Can I be brutal?

Based on many thousands of hours in meetings with the owners, partners, directors and managers of accounting firms the answer to the headline question above is – the firm’s leaders.

I hear a lot of criticism about the lack of commercial savvy in ‘today’s’ accountants. But mostly, most firms, invest so little time and energy helping their team develop commercially savvy knowledge. Continuing Personal Development gets the focus but with a tax and accounts bias. Not a commercial savvy bias.

And, everyone is too busy to invest a couple of hours a week learning about how to be seen by clients as commercially switched on, knowledgeable or insightful. Chargeable time is what’s required by most firms.

Not for Steph Hinds though...

Steph, I interviewed for my book – The Business Growth Accountant – and she revealed how she turns ‘normal’ accountants into commercially savvy accountants.

At Steph’s firm – GrowthWise – on 30 Fridays a year, the team down tools and review the client meetings of the week and what went right, what went wrong and what can be learned. A couple of hours building knowledge, insight and skills so that everyone in the team is better at conversations with clients about business issues.

The interview with Steph was hard to finish because she was so open about sharing what and how they grow their accountants into more valuable conversationalists. Steph suggests her clients want to improve or grow their businesses therefore Steph knows she needs a team that can help clients grow, so she trains them to talk about business improvement:

“We’re a business, in Newcastle in Australia, working predominantly with a bunch of different small business owners who have one thing in common, and that’s that they're all looking to improve their business in one way or another.”

Steph Hinds, GrowthWise, Australia

In my book I’ve extracted some of the gems Steph shares, but I highly recommend you go find the full interview transcript or listen to the audio file and get everything Steph has to say – it’s worth it. Check it out here...

Learn about the book, the interviews and other additional resources and see what others say about the book here – The Business Growth Accountant

Every success

Paul

PS We’re committed to delivering real value so if the book disappoints in any way then please ask for your money back, you’ll get a refund no questions asked.