Case study of how a two partner firm banked an extra £149,400
01/02/2010 15:56:00
Mayes Business Partnership (‘Mayes’) are a two director practice in Accrington. They have long been offering their clients exactly the kind of One Page Plan service I have been recommending to the accounting profession for the last 10 years.
This service has two core components:
- A concise monthly/quarterly report in a standard “One Page Plan” format, showing a client all the key numbers that matter in their business. (Note: This report doesn’t just include the numbers that appear in a set of management accounts. It also includes other non financial numbers that the business considers to be really important.)
- A half day (ie 2-3 hour) monthly/quarterly meeting to discuss the numbers in that report in a structured and systematic way.
Every single accountant can help their clients in this way since it is 100% rooted in our skills with numbers. And, quite frankly, it is also what people actually expect from a good accountant.
The really good news, though, is that because this is such a valuable service for clients, it can also be a hugely rewarding source of recurring fees for accountants.
How Mayes earned their extra £149,400
A few weeks ago Mayes told me that they had earned an extra £149,400 in fees from this service over the last seven months. Every single penny of those fees was paid to them in full in advance. And their clients have also received two thirds of their money back from the local Business Link in the form of Train To Gain funding.
So the practice and its clients are all very happy indeed!
You step by step guide to getting similar results
Here is a step by step guide to exactly how Mayes did it – and how you can do exactly the same (and hopefully get exactly the same results too).
STEP 1 – Make it qualify. Mayes relabelled their core One Page Plan service as “Business Process Coaching”. That is all they had to do with their long established service to make it qualify for Train To Gain funding.
STEP 2 - Set your pricing structure so that it works for you and your client, and also makes the most of the funding opportunity. In Accrington Train To Gain funding is available to businesses with 5 or more employees. Under it each key manager in the business can claim up to £1000 of funding for up to £1500 of One Page Plan support from the practice. The maximum funding that can be claimed by the entire management team is £7000 per business.
Mayes have always priced their One Page Plan service at £750 per meeting – and sold many of them at that full price. But Train To Gain funding means that two One Page Plan meetings worth £1500 only actually now cost the client £500. And for the many clients who can claim close to the maximum funding, it means they can get two years of quarterly One Page Plan meetings (worth £6000) for only £2000.
STEP 3 – Promote the service. Start by picking up the phone and calling clients to say “You were interested in our One Page Plan service before, but the cost put you off. The good news is that now I can get you up to £7000 of funding towards it – which amounts to a two thirds discount”. That type of phone call is what generated most of the £149k for Mayes.
In addition you might want to run seminars explaining what a One Page Plan is and why it is so useful. And you should also tell your clients and contacts about it at your next meeting with them, and in writing if you are not going to be meeting them in the near future.
Finally, also ask Business Link to refer their customers to you for the service. Mayes have found them very willing to do so, and have already earned £6000 of new fees as a result, as well as having some very exciting hot prospects in the pipeline.
STEP 4 – Get payment upfront. When a client says “yes”, Business Link insists that you invoice the client in full immediately, and that the client pays you in full immediately (so it is great for your cashflow). Once they have paid you, the client can then claim two thirds of the fee back from Business Link, and will generally be paid within two weeks.
STEP 5 – Deliver it as normal. Mayes have made no changes to the way they deliver One Page Plans. That is because the standard One Page Plan service I recommend will automatically encompass showing (and therefore in effect “training”) the management team how to:
· Set business goals, and ensure they are congruent with their personal goals
· Identify the key success drivers in the business
· Set targets for everything that matters
· Analyse and discuss actual performance
· Make better decisions
· Develop action plans for improving the business
· Implement those action plans
· And use all of this to understand their businesses better and communicate with and lead their teams better
A vitally important proviso
The above is exactly how it has worked for Mayes in Accrington. But your Business Link may operate Train To Gain funding in a slightly different way. So you will need to find out from them how it works in your area, and then adapt the above 5 steps accordingly.
It is definitely worth the effort, though, as the extra £149,400 Mayes have earned in just 7 months testifies.
However, as Mayes partner Andrew Botham told me, “This is the most supportive Business Link have ever been, and it is really refreshing. But the funding won’t last forever, so anyone who wants to replicate our success will have to act really quickly”.
Of course, offering a One Page Plan service will still be the right thing to do long after any grant funding has dried up. So you should regard grant funding as a bonus, not as the deciding factor.
Your next steps
If you are a full AVN member you already have all the systems and tools you need to launch a One Page Plan service. You can also watch a video in the video section of www.avn.co.uk in which Mayes explain in detail how they promote, price and deliver the service.
If you are not an AVN member please contact me on stevepipefca@avn.co.uk, quoting “Mayes One Page Plan”, and I will email you a free pack of guidance notes showing how you can develop your own One Page Plan service.
If you want to stick to what you are good at – ie helping clients understand and act upon the numbers that matter in their businesses – then the One Page Plan is probably the single most profitable and valuable thing you can do for your clients.
Steve Pipe BA, MSc, FCA
December 2009
stevepipefca@avn.co.uk
