Paul Shrimpling: 0:05

Welcome to the Humanize the Numbers podcast series. Leaders, managers, and owners of ambitious accounting firms sharing insights, successes, and issues that will challenge you and connect you and your firm to the ways and means of transforming your firm's results.

Noel Guilford: 0:25

Some people say, Will that mean that it did it's going to disappear? I think I think the opposite. I think the the better quality data we have means that uh accountants are going to be needed to analyze and interpret that data and help uh businesses to understand how to use it to improve their business performance. So I think the reality is that uh if if uh if an accountant is is focusing on compliance and hoping that compliance is going to be uh around for many years to come, I think they may well be disappointed.

Doug Aitken: 1:04

How do you build your perfect firm? Well, in this podcast with Noel Gilford, Noel talks about how he harnessed all his years' experience into starting his own firm in the early 2000s and building it exactly the way that he wanted to, having learned from mistakes of previous years and having seen what works in other firms. Let's go to that podcast now.

Noel Guilford: 1:31

Hi, I'm Neil Guildford, the uh founder and CEO of Guildford Accounting and a chartered accountant uh for uh well over 40 years now. And uh my career spans working initially for a firm uh that no longer exists called Arthur Anderson. Uh I then became a partner with Spicer and Peggler, uh for whom I opened an office in Chester, which is where I still live. Then for a few years after that, when Spicer and Pegler were taken over by Deloitte, I became a Deloitte partner. And then in the early 2000s, I set up my own practice, Guildford Accounting, which uh I've been running since then. We specialize in uh working with owner-managed businesses, uh, usually those that are entrepreneurial, ambitious, and looking to grow, and we provide a range of services, obviously compliance services, but the principal focus, our principal focus is on uh helping those businesses grow. So on a range of advisory services. Uh although Doug, I sometimes wonder we hear the term advisory services uh banded around, and uh uh I think it probably means different things to to different to different firms, but uh maybe that's something we can get into.

Doug Aitken: 3:02

Yeah, absolutely. Well, first of all, welcome to the podcast, Noel, lovely to have you on. Um number of things to unpack from what you've said already, but we're going to start with a question that we uh often start with, and it's talking about our core purpose, which is to humanize the numbers. I just wondered what uh what that means to you. What do you pick up from that? What do you get from that?

Noel Guilford: 3:27

My focus, as I said, is helping businesses grow. So I think humanizing the numbers means helping my clients uh understand what's possible and showing them how to uh achieve what they're looking to achieve. Often I think we find ourselves perhaps um underestimating our abilities, our clients maybe underestimating their abilities, and uh I think sometimes the role of an accountant, uh what I try and do is make sure I understand my clients' personal objectives as well as their business objectives, and then make them or help them see what's achievable and how they can uh make uh make that happen. And so it's really relating the personal side to the business side.

Doug Aitken: 4:27

Yeah, fab. Um just on that, Noel, how how has your views changed over the years, if at all, um in terms of this desire to help clients achieve their goals? Has that always been how you've wired no matter where you've worked, or has that view evolved over the years?

Noel Guilford: 4:46

Uh no, it certainly evolved. I mean, one of the reasons I set up my own practice is that uh when I was working for larger practices, the emphasis was very much on uh either auditing or compliance. And uh I always felt that uh as an accountant uh I could do more, I could be more helpful. Um most of the financial information that we or accountants produce for their clients is driven by statute, by uh HMRC, uh and it's for compliance uh purposes but isn't really very helpful uh to business owners to uh uh help them improve the performance of their business. But of course there are a myriad of uh numbers behind the data that they can uh access to help them grow their businesses, improve the business performance. And it always seemed to me that uh as an accountant I had a uh unique opportunity to help businesses access that information and then obviously help them interpret it. And so I've gradually moved more and more and further and further away from what I guess we'd call compliance uh towards uh advisory work, and by that I mean uh helping clients uh not just with the financial side of their businesses, but often uh helping them uh with uh what they might be able to do from a marketing perspective, helping them with how they manage their teams and helping them with their operations. So uh it's it's really uh and it's the the reason I I set up my own practice was so that I could uh help clients in a in a uh I suppose more holistic way, help them with with their businesses overall, and not just with the financial side of their businesses.

Doug Aitken: 6:49

Yeah, yeah. You said um accountants are in a unique position, um, and I guess we are from the perspective of the numbers that are generated. We're seeing the the guts of the business, if we want to call it that. Does that resonate with you?

