How Consultants Can Also Use Technology To Reduce Client Processing Time
Accountants can work very efficiently today thanks to a market filled with software and apps that automate all the many repetitive tasks involved in compliance work, which makes up most or all of most practices revenue.
But when an accountant diversifies into business advisory work the picture changes drastically.
There is no automation available for tasks that demand imagination and individuality to work out the root causes of a client’s problem(s) and what actions would best correct them in the future.
That is one problem, and another is the quite different nature of the work.
Think about it.
As an accountant, you were trained to analyse historic data and match it to legal compliance requirements. You then had to prepare formatted reports for submission to Companies House and HMRC and explain your decisions and treatment to the client who is required to sign them. Based on your assurances that all, is or will be well, s/he does so to stay out of trouble and your engagement letter and PI insurance cover you if anything goes wrong.
That’s the deal.
But in business consultancy work there are no compliance requirements, no formal training and no qualifications.
It’s the Wild West!
So how could such work ever be automated (or protected)?
And if it can’t be automated it will remain costly, out of reach for small businesses (which make up 94% of all businesses) and unprofitable for consultants to provide to them.
Yet, the accountancy institutes and specialist press continue to promote the case for accountants to become consultants.
Why?
Because the very software that was developed to help accountants become more efficient by automating client work is now being sold direct to clients on the basis that they can self-use it, removing the need to employ an accountant.
So, accountants are being told that they can only survive by selling ‘whole business’ advice yet aren’t being equipped to do so.
But if they are to do so they need to find ways to charge rates any business can afford but still make them a profit, and without the support of automation.
I stumbled on this problem for accountants by accident when a 5-year project I was running for a government agency was cancelled at 3 weeks’ notice, halfway through. I had a pipeline of 3000 small businesses waiting to start and 600 at a time going through 12-month programmes, paying me £500 per month each which they could fully recover from the agency on final certification.
When all that the money disappeared suddenly, the clients cancelled their payments, and the business stopped.
The government had no money and faced the prospect of never again being able to fund small business performance improvement.
I was forced to consider either retiring or inventing a way to make advice affordable to small businesses.
I critically reviewed the content of the work that my 100 consultants were doing and which I had trained 5000 other consultants to do before them and concluded that the work was not the 100% original brainpower that I liked to believe. It was actually 90% repetitive and what is repetitive can be automated, to become cost free.
Starting with Excel sheets I built a workflow that went:
Data Collection > Industry Performance Benchmarks > Gap Analysis > Forecast > Improvement Plan > Action Plans > Templates > Client Implementation Support Techniques
I tried it with 50 small businesses and refined it based on their experiences. They loved it, so I had it coded into original software, built a website to host it and marketed it nationally. 600 businesses used the free online assessment tool successfully but never proceeded into the paid solutions.
I called them all to ask why and it became clear they were keen to find out what was wrong but had such a low understanding of business disciplines that they couldn’t see the value of proceeding past the gap analysis in order to fix it.
So, I decided that professional intermediaries were needed to explain that to them and help them to implement solutions through online coaching. I trained 50 consultants to use it on small businesses and generated enquiries for them. But they turned out to be so uncomfortable about working online that they continued driving many miles to visit 2/3 per day instead of the affordable 15/20 daily that my software could enable, online.
I then ran mixed focus groups of: business owners; accountants; consultants; brokers; bankers; entrepreneurs from which emerged a strong feeling from the accountants that they would like to use my technology to diversify into business advisory services as they were facing an existential crisis of compliance work being taken off them by online software.
I then trained 100 accountants to use it and whilst they were happy to work online, in practice, they felt uncomfortable about taking responsibility for a client’s future performance by giving advice, especially in areas where they had no experience themselves eg marketing, technology, people management; customer service.
Further consultation revealed that they would use it more confidently if the system’s workflow could be extended to include readymade: action plans ® templates ® implementation support techniques.
So, I did just that, and the present full stack business model was launched in January 2020, after development with over 1000 business users and 150 intermediaries.
The COVID19 Lockdown then struck, so we used the 15 weeks of ‘purdah’ to automate the remaining 20% of the model to enable it to be used by everyone involved without ever leaving their computer.
On 1st July the new Runagood® business model was launched.
The client automated workflow is:
Data collection > industry performance benchmarks > gap analysis > forecast > improvement plan action plans > templates > implementation support techniques
Automated training for accountants in how to:
Market their ‘whole business’ advisory services to rebuild client numbers
Sell the service to new business prospects
Convert accountancy clients to ‘whole business’ advice clients
Deliver consultancy to clients
How to use automation technology for speed, affordability, profit, growth
A 3-tier network of accountants operating as local business advice centres supported by Area Directors and AI Business Advisor®s – all using Runagood® skills, techniques and technology
The first time ever that business consultancy has been automated to make advice available to and affordable by the world’s smallest businesses.
Find out more about Runagood® Technology
By Duncan Collins
Founder of Runagood.com Ltd