It's not often that you come across a leader of an accounting firm who is building strategic health into their practice, with crystal clarity on a shared vision, crystal clarity on a core purpose and crystal clarity around the values related to how the firm behaves and the standards they uphold across the firm. In this podcast discussion with Steve Price, of the Manchester firm BWP Inspire, Steve shares how, although they’re a work in progress and are still on a journey to being a better firm, they already have so many good things in place. We covered quite a bit of ground in our conversational debate, but it was Steve’s commitment to his clients, to his team and their development and to the systems which enable his firm to be less reliant on him that stood out for me. If you like the idea of creating a firm that’s less reliant on you, a firm where the team are genuinely and wholeheartedly engaged in what they’re doing, then I heartily recommend that you dive into this podcast with Steve Price. It’s a cracker. Please scroll down this page to see the contact information for Steve, as well as some additional resources mentioned in the podcast. |
The Solution:
I set up my practice with me doing everything, but every time I did something, I understood the process of what I was doing rather than just the function and the deadline, and I built everything up as if there was a team around me.
But I am far from an expert in tax, this is not where my skill set is, and some of the more technical skills that you would assume an accountant has, I'm sometimes lacking in, but I make sure I surround myself with people who know a lot more about that sort of thing.
It came together for me with the merger that I've already referred to. That was four years ago. The merger brought together two practices who had the same mentor. This was the real key, as we were brought together based upon a shared vision and shared values and spent a year planning the merger and had so much in place.
The team didn't know about the merger because you can't talk about it, but we told them we were going to incorporate a new practice.
We explained to them "this is what we are going to do, this is our mandate and this is the vision we want to achieve". We then went almost immediately into Covid, which could have been a push backwards, but in many ways it was a push forwards, because we mapped it all out the long way round.
So, if you are calling us strategically healthy, which is something I have never considered, then yes we are, I'll take that compliment and I'll tell you, we are strategically healthy.
SHOW NOTES
Connect with Steve
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Resources relating to this podcast:
Paul and Steve talk about the importance of establishing a relationship with your client and how you must earn the right to be able to advise and guide your client’s decisions and business plans.
Steve alludes to the fact that the journey to this close working relationship is not easy, and this is why one of their values as a firm is being able to 'walk the talk' and help their clients focus on taking action.
Paul talks about Robert Cialdini's book, Influence - The Psychology of Persuasion, and the importance to any relationship with your client of consistency and commitment, which feature heavily in Cialdini's 6 Principles of Influence.
Click the button below to get the book.
Steve talks about the importance to his firm of establishing their core purpose, vision and values and how this engages the team and defines the strategy of the business.
When Paul asks Steve when he became strategically healthy, Steve admits this is not something that he has considered before, but he also believes that he does now have a strategically healthy firm.
If you want to assess the strategic health of your firm, click the link below to access the 8 questions of strategy and to get yourself a free copy of the strategy e-book. How healthy do you think your firm is?
Steve and Paul discuss the importance of tracking and measuring the performance and engagement of your team. Steve uses the phrase 'trust your people and they will trust you back'.
He believes that with the right systems and training, as well as appropriate accountability and KPIs, your team can focus on their job and their personal development.
Steve believes that you have to strike the right balance between your team being engaged and being accountable.
Read the 'Healthy Heartfelt KPIs' Business Breakthrough report to understand the importance of measuring the things that matter most to your clients.
When you measure what matters to your clients, the health of your accountancy firm will be safe and sound, as long as your KPIs drive action...
