Secrets to start-up in practice success revealed
Starting your own practice from scratch is always going to be a daunting prospect, let alone during a time of economic crisis. Beginning her business back in 2006, Mazuma co-founder Lucy Cohen knows the highs and lows of starting up in practice.
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No secrets have been revealed in this article.
No practice owner would reveal their secrets.
Hi FirstTab, it's been a while since we corresponded, but good to see your footprints on AccountingWEB again.
Having written about practice development for a couple of decades now, and based on eight years' study of the activities of all our Accounting Excellence Award entrants, I have come to the conclusion that there aren't really ANY secrets to starting up effectively.
The formulas and key factors to focus on are all right there out in the open. In our hearts, most of us reading this article probably know them:
1. Identify your ideal clients and build your strategy around them
2. Research the problems that are giving them the most trouble
3. Fix those problems and communicate regularly with key clients and prospects to stay in touch with their needs
4. Recruit carefully to get people who understand your vision and are excited to carry it out.
5. Treat your practice as a business and build out from your core values/strategy. When the formula is working, it will attract similar clients if you put a bit of effort into communicating what you have to offer.
A bit obvious really, and you can read the same advice from Mark Lee, AVN, 2020 Group and all the big accounting software houses and practice gurus.
What makes Lucy's article valuable and interesting to other accountants is that she's done it and is passing on the benefits of her experience. If she says staying focused on your core strategy can be difficult, maybe the 'Will It Make the Boat Go Faster?' book is a helpful aid to retaining that focus.
I got 5+ little ideas from a quick read of the piece; maybe not new, but useful all the same. If anyone picks up just one of them and tries to put it into action in their startup, then Lucy's article will have made an important difference to a fellow accountant. Surely we should thank her for that rather than sniping at her efforts?
Hello John
I read your response as an attempt to make me stop expressing my opinion on these articles. I see it as you using your position in Sift to stop me expressing my opinion freely without concerns about come back from a senior-level person in the Editorial team. It will not work until Sift removes me as a member.
They are secrets about running any business. No business owner would disclose. Here are some examples
1) Detail on how to get new clients. Suppliers used. What exactly done. Not general information. Detail detail detail.
2) Marketing suppliers used, what were the marketings costs and success.
I will say it as I see it John, the key objective of these articles is the promotion of Practice Excellence and the practice owner.
Each time, I click the article I hope to read something of value. It just cannot be since the name of the person and practice name is disclosed. Ths real issues facing the practice cannot be discussed to protect the brand.
I will exercise my right to snipe. You can exercise your right to remove me or snip back at me. I am fed up with I am so good articles and Sift's heavy promotion of these articles.
One of the key reason I stopped blogging on AW is seeing over the promotion of these type of articles.