Noel Guilford: 7:05

Yeah, absolutely. And it's not just and it's not just the numbers, Doug. I think uh uh the amount of data that uh businesses uh generate, whether it be uh on the marketing side when uh measuring the number of leads coming into the business, then measuring the number of those leads that turn into prospects and prospects that turn into clients, uh, those are very useful metrics to uh understand what's driving the business forward. And then if you break down, say, the lead generation by type, so whether it's uh uh through referral, whether it's th through people coming to your website, whether it's through paid ads, you can identify where the uh where your principal principal source of leads and focus your your attention and your your spend on those, and obviously reduce attention and spend in in other areas. So it's it's it's a wide range of data, not just the data that might come out of your cloud accounting system, but uh the whole uh gamut of the data that uh that a business collects. And then it's a question of channeling and funneling that information to extract that the bits that are particularly relevant, interpreting them, and then deciding how to use them.

Doug Aitken: 8:27

Yeah. So how well does the average client know that data null in in your view? And and I guess how much how much do you produce to help them understand? I'm trying to get to the nub of you know, in in my experience working with accountants, they'll often challenge back and say clients don't want those sort of numbers, they just want their compliance done. And I sometimes challenge back saying, is that an excuse because you don't want to do it? Um because you're getting paid anyway for the compliance stuff, or is it genuinely that clients just don't understand and don't want that data?

Noel Guilford: 9:08

Well, I I think uh it's probably worth uh segmenting clients into uh the different categories. Um I have a uh a view, and we tend to work with a relatively small number of clients. Uh we've always prioritized uh quality over quantity, and we have quite a rigorous client selection process. We we only work with clients who are entrepreneurial, who are ambitious, and who want to grow. So in that sense, we may not have a practice that's that's uh sort of typical, but by working with those types of businesses, uh, I think first of all, I mean those are the I always think that it's you know the small business sector is a sector that really drives the economy and helping small businesses to grow, particularly if they're entrepreneurial ambitious, then that can only be good for the economy generally. But what it does mean is that those are the business owners who are interested in how they can improve their business performance, whether it's improving profitability, whether it's improving cash flow, whether it's improving lead generation, uh, whether it's improving the uh productivity of their team. And so uh my experience, I've got to say, fortunately, is that I don't have any difficulty with my clients if we have a conversation around any of those subjects. Uh they're usually very keen to learn more, uh very keen to embrace uh ideas, and uh particularly if that involves using some of the new technology that's available to do that as well. And of course, we've got to remember that uh I don't know how long is it? Ten years ago, maybe a little bit longer, we didn't have the cloud accounting tools that we've got today, and those have really revolutionized compliance work. I mean, the amount of time today that uh typical accountant will spend on compliance work, uh uh, particularly if if they do bookkeeping, is uh is a fraction of what it uh what it used to be. Um and I mean increasingly I think it's gonna reduce even further with Gentec AI. We see that coming into more and more applications that are accessible by small businesses. And so uh the role of the accountant, I think, is going to uh some some people say, well, that means that it did it's gonna disappear. I think I think the opposite. I think the the better quality data we have means that uh accountants are going to be needed to analyse and interpret that data and help uh businesses to understand how to use it to improve their business performance. So I think the reality is that uh if if uh if an accountant is is uh focusing on compliance and hoping that compliance is going to be uh around for many years to come, I think they may well be disappointed.

Doug Aitken: 12:24

Yeah, totally agree. Um just on the ambition or the segmentation of clients, um, Noel, I'm keen to understand how do you actually go about that? How do you test for how ambitious or entrepreneurial a potential client is?

