MORE - Case Study

This is a no-name case study, as requested by the client.  

For accountants who sign up to the MORE Marketing Programme and serious in emulating the story we can arrange a site visit.  This is a paid service by the accountant who charges £600 to visit her office for two hours.

The Starting Point
This sole trader left their job in a two partner High Street firm of accountants to set up in practice working from home.

As with any business start-up, the biggest concern was getting enough business to cover the bills and pay the mortgage. The practice was based at home because of a commitment to a young family and opened for business in early 2006.  

The first financial benchmark was to generate enough revenue to match the income as an employee. To ease the financial burden, the practice owner took on two contact arrangements with other accountants. 

The Portfolio Marketing Solution
The practice adopted a mixture of marketing tactics, but the main objective was to create a stunningly powerful proposition to clients. 

The practice owner wanted her customer service to be outstanding and wanted clients to feel looked after. As well as a service, the practice offered an experience and fast response time. 

By adopting MORE, this practitioner was able to offer clients FREE bookkeeping software as part of the deal and then personally hold the clients’ hand until they were confident to use it alone. This personal touch went above and beyond traditional service and created a lasting, human, impression on clients.  It also allowed quarterly reviews to be completed.

As a result of this attention to service, the firm was encouraged through our coaching to drop the contract work and charge premium prices as she has moved beyond selling accounts and tax.  The owner has put her energy into creating a unique proposition and delivered it with pride, passion and professionalism.

As the practice grew staff are friendly and efficient, emails and phone calls are returned within a strict timescale and the firm and the client both adhere to a pre-agreed set of business principles. Prices are also fixed in advance and agreed by the client before work is undertaken, thus removing any price anxiety. 

By getting the basics correct over and over again and striving to be transparent and approachable at all times, clients have referred in numbers and frequency and retention is very high, all of which makes her practice healthy, efficient, saleable and scalable. 

The practice does not just ‘give away’ free bookkeeping software. The service has been modelled on all clients using it. Bad bookkeeping means staff tidying mistakes and creating ‘drag’. The firm insists on new clients using MORE and makes them fully aware of the importance of accurate financial records.

Because of this synchronisation, all clients are doing their books with reconciled banks; problems are eliminated immediately at source, as opposed to at the year end. The clients feel that they have a vital and immediate ongoing relationship and work can accurately project manage each set of accounts as the books are streamlined and predictable. Regular reviews are scheduled to eliminate the possibility of slack. 

This order and regulation allows the firm to utilise her internal resources to maximum effect, making further employment far less frightening and more strategic. Work is always up to date and looking forwards, rather than desperately trying to organise the past. This is great for staff morale. Though to be fair, the owner did have a stressful January 2010...she moved house.
The end of year took care of itself, as predicted and planned.

What happened next?
The practice is still growing strong and has around 90% of clients using MORE.  

The practice is well on the way to being worth £500,000 with annual net profit expected to be £150,000.  The key to practice development from here on is the owners ability to manage people and the business.  

The last point is very important because the owner has built an infrastructure upon the foundation of regulated bookkeeping and predictable end of year accounts. The practice owners role is to be a businessperson first and an accountant second, having employed well to delegate the work following the Gerber principle of working ON the business, rather than IN it.