Celebrate your wins (yours and others)
Celebrating your business wins has two advantages. It helps your prospects see the great things you are achieving and it also helps you realise that those tough days you struggled to get through have been worth the stress.
But don’t just celebrate your own wins, celebrate others too, they’ll have had those tough days too and being acknowledged by others will make them feel super proud of their achievements.
Don’t compare your page 28 to someone else’s 208
I’ve had so many conversations with clients that feel they are a failure because they don’t have X turnover or don’t employ X number of staff. They focus on where their competitors are, or other business owners they know, instead of concentrating on their own progress.
By all means have goals and targets but make them tangible to your own business not to be like someone else.
Not everyone will have the same work ethic as you, reward those that do.
Employing people is the hardest part of running a business (there I said it!). Try not to take it too personally when an employee doesn’t work out. I’ve trusted plenty of people with my business to find they were just using it as stepping stone to learn and get experience before doing something else. For me it’s the hardest blow to take. But you have to remember it isn’t their business, it’s yours.
Therefore, when you find a “keeper” reward them. I have done this by making TI Accountancy an Employee owned business and once someone has shown promise and loyalty we reward them by giving them shares in the business. You don’t have to do anything as drastic as giving away shares, there are plenty of other ways to reward staff.
Treat everyone with the same courtesy you would like yourself.
I pride myself in treating everyone equal. I don’t care about wealth, religion, skin colour, sexuality, body size. You will get the same polite, attentive attitude from me as the next person. I feel this has helped me in business and has led to many recommendations from people I hadn’t expected.
You just never know who people know. People may forget what you did but they never forget how you made them feel. Remember that.
Your personality matters!
People buy people. I once asked 10 clients to describe me in 5 words and, although they all said different things, they all included Enthusiastic in there answer. I recognise now that enthusiasm is infectious … and I give it to my clients.
In business you have to put yourself out there regardless of how you would act in your personal life. You have to stay authentic to your true self but you need to make yourself seen.
Don’t be in a rush to grow too quick.
This is a mistake I can certainly hold my hand up to. Between 2011 and 2014 TI Accountancy grew at such a pace that we were nearly a victim of our own success. (You can read full story here if you like).
If you have any cracks in your procedures then as the business grows the cracks grow in proportion. Getting your business numbers and your procedures correct before pushing for growth is paramount to the future of the business. There are business owners out there today that will say they had bad customer service from TI Accountancy in that time period and that fact will haunt me forever.
Always! Always save for tax!
So many business owners I meet trade everything through one bank account and have no idea how much of the balance is available to spend (read this article on having multiple bank accounts).
Many know I always had multiple banks accounts before I’d even heard of profit first, and advise every business owner they should, at the very least, have a tax account that they put a certain percentage of their turnover in every month, this way you will never have sleepless nights over the taxman ever again.
Be willing to adapt.
Since covid this statement has been more relevant than ever. But it’s something that we have lived by at TI Accountancy for 2 decades. The accountancy world, like most other sectors, has changed considerably over the last 20 years but not being afraid of new technology and ways of thinking has made sure we’ve stayed one step ahead.
For example, we have been using Xero digital accounts software for nearly 10 years now and yet I see bookkeepers and accountants on forums only now bringing their businesses into the digital world after being forced to by the current Making Tax Digital legislation.
Your competitors aren’t always doing things correctly.
When I first started out in business I thought I could look at the way the other Accountancy firms in my local area were marketing themselves but the truth was they weren’t. Accountants would go to the same all networking events and talk to the same old people and expect clients to just come to them. And for some time I think they did but times were changing even back in 2002.
It made me realise that these established businesses were doing things wrong and that if I wanted new clients I had to do things a bit different. Many accountants today only work with local clients, TI Accountancy has managed to break from this norm and has clients all over the country by doing things differently. What could you do in your industry to break the mould?
Put yourself up for awards (especially customer service ones)
You all know that if a customer is unhappy that they’ll tell 10 times more people than someone who is happy, so it’s up to you to shout about your strengths to anyone who’ll listen!
Putting yourself up for awards, especially industry or customer service awards is a great way to show company recognition. Even if you don’t win, if you get shortlisted, make sure your network knows about it. Honestly, half of them won’t remember if you won or not.
Learn to say no!
As you gain more experience in business more ideas will pop in your head and more people will ask for your time. Saying yes to everything that sounds like a good idea will only jeopardise your existing business.
You have to learn to say no … alot! If you have goals and targets then ask yourself, will this help me get towards my goal, if the answer is no then you really have to put the idea to bed forever or shelve it till it will be relevant to your goals.
Have an exit strategy. (You don’t have to stick to it)
You would never set off in a car without knowing where your destination is. But so many people do this in their business.
You don’t have to have your exit strategy all executed and you can take detours or change your destination over time but you do need a plan.
Some people choose that their business will die with them, this is fine but they still need to help the transition of clients. Other have plans to sell the business after a certain amount of years and build the business in a way so it’s attractive to investors . I have created what I call a legacy plan, I have created the business so it can continue to serve our clients long after I’m gone.
Never be the cleverest person in the room.
I’ve learnt so much over the past 20 years from other business owners. Whether that be from a mentor, in a mastermind group or by listening at a networking event.
As business owners we all share the same issues whether we employ 1 person or 200. Asking the right question in the right environment can be invaluable to your business. Don’t ever think you’re the first person to have that problem.
Never leave another small business waiting for payment.
Always pay your suppliers on time, or early if you can. Cash flow can be an issue for many small business and you just don’t know who’s having sleepless nights not being able to pay themselves.
Employ your weaknesses so you can concentrate on your strengths.
As entrepreneurs we are often great at starting things but not always good at maintaining them as we are always looking for the next new idea.
Employing people in your business that are better at consistency is vital for ensuring you don’t waste time and money or lose client trust.
I’m great at seeing ways in which we can help clients but the team in office are the superstars that put it into practice.
Treat every client as if they are your most important client.
Admittedly, everyone has their favourite clients, but if you can make every client feel that they are your favourite client then that’s a skill!
Our mission statement at TI Accountancy is “Treating your business as if it was your own”. This allows the team to make decisions based on whether they would do it if the business was theirs. This means every decision made is in the best interst of the client.
Pass your knowledge on to those that are just starting out.
Remember how much you didn’t know when setting up your business to what you know now??
Well passing that knowledge and information you’ve learnt onto those that are starting out is paramount to keeping the small business economy going in years to come.
I do mentoring for a women in business group … it’s only a small amount of time per month but I know what I can give is invaluable to the ladies just about to start their business.
Never stop learning.
Whatever you do, never think you know everything! There will always be more to learn about your industry, business, employment, self learning.
There will be times in your business that this is more pertinent but without constant learning your business will go stagnant and you will lose your passion.
Be a leader, don’t micro manage.
As business owners we usually set up a business doing something we love, so when we take on employees it’s really hard to let go. Usually they then turn to you for agreement to make sure you’re happy with their decisions.
Micro managing your business will slow down growth and lead to over stress for you and boredom for your “keeper” employees.
A way to stop this is to spend time away from the office. If you have ‘procedured’ your business and have a mission statement your employees know they can make decisions, then in this way they will start making choices and solving problems without you being there.
Process EVERYTHING
The only way to ensure that your business is run the way you want it, that every client is treated the same every time, that every email has the correct tone is to ensure your entire business is ‘procedured’.
With these in place I was able to move to another country knowing my business was being run as I would like it to be.
By the way I didn’t write every procedure, I got the person who was doing the job at that time to write the procedure for me, I just put it all together.
