This is a great time of year for you to clear out all the clutter in your business and make 2014 your best year yet both in business and from a personal standpoint!
But like any New Year’s resolution, whether to quit smoking, lose weight or get fit, it’s virtually impossible to do it on your own… you need some structure and accountability, the right people around you. And in your business that’s where your accountant comes in…
Look at it this way… if your resolution was to get fit, you’d go to a gym where your personal trainer would encourage, support and challenge you in equal measures to get you to your target – It’s no different getting your ‘business fit’, the process is the same, it’s just the goals and the trainer that are different!
So what does the accountant need to do or show to best encourage, support and challenge you? Let’s compare him to the personal trainer…
Firstly, he has to commit time to learn your history , to understand your business, your sector, your limitations, and your personal as well as business goals. That way he’ll know what pace he should be setting – he must know the overall plan and set a pace that’s not too slow, nor too fast.
Secondly, he must be worldly and driven. He must treat this as a marathon and not a sprint, planning for a series of small steps with a final push at the end. He must know what for you is possible and what is not – if you want to change things for the better this means anticipating what can be achieved outside of your existing ‘bubble’. And he must be committed to turn your plans into reality, even if it means having the occasional uncomfortable, even brutal, conversation with you.
Thirdly, he must use the right tools for the job and have done and be doing right now the same things for other people. Sometimes when it’s easier to give up and go back to your old ways, you’ll only find your own inner strength to press on if you know you’re travelling along a well trodden course with others accompanied by a professional who’s been this way before.
Fourthly, he must be a shining example of what can be achieved – successful breeds success.
Fifthly, he must have great communication skills – his experience will tell him when to push you hard, his communication skills will tell him how to get the best out of you. He’ll also know when to give you some space to draw a breath, before using the right words to encourage you on to even greater heights.
Sixthly, he must believe in you (and you in him) – you’ll work better as a team if you there’s mutual confidence and trust. And as part of this, he must actually care for you and your future. Indifference makes for failure.
Ask someone who lasted the course with a personal trainer and they’ll probably say that while the journey may have been tough at times, the results made it all worthwhile. The same is so of accountants – it’s the end results that really matter. Some accountants see their relationship with clients as a mere supplier of services, as you would of a tin of beans. Some clients see the relationship in a similar way. Both end up bitterly disappointed. To get the best out of an accountant, your relationship with them has to transcend that. And that’s why here at ICBusinessSolutions we are very careful in our selection of the accountants we employ, they’re not mere number crunchers, they’re real people driven to make a big difference to the lives of our clients and their families – yes, even as accountants we can do this!
