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Kelly Clifford book cover
Kelly Clifford

Book review: The Profitable Professional

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17th Jan 2017
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In 2012 Kelly Clifford, a ‘qualified accountant with over fifteen years’ experience’ published Profit Rocket which attempted to lead would be owner-managers through the financial fundamentals: The difference between revenue and profit, variable costs v fixed costs and new lead conversion rates.

The Profitable Professional picks up where Profit Rocket finishes. It is aimed at service providers including “more forward thinking business accountants” (presumably less forward thinking accountants are left to their own devices). This wide group is envisaged as already established in their businesses – those about to start out are included, but it’s really more to the former that Clifford speaks. There are plenty of exercises designed to encourage thinking about the ideas developed in the chapters. Early on he stresses the importance of time management: Both in evaluating the relative value of new leads and their conversion to clients, and in the avoidance of what he calls the “cost of rework”: Wasting valuable time correcting avoidable errors. And he emphasises the double meaning of “cost” here: Not just time and money, but the more unquantifiable potential cost to your client relationships.

Central to the book are, first, a series of case studies, and second Clifford’s ‘Profit Accelerator Formula’, a concept he first introduced in Profit Rocket. The case studies are centred on three imagined businesses, and we meet them at the end of chapter one, as they start “doing things differently” and then follow their progress through the book as they adopt the author’s blueprint for a successful business. From chapter five their achievements are measured using the ‘Profit Accelerator Formula’, the mathematical relationship between number of leads, conversion rate, number of transactions, average sales value and profit margin.

So is The Profitable Professional a worthwhile business cost? You would think so from the glowing testimonials at the start, covering seven pages. But there’s an issue. The type of business owner envisaged in Profit Rocket would likely struggle with the various permutations of the Profit Accelerator Formula. And for an established business it’s really too basic: in chapter 10 he’s still explaining the concept of net profit. So the book falls into a gap between its possible audiences. Anyone who has been running their own business for a while is unlikely to be encouraged by Clifford’s ability to state the obvious: On page 16 we read that currencies are expressed in £GBP, but “if you are based in the US then read everything in $USD”.

There’s also something of a stylistic problem: Clifford frequently repeats himself, even when he says he won’t. So in the introduction he refers to “business coaches, consultants, advisors and business accountants” several times over a couple of pages. In chapter one we read that from then on the group will be referred to as “business support professionals”. But a few pages later, they reappear in the long form. This is the sort of error that would lead to ‘cost of rework’, and it happens frequently: Margins are defined in chapter five, and again in chapter 10 (and the same example is used). And emphasis itself can be problematic, with Clifford favouring the BIG word: ‘I want to DO WHAT I LOVE’ (perhaps it works better in $USD). Will The Profitable Professional help you to become one? I’m not really convinced it will.

Why not make up your own mind? Download a free preview now.

Replies (3)

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By cheekychappy
17th Jan 2017 09:41

It doesn't take a genius to read between the lines; it's crap.

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Man of Kent
By Kent accountant
17th Jan 2017 11:30

@cheeky - please, please, please review a book next time its offered up.

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Replying to Kent accountant:
By cheekychappy
18th Jan 2017 08:07

The powers that be wouldn't allow it.

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