Noel Guilford: 12:42

Uh well as I said, we have quite a rigorous discovery call process uh that obviously once a lead uh has come in and we've converted that lead into a prospect who's interested in in talking to us, the discovery call uh usually done over uh online, done over Zoom, uh sometimes face-to-face, but but our clients are based all around the UK. Uh so uh increasingly, both for discovery calls and indeed for client meetings, we we use the technology. So we start by uh asking clients to tell us about their personal objectives, to tell us a little bit about them, maybe a bit about their their family, uh what they're looking to achieve. We focus very much on the fact that um uh uh entrepreneurs, small business owners uh are running their business really to create the lifestyle that they want for for them and their family. And so uh understanding what's driving them personally is really key. So it might be they want to move house, it might be they've got children they want to send to school to a private school, it might be they want a new car, it might be the it might be they want a foreign holiday, and they might want to take the kids to Disney, whatever it might be. So we try and get under underneath there and understand them as people and what's driving them. Then we move on to the business and we address what I call their their pain points. So, what are the aspects of the business that are either uh preventing them or holding them up or stopping them from achieving their objectives? And often those pain points uh you know people people will will initially perhaps you know, tell you know, we'd like to be more profitable, but because you know that's that's not really the the pain. The pain is something that's that that's that's underlying that. And so it's usually a question of of uh uh of probing that. Um we do a lot of listening on discovery calls, that's what they're for. Um, and we try and get the clients to to open up and tell us about what they're uh what they're looking to achieve. And how and importantly, how their business, how they see their business uh uh fulfilling whatever their personal lifestyle uh objectives are. Through that conversation, you can very quickly find out whether uh a prospect is just looking for a compliance service if they just want somebody to produce accounts and tax returns at the end of the year, or whether they if they really want help to grow their business. And so we end up, I don't know, probably uh of the uh prospects we see, we probably take on one in five. We don't, we don't, uh we probably turn away more than we we actually take on. But uh that's so that we can make sure that those who we do take on uh are both the right clients for us and that we're the right firm for them. Because we do hold we do hold our clients accountable once they've uh we see it very much as a or I see it very much as a two-way street, that uh if if they're if we're going to spend time uh thinking about them, working out how we can help them, then we want there to we want them to fulfil their side of the uh of the bargain as well, which is to make sure that uh, for example, that they do use cloud accounting. All our clients have to be on zero. Uh that's the platform that we we we chose, we choose for them to use. Um sometimes it means moving them from platform to zero, but but they're normally quite happy with that. It means that they've got to either do their own bookkeeping or use one of my bookkeepers so that their bookkeeping is always up to date. Uh, that uh when we request information from them, it's available. Uh every client has uh a detailed monthly report with their KPIs that we've agreed with them are important metrics for them to know. Uh they then have uh we then have a a monthly meeting where we go through that report and discuss any other aspect of the business that's that that's relevant, um, you know, and usually discuss how their kids are getting on at school, where they've been on holiday, and uh what they're you know, what they're planning next. So it's it's it's not just uh a formal uh let's review your numbers, it's uh it's a bit more like uh having a uh a structured chat with um uh with somebody who's become a friend. And over a period of time that's that's how we we see most of our clients. They're they are people who we meet every month and who we chat to.

Doug Aitken: 17:26

Yeah, I'm interested, Noel, in the in this discovery call process because it sounds very thorough. And you're probably asking questions that many clients will never have been asked by an accountant before. So I'm wondering how many you actually convert in the process, if that makes sense. You know, people coming to you with an expectation of I just want compliance brackets because that's what I've always had, and suddenly you but through this new approach, I I'm guessing that you might convert some over to your way of thinking. Is that does that happen?

Noel Guilford: 18:01

Yeah, well that it does, yeah. Well, the again, the two-stage process that before we set up the discovery call, we uh we've asked them to to book a call with us, and uh booking that call, which they do through calendarly, we ask them a number of questions. Right. And if they were to say, for example, I mean, one of the things that we're looking to test there is we don't want to spend time talking to somebody who just wants a compliance service. And so uh uh sometimes, not often, but sometimes uh they'll book a call and they'll fill out that uh sort of application form. We don't call it an application form, but that's really what it is. They're applying to work with us, then uh sometimes sometimes we'll we'll reject them at that stage and say, look, I don't we don't think we're the best going to be the best firm for you if that's what you're looking for. So by the time they get on the call, they know that they're gonna be talking about more than just uh um compliance uh services. Uh as I said, we we we convert um about one in one in five. Um the majority of those that we don't convert are ones that that we decide not to not to take on. Um uh I mean I guess we're fortunate, I would say, that if if at the end of the discovery call we think there's a good match and we think we're fit for the client, then generally speaking they convert. Uh I can't think of a time recently when I've had a call, a client I want here that didn't convert. Um but again, once you've had that conversation, which might, you know, it's probably gonna last at least an hour. Sometimes we don't get to everything in that hour, and so we have a second call. By the time you get to the end of that, and we've had a fairly full and detailed discussion, they know quite a lot about me and how how we're gonna work together. They know what's going to happen. Um, and that's often uh an important part of that conversation. It's not it's not giving them advice or because obviously we haven't got to that stage yet. What it is is telling them how we're gonna work together because more often than not they haven't had that experience with an accountant before.

