What to do when your accountant stops your business from growing

 

 

So you run a small business. And while it’s doing pretty well, you know that with a bit of help it could be doing much better.

But there’s a good chance your accountant, who should be your most trusted advisor, isn’t helping you one bit.

And that makes me angry.

I don’t like getting angry. But when I see what business owners are putting up with from their accountants, I can’t help it.

I get angry over what business owners put up with from their accountant.

I get angry over the quality of work I see accountants give their clients.

I get angry when people who call themselves their clients’ trusted adviser take advantage of that status.

I get angry when accountants—the most influential person in a business owner’s life—abuse the position.

I get angry when accountants don’t give business owners the value they truly deserve. Especially when accountants are supposed to be a business owner’s trusted adviser and the most influential person in a business owner’s life.

I get angry when accountants don’t take what they do seriously and what impact they are capable of making to their clients lives.

You can do better.

It’s time to think about the relationship you have with your current accountant and quickly ask yourself: “Could I do better?”

Now you may decide you couldn’t possibly have a better accountant. You may think they’ve done everything they can to help you grow your business. In fact, you’re so confident that you’d be willing to stand at the top of the building and shout about how your business’ growth has been guided and supported by its most trusted advisor.

If that’s the case, then don’t bother downloading our e-book. You really don’t need it.

But if you have any doubts about your accountant’s ability or desire to help you grow your business, then download 10 Ways Your Accountant Could Be Stopping Your Business From Growing, and find out what you’re missing out on.

You might just find out you can do better.

 

Café owners: 3 problems when growing your café business

 

 

Owning your own café is exciting. However, running a successful café business and reaping all the gains from it, is tough. You work for close to 80 hours a week, and that’s for pretty much the entire year. (Oh to be a kid again enjoying those school holidays.)

And owning two or three can be even tougher. Not only do you have different people running each one, but chances are they all have different approaches, dreams and aspirations.

So it’s no wonder a lot of café owners have trouble growing their café businesses and running them to the best of their abilities.

We’ve worked with a lot of café owners over the years. More often than not they’re looking for clarity—someone to confide in, and advise them about what they should be doing next. And in that time we’ve noticed three problems stopping a lot of them from taking their café business to the next level.

What stops owners from growing their café business?

1. Working in the business rather than on.

You know how it is. You spend so much time looking after the day-to-day stuff—ordering supplies, rostering staff, doing the books, etc.—that you don’t have any time to work on any strategy, develop partnerships, or develop the product.

Which is a shame, because it’s exactly the kind of thing that could take your café business to the next level.

Start talking to each other, and see what systems you could automate to free up your time. (Here’s a recent blog post we wrote about automation.)

2. Not having the best exit strategy for your business.

One of the most common ways café owners reap the rewards for all their hard work is to have an exit strategy. Unfortunately, a lot of them don’t have one that works in their best interest (if they have one at all).

And why not? Because their accountant/advisor has never talked to them about it.

Talk to your accountant or advisor as soon as possible, and find out how to set up and structure your café business to get the best outcome when you decide to sell it. And then start acting on their advice immediately.

3. Not feeling you can maximise your profits.

This is a common feeling among café owners, and you may have similar thoughts. But the good news is that creating the right business structure for your preferred exit strategy can also help you minimise your tax and maximise your profits straight away.

Minimising tax starts with having the most effective business structure in place. However, to maximise profit you’re going to need to do a full review of your budgets and operations.

Need help growing your café business?

In the coming weeks we’ll be exploring the mistakes that lead to café owners having these problems in the first place.

But in the meantime, if you have any questions or concerns about growing your café business, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us here at Equus Partners.

3 ways you can develop your knowledge to grow your business

 

 

An important part of owning a business is developing a culture of learning.

At Equus Partners, one of our values is ‘Forever Forward’. Based on Kaizen, the Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement of working practices and personal efficiency, it’s about constantly developing and improving both yourself and your business.

Our aim is to always be better today than we were yesterday. But while that’s a fantastic goal to strive for, it can be hard figuring out just how to go about it. “What should I be doing to improve myself and grow my business? And how do I go about doing it?”

Here are three ways we develop our skills and knowledge to take our business to the next level, which you can apply too:

1. Attend events

No, we’re not talking about those so-called networking events where the aim seems to be to exchange as many business cards as possible. We’re talking about the events (often free) that provide a huge amount of value.

This value can come in the form of:

• content or ideas you didn’t know about before
• success stories from other business owners
• simply being around people who share a similar view of the world and business.

Our advice is to get yourself to these events, and get your business heading in the right direction. Search on Eventbrite and Meetup.com for events you can attend in your area.

2. Get into a course

While enrolling in a college or university course might be a bit much, there are plenty of online courses you can sign up for to build on your learning. Just make sure it’s in an area that’s valuable to you and your business, and not something you’re not very good at or could outsource (e.g. accounting or bookkeeping). Invest in yourself to get better and develop your learning.

3. Join an Accountability or Mastermind Group.

There’s huge value in joining a Mastermind group. (Here’s a video of us at a recent one.) Just make sure the group focuses on collaboration rather than competition, and is one where everyone shares their ideas.As long as you’re willing to contribute (you get as much out of these groups as you put in), they’re a great way to learn and improve yourself every day.

So there you have it: three ideas you can start implementing to enhance your knowledge and grow your business. It’s all about putting yourself in the right environment. After all, environment breeds success.

But if you’re still having trouble working out where to start, ask yourself this question: “What specific thing do I need to focus on to take my business to the next level?”

By investing in the answer, and developing your skills and knowledge in that area, you and your business will both come out winners.