The Practitioner: New firm, new opportunities...
The Practitioner is presented with a wealth of opportunities from setting up their own firm – but which to take?
THINGS ARE GOING from strength to strength at the moment. New client work is coming in, and it’s the sort of work we like – the monthly management accounts type. Companies are knocking down the door to join forces, and sign us up on introducer agreements for various things such as IFA work, insolvency work, etc..
With this growth come big decisions to be made. We can’t say yes to everybody. We also need to make sure that we have enough office space to accommodate the additional staff and space that comes with this sort of growth.
I’m looking forward to making the big decisions, and making them quickly. Speed is the key here, I believe. Not having any fellow directors, at the minute, to bounce these ideas off, I have been using clients as a sounding board in this instance.
The great thing about talking to clients about the business is that, more often than not, they see things from a different perspective and come up with some real nuggets.
One client in particular is really keen to input his ideas. He has even come up with a novel idea for how to fund the growth. He has suggested that ‘investors’ buy a proportion of a staff member’s time for a period of a month, two months, etc.. They then get a fixed percentage return of the amount of billing done by that staff member in that time.
In essence, it is a solution for funding the extra staff and overhead costs associated with growth. The downside is that they want a return of the profits.
No shares will swap hands – so it is merely a funding alternative.
It’s something we will give serious consideration to, maybe just for a certain service such as payroll or bookkeeping. Then again, how much profit is there in those services, anyway?
The Practitioner’s uncensored thoughts come from within their own practice – having left a regional firm in the heart of England