Tag: businessgrowth

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What’s your UX like? 

User experience (UX) can make or break your business.  

I woke up at silly o’clock this morning dreaming about the poor UX in a particular bit of our accounting software. Every time I use it I get annoyed. There’s a similar irritant in our practice management software. Things that were poorly designed. 

We try our best to ensure that dealing with Minerva Accountants is smooth and seamless. We work with tech-savvy clients so we use a lot of automated chasing BUT we also ensure that any client who replies to the emails is met with a human response. 

We prefer to communicate by email for traceability and so that the whole team can see what is happening with clients BUT, if something is not straightforward, we leap onto a telephone or Zoom call. 

AI and technology can make things run smoothly behind the scenes but it takes a human to think through a human friendly UX. Take some time this week to review the customer journey in your business and make it as smooth and friendly as possible. 

1.How do the first contact you? 

2.What is your onboarding process? 

3.What is the process for delivering your goods or services? 

4.What happens when something goes wrong? 

5.How easy is it for customers to speak to a human being of they need to? 

What one thing can you do to improve each of these touchpoints? 

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Would you give up your business and go back to employment? 

Every business owner has probably considered this at some point, and you may even think about it on a regular basis. 

Comfortable, regular income, regular hours (even if you do end up working more than your contract), the ultimate responsibility lies with somebody else, and you can hand in your notice and walk away if things become too much. 

But compare that to the freedom of running your own business. I set up my own small accountancy business after I was unable to find flexible work that would allow me to prioritise my young children. I was only going to do a few sets of accounts from the kitchen table but my corporate background running businesses meant that it grew far beyond that. I started, built, and eventually sold, Hudson Business Accountants and Advisers while working an average of just 25 hours per week. (If you want to know how then read my first book, The Numbers Business: how to build a successful cloud accountancy practice) 

Now that my kids have grown and flown, I work a full week, but I run three businesses. Okay, two businesses and a side hustle. Whilst I still enjoy flexible hours, all my businesses are remote as I like to work as I travel. And our whole team have the same freedom. 

As the business owner I also get to choose the work that I do and the clients that I work with. We only have the nicest clients which make work more enjoyable AND we are more motivated to do more for them. And I love it when we can help others, whether business owner clients of Minerva Accountants or accountant clients of Hudson Business Advice, to have that same business that they dream of. 

If I could find an employer who shared my values and provided enjoyable work and the same flexibility, I would jump at the stability of employment but, until then, I love what I have built. And I want to help others to fall back in love with their business too. 

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Compliance alone won’t grow your business

Good compliance is essential. It keeps you legal. But it is always looking backwards and does little to help a business to grow. Many accountants only do once a year accounts and many business owners are happy with this.

Real growth comes through planning, looking forward, and taking actions.

To help with this we run FOUR strategic planning days Jan – Mar (2 for accountants and 2 for other business owners) and another in the Autumn.

But we don’t just run them for other people. My year end is July, a legacy from when my life and business revolved around my young children and the school year. I work through the same SPD myself every Summer to work out my priorities and plans each year.

We look at:

  • Personal goals
  • Business goals
  • Your offer
  • Your competitors
  • Your ideal client
  • Your positioning and USP
  • SWOT analysis
  • Goals
  • Blockers
  • Actions

Yes, I know that covers more than strategy but, for small businesses, it’s enough to have a clear plan and we have clients who come back to repeat the exercise with us.

When did you last look at your own business in this way?

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How SMEs can scale without cashflow chaos 

Scaling is both an opportunity and a risk for businesses. It isn’t for everybody and you may prefer to stay small and focus on improving yout profitability instead, in which case many of the same advice can apply. 

Rapid growth can often mean increased costs ahead of receiving the additional cash and this can cause a cashflow bottleneck. We believe in sustainable scaling so here are a few tips: 

  1. Have a cashflow first approach to scaling 
  1. Forecast your cash requirements and the same time as you forecast your growth 
  1. Review your payment terms for both sales and purchases 
  1. Tighten up your credit control processes. Chase early, and chase hard. If a customer isn’t paying then you will lose whatever costs you have incurred. 
  1. Review your terms of business to ensure that you are invoicing promptly or even getting paid in advance 
  1. Arrange the right type of debt. Lower interest secured debt may be cheaper than short term credit card borrowing 
  1. Consider taking on more equity funding but be aware that this will dilute your ownership and control of the business 
  1. Track your cash balances and forecast daily if necessary  
  1. Keep an eye on your run rate ie the number of days of overheads your current cash balance will cover (Even my son did this when first setting up as a freelancer!) 
  1. Tighten inventory management, work in progress, and costs that aren’t generating a decent return on investment. 

