#4: Why is a Built-to-Sell Strategy the universal strategy for all accounting business owners?

This strategy is universal because whether you intend to sell in the short term or not, if you have a Built to Sell business your firm will be:

·???????More Profitable

·???????Less Stressful

·???????A better place to work

·???????Provide a better service to customers

If you have a Built-to-Sell Firm, the firm will be less dependent on the owners and unique personalities. It will be a self-managing firm and who would not get more enjoyment out of a self-managing firm?

Even if you do not want to sell in the short term we all have to exit eventually so building a Built-to-Sell Accounting Business makes sense. Just start early and have a more saleable business when the time comes. Start now and create your Built To Sell Business.

Here are the Seven Steps to creating a Built to Sell Accounting Firm

1.?????Develop Products and Services with the Potential to Scale

Providing high-end consulting and premium-priced advisory services may be an attractive way to generate profits and high fees but it is harder to develop these services in a way that they are not personality or unique ability driven. It can be harder to scale these types of services.

Level 1 Services like bookkeeping, payroll, and VAT are definitely scalable services.

Level 2 Services like accounting, tax and compliance are definitely scalable services.

All products and services are scalable but some are easier than others.

What products and services could you create that are not dependent on you to get them delivered?

2.?????Identify the Ideal Customer to Buy the Products and Services

You don’t need to sell to everyone. You just need to connect with those ideal customers who want to buy the products and services that you are delivering.

There are some people we are meant to serve and some not so much. We're accounting businesses rather than accounting practices. The term practice almost has connotations of public service. We are a commercial business, not a community support service

We need to get focused in our business on who ideal customers are and how we can attract them into our world.

Who are your ideal customers to buy the products and services that you are delivering with the potential to scale and not be dependent on you?

3.?????Create a Positive Cashflow Cycle

Getting paid in arrears and having cash tied up in debtors and WIP is not attractive to a prospective business purchaser so we need to create a cycle whereby cash is collected as the service is delivered.

More importantly, retrospective billing, depreciating work in progress, and chasing debtors isn't something you want to do in your business so we need to look at a better way of doing things.

Fixed pricing, progress payments in advance, direct debits and memberised subscription models are all ways of creating positive, consistent and reliable cashflow cycles.

To address this you need to be honest about where you are and begin taking the steps to get to the point where you have cash flow cycles that add to the value of your business as well as ensuring there is always plenty of excess cash in the bank.

Where are you right now in terms of your Cashflow Cycle and what is your first next step?

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4.?????Build the Team

If our businesses are going to be saleable scalable businesses that are not dependent on the owner and not dependent on unique personalities and skills we are going to have to build a team.

The team doesn’t necessarily need to be all A Players but we need to build a winning team. We need to build a high-performance team. Accountants don’t always tend to be the greatest natural people managers so this is an area of our Built to Sell business that we need to pay particular attention to.

We need to create an organisation chart that makes it clear who is responsible for what. Everyone needs to be clear on their role in getting the overall result for the team and what their specific deliverables are on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis. We then need to create a system for identifying and attracting ideal team members. I call it WHO Hunting.

Where is your team right now??

Premier Division, First Division, Second Division, Third or Fourth.

What do you need to do to win the league and go up a division this year?

5.?????Develop a System to Deliver the Result

Whether we like it or not what we do as accountants and bookkeepers has a lot of repetition in it. We do the same things for the same clients over and over and over again. We do the same things for different clients over and over and over again.

Accounting businesses are businesses that can benefit massively from creating Standard Operating Procedures (SOPS).

Just imagine if your business had a Procedures Manual just like a McDonalds Franchise that set out clearly “This is how we do things here”.

Every job, every task, every role, every new team member, every existing member, everything with a Standard Operating Procedure that sets out how things are done in your firm.

Where to start? Identify all the processes and procedures in your firm. Adopt a template or methodology for capturing standard operating procedures. Start capturing them one by one with the collaboration and input of your team.

6.?????Develop a Single Focus Growth and Sales Process

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With clarity around the products and services you deliver and whom you deliver them to. Based on a positive cashflow cycle. With a team and a system that delivers the result now, we can begin the scaling process.

This is not just about marketing or sales. This is about building a system that continually attracts your ideal customers. From a Built to Sell perspective this adds massive value to your business. If someone buys your business they are not just buying your client list. They are not just buying your cashflows. They are not just buying your team. They are not just buying the intellectual property and systems as to how you get it done.

They're buying a cash generator that keeps attracting new ideal customers all the time.

This is like a real-life Jack and The Beanstalk scenario.

Where's your marketing and sales function right now and what does a single-focus growth and sales process look like for you?

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7.?????Incentive Scheme for Senior Team Members

Whether it is to relieve pressure in your business or whether it is to facilitate your exit or whether it is to sell your business to a third party you need to have a stable team led by Senior Team Members who can get the job done without you and your partners.

We want to know that they are locked in and invested in the business for more than just a basic salary?

Do you have the senior team members and do you have an incentive scheme for them so they will stay on for more than a minimum notice period? So they will stay, transition, and sustain the business if you ever sold?

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I truly believe that built-to-sell is the universal strategy for accounting businesses.

Let me know what your strategy is and how you are executing it.

If you like Built to Sell and want to hear more about building more profitable accounting businesses email [email protected] and we can add you to our ProfitPro weekly email.