Doug Aitken: 20:10

I was going to ask you that actually, Noel. I think it's a it's a really interesting point because when in our work with accountants, we'll often get kickback like that. So we'll say, well, choose a platform and work with it. Oh no, I've got clients that prefer QuickBooks and they wouldn't go near zero, or I've got clients in free agent, they wouldn't go near zero. Um so I'm interested in that management of expectations, if you like, with the client. And um, how long does that take? And what what kind of resistance or barriers do you get from that? Or is it a case that because you've had that detailed discovery call, you're managing the expectations like that, and therefore you're weeding out those who won't change?

Noel Guilford: 20:55

Yes. Um again, uh I've never had a client who at the end of the call hasn't agreed to change to to zero. Um uh no normally if they're on a different platform, and uh in the past I've had clients come from Sage. We don't see many coming from Sage these days. The ones who uh we still see some coming from from QuickBooks, not so many from Free Agent, but but again, it does happen. But um they're they're usually uh quite willing to change. And part of the reason for that is again during the discovery call, as you've as you've said, we we prepare them for that. Uh we we say quite early on that that uh our platform of choice is is zero, um, and we're not saying that that zero is superior to to the other platforms, but what we are saying is that uh we had to choose one, or we've decided to choose one, and we've chosen zero because that's the one that that I feel personally most most comfortable with. And I explained to prospects that uh by using one platform we we can become really quite expert in it, and we can uh help them, because a lot of the information that that we're going to extract uh to use to do analysis and interpretation is gonna come from that platform. So it's much better if we've got a detailed understanding of one platform uh and can, you know, for example, quite a number of our clients are on zero, we use tracking for their uh products or services to uh monitor their gross margins by either by customer or or by product, depending on what's what's relevant, uh, and we explain to them how we can extract that uh data and create uh reports for them that shows their their gross margin and by customer or product and trends over time. Uh now I know you can do similar things with other platforms, but uh to be able to do that and to be able to produce that sort of detailed level of data that that that we want to give them, uh we explain it's far better that we that we have a platform that that we're that we're very familiar with. It also helps that uh my bookkeepers uh are all uh zero certified. And so uh uh you know they're getting they're getting that uh that expertise from from their bookkeepers as from as as well as from their accountant.

Doug Aitken: 23:25

Yeah, yeah. Um I'm interested in the accountability part as well, Noel. You've talked about we meet monthly with clients, we go through information, and you hold them accountable for actions that they've agreed to the previous uh month or months. Um tell us about those conversations, how do they how do they go?

Noel Guilford: 23:48

Well, normally see we've been through their uh their monthly uh results, and that might be uh, you know, some clients that's a relatively short conversation. Um, if they've got one principal service uh and it's a relatively straightforward business, uh it might be uh it might be quite uh a short discussion uh about the business. We then would typically move on to talking about looking for the remainder of the year. If we've done budget and cash flow forecasts for them, which which typically we we do and uh we uh uh we have for the majority, don't have it quite for all clients, but for the majority of clients. So we've actually got a budget and they've got a cash flow forecast that they're working too. We know that they're looking to uh generate a certain level of profit and that they're looking to uh draw a certain level of uh of income from from the business. So we're looking at at measuring that. We're looking to ask them what plans they've got, say, for growing the business, whether they've got plans to take on any additional team members, uh, and things like that. So it might be, for example, I mean, one uh I had one client recently uh and uh her very successful business. Uh we've actually spent the last probably 12-18 months looking at ways of improving her gross margins. Um and uh they have uh we have been quite successful in that. Um, and so the next stage of that uh uh project, if you like, was then to uh get back onto generating additional leads and prospects and and and customers uh for the business. So we had quite a detailed conversation about, in this particular case, the business owner who had been rather inward-looking for good reason, because we're looking at the operational side and improving margins, and wanted her to become more visible. And so we talked about opportunities that were to for her, who is the face of the business, to become more visible to prospects uh through uh uh things like uh uh YouTube, uh the website, social media. And so the that conversation was very much around marketing her business, but obviously linked back to an understanding of who her ideal client is, what she's looking for in that ideal client, what sort of uh uh what sort of uh uh uh opportunities were going to be to add value-added services to those clients. So it can be quite a varied uh discussion, but it's it's it's it's always focused on what are you trying to achieve? Uh are we achieving it now? If we are good, if we're not, what can we do about it? And in particular, how can we improve performance going forward? Uh and that's as I said before, it's why sometimes uh it I think you need businesses need somebody from the outside looking at their business and offering suggestions. Have you thought of this? Have you thought of that? Because we're all very close to our own businesses. Um sometimes it's it's uh you know we can't see the wood for the trees. And so having somebody who's who's who's looking uh at your at your business overall and and thinking about the business and how it might be able to grow, what possible opportunities are, and obviously using the experience of what maybe other clients are doing, even though they're not in the same industry, I can talk about obviously on an anonymous basis. Well, you know, a client of mine is doing so-and-so and so-and-so, and that's and having some success with that. Is that something that that that you think would be relevant to you? So it's uh uh yeah, as as much as anything, I think I see the my role as being uh yeah, challenging, challenging them, um uh questioning, questioning them, um, obviously in a you know the nicest possible way to to stretch themselves. Um I've always taken the view that uh uh the the business isn't going to develop beyond how the business owner develops. And so the business owner stretching themselves, developing their skills is just as important as developing the business, because that's the way the business, that's the way the you know businesses grow. So, you know, quite often our discussions do uh revolve around what the business owner can do to uh uh improve their uh knowledge. I had a client a few years ago who signed up for a course at uh Cranfield Business School to uh improve her uh knowledge of of of finance and and uh uh so she could understand her numbers better. And so uh, you know, those are the sort of clients that we like to work with because they challenge us back. Uh they come to us then with uh uh with with with with questions, which is which is great.

