

The downside of being a paperless business is that we do everything digitally so here are some quick wins that we recommend to reduce your digital footprint.

  1. Internally, share files rather than creating separate copies. We us Onedrive and Sharepoint.
  2. Externally, use a secure portal or send links to online files rather than attaching copies to your emails
  3. Paper books are potentially better than digital ones as they tend to be shared multiple times whereas it is hard to do this with e-books. Great news for those who still love the touch and feel of ‘real’ books rather than a Kindle.

I’d love to hear from anybody else who is working on their digital footprint.

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No more Google! 

Why are you googling when you have a dedicated accountant on tap? Someone who can give you good quality personalised advice. 

Whether it’s ‘my mate at the pub’ or ‘my colleague on the golf course’ there’s nothing more annoying to accountants than their clients taking tax ‘advice’ from unregulated sources. 

As a qualified accountant I have to stay up to date with the latest legislation every year, to spend time understanding my client’s circumstances, and to refuse or refer work that I’m not personally qualified and experienced to carry out. But that doesn’t stop ‘Dave at the pub’ from offering his personal insights. 

Depending on the advice my usual response is that it’s not applicable to my client’s particular circumstances, not viable, or it may even be illegal. It may even refer to US tax legislation rather than UK! Even HMRC’s own website is so heavily dumbed down to be accessible to lay people that it can not always be relied upon. And it certainly isn’t personalised. 

I’m often asked to do live budget commentaries but I always refuse these as I prefer to listen, make notes about the clients each aspect will affect, and then read the full supporting documentation. Only then will I start to offer advice.  

I’m very much in favour of HMRC clamping down on unregulated tax advisers. Let’s make sure that accountants offer the best service possible by staying technically up to date and taking time to understand our clients and their financial circumstances. 

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What do you value?

Struggling to write this today as I hide in a café in the village while a house clearance company dispose of 14 years of my life.

But I’m a natural optimist (and the future is looking very good once I’ve waved goodbye to the memories here) so it’s easy to see the silver linings.

I’ve always believed that people are more important than things and so it was a no-brainer that I would choose to run my first business on just 25 hours per week so that I could spend time around my kids as they were growing up. I also worked from home until the team grew beyond 5 people and we had to take on external offices in the next town.

Working on limited hours meant that I soon became an acknowledged expert on how to run my business as efficiently as possible and it’s something that I love to share with accounts and business clients through coaching and courses. Which is how my second business was born.

Seeing my possessions go out of the door (some to new homes via a charity, and some to the dump) is hard but they are just objects compared to the family, friends, staff, and clients who ate around my dining table or shared their dreams in my offices.

What are your most precious memories? Does your business allow you to do what you want to do?

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How much do you charge?

I’m always tempted to say “let me get my tape measure out and work out the length of that piece of string” but somehow, I bit my tongue and explain that, like a builder, I can’t quote until I understand the job.

First, I need to understand the starting point:
• Type/complexity/size of business
• Limited/partnership/sol trader (we don’t handle personal tax except for directors of our business clients)
• Bookkeeping quality and software

Then I need to understand the desired end point. What services they want /need.

This helps me to understand the level of staff required, how much time they will spend, and any specific skills or tech the work needs.

Finally, I need to understand if we’re the right accountant for them:
• How tech savvy are they so that we can automate more work?
• What is their attitude towards paying tax?
• Are they looking to grow their business or make other changes where they can benefit from our business advice?

Only then can I produce the magic number from my costing spreadsheet.

In the meantime, we try to give a ballpark figure and put some sample packages on our website. We’re not cheap but, according to our testimonials, we’re worth it.

How do you set your prices? Do you quote one single price for an identical item, or does it need to be tailored to the specific customer?

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What recruitment crisis? 

On the one hand I hear people (accountants and other businesses) complaining about the lack of suitable recruits, on the other hand I see my kids’ clever school leaver friends working hard in short term jobs because they can’t find apprenticeships to launch their careers. 

I don’t know about other industries but in accountancy we have created our own crisis. We have a shortage of qualified, experienced accountants today because firms cut back on their training budgets a few years ago.  

