Giving business advice: Stick to what you know

I thought one of the problems with business link funding was that the work had to have been provided and signed off by the client before any money was released, even if payment had been made already,  which could take up to 2 years in this instance.

If you are not an AVN member please contact me on steve@avn.co.uk and I will email you a free pack of guidance notes showing how you can develop your own One Page Plan service.

 If you are a full AVN member you already have all the systems and tools you need to launch a One Page Plan service. You can also watch a video in the video section of www.avn.co.uk in which Mayes explain in detail how they promote, price and deliver the service. 

-- Steve Pipe FCA - Author of the White Paper "The Proactive Accountant" and adviser to over 200 leading UK accounting practices.

As I said in the final section, you should regard grant funding as a bonus, not as the deciding factor.

The One Page Plan process described here is categorically worth doing regardless of whethere ther is grant funding.

STEVE

-- Steve Pipe FCA - Author of the White Paper "The Proactive Accountant" and adviser to over 200 leading UK accounting practices.

What experience do others have of AVN?

I did look at AVN but decided it really was not for me because:

-Poor quality of the videos, they stick a camera on the speaker and just record. Presentation matters. I took this as a poor reflection on AVN.

-What they have to offer is not relevant to my practice.

-Terrible look of their website, this again says a lot to me. More a personal taste.

-It is very costly. They claim you will be able to recover money in a short period of time. Can I pay them when I recover the money-No!

Plus I wonder about these type of organiation if it is so good why are they not doing this? Maybe they are, I am not sure.

Nothing in life is right for everybody - after all, some accountants love Sage, others hate it – and AVN is no different.

So I fully respect the opinion of “Anonymous”, and anyone else who has already made up their mind.

But for those that haven’t made up their mind, here are the pertinent facts:

1. I am a 48 year old FCA and I started AVN in September 1998, so we are now just over 11 years old
2. We are owned and run by UK accountants for UK accountants
3. We employ over 25 people at our head office, and also have a team of over 20 practice coaches across the UK
4. We currently work closely with c 250 firms of accountants
5. We do not offer easy money or quick fixes
6. Instead, our mission is to help UK accounting firms to become the most successful and enjoyable to run in the world
7. And our message to the accounting profession is this… profits are a consequence… so when you use your skills with numbers to serve your clients more professionally and proactively than ever before… you will be rewarded with higher profits than ever before
8. To help accountants to serve their clients better we have created a comprehensive suite of software, training, tools and resources
9. And we also provide further software, training, tools and resources to help accountants run their practices more efficiently   
10. Over the last 11 years some firms have failed with our stuff, and more firms have enjoyed real success
11. Some of the failures were probably our fault – and many of them were because the firms in question chose other priorities, met internal resistance and inertia, or simply failed to implement
12. While the best successes were achieved when four factors came together: (a) the practice really wanted to get better, (b) they got their team on board, (c) they selected the right AVN tools for the job, and (d) they persevered

 There are lots of examples on accounting web of practices that have made a success with the AVN stuff, including:

•  The £149,400 earned by Mayes in the last 7 months as described in the article above
•  Accountingweb’s own practice coach, Finola McManus, who says AVN was “pivotal to us moving up a level and at some speed” for her Accountancy Age award winning practice http://www.accountingweb.co.uk/blogs/finola/practice-perfect-finola/my-journey-part-two
• Ian Rodgers who earned an extra £6,000 in the first month from of using our Tax Credit systems http://www.accountingweb.co.uk/topic/tax/proactive-accountants-guide-tax-credits
• Nino Pucacao who earned an extra £28,250 from the first 4 clients he talked to using our incorporation systems http://www.accountingweb.co.uk/topic/practice/tips-trade-how-we-earned-extra-28250-fees

 Of course, I can provide dozens of further detailed examples to anyone who wants them (contact me on steve@avn.co.uk and I will send them to you)

As always, I am also very happy to provide useful guidance, templates and resources completely free of charge to anyone who wants them. (Again, simply email me on steve@avn.co.uk)

And you can clearly see that, as an FCA and AVN’s founder, I care deeply about the future of this great profession of ours by reading any of my many articles and blogs on accountingweb (for which I am honoured to say accountingweb have nominated me for three categories in the “Best of 2009” awards, including “Best contributor”)

So, while other people’s opinions are certainly useful for reference, can I suggest that you take a look and decide for yourself.

Steve Pipe FCA

steve@avn.co.uk

Does AVN help start up practices? If so, how does it help?

Thanks

Does AVN offer any services for startup practices? It would be helpful to know more about this.

This is an interesting thread, and one which I may add some comment to.

We joined AVN about 12 months ago having seen their presentations a number of times over the years and having the same kind of skeptical thoughts around the costs/websites/etc. I am so glad that we got over that and took the 'plunge'.

In the last 12 months we have adopted a great deal of the ethos and tools supplied by their 1st rate team and in what has been a recession period our firm has really prospered. I read a scary article in Accountancy Age a fortnight ago about the number of accounting firms going bankrupt, and the time to be complacent about how we run our firms or what we offer our clients is certainly not now!

No organisation is perfect, but AVN have a great approach and a passionate team there to help. Some of their tools have allowed us to fundamentally change the way we deliver our services and as a small example I guess it would be worth saying that we leveraged our average fee for incorporation services from £4k to £8k, and one in particular is likely to be charged at circa £20k+. This is only one positive element that has impacted our approach, there are so many other areas - far too many to list here.