Doug Aitken: 29:10

Yeah. How many of your team do this sort of work, Noel? Or is it just you on the on the front end with clients?

Noel Guilford: 29:18

It's just me. Um I don't have uh all my team members are so I've got my my bookkeepers, then I've got payroll specialists, uh, but and uh help obviously with compliance also, although that's becoming more um uh uh automated. No, the advisory side is just me.

Doug Aitken: 29:37

Yeah. Have you ever tried to expand that or um any interest in doing it?

Noel Guilford: 29:42

U uh no, I haven't tried uh to expand it. Um it would be very it would be a very interesting uh exercise, I think. Um I'm a bit too long in the tooth to do it now, but uh I think uh I think probably yeah, I think probably if I'd If I'd set out to do that 20 odd years ago, then I think training somebody up to be able to offer that type of service would be uh would be quite a good thing. Um I must admit, when I set up my own practice after several years at Deloitte's, where I'd obviously been responsible for managing uh teams of people, um, I'd had enough of uh the uh um HR side of the business. I was I was quite happy I was quite happy just to set up on my own. Yeah. With with bookkeepers, of course, uh, because uh we don't I don't do bookkeeping. And and again, bookkeeping is a special specialism. I see I see accountants sometimes trying to do bookkeeping, and I I wonder why on earth they are, because uh uh I've got uh brilliant bookkeepers and they're specialists in what they do. And uh you know again, particularly increasingly with uh uh with the fact that a lot of the technology is in the cloud, so you know an e-commerce business might be using Shopify and uh uh linking that to zero and having an app that's controlling inventory. Uh and uh you know those are those are the aspects of uh of bookkeeping that uh uh that require specialists.

Doug Aitken: 31:17

Yep, yep, absolutely. Please forgive this brief interruption. You secure the future profitability and future growth of your firm when your clients become more loyal, they buy more from you, they are happy to pay more and also recommend you more. These four important outcomes depend entirely on the behavior and mindset of one group of people, your client managers. When your client managers improve their skills and mindset, your firm results naturally improve too. If you think that you could do more to build your client manager's capabilities, please click the Remarkable Client Manager link in the show notes. When you do, you'll be able to complete the client manager diagnostic. It won't cost you anything, and you'll discover the six elements that can help your managers unlock greater success in your firm. To what extent do you develop and monitor KPIs with clients? How often how often does that show up in your monthly conversations with clients?

