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Tayabali Tomlin builds on Practice Excellence success

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4th Apr 2017
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Along with referendums, TV baking shows and arguments over digital taxation, a staple of the past few years has been the success of Cheltenham-based firm Tayabali Tomlin at the Practice Excellence Awards. In 2016 for the second year in a row the firm scooped two prizes, with CEO Aynsley Damery at the helm.

Now a judge at this year’s newly launched awards, Damery spoke to AccountingWEB about the past 12 months and how the firm continues to update itself to stay ahead of the competition.

Small business offering

Traditionally geared up to work with businesses at around the £1m-10m mark, Tayabali Tomlin has recently launched its new small business offering, a noticeable trend growing among Practice Excellence entrants over the past year.

“We’ve had a huge number of businesses that have come to us but haven’t been right for our pricing and service offering so we’ve had to turn them away,” said Damery. “We’re hoping our new solution will be a way for them to come within the Tayabali Tomlin community, and our service offering can expand as they grow”.

The solution is entirely cloud-based, with cloud accounting software and cloud-based advice using communications tools Zoom and Slack as the primary methods of contact with clients. Everything, including the proposal system, is online to try and make it more cost effective.

“In our premium range of services everything’s bundled in, whereas with the small business offering we’ve completely stripped it all out so they can come to us at a low-cost initial entry level. Then they can bolt on exactly what they need when they need it. They’re not paying for things they don’t value, and can trust that our service delivery matches what their budget is.

Events

Tayabali Tomlin runs a number of client-facing and external events, including workshops on business models, KPIs, cloud solutions and exit strategies.

The firm also holds events for other training organisations including the Entrepreneurs Circle, and organises regular breakfast meetings at Gloucester Rugby Club for clients.

“By being members of different organisations we get to really understand what business owners are looking for and what they need help with to get where they’re going”, said Damery..

After experimenting with a ‘boot camp’-style programme for clients, which Damery admits wasn’t successful because of the length of the course, Tayabali Tomlin has now switched to what it calls the ‘TT big event’ – a one-day conference held at Cheltenham racecourse.

“We put that on last year,” said Damery, “and it is like a mini Xerocon. We had a number of keynote speakers and breakout sessions in the afternoon. We’re set up for 8 June this year with an exciting keynote”.

Client feedback

While client feedback is a major competitive edge for any firm worth its salt, part of the reason Tayabali Tomlin has succeeded in this area is that the firm has moved on from the traditional client survey.

“We find with surveys people just respond the way they think you want them to”, explained Damery. “We’re in the digital era: it’s about everyone in the organisation listening and observing what people are doing rather than necessary what they’re saying”.

Along with being involved in a number of focus and networking groups across a whole range of industries and industry bodies, the firm also uses client workshops and one-to-ones for intelligence gathering, building ways to understand what businesses are looking for into the workshops.

We find with surveys people just respond the way they think you want them to”

The firm also runs customer advisory boards. Chaired by an independent adjudicator, a group of clients is gathered together in a room to discuss what’s working with the Tayabali Tomlin service offering and what’s not, and how they would run the practice if they were in charge.

“The advisory boards give a huge amount of valuable feedback,” said Damery, “but you do need to be careful. We have been led astray in the past by a dominant person in the room coming up with a solution that everyone rows in behind and it turns out isn’t really important to most business owners”.

Tayabali Tomlin does still run feedback surveys using the widely adopted NPS score, but according to Damery this is not much feedback as making sure that their service offering is delivery what it promised.

 

The 2017 Practice Excellence Awards are now open for entries. Visit the Practice Excellence website to find out more.

Replies (2)

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FT
By FirstTab
07th Apr 2017 10:51

The "new small business offering"? Not enough details are provided for me to learn from the winner.

Is this it:

http://taxgo.org.uk/

£20 per month and that's it? It includes telephone advice? If so, would you consider subcontract work from me ? For a start £20 is more or less my Xero cost per client.

How do you do it? What is the return on this? Is the work done in the UK or India?

Details please.

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By KIKISROSSIDES
07th Apr 2017 12:01

I would not bother with any client wishing to pay only £20 per month! Talk about damaging the profession!!

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