I am a great believer in the ethos that you 'get back what you put it', and there is no doubt that this is true with AVN. They definitely have something to offer every firm (including start ups), whether the firm can engage and adopt is an internal matter. The previous comment about looking for free membership and pay later type insight seems a bit bizarre to me. I think they approach it on the basis of a monthly commitment which can be stopped at any point (no long term commitment). From memory the 'kickstart' process takes about 4 months and by which point you will know if AVN is right for you or not. If you can't see yourself committing to trying something for such a short period then I think you may not be in the target audience they are looking for, but if unsure I would very much encourage you to give it a try.

In the last 12 months we have engaged on average 4 new clients per month, every month without fail. These clients fit our 'ideal client' profile and will add significantly to our top and bottom line results. I have no doubt that the AVN membership behind us allows us to maintain this level of new business gains, and long may it continue.

So far so good from our point of view with AVN. 1 year down the line I am looking forward to seeing the next stages.....

All the best

Ian 

Let me start by dealing with the funding issue to help resolve the issue. The invoice is raised and paid at commencement of the training and Business Link pay the grant usually within a month to the claimant. You do not wait until completion. There are safeguards in place to protect the public funds by checking on delivery and value. The funding of seven leaders from a business applies in North West England but not necessarily in all other RDA areas. In the North West Kevin Brown and Aileen Lockhart have worked really hard to support businesses, not just with funding, and have really changed our view of Business Link. Kevin.Brown@businesslinknw.co.uk is the man for accountancy practices.

When it comes to accountants you may find my experiences mirror some of yours. Having sat down at my 5th birthday party with my parents, they told me that I would make a good accountant. I was rather pleased. I didn't know what an accountant did exactly, but then nobody really does. I didn't have any friends at my party so until now I never really shared their revelation.

So I went on to do all the right subjects at school and university, qualified first time as a chartered accountant,  and obtained a practicing certificate. I bought a computer and was open for business. Then panic! Throughout all my training and qualification I hadn't learned very much about running a business. No wonder so many of us stick to counting beans.

Having realised that if our industry teaches you so little about running a business then it was quite likely that other industies would be similar. Worse than that, most other industries rely on ours to help them with their businesses.

My marketing training was "Tell 'em you're proactive." I didn't really know what this meant but I didn't really need to know as nobody else did.

A few years later on I have managed to become part of a practice that listens to clients and their problems. I was lucky enough to have experienced setting up a business and knew what it felt like, butterflies and worry, but not everbody at our firm Wilds had. I looked at some options and went on an AVN taster session to find out more. My conclusion was that this was something that would help most people in our firm to give the service that we wanted to give to clients. Tools and skills that you can use in meetings to understand the business and the people in it.

When we produce a set of accounts for clients, they have normally waited a few weeks before sending us their information, we wait a few weeks before anything happens and then just in case these out of date Financial Statements have any value in them, we write them in a language that they can't understand. We don't even call sales "sales" and that's just the start We get upset because we will have to use Payables and Receivables; it doesn't appear to matter how many people don't understand debtors and creditors.

So let's start having a value for our clients. Let's listen to them properly. If you want help to do this then AVN is as good as anything I've come across. We were determined to help our team and sometimes it helps to have a little support.

This is what it feels like

Mick Seddon

Wilds

I wonder whether these clients would have spent the money that it is being claimed this practice has earned in the last seven months, had it have been 100% of their own money that they were spending?

It suggests that the firm have struggled to sell the one page plan service without a government fund being available to pay for it.

Surely this is not the successful selling of added value services since the article itself admits that the prospective clients were not sufficiently convinced of the value of the service until the practice went back and told them that they didn't have to pay 66% of the fee. This must suggest that these clients value the service at a third of what the practice is trying to charge for it, does it not?

Surely a service of value, as I'm sure the one page plan is, should be sold very successfully on an ongoing basis with professional selling skills rather than grant funding?

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Hello Chatman

It was right for us.  We have had some real success with their tools over the last 5 years.

If you want to get a flavour for what they can help you do and whether you agree with the philosophy, read “Firm of the Future” by Ron Baker.  That is what I did.  They then provided me with the tools to implement Ron’s ideas. 

We joined at the end of 2001 and have been through nearly all the training programs.  It has helped us a great deal and I know I would not be where I am today if it was not for being a member of AVN.

It was also concerned about the “investment” when we joined (I believe it was more than it is now) but it has more than paid for itself over the years.  However, it is no quick fix (although there are some easy wins) and it takes time, effort and an open mind for it to be a success. 

If you want to talk about membership in more detail please feel free to get in touch.

 I am not sure what Anonymous had a look at but I can definitely say from the perspective of a small single director practice AVN is invaluable and not expensive and there is an abundance of success stories in the AVN network! I'm a new convert having attended the 8th July 2010, Proactivity seminar in London. 

I left totally rejuvenated and since then the AVN team, Jane et al have been excellent. The tools and support are invaluable as we look forward to a prosperous 2011. I guess, AVN is not for everyone but I am somewhat surprised that a practice could not find at least one thing to take away from their experience with Steve and the team.

David (London SE)

The point about startups and AVN has been raised twice but not answered. Is AVN for start ups?

A lot of the tools I saw at an AVN presentation were for how to make more money for existing clients, not for how to gain new ones.

Thanks Chatman. I thought this would be the case

Steve Pipe why are you not answering this? It has been raised twice. Can you please respond as a formal AVN response.