Noel Guilford: 32:24

Oh, every time. Every time. Every client, uh, once we've taken that client on, then I mean to start with, they'll get their monthly report, which tends to be uh a fairly generic report out of zero, um, which we provide a a commentary on uh for them. Uh but very soon we we start to focus on what I call their well their business metrics, first of all, because and then out of those metrics, which are the ones that that are key, so become key performance indicators. I always say that uh um uh uh all all KPIs are business metrics, but not all business metrics are KPIs. So it's a question of, and if you're not careful, you you can have too many. So it's really what what what matters to the business. I mean, in the majority, I've got to say, in the majority of cases, um, I would expect that that that gross margin, and as I said before, if that if we can get that gross margin analysis by customer or by or by product, that's that's that's usually on the list, um, as is cash uh in in some form or other. Um again, I often say to to clients that um probably the most useful number in their accounts is on the is on their cash summary. Um uh a lot of clients don't even know what that is because they've not had it before, because obviously most sets of accounts that accountants prepare don't include a cash summary or cash flow forecast or cash uh statement, cash flow statement. Um uh whereas I think that's often the most useful. And so we tend to spend quite a bit of time. I would say to them, you know, if you monitor your net your net operating cash flow figure um and the trend in net operating cash flow, that probably is going to tell you better than anything else whether you've got a healthy business. Um and so uh we tend to focus and we get we we tend to focus and get them to focus on what you know will put forward suggestions. Clients up have always got uh ideas of their own. There's always things in particular things that that uh uh you know that they're interested in. I mean, I've got one client who's uh uh a small construction company, and uh a KPI for them is the uh the time the time delay between uh uh taking an order, starting work and completion. Because obviously in construction, you've got a lot of uh, or potentially you've got a lot uh of money tied up in in materials, uh, and you you want to get those um on the ground and the uh the construction completed and and and cash in your bank as quickly as possible. So it obviously varies varies by uh uh by industry. Uh for e-commerce, for example, um a key metric that we measure is returns. Uh and uh so it's it's yeah, horses for courses, and it's what matters and what is important uh to that particular business. And important and importantly, of course, um they've got to be uh metrics that that uh that are controllable and obviously measurable, but then controllable and that uh that they can do something about to improve them.

Doug Aitken: 35:43

Yeah, that's the key thing we talk about as well, is KPIs that drive action. You've got to drive an action, otherwise, what's the point? Um we we touched on something very early on, Noel, and I want to delve into that. You raised uh the the advisory word, which a lot of accountants listening to this podcast will think, well, you know, what is advisory? What's your definition of it?

Noel Guilford: 36:08

Well, I think, yeah, I think it's sometimes uh you hear a council talk about oh, we do advisory work, and what they mean is that they maybe do some remuneration planning, uh, or they produce uh uh budgets and cash flow forecasts and and and uh uh and that's the extent of of what they consider to be advisory. Now yes, to an extent those those things are advisory because they're not pure compliance, but I think I mean uh I would consider those to be a given that they would they would fall into every every client's uh uh uh service package. What I'm talking about really is moving beyond that to uh how can I help the business owner improve the performance of the business? How can I make a difference to their business? I always say that if we don't add more value than we cost, then we shouldn't be acting for that client. And so it's about making understanding their business well enough that we can make a difference. And that as I say, that might be um it might be with the numbers, it's usually driven by the numbers, uh, but it then often extends into a whole host of other areas I said before, marketing sales, operations, HR, because all of those areas are what uh uh drive a successful business. So, you know, getting the right getting the right team on board, um, sometimes facing up to the fact that maybe somebody on the team isn't the right person and they need to be replaced by somebody who is the right person. So quite often we're we're we're you know we get into some quite uh difficult issues with with with clients. And uh that's where I say uh said we talked before about accountability, and you know, from that point of view, uh from my point of view, nothing's off the table. Um we we don't want to be constrained by a client saying that that's not a subject that they want to discuss, because if it's if it's something that's going to improve the business performance, then we want to discuss it. Um and so that's my so it's a fairly wide ranging, but it's it's advisory at the level of how do you improve the business? If it's just measuring or producing reports, or as you said before, uh there isn't any action, then that's not advisory. Uh advisory is actually coming up with actions and then making sure that those actions are executed.

Doug Aitken: 38:50

Just um give us a couple of stories, if you can, Noel, about people, clients who you have helped. Obviously, keep the names out of it, but just give us a flavor for the sort of successes that you've had over the years.

Noel Guilford: 39:06

Yeah, well, uh um I mean one good example is uh a client who actually this is going back to during the pandemic, who uh she'd probably been in business four or five years, business was doing well, um uh and she was drawing a reasonable sum uh each month. Uh and she rang me and said, uh, Noel, I've got to send my kids to private school. The local schools pretty much closed down because of COVID, they're not giving kids any work to do. Um local private school would take them, but I need to uh how much uh I need to find whatever the figure was each month to enter private school. Um, what do you think I should do? So we set about I have a tool that I call the profit planner, and I said, well, we need to plan how much profit you need. And it starts with working out how many uh customers the business needs, and then working back from customers to how many prospects that means, and how many leads to prospects, and then we we measure the lead to prospect and prospect to client uh conversion rates, and so we worked out how many clients she needed uh and worked back from that to how many leads she needed coming into the business each month, and that was the key because uh leads is actionable, you can't uh you know, she couldn't suddenly just say, well, so we worked out and we we then decided that the platform that she'd use was LinkedIn, and so uh she'd go on LinkedIn every morning and she'd connect with uh four or five people who were the right the in the sector that she was looking for clients. Uh, and then we we tracked those through to the number that became prospects, the number became clients. Uh it took about six months. Um, she actually more than doubled the size of the business in that time, but that's because she needed that to pay the kids' school fees. And so that was a I think quite a good example of uh uh A, using the numbers, but also in a practical way. If we'd have just talked about, well, marketing, you know, you need to do more on uh on on LinkedIn, that that wouldn't have been sufficient. We needed to narrow it down to how many how many contacts do you need to make each day so that then that delivered the lead flow that that that we needed each uh each week. So that would I mean that's one that's one ex I mean that's there's there's probably any number of examples like that, but um I mean that was quite an interesting one because uh I usually tell that story because it was driven by again a personal objective. It wasn't a business objective, it was driven by she she wanted to be able to send her children to private school. Um, and so it was how that runs through the business. And I suppose I suppose also um, you know, the fact that she picked up the phone means you know, how do I do it? Was probably also because we had a very good relationship by then, you know, was probably also uh uh symptomatic of the fact that um I'm pleased to say, you know, most of my clients will probably, if they've got an issue like that, will probably come to me first. Um and if I can can help, which I usually can, then I will.

