On 2 July 2009 CIMA published the results of their latest research study under the wildly misleading title “UK mid sized businesses brave the downturn”

http://www2.cimaglobal.com/cps/rde/xchg/SID-0A82C289-F1791776/live/root.... [2]

It is wildly misleading because when you read their pres release you quickly discover that only 83% of businesses expect to survive the recession, and only 80% of accountants expect to keep their jobs. So presumably fully 17% of businesses expect to go bust, and 20% of accountants expect to lose their jobs.

To me a 17-20% fallout rate is not the good news suggested by the headline – it is catastrophically bad news both for the people owning and working in those businesses, and also for the practicing accountants that serve those businesses. In fact, for many practices, a 17% fall in fees would literally wipe out their entire profits and cashflow.

Now it must be pointed out that the CIMA survey is of “mid sized businesses “ - and they may not make up most of your clients base. But even if they don’t, the knock-on effect on your smaller clients that serve those mid sized businesses will be equally devastating since they will lose a huge chunk of their sales.

The implications are clear… as practicing accountants we must start delivering a new kind of proactivity. Specifically, accountants that really care about their clients must:

ONE - Proactively start a dialogue with clients about the recession and how to beat it

TWO - Proactively help them to understand the facts about the recession and the facts about what it means for their businesses and their families

THREE - Proactively help them to create action plans for dealing with the implications of these facts for them and their family

FOUR - Proactively help them to implement those plans – and update them in the light of what happens

Yes, I know that we do some of that already, with some of our clients. But, quite frankly, “some” is not good enough. Every single one of our clients is facing the recession. Every single one of them appointed us as their trusted adviser. And every single one of them deserves our input. Now. Today. This minute.

The five Part “Beat the recession Masterclass” series on Accountingweb shows exactly how to do all of that. Part 5 is linked to below, and that in turn will allow you to navigate to all the earlier parts too.

http://www.accountingweb.co.uk/item/199403 [3]