What must it feel like to leave a promising, high-flying career with a leading firm to start up your own practice? To hand your notice in and, six months later, kick-start your accountancy firm with just one client? Well, that's exactly what Kat Wellum-Kent has done. She set up Fractional Finance and has grown that to a business with a fairly clear vision of building a £5 million turnover in just five years. She has clients paying her, yes, just £400 a month, but also clients paying her £7500 a month. In this podcast, Kat shares her insights around fairness for her team and the vision based around how this will play out for her clients. She explains the importance of building a vision board and having good reasons for why you're doing what you're doing, so that in those moments where it gets tough, you can have a quick check-in on your vision board and say, yeah, I'm on the right path. Why not go to this podcast discussion with Kat Wellum-Kent to hear those deep insights and see how they might apply to your established firm, or your start-up firm, or the firm that you've got in your mind's eye that you're looking to set up in the not-too-distant future. Please scroll down this episode page for the contact information for Kat and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in the podcast. |
The Solution:
I started working recently with a virtual assistant (but she is more than that). She manages my inbox and my diary and it's much easier to keep to my time blocking now because she will offer meetings that fit in with time blocking. Whereas before, I would try to be as flexible as possible to help everyone and keep everyone happy which would really only mess me about, whereas she will just say “no, these are the rules” and it works so much better.
She has no problem saying “no, Kat can't do that because Kat's supposed to be doing sales and marketing that afternoon and so she can't do that thing, but these are the times she can do” and that's been a big change.
She manages my emails as well. I didn't think I needed someone in my inbox, but it’s great. She goes through and removes all the rubbish that I don’t need to see and she puts stuff in that I need to action today, to do this week or to read. So, I make sure that at the end of each day I have done all the things for that day, I am going through and doing the weekly stuff when I have time that week and reading the other stuff when I can. It means that instead of spending about two and a half hours in my emails each day I am spending about half an hour.
SHOW NOTES
Connect with Kat
Connect with Paul
Resources relating to this podcast:
During the podcast, Paul and Kat discuss KPIs and the weekly, monthly and quarterly numbers she measures. Kat's focus is on the numbers relating to leads, sending out proposals and winning clients, but she also tracks a number of other important metrics for her business.
What do you measure in your firm?
Most accountancy firm owners and managing partners measure what they think is right rather than what matters most.
We know accountants love to track and measure – but let’s make sure you track and measure the right things in your firm. Click the button below to read this Business Breakthrough report – Healthy Heartfelt KPIs – and discover how to use them as key PREDICTIVE indicators.
Paul and Kat talk about how and why running her own business has given her a sense of freedom and flexibility that she never felt she truly had when she worked within a firm. She is her own boss, manages her own time and can work when she wants and that, for her, is a big thing. She no longer has to worry about whether people think she is doing enough work or working hard enough.
How you feel at work is very important – a sense of fairness and confidence that everyone is on a level playing field and working in a similar way will make your team feel safe. When you build a sense of fairness, achievement and camaraderie within your team, you’ll tap into an ocean of enthusiasm, drive and motivation.
Kat recognises this and works hard to ensure that this sense of fairness cascades down to the rest of her team, taking care that the workload is managed well and that everyone feels the freedom and flexibility that she does.
If you want to know more about creating a sense of fairness, achievement and camaraderie within your team, please click the button below to read the Business Breakthrough report ‘Profitable Enthusiasm’, and discover how to create a more engaged workforce.
