Profession lost plot says guru

More than 700 accountants in practice received a stiff warning about the profession’s future last week, during day-long seminars on how to re-engineer their practices.

Charismatic trainer and motivational speaker Paul Dunn, co-founder of Results Accountants’ Systems, told seminar delegates that accountants must radically change their thinking in order to carve out a profitable future.

Speaking later to Accountancy Age, Australian Dunn said: ‘The profession has lost the plot. There is no doubt it is under threat, though some people don’t perceive it.’ Dunn predicted the profession splitting into two.

Some firms would emerge as an elite group providing added value to clients.

‘But there are also going to be people who just survive, that is, eke out a living,’ he said.

Last week’s seminars offered a taster of the four day ‘Boot Camp’ training sessions run by Results. The camps detail a programme which firms can implement with a view to joining the ‘elite’. It emphasises adding value to targeted clients, and being confident enough to sack dead-weight clients.

Results claims that firms implementing the programme can double total fees in under two years.

Around 700 accountants have joined a waiting list for the next one-day seminars after last weeks’ were sold out. Results also runs camps for firms in Australia, the USA and New Zealand.