Tag: businessdevelopment

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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.
Posted on

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

Posted on

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?

Posted on

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?

Posted on

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.

Posted on

The most important training session

The most important training session isn’t the toughest one, and it isn’t the last one before your A race. It’s the one that you really don’t want to do but you do anyway. It might be a cold, wet, or icy morning. Or it may be during a heat wave. But having the discipline to do that tough session instead of skipping it is what will make all the difference on the big day.

That’s why we include actions and accountability in all our courses*, group coaching sessions, and of course our individual sessions. Yes, I like to think that you’ll feel motivated by my eloquent words and inspirational ideas 😉 but on Monday morning it’s up to you to get things done.

Discipline is worth much more than motivation.

*next cohorts start 15th Sept so do get in touch if you keep meaning to book but haven’t got around to it yet. You can find out more about our courses here.
Posted on

My life isn’t as perfect as my timeline

Nobody’s is!

I’m all in favour of authenticity but I also hate oversharing. You’re my wonderful clients and business contacts, not my best friends, and there need to be boundaries in every relationship.

We all draw that line in a slightly different place. Although I will never deny that I have dirty laundry I certainly won’t be airing it in public. In spite of my very public social media profile, I’m actually an introvert and a naturally private person. I’m also a positive person who prefers not to dwell on any negatives in my life.

I love social media, especially Twitter, but there is a strange phenomenon where we all think we know each other perhaps better than we really do. The downside of this is that it is surprisingly easy to be the victim of ‘catfishing’ and all sorts of fraud.

There is also a tendency to believe that what we see is the whole story. Whilst some people overshare, others overedit causing real FOMO and other envy or depression in others who feel that they haven’t achieved as much. I love celebrating your successes, but I also assume that you’ve worked as hard as I have and there is blood, sweat and tears behind the picture of you with your latest award.

So here are a few things that you need to know about me that I don’t explicitly mention:

  • Like you, I often think about jacking in my business and taking a normal job for an easier life. Running a business is never as glamorous as it seems on the outside. I think it is this experience that makes me a good coach, even more than my Coaching/Mentoring qualification.
  • Although I’ve generally worked with wonderful teams, I’ve also had to dismiss people. I try to do this legally and as kindly as I can.
  • My kids have grown up into fabulous people that I enjoy spending time with but some days they’ve exhausted my patience. If you have a small business and you’re short on sleep, I completely understand.
  • I’m in the process of getting divorced. Fortunately, it’s all amicable but sometimes I really have to bite my tongue and remember to act like a grown up (and he’s probably doing the same)
  • Some days I find it hard to get started. Without motivation it’s just hard slog dependent on discipline.

I don’t think it helps anybody to have the details of my rough times but that doesn’t mean that everything is 100% rosy.

Do you think you have the right balance between being genuine and oversharing?

Proudly powered by WordPress