When I set up My Accountancy Place it was for one driving reason – to give serious business owners an accountancy service that was seriously lacking at the time.
But as we’ve grown, we found it harder and harder to find the right people to join our expanding team (if you’re an amazing accountant who does want to join us, please do drop us a line).
This apparent lack of accounting talent got me thinking, though. And it took me back to the core reasons for starting My Accountancy Place in the first place.
So, let’s take a journey back in time to meet a younger Paul Barnes and see how he ended up starting his own accountancy firm….
*cue harps and flashback style music*
My background in lifestyle businesses
All the practices I had worked at in the past were geared up for ‘lifestyle business’ clients, companies where the business owner had:
- Set up a part-time business to supplement their full-time employment.
- Set up out of necessity (because they’d been made redundant etc.).
Those accountancy firms attracted the micro businesses that just wanted their tax affairs dealt with – in short, they just wanted you to do enough to keep them legal. Nothing more; nothing less.
The allure of a truly aspirational business owner
Every now and again we’d get a more serious business owner; one who’d begun to successfully grow their business and relished the opportunities and challenges that lay ahead on this journey.
After years of doing compliance work, I was truly fascinated by these business owners. They had genuine passion for their business, a real drive to succeed and had the hard-nosed resilience needed to respond to setbacks.
And the relationship we had with these clients was very different to how we worked with the lifestyle business owners:
- These business owners had ambition.
- They were growing and expanding their company with real zeal.
- They had far more opportunities and challenges than the businesses that were stale and weren’t aspiring to change.
These aspirational clients gave us far more scope for adding value. As accountants, we could use our experience to help these business owners to plan effectively and steer them through key decisions in good time. And they loved us for that.
These business owners had far more appreciation for us as accountants than the lifestyle business owners:
- They knew that we could play a key role in the success of their business.
- They knew we had skills that they didn’t have – skills that would compliment the skills they did have (the perfect marriage of business owner and adviser).
- They knew we could support their growth with monthly management accounts, KPI reports, tax-planning meetings, cloud accounting and a whole lot more to boot.
The challenge of ‘problem clients’
Unfortunately, there were also less desirable lifestyle-business owners too: those that valued our working relationship less and used up far more of our time.
They tended to be more high maintenance, less willing to pay for good advice and less likely to take action. In other words, they were the ‘problem client’ that most practices dread.
Ultimately they held us back. They prevented us from being able to serve the good clients in the way we were capable of; mainly because, after serving hundreds of small, high-maintenance clients, there just wasn’t enough time left in the week.
My solution: why I started My Accountancy Place
So, that was the thorny problem. How do you lose the less desirable, time-consuming clients and focus on the good guys (and gals)?
If we could somehow stop working with bad clients, we’d have more time to focus on the growing businesses; the ones who’d get the most value from our services.
And that’s why I started My Accountancy Place. I saw an opportunity to create the environment I’d always dreamed about. It was an opportunity to start from a completely blank canvas and build the client base, the team and the systems that ‘the ideal practice’ would have.
And we’ve done it. Two years on, we have a fantastic client base:
- We’ve just reached 100 clients all using one platform (Xero)
- They mainly pay monthly direct debit, which is easy for them and good for us
- Most importantly, our clients value the great work that we do for them
An incredible team of people
We’ve built an amazing team of truly talented people – from customer service, through admin and business development to the client managers who deliver the service.
Each team member has been carefully selected by matching their personality to our culture; making sure they set the same high standards for customer value that we do as a business (and it’s VITAL to do this, believe me).
What I haven’t envisaged when I set up the business was just how difficult it would be to find those people. No, really!
It seems that ‘good accountants’ really are thin on the ground.
We’ve seen lots and lots of candidates over the past two years and only a very small number have met the standards we’ve set for a My Accountancy Place team member. And it isn’t getting any easier.
For us to meet the growing demand for our services, we’ve got to carry on hiring the best people. And I’ve been shocked at just how tough that has been.
Are you the accountant we’re looking for?
If you’re thinking, ‘I like the sound of these guys – I’d love to work with clients that really do value what I do!’, PLEASE do get in touch.
Or if you know a qualified accountant who might fit the bill, then email them right now with a link to this blog! (tell them how lovely we are and make sure they drop us a message).
- The right person will need to match our passionate belief in delivering proactive, high-value accountancy and tax services for ambitious business owners
- They’ll need to have real ambition and a desire to learn and expand their knowledge of the creative industry
- They’ll need to have an absolutely top-notch approach to customer service.
Like the sound of the way we do things? Come join the My Accountancy Place family. We’re a great place to work, and we have the best clients you’re ever likely to work with. Pinky promise!