Minerva Accountants can help with all of this by reviewing your current processes, preparing forecasts, arranging finance, and recommending useful software. Even accountants need to pay attention to their cashflow when scaling. 

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“Your success in life depends on your ability to speak, your ability to write, and the quality of your ideas, in that order” Sir Patrick Winston 

Professor Winston is a computer scientist and director of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory 1972-1997. Somebody renowned for the quality of his ideas, and yet he promotes communication over this. 

And I have to say that I agree. We need good communication, whether on a stage or in a book, to demonstrate what we know. It isn’t much good if we can’t share our ideas in a way that others can understand and act on. 

I’ve worked in companies, and with accountants who appeared to believe that ‘knowledge is power’ and kept everything to themselves. But that only gives power to one person. Let’s find ways to share our good ideas with those who need it. Not regurgitating unsolicited advice for our own ego but because we are genuinely able to help. 

If you’d like to learn to speak then I recommend Toastmasters or I know several good speaking coaches such as Scott Johnston. 

If you’re already comfortable and speaking regularly and want to do this professionally then I recommend joining the Professional Speaking Association

Writing is harder but AI can help to improve your writing.  

  1. Draft it 
  1. Pop it into AI along with the tone of voice, intended audience, and purpose eg please (I always say please because, who knows, it might make a difference when machine rules the world 😉) rewrite this draft in the tone of voice of Della Hudson FCA for an audience of accountants/business owners wanting to grow their business. 
  1. Re-edit it back into something a little more human and in line with something that you might actually say. 

Have fun experimenting with the right AI prompts for you.

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Les bons comptes font les bons amis 

It’s a French saying that means that keeping good accounts makes for good friendships.  

Usually this means that debts should be settled promptly. I’ve written before about how important this is in the business world whether you’re the one paying promptly or ensuring that your clients pay you on time. 

But it could also be used to talk about the quality of your accounts and the importance of keeping them up to date. And this is why I’m (broadly) in favour of MTD (Making Tax Digital) which finally goes live in April with the requirement for maintaining digital records and making quarterly submissions to HMRC.  

The benefits I see are: 

  • Up to date information for decision making, debt collection, and just knowing roughly how much tax is due, and how much the business owner can take for themselves. Anybody who has dealt with the extortionate rate of ‘penalty’ tax on overdrawn directors’ loan accounts will understand the importance of this. 
  • Faster year end accounts when seeking finance or renewing mortgages. 
  • Processing bills faster with the use of technology just by taking a photograph or forwarding an email. No more mourning over lost receipts, without which VAT can’t be claimed. 
  • Tools to store receipts electronically and saving the need to print out paper invoices which frees up space and is much better environmentally 
  • Faster cash collection with recurring invoices, prompt invoicing from a phone, connecting to direct debit software, or card reader apps on your phone. 

And I believe, with such a tech savvy nation, this is the time for it. Most people have a smart phone on which to take photos of their children or their receipts to upload into bookkeeping software (the receipts, not the kids although we don’t mind seeing pics of the latter too) to be processed by the business owner or bookkeeper with the help of AI suggestions.  

Up to date record keeping will allow accountants to provide much more proactive support to clients and, as somebody who likes to see my clients thriving, I’m looking forward to it. No more websites with the empty promise that ‘we’re PROACTIVE accountants’; it’s about to become reality. 

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Create without restraint 

I saw this on a social media post yesterday and it got me really excited. (Okay, accountants clearly have a different tolerance for excitement compared to the rest of the world 😉) I love coming up with ideas to improve my own businesses and also clients’ businesses.  

We even have quarterly meetings to discuss my ideas. Strictly they’re our 90-day planning meetings where the team get together, in person, if possible, to plan the next quarter. 

Fortunately, I have a very pragmatic business manager (Kate) who restrains me and keeps me on track! Apparently, we don’t have time to do EVERYTHING I want to improve the businesses in the next 90-days, so we discuss everything and then prioritise.  

Kate then creates an action plan and sends these out to each of us. And then she NAGS me to get these done. This accountability means that my ideas become reality instead of drifting away like dandelion seeds on a summer day. 

We even package this as for our clients: 

  • Business coaching from me (I’m a qualified coach as well as an accountant) to help unblock your business  
  • 90-day planning sessions with Kate who also runs a VA business to get things done 
  • Clarity financial reviews to grow your business by numbers (and I’ll even throw in a copy of my Growing by Numbers book) 

So, feel free to indulge me and my creativity by booking a group or individual coaching session this month. 

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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