Doug Aitken: 42:19

Yeah, brilliant, excellent. Now, um you've written a book, I understand. Uh well, I don't just understand, I've read it, and you've written it as a fellow author. Um I know the extent of undertaking that is so to write it the way that you have as well, um, I thought was just superb. You want to tell us about what was the inspiration behind it?

Noel Guilford: 42:42

Yes, the book's called Practice, um, and it's uh how Mira, who's a fictional accountant, um set up her own accountancy practice after she qualified. Uh two things were driving it, really. One is that uh in addition to my accountancy practice, we haven't talked about it, but I also act as a mentor to uh uh accountants who've got their own practice, typically sole practitioners, typically ones early stage where they're just where they're just setting out. And I realized, having worked with several of accountants in that position, that uh and having, as I say, been doing it myself for over 40 years and having set up two separate practices myself, that that actually I knew quite a bit about setting up an accounting practice. So I thought, well, it would be fun to write a book about that. But I didn't want to write just a dry sort of how to set up an accounting practice, and so I created this uh character, Mira, who's uh say young uh uh qualified accountant in her late twenties who wanted to set up a niche practice working with female entrepreneurs, and uh she goes to a uh networking event, uh meets uh uh somebody who's a mentor, funny enough. And uh uh he uh uh so the the book is if you read it you'll know the book is her story, meeting with him, him showing her how to set up all the all the things she needs, how to get how to do her marketing, how to do a compliance, how to set up all her uh uh uh requirements for anti-money laundering, data protection, all those sorts of things. And uh yeah, I published that in March. That's available on Amazon if anybody wants to search for practice, or probably better to search for my name, uh, because if you say practice, you'll get a lot of books coming up on Amazon. Um, and uh yeah, and I and uh uh it uh I got the bug for writing. So um and I'm just uh funny enough, just today I've been doing the final edit of my next book, which is called Numbers. Numbers don't lie. This is more of a that's a book for business owners, uh helping them understand and where to find and how to analyse and interpret all the all the numbers that uh uh they need to build their business metrics and KPI dashboard, as we were talking about before. So hopefully that's going to be coming out in the next couple of months as well.

Doug Aitken: 45:20

Brilliant. How how did you find the writing process? I mean, for just the reason I'm I'm asking is that mine felt as though it was in my head for a long time, and the minute I started, it was just like vomit. It was just I had to get it out as quickly as possible. And once that was done, I felt fine. Um it was done for you.

