It’s no secret that the majority of entrepreneurs loathe doing their own bookkeeping. And many are wary of DIY software solutions which is why bookkeeping firms exist. But as new generations of people go into business or self-employment, the buyers (business decision-makers) are gaining control over the suppliers (accountants, bookkeepers). SaaS providers are dragging the professions into becoming more relevant to the younger generation of business owners are more likely to DIY. Business owners from start-ups to growing enterprise owners do however need to monitor the financial health of the business.
Selling the outsourcing message
Basically, anything that gets in the way of the business owner working on their business has an opportunity cost and hence a potential value for a trusted advisor. In short, the role of a trusted advisor, as automation sucks in a whole bunch of previously ‘valuable’ services, is now more about helping clients succeed.
The mission is improve client financial health, enable them to stay on top of their cash flow, to provide better service and build higher value relationships. The question is how to build a core competency and to sell the outsource message; that is, the principle of enabling the business owner to be free to work on their business and to offload the need to be concerned about compliance issues and accounting.
Building a core competency
Running a professional services firm with a true system that can scale is what’s required to build a wildly successful practice and that requires a good deal of strategic thinking as well as equipping the firm with outsourced solutions for adding new clients as they arise.
If your time is best spent going to events and building relationships face-to-face, closing new sales, then do that! As the tradies would say: get off ‘the tools’ and work on developing new services and new clients.
Partnering for growth
Consider your existing team, your strengths and your weaknesses. There are most certainly gaps that would prevent your firm delivering higher value services at scale. Once the mind is focussed on building out services and identifying where the firm may struggle when demand runs high, then those pain points can be resolved by working with external professionals or practitioners. Partnering with like-minded firms need not be huge hurdle, just another opportunity to outsource. It almost always makes sense to outsource something, at least until you scale to the point of needing to take that task in-house again.