Wallace Accountancy
& Bookeeping
Helping you find your work / life balance
Email for inquiries! ✉︎ info@wallaceaccountancy.co.uk
Can you say right now in your life that...
...you already have enough balance of everything, between your work and life at the moment?
Think about it. If you can’t say yes sincerely, then you need these tough questions that will help you organise your time and your resources, so that you can make the most out of your life...
QUESTION 1:
Ask yourself who you really want to be working with.
Research shows that people who are happy with their positions are more sincerely dedicated to their job, career,
or business, and even perform better on what they do.
It is simply undeniable that it affects the performance of our job from what we feel about the people around us. If we have an overall satisfaction with what we do, it will influence our day-by-day fulfillment with life. Especially if you like the people you work with, you are bound to be happier with your work, and ultimately happy with your life.
Cheerful individuals find balance in their lives. It's always good for business if we surround ourselves with happy people.
Happiness isn't ready-made. It is self-made. It comes from your own behavior, and how you feel with others.
What our clients say
I don't believe in failure. It is not a failure if you enjoyed the process.
- Oprah Winfrey (Founder, Oprah Winfrey Network)
The People You Work With Are Just As Important As The Job because who you work with can make all the difference.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) tells us that healthy work relationships promote well-being and increase work efficiency.
So if you really want to enjoy your job, and do your job well, then the people you work with isx an important factor to consider when thinking about a job offer.
A happy and well-adjusted workforce is a productive one. By feeling more connected to their place of employment, workers naturally want to try harder to help keep the company going and to help it grow.
_____________
Importance of Relationships in the Workplace
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-relationships-workplace-10380.html
QUESTION 2:
How should I conduct a business review?
Once you have your business up and running, you have to maintain and keep things going as they should run and progress.
Reviewing the status of your business will be particularly useful if you:
- Do a regular assessment of your performance
- Identify your direction. This is where you need to look at where you are now and decide where to take your business next.
- Revisit and revise your business or strategic plans if needed. You need to review where you can introduce developments
- Get to know your competitions and deep dive how well they do. Always think how can your business perform better than your competitors in your chosen markets?
- Find more resources. What skills, assets, finance, relationships, technical competence and facilities do I need to compete? Have these changed since I started?
- How am I measuring success? Remember, measures of performance may change as your business matures.
You may answer these questions on your own but sharing your point of news to others and involving your professional advisers, your fellow co-workers or staff will all help to make your review more effective.
Business process review that you can follow in 4 steps
_____________
Jodie Korber - Lanrex
Our Blog
1. Identify and map out your current processes.
It also helps to draw up a visual representation of the business process from start to finish and its interaction with people, departments, and software. This makes it easier to analyse and identify potential gaps and overload points.
Consider the following questions:
- Why was that step taken?
- Do you need anyone else’s approval to take that step or make that decision?
- Are there any exceptions to the rule?
- What in the process is broken?
- Which steps in the process create roadblocks?
- Which step requires the most time to complete?
- Which step causes the most delays?
- Are there any steps that cause costs/resources to go up?
- Are there any steps that cause quality to go down?
2. Analyse them by talking to your co-worker/business partners
Once you’ve mapped out the processes, arrange a series of meetings with staff to brainstorm why the problems exist and how to resolve them.
A detailed discussion which consists of:
- the steps in the process
- problems related to the step
- the type of problem
- the impact of the problem
- the system requirements
QUESTION 3:
How to assess the clients?
Self assessments are helpful at the beginning of your chosen business or career development process in the “understanding yourself” phase.
They are important to complete before exploring what career options are out there for you to help you understand how your interests, skills and values align with particular clients you’ll be working with and what would be your work environments.
Most assessments that people use for career development purposes
have been measured and shown to be effective at fulfilling their intended purpose.
________________
Stephanie K. Eberle (Inside Higher Ed)
The same goes with the client assessment. Every client should be given a comprehensive assessment to identify individual needs, preferences, and strengths. This will lead you to be informed about how they can make decisions that will have an impact on how you do your planning, resources allocation and other services you can offer.
The assessment process determines the most appropriate and effective way to support clients.
Benefits of Conducting a Client Assessment:
- Opportunity to get to know the client as an individual
- Reveal any potential conflicts of interest, and ensure you can provide the right expertise for the job
- Ensure that you are aligned to client’s preferences and needs, and that nothing would be no undue delay in providing your service
- Discover how well you performed in the past and what better new things you can do or add
This method will help you on how you can engage better with new clients, identify their needs and develop steps to meet their objectives, all while nurturing the relationships you already have, and ensuring proper record keeping.
Establishing an atmosphere of trust and making all new clients feel welcome is key to starting off and continuous relationships on the right foot.
_____________________
https://www.goldencarers.com/client-assessment-getting-to-know-your-client/4477/
https://askinglot.com/what-is-the-benefit-of-assessing-your-client
https://www.cfmws.com/en/AboutUs/MFS/ResourcesMFRCs/Documents/2017%20Documents/Employment%20toolkit/Employment_Toolkit-Chapter%202.pdf
QUESTION 4:
What are you really good at?
Everyone wants to be good at the things they’re passionate about, and many people just don’t even know what exactly that is.
Determining your strengths and what you’re naturally good at is a great way to figure out what you’re passionate about.
WHY KNOWING YOUR STRENGTHS IS IMPORTANT
When you’re naturally good at something, there’s a higher chance you’ll enjoy doing it.
When things are easier for you to achieve on a daily basis, you’ll have an easier time staying motivated.
- THINK ABOUT WHAT SKILLS HAVE HELPED YOU THRIVE
- CONSIDER WHICH ACTIVITIES OR SKILLS MAKE YOU FEEL EMPOWERED
- WHAT COMES TO YOU NATURALLY?
