Practice Tip: Get a real job

It's an essential, in my view, to "get some muck on your wellies". Unless you get involved directly it's impossible to comprehend, and, thus,deal with the myriad of problems that arise. Office bound is not an answer to claiming "specialisation in the SME sector".

I never read any of opinionated Richard's 'desperately playing devils advocate for hits columns' any longer. But if it aint broke...unlike Richards Practice Tip pieces, dont fix it!

To me it is perfectly obvious that being a professional in public practice is not the same as being an entrepreneur in the free market. There are different constraints for starters.

Hey Richard, at last you and me on the same wave length.
My own view about why entrepreneurial flair is lacking differs from yours (not too much).
I have had another business apart from my practice and it hasn't made any difference to my train of thought.
Business has changed dramatically since the sixties. Prior to the crash (early nineties) there was the stable business which started off family owned and grew yearly but didn't get too big to be impersonal. There was also the boom and bust companies where the entrepreneurs tried their hand at different projects. Jobs were also pretty secure. Now jobs are not secure and business is not as stable. Banks are not forthcoming with cash for the entrepreneur. Compliance is making people cover their backsides so decisions take ages or even no one can decide who should make a decision. Where compliance and ridgidity have replaced flexibility and common sense, stagnation will replace flair.

As a serial entrepreneur (10 companies to date) I totally agree with this article. In fact I can go further. I have recruited graduates in the past who really wanted to be lawyers or accountants but treated their time with my company (normally one to two years) as a form of post university gap year(s) and then went on to their chosen profession.

They had all been to university and learned the theory of the trade they wished to follow, all were astonished at how different the real world was, the compromises that had to be made - the inability of small companies to do things by the book (there simply isn't the time). All really enjoyed their time and in dealing with them later in their careers it was clear that they had something (an insight perhaps) that their colleagues simply didn't.

I believe that just like teachers should go and get real jobs for at least two years before teaching, so should accountants and lawyers. They would be much more valuable to their clients as a result.

When I left the large practice I'd trained with and worked for for 10 years two things gave me credibility with clients - firstly, the experience of starting up my own accounting business, and secondly the fact that I was FD of an entrepreneurial business (not accounting!) for a couple of days a week.

I very soon found out that my commercial nous outstripped that of the partners in my old firm which, at that time, proclaimed a specialism in SMEs!

I think I agree with the comment. That's why I like receiverships as a good source of knowledge. You not only get the oppertunity to run a business but you get to pump new ideas into one that appeared dead.