Trio Accounting recently became a founding member of Life Centred Accountants, an international group of accountants focused on helping business owners identify, get and keep the life they want.
Here’s why we signed the manifesto:
Life Centred Accountants get better results
Like most accountants I really care about my clients. And I hate seeing business owners slogging their guts out for little reward.
Unfortunately it's way too common to see business owners:
- working their butt off and often earning less than the minimum wage
- with strain on their marriage,
- feeling guilty about the lack of time with their family,
- constantly worried about cash flow,
- feeling alone & unsupported, and
- thinking that a root canal was preferable to a chat with their accountant.
But the thing is... the business owners I meet with regularly have a completely different outcome.
We check in on how things were going with the business financially, but we also talk about their goals & plans, work through their challenges and celebrate their success.
I started this approach about four years ago and quickly began to notice a trend. I kept saying to clients... WOW! This month/quarter/year is up on last year. Great result! And we’d hi-5!
So then I did what every good accountant does and got out a spreadsheet and started tracking their results.
The average increase was $50k more profit on the previous year.
It's not just about profit
But it wasn’t the increased profit that really made me reassess the way I work with all my clients.
It was Vanessa, a new client whose profit the previous year was less than half the minimum wage.
She was great at what she did but embarrassed about her financial situation. There were tears the first time we met.
We talked. She wanted to feel like she was contributing to their family income. She kept telling me she wasn’t motivated by money. We talked some more.
I discovered she really wasn’t motivated by money. But she did want to renovate her house and replace her car. Which requires... money.
There were more tears. Luckily I always have tissues handy.
We made a plan. We met every 3 months. And within a year, she had completely turned her business around.
She hired an assistant, bought a new car, & plans to renovate her house were underway. She was able to go on a family holiday, to pick her kids up from school & go to all their activities.
There were more tears. This time they were mine... because that was the first time I really realised the impact an accountant could have when the starting point is the client’s life goals.
It's being able to have that kind of impact to someone's life that makes me happy. It's literally my 'why that makes me cry'.
And now there is a label for how we work..."life centred accounting."
If you think a life-centred accountant is what you need, we'd love to have a chat with you.