Personally, I like taking on trainees as I can train them to do things the way I think they should be done. No ‘bad’ habits to unlearn from previous workplaces. And they’re usually pretty tech savvy to cope with our modern processes. 

In a relatively short time, you’ll have a fabulous employee, an excellent return for your investment of time and money, AND you’ll have made a positive contribution to somebody’s life (all my previous trainees are now in management positions and some on the cusp of partnership). For us their full-time availability during college holidays balances the additional time off required by our part timers who require additional time off with family at this time. 

If you’re really struggling the apprentice minimum wage is peanuts but hopefully you can afford a little more. 

So here are just a couple you might like to have working for you in the Bristol/Somerset area. 

One talented photographer looking for something that uses their analytical skills.* Currently doing pub work. 

One interested in tech/business looking for cyber security or similar. Currently stacking shelves. 

*I’m currently looking for 21 new clients to cover one trainee salary. Happy to accept referrals for coaching and/or company accounts. If you can offer a suitable job before I can then there are plenty more school leavers for me to recruit (I just happen to know these two) 

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Tax Tip

This week saw the release of the quarterly ICAEW South West business confidence monitor. Have a read to see how the region is feeling about doing business. Do you feel the same?

Although generally positive late payments and increased regulation are worrying many.

In a separate survey, almost 50% of businesses said their costs had risen because of the increase in the National Living Wage. Almost 20% put up prices to cover the increase. Around 20% have already improved efficiencies, including using automation and investing in technology. Others have closed pay gaps and increased upskilling of staff in response.

On Friday 2nd August at 8.30am ICAEW will be holding an online discussion and overview of the results for the South West Region, led by ICAEW Head of Business, Simon Gray and Ed Tellwright from the British Business Bank – to join us please register here.

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Should you be selfish in business?

I believe that you should be selfish in business, but perhaps not in the way that you think.

When you set up your business you gave up regular income and security in order to run the business of your dreams. Your dreams may be similar to mine or perhaps not, but the point is that we want something out of our business in the form of work-life balance, profit, or passion.

And we should be selfish about structuring our business to achieve our personal goals.

I see far too many business owners who are working long hours for below minimum wage or just not enjoying whatever their business has become. Some of them come to me for coaching. They are worse off than if they had stayed in their imperfect employment and they need something to help them out of the rough and onto the fairway towards their original goal. (And there, as a non-golfer, my golfing analogies end!)

Are you where you want to be in your business? If yes then give yourself a round of applause, if not then reply to this email for news on our various coaching programmes.

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Doing business on Deep Space 9 

I’m a bit of a scifi geek and I love the Quark character who owns the bar in Deep Space 9. He has some great business traits. And some bad ones! 

The good news is that Quark tracks his KPIs (on an hourly basis which is probably overkill!).  

In Season 2 Episode 10* Quark has enlisted a musician to draw more visitors to the bar BUT the musician is so good that nobody is actually drinking or buying food. He talks about his indicators which feed into his projections which in turn lead to profits.  

In one of my businesses I track speaking events because the more I speak, the more enquiries I get for coaching and courses. In another I track networking and ‘coffee’ meetings as relationship building leads to more referrals. 

What lead indicators do you track in your business that you know will lead to more profits in time? 

*in case you want an excuse to watch it  

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The problem of growing too fast

It sounds as though it’s a nice problem to have but many small businesses fail at this stage

  • Overtrading – lack of cash to cover your higher costs while you wait to collect those higher debts. Clamp down on your credit control to ensure that you have sufficient working capital
  • Lack of systems – don’t reinvent the wheel but create a system for anything that you’re likely to do more than once. I’m running a live webinar for accountants on Tuesday 16th so email us for the link
  • Unable to find the right people – you will probably need more staff but you may also need different staff for a scaleup rather than a start up. If you prefer to do the work then you could employ a manager to run your business. I like to train my own team as we work very differently to many traditional accountants but you will have more choice in recruits if you offer REAL flexibility on hours and location.

What have you found helpful as you grew your business?

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