Noel Guilford: 45:41

I think you've got to enjoy, I think you've got to enjoy the process. I mean, I know a lot of people talk about you know it being a struggle and you know forcing themselves to write a thousand words. I don't think I could do that. I think you've got to enjoy the process, uh, which I do, uh, but you've got to write about something that that that matters as well. And uh so once you've got that in your mind, I find that then the key to it is to create a fairly detailed outline. Uh so I know before I start writing the actual uh content what the chapters are going to be and what the what the main content of each of those chapters uh is gonna be. Uh I will then write. Um I've got uh a custom GPT that I've taught uh to understand my style, um, and then uh my writing uh the the draft goes into that and it gets an initial polish, if you like. I think it's important you don't use AI to generate the content, because obviously that's just going to produce what's already out there, but it's very good at uh at polishing, it's very good at at editing, and that really speeds up the uh the writing process, because uh uh again, if you've written a book, you know perfectly well that editing can be quite a uh a laborious process. It's the it's a bit of writing a book that isn't so much fun. Uh and then uh I have a discipline, I mean like today, for example, um, because we were doing this this afternoon, I decided that I would have uh a day writing. So uh I was here in front of the laptop at sort of uh eight o'clock this morning, um, and I've done four hours writing this morning. Um and you know that's enough for one day, but it means that uh that sort of period of time, writing something that you you you matters to you and you enjoy doesn't seem like a chore to me, I'm I'm pleased to say. So uh and the other thing is interesting, I always find that once I've got once I've got a finished manuscript, which I still know it knows it's probably going to go through another stage of editing and and polishing, I always then leave that for probably six to eight weeks, because when you when you've just when you've finished, you probably found this, when you finish writing, you're too close to it to and and you you need to be able to but come back six to eight weeks later, um uh resist the urge to publish it or get it to a publisher or publish it yourself as soon as you finish the manuscript and come back to it and uh uh look at it a few a few weeks later with a more objective eye, and you'll find quite a lot that you that you want to improve. But uh but yeah, uh I'm I'm fortunate. I enjoyed writing and uh it's good fun.

Doug Aitken: 48:35

Yeah, good for you. Well done. Um just while we as we close, Noel, I'm interested. You touched on a couple of things earlier about the future of accountancy, but I'm just wondering generally, where do you sing things going in the next five years or so?

Noel Guilford: 48:50

Well, I think there's two things. One is agentic AI, which we're seeing already. Uh a lot of us have been uh um I was gonna use the word playing with, it probably probably isn't too bad a phrase, um, with AI, things like uh Chat GPT, for two or three years now since it launched, and we've used it for bit of marketing, writing copy, um, maybe doing a bit of uh uh analysis. Uh but it's uh up until now it's been very much ask it a question, it'll give you an an answer. With a Gentec AI, of course, we're starting to see the AI actually being able to take the initiative and uh uh for example, uh one uh tool I was looking at recently was one for monitoring uh gross margins. So it links to uh uh zero through um through make.com uh and it will identify whether in this particular case the uh client's gross margin, again, in this case again, it's by customer, uh, are increasing uh and it'll send alerts. So it actually then links as well to uh Gmail and will send an alert through to alert the uh client when a particular client's gross margin falls out of the range that they've set as being the acceptable range. Uh I think that's just the we're just scratching the surface. Uh within a few years' time, um agentecai is going to be uh doing an awful lot of the the the heavy lifting, enabling business owners to respond and react rather than having to get the information in the first place.

Speaker: 50:47

Yeah.

Noel Guilford: 50:48

Uh and that's the first thing. And I think five to ten years' time, quantum computing is gonna is gonna be the thing that that uh uh is is doing pretty much all the compliance work, certainly. And so uh as accountants, we're gonna have to get better and smarter at becoming business advisors, not just financial advisors, business advisors, because that's where that's what our clients will will pay for when the machines are doing the compliance work at a fraction of the cost uh hopefully that uh accountants charge, then um accountants are gonna have to step up the plate and add value in uh a much different way.

Doug Aitken: 51:33

Yeah, yeah. Fabulous. Thank you, Noel. Um, I've really enjoyed having you on as a guest in the podcast. I really appreciate you sharing everything that you did. Wish you every success with the second book, and we'd love to have a copy at some point. Um, or just tell me to buy it from Amazon like everyone else.

Noel Guilford: 51:53

I'll send you a I'll send you a copy, Doug, when it's when it comes out.

Doug Aitken: 51:56

Thank you very much. Thanks again, Noel, for being on the podcast. Uh great privilege to have you on. Thank you. You've just heard Noel Guilford talk about how to manage client behaviour, how to create an expectation of how the client and the accountant relationship is going to work best. These are subjects taught in the Accountants Growth Academy. To find out more, go to remarkablepractice.com or follow the link in the show notes.

Paul Shrimpling: 52:30

You'll find more valuable discussions with the leaders of ambitious accounting firms at humanishetumbers.online. You can also sign up to be notified each time a new podcast is made available.

Speaker: 52:49

You're about to hear a short excerpt from a podcast with Alistair McGill from Ashton McGill. If you'd like to hear more, go to your favourite podcast platform or humanize the numbers.online.

Speaker 2: 52:58

We're trained to deliver services to people rather than for them. And that tiny word shift. If you deliver services to people, you're pushing it down the way. If you're delivering services for people, it's about listening, it's about understanding, it's about having empathy, it's about recognizing that maybe your client doesn't really understand what you're talking about, but they just say yes anyway.