Conference

AVN CONFERENCE 2018

Do you want to:

• Attend a conference unlike any accountant’s conference?

• Hear from Accountants in practice who will be sharing the secrets of their own successes?

• Learn about proven ideas that you can take back and implement in your practice?

• Find out more about the latest technology and tools for the industry?

• Earn 8 hours of CPD?

If you do, then you definitely want to join us at the AVN conference!

AGENDA

Time	Item	Speaker

08:30 – 09:00	Registration	–
09:00 – 09:15	Introduction	Shane Lukas
09:15 – 10:30	AVN Award Winners Steve will be sharing the stage with this year’s AVN Award Winners to discuss their entries and talk about how the changes they have implemented in their practices have helped to transform their lives, and the lives of their clients.	Steve Pipe
10:30 – 10:50	Happiness Shonette’s keynote will look at the importance of happiness/well-being within oneself in order to be more effective in the workplace. A happy employer/employee is 22% more productive. Shonette will also look at the issue of negativity in the workplace and how to deal with this through various top tips! The Keynote will challenge current modes of thinking and encourage delegates to think differently about their role within the team in a fun and dynamic way.	Shonette Bason
10:50 – 11:20	Break	–
11:20 – 11:40	Built to Last As you listen to our inspiring Category Award Winners – AVN Firm of the year award finalists – being interviewed you will, without doubt be flabbergasted by some of those stories. Sometimes it’s easy to feel that perhaps it’s luck, the right clients, the right location, their looks, their charm. In this 2 – part session we’re going to reverse engineer the success and achievements you’ll be hearing about, discovering the steps and the circumstances needed to replicate the successes you’ll have heard about in your practice too.	Shane Lukas
11:40 – 12:00	To Start You Need to Stop Val will be sharing with you how she gained the clarity she needed to stop being miserable and start taking control of her business and her life. She will be discussing how since joining AVN her business has transformed and she now has the time and money to do the things she wants to do.Val asks the question – What do you need to stop doing so that you can start to have the business you want and the life you deserve?	Val Wishart
12:00 – 12:20	Attracting the right client Patrick will explain why the vast majority of marketing advice for accountants wastes your time, money and energy.He will show you how to stop downward fee pressure, repulse bad clients and identify and attract those joy to work with, premium fee-payers.Most importantly of all, he’ll talk you through the single, simple principal to transform your perspective, bank balance and career satisfaction, on your own terms.	Patrick McLoughlin
12:20 – 12:40	Presenting Value It’s a skill you all have within you…whether you know it or not! How you can use something you do every day in your personal life to get better results in your business.	Emma Slack
12:40 – 13:50	Lunch	–
13:50 – 14:00	Awards Presentation	Shane Lukas
14:00 – 14:20	Built to Last – Part 2 Part 2 of Shane’s earlier presentation	Shane Lukas
14:20 – 14:50	Sustainability with Purpose – how to change clients lives forever It’s easy to forget that as accountants we have the power to make a dramatic difference to our clients’ lives. But it does mean we need a slight change in mindset – away from compliance and more to empower clients to interpret their numbers to run a better business. Gloria will talk you through the major changes she has made to help her clients and how she focuses on the client not the numbers.	Gloria Murray
14:50 – 15:10	The single most important thing I have learned in the last 20 years After 20 years working with and studying thousands of the world’s best accountancy practices, sharing insights with the profession’s leaders and gurus, reading hundreds of books and research reports (and writing many too), Steve will distil everything down into one surprising key message. A message that will change your business, your life and your world… forever.	Steve Pipe
15:10 – 15:30	AVN Excellence Michael will be talking about his experience of achieving AVN 6* excellence. Why he decided to implement AVN excellence, the challenges he faced and the learning he took from going through the process of implementation. He will also explain the benefits he received of having an independent assessment of his practice.	Michael Hemme
15:30 – 16:00	Break	–
16:00 – 16:55	Keynote Having helped to develop Virgin Atlantic and through working with a number of other big businesses, Will was involved in taking Purple Bricks PLC from a start up with no customers into the massive business it is now. He will be sharing with us the importance of small businesses having an accountant on the management team, and how you, as an accountant can best help your clients to grow and develop by fulfilling this role.	Will Whitehorn
16:55 – 17:00	Closing comments	Shane Lukas

SPEAKERS

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

WILL WHITEHORN

Will Whitehorn is non executive director or Chair of several public and private companies including Purplebricks Group PLC, GVC Holdings PLC, Stagecoach Group PLC, the Glasgow SEC /SSEHydro, The Scottish Gallery and Clyde Space Limited, the UKs leading space satellite manufacturer, which was recently acquired in a groundbreaking £30 million by AAC Microtec. He has now joined their board.

Having learned to fly as a 16 year old RAF cadet and completing an MA Hons at Aberdeen University, he has spent substantially all his working life in the transport and technology industries. Starting out as a helicopter crewman in the North Sea Oil Industry, he went on to become a graduate trainee with Thomas Cook and eventually joined Virgin in 1986 where he established a career as Sir Richard Branson’s corporate affairs advisor and brand development director for the group globally.