- TAKE NOTE OF HOW YOU SPEND YOUR FREE TIME
- WHAT WERE YOU GOOD AT AS A CHILD?
- ASK OTHERS WHAT THEY THINK YOU’RE GOOD AT
- LOOK FOR PATTERNS
Finding out what you're good at is a wonderful place to start if you're trying to figure out what you want to accomplish with the rest of your life.
You might discover that your hobbies are great assets that you can use to launch a career path, or you might discover that you have a talent you were previously unaware of.
Look at the required skills after you've discovered your talents.
____________________
Maddie Lloyd - Zippia Career Expert
QUESTION 5:
What really are your "SPECIFIC" career goals?
BEST TIP when setting your career goals:
Have a long and short-term list then start looking at the long term goals then short-term after.
A job is simply just a job for some people which makes them money in exchange for their 9-5 every single working day, getting their paychecks at the end of the week or by the end of the month, then repeating the cycle every now and then. And this is where exactly the career goals come into play.
You need a valuable reason where to spend your focus and energy that will surely drive you forward and motivate you to grow and don’t get stuck where most people just grow old - the fixed monthly paycheck over and over again.
2 steps you’ll only need to accomplish in order to achieve a specific end result:
FIRST:
Identify specifically what you really want to achieve. A managerial position? Fantasizing to be a team leader?
How about the CEO?
Think BIG or stay small in the long run.
SECOND:
Outline a to-do list that you will seriously take action towards achieving your desired ending goal. (which should be realistic and achievable by the way). This will serve as your short-term goals supporting your long-term goals.
List of examples are:
- Learning more about the specific subject by in-depth research.
- Getting the education and training by enrolling in free and paid courses available to you.
- Gather more other resources wherever you can get it.
- Practice or gain experience and develop the associated skills related to your long-term goal.
- Making connections with the people in your chosen field who can help you achieve your goal.
Future thinking is different from fantasizing. With fantasizing, people might feel good and as if they already met their goals in the moment, so they don’t work or strategize for future success.
With future thinking, people come to expect to reach a goal. So, they often plan, make efforts,
and work around obstacles in order to achieve it.
_________________________
Barbara Field - Verywellmind
QUESTION 6:
Do you know exactly what is your niche?
This is a specialised sement of the industry for a particular kind of a product or service that you can offer to the market.
A niche is where you feel that you are in a comfortable or suitable position in life whether in your business or employment. Finding your niche and doing great at a certain thing will lead you to success because you know exactly where you’re good at and you have the control to offer your products or services to make it easier to make it available to clients. It’s always best if activity aligns well with your personality and talents in order for you to cater to certain people or market.
Knowing exactly about your niche will satisfy every work that you do and will make you able to offer help to people who need you.
Working where you are comfortable, good at, knowledgeable at, will make you
happy and keep motivated.
You only need to focus on where you’re good at and go all-in! WHY?
Because this will obtain you jobs with the most suitable clients.
Finding your specialty and working on it has the advantage of allowing you to work with people who are part of your ideal target client or audience. Being able to do so should bring you a sense of fulfillment in what you do because this will able you to connect to people who are eager to use your products or services. Working for a company that focuses on this can also be a good option.
Because it will indicate your areas of interest and abilities.
When you provide a certain service, you'll build unique selling features that will help you attract and retain customers. You'll also have more time to work on improving your product or service and perfecting your skill, ensuring that your offers are as refined as possible and that you deliver the best services available.
QUESTION 7:
Which prospective clients fit this niche?
You have to think that not every prospective client that will come your way will suit your firm.
Once you are ready for growth or expansion of the number of your clients, pause for a while and clear your head. Make sure you do have a clear list of the type of clients that will qualify for your needs. Will you both fit in the same line of interest , knowledge and future offerings? Take a look back at your short and long-term goals.
Can they relate and add value to it? Always think that “They need you” instead of “You need them”, although at some point, you will be needing them, but you are only ensuring that you can meet half way because building good working relationships is a higher level of innovation and creativity in the workplace, in the long run.
Example list of questions that may help you:
- How did you get these clients in the first place?
- Is there a certain industry that they work in?
- What city are they in?
- Do you think you could help them with a specific aspect of their life or business?
- Is there a common thread that emerges from the above questions you have? Observe similarities to determine if a niche turns up that you'd like to pursue.
Maximize your virtual capacity
Focusing on your specialty can grow your firm beyond your geographic region, particularly today with the entirety of the virtual capacities.
At the point when you narrow down your expertise, let’s say in a particular accounting niche, you can use your ability to work with more clients remotely.
For instance, you are situated in a less crowded region, this is a brilliant method to expand your target audience.
Expand your network
Are there local or national organizations you can join or are already part of that can help you attract more clients?
Engage in a small business association or startups in your area to build your network. Chances are you will begin meeting numerous small business owners, or entrepreneurs who are looking to hire an accounting firm, which could lead to more referrals.
How to spot the red flags:
- They have unrealistic expectations and doesn’t match the budget
- Have a lot of bad experiences in the past
- Trying to disagree with contract signing or pay a deposit
- Too many stakeholders or decision makers
- Having a lot of demands in a short time of period
- They are very unorganized
- They talk negatively about their past staff
- They are poor at communication
- They appoint to you lots of things as many as possible
- They are not willing to take risks
Before you even start to understand who you want to draw to your business, you need to identify which people you need to avoid. This is one tough method to save yourself from drawing everyone to your niche even if they don't really fit. From a sales perspective, If you're selling to everyone,
you're selling to no one.
If you try to be all things to everyone, you won't be anything to anybody.
_______________________
Imran Tariq (Entrepreneur Network contributor)
Did you find the above content useful? What are your take aways?
Feel free to put your comments below!