It was almost a throw-away statement by Steve, but it stood out as a bright light of insight.

Steve’s statement shone so brightly because I’d already interviewed several advisory accountants and Steve was now stating the blatantly obvious. Just as obvious as the apple falling on Isaac Newton’s head demonstrated the force of gravity.

Steve who?

Steve Major is a chartered accountant who has shifted from practice to helping accountants grasp the merits of pricing advisory services profitably. Steve has ‘crossed swords’ with many accountants in Australia who are pursuing advisory work, earning advisory fees and growing advisory firms. He has a good handle on what it takes to be successful at selling advisory services.

‘Value-added’ is unhelpful

Back-to-front even...

Steve challenges the relevance of a ‘value-added services’ mindset, he suggests this ‘value-added’ mindset is holding accountancy firms back:

“…the firms that are that top 5% or 10%, the firms that really crack the code on business advisory, make it business advisory first.” Steve Major

Put business advisory first...

Steve suggests that ‘value added services’ is the wrong mindset because the best firms are not adding Business Growth services to accountancy.

The best firms start with Business Growth. Then they add accountancy!

The best firms put accountancy in 2nd place.

The best firms position, market and promote their firm as advisory 1st accountancy 2nd.

The implications are serious

The accountancy profession, thanks to cloud accounting and MTD (in the UK), is transitioning from an annual accounts to quarterly accounts obsession. New technology is also doing more and more of the actual accountancy number-crunching work - so what are accountants in practice going to do, how are they going to stay relevant to business owners?

One possibility, based on the interviews you’ll find in my book, is to do more advisory or, what I prefer to call, more business growth work.

Business owners value a conversation about growing profits, growing cash reserves, growing capital value and growing personal wealth more than they do talking last year’s accounts.

Government research also suggests 69% of business owners plan to grow in the next 3 years (from a survey of 15,502 business owners – see chapter 4 – Right At The Heart Of Your Firm).

So why not advise clients more? Guide them better. Help them achieve what they want for their business. Help them grow. Become a Business Growth Accountant.

See for yourself...

To find out what Steve Major has to say about value you can read the full discussion between Steve and I (if you prefer you can listen to it). Steve’s interview and the interviews with the other 15 contributors to the book are a bonus that come with getting a copy of my book – The Business Growth Accountant – get your copy here – it comes with a money back guarantee, so you can buy risk free.

“If you want to safeguard what you have and build on it, this book is a must read.”

Daimien McConnell, William Hinton, England

​Warm regards

​Paul