It’s perhaps the golden rule of everything in the history of our planet. Eat or be eaten. It was true years ago, and it’s still true today.
Though thankfully not so literally anymore!
But as you no doubt learnt in school, the predator on top of the food chain is the biggest and the best. They survive, they prosper, and history remembers them.
The Same Is True For Business.
At Xerocon in London, Andy Lark from Xero talked about what we refer to as the ‘shark bell curve.’ (Or, the one slide which ruled them all.)
Image source: Xero
As in the animal world, there are those who eat, and those who get eaten when it comes to advancing business and adopting new technology.
- From the left, the smallest group are the innovators. Those are like the people who created Xero. They’re always going to thrive.
- Next, it’s the early adopters – people like us at My Accountancy Place and all our clients. We spotted the potential of Xero straight away, jumped on board, and all our clients have been doing pretty well since then.
- After that, it’s the early majority. These are the businesses who’ve realised there must be a reason why people keep talking about ‘cloud accounting’, and have decided they should probably get involved too.
They’re all in the shark category.
But if you’re any later than the early majority, you’re out of luck.
- Everyone’s doing what your doing in the late majority, so you don’t stand out, you can’t prosper. You’re in a school of fish being hunted by a shark.
- And those laggards, well, you’re the ones trailing behind. You’re going to the one at the back of the pack who gets eaten first.
Early Adopters Always Win
The title of the graph kind of gives it away.
Those creative agencies and small businesses who stay on top of the game, and lead the way in innovation are the ones who prosper.
As a creative agency, this is what you do already. You’re constantly creating, dreaming up new ideas and presenting exciting new plans to your clients, to keep ahead of your competitors.
But do you do the same with your accounts?
If You Don’t Adopt Xero, You’ll Get Eaten.
Of course, as a successful creative agency you need to be creative for your clients. But you won’t thrive if you can’t organise those leads, quote new work accurately, monitor project and staffing costs, or manage invoices and your accounts.
You might do OK, for a time. You might be in that school of fish, swimming in the middle, safe and content.
But sooner or later, a huge shark is just going to swim along, open its mouth and eat you.
That’s why you need Xero, to help you stay ahead of the field and avoid being eaten.
If not:
- You’ll Get Eaten By Competitors
When you’re unorganised with your accounts and your payroll, you waste a lot of time. You’ll be trying to find some important information, or get tied up trying to do some account analysis and some maths calculations.
Meanwhile, your competitors will be using Xero. They’ll have everything tidy, organised and out of their hands, leaving them free to be super creative, win lots of new clients and rule the roost.
- You’ll Get Eaten By Your Staff
If it’s not your competitors, you might want to watch your back, because it could be your staff. When you don’t stay on top of your accounts or your payroll, your staff are the first people to feel the pinch.
They won’t be happy when they end up with missing or inaccurate wage slips, when expenses aren’t reimbursed or when there’s no money left for them to buy resources and coffee for the office because accounts haven’t been managed properly.
It’ll be like watching a David Attenborough wildlife programme, when the kids turn on their parents and take over the pack!
- You’ll Get Eaten By HMRC
And if your staff don’t get you – watch out for HMRC. With Xero, you can keep your accounts tidy, in order, and relaying real time information to HMRC to meet their requirements.
Without it, you’re back to manual submissions. Perhaps you’re still even sending paperwork in the post. If you miss something out, or you do a calculation wrong, HMRC might be on to you. They’ll soon eat you up.
- You’ll Get Eaten By Accountants
And if none of those predators get you, it might be your accountant.
(Not us of course. We’re like the blue whales of ocean, helping everyone out where we can.)
But there are some accountants who are like killer whales. You don’t want to cross them. They’ll eat you alive by bleeding you dry of cash, because there’s so much work they need to do on your behalf.
Stay On Top Of The Food Chain
That’s the important thing to remember if you don’t want to be eaten. Business is a cut throat place, and there are lots of predators out there. Make sure you’re one of them.
Get Xero for your creative agency, and you’ll be ready to eat up the competition in no time at all!
Just ask us how.