He helped develop Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Trains and Virgin Media as businesses and went onto become the first President of Virgin Galactic taking the business from a dream to reality. In 2010 he left Virgin to embark on a non exec career and was a founder shareholder in Purplebricks Group PLC.

He is a Fellow of The Royal Aeronautical Society and the Marketing Society and Vice President of The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport having been President in 2016. He holds the Royal Aeronautical Society’s prestigious Geoffrey Pardoe Space Award for services to the industry.

He describes his hobbies as everything that moves and he is a keen scuba diver, skier, shot, classic car restorer and hill walker.

SHANE LUKAS

Shane Lukas has worked with over a thousand accountancy practices over a 20 year period; developing powerful tools and resources that have successfully helped accountants’ average client fees progress from 3 figure averages to 5 figure averages.

He is an Amazon No1 Best Selling Author, inspiring speaker and a disruptive thinker within the Accountancy profession.

During the last few years Shane’s focus has been in training and coaching accountants as well as strategically developing AVN as a business which delivers training, expert practice growth advice, practice systems and resources.

STEVE PIPE

Officially the world’s most highly rated advisor to accountants, Steve is a Chartered Accountant, best-selling author, dynamic speaker, and proud founder of AVN.

His 2016 book, “The world’s most inspiring accountants”, has been described as a “masterpiece”, “ground-breaking” and “desperately needed”.

His other books include “Your blueprint for a better accountancy practice”, “The UK’s best accountancy practices”, “Stress proof your business and your life” and “Better business, Better life, Better world.”

MICHAEL HEMME

I help business owners focus on the truth of their business, where it is and how best to move it forward. I put business owners in control, by helping them clarify what they want, examine the numbers, systemise their businesses and drive them towards the success they desire.

This can be summed up as clarity for business owners to inspire decisive action.

I’m a Chartered Certified Accountant – and I offer so much more than that, too. My skills sets, enthusiasm and drive provide clients with an approach that goes above and beyond what they might expect from their accountant.

GLORIA MURRAY

Gloria started Murray Associates in 1998 to help small and micro business owners understand their finances and grow their business. As she had worked in a variety of business fields before she became an accountant she realised there was a gap in the market for accountants with real life business knowledge and that many business owners wanted more from their accountant than just a set of accounts and a tax return.

She runs mentoring programmes helping business owners become entrepreneurs.

The practice has won several awards including in 2017 AVN’s Changing Lives and the 2020 Group’s Most Innovative Business Adviser.

VAL WISHART

Val Wishart is the owner of Beyond the Numbers, a firm of Chartered Accountants and business advisers in Edinburgh.

Her “Why” is helping business owners to achieve their dreams, goals and ambitions and her own goal is to de-mystify the numbers so that clients get past the fear and understand how to use information to make better decisions.

Beyond the Numbers isn’t just a name, it’s a way of thinking, behaving and doing

PATRICK MCLOUGHLIN

Patrick has spent the last 20-years helping accountancy firms grow, through attracting more of their ideal clients.

He has a unique understanding of how clients perceive and value their accountants. His team, at Accounting for Growth, talk to hundreds of business owners every week about their relationships with their accountants.

He is regularly quoted in the press, including The European, and the Times, and writes on practice growth for Accounting Today and Accounting Technician magazines.

Patrick also owns and runs the LinkedIn group: ‘Marketing Professional Services’ with over 12,000 members worldwide.

GALA DINNER

The Gala Dinner will take place on Monday 17th September in the Woodlands Suite at the Belfry Hotel & Resort. The night will begin at 7:00pm and continue until Midnight.

The dress code for the evening is Black Tie so we kindly ask that guests dress appropriately.

As part of our entertainment for the evening we will be having the AVN Casino with a mixture of tables to try during the night. Every Gala Dinner guest will receive starter funds of 20 ‘AVN Pounds’ to get you going and you can buy more casino money on the night with all proceeds going to charity.

The lucky person on the night who wins the most money will receive a special prize at the Conference the following day.

GUEST SPEAKER

We are absolutely delighted to be able to confirm that Shonette Bason-Wood will be joining us at the Gala Dinner this year!

Shonette is a Guinness World Record Holder, mother of four, International Speaker and award-winning author. She is different in style and content, from her look to her ability to lift an audience to a whole new level of thinking. She has created a positive global community within education in which educators put their own happiness first to impact on the children they work with. Famous for her fine muscle exercise Dough Disco, Shonette works Internationally with over 26 countries with Spread the Happiness Educators.

At a recent Head teachers conference Paul Smith (Head of Quality and Control) said, ‘Shonette, is not outstanding, but sensationally “standing-out”

Her message, performance, political satire and precision timed delivery, smattered with eye watering humour and unrivalled passion truly empower the audience to take hold of their life now and live it.

Her work spans all ages encouraging people to take control of current trends and agendas by focussing on happiness, humour, reality, risk taking, and positivity.

Shonette is not a motivational speaker but an experience. The audience will leave the room, but she will leave a Permission To legacy that every person will benefit from and ripple that has the potential to impact on 1000’s of people.

Shonette will also be joining us during the conference on Tuesday.