I don't consider myself at all prudish but piercings and earrings are not something that I would expect to see on anyone working for me.

But then again, such is no worse than brown shoes with a dark suit... Or for that matter doing business not wearing a dark coloured suit.

On the other hand, in industry you will see the odd person wandering around the headquarters of major corporations in slacks, T shirt with piercings and you know that these people are technical demi gods who can pretty much do as they like... You would never let clients see them but how they dress is no reflection on their position or payscale in the company.

I think that the best way to think of the scenario is to put yourself in the seat of the client and try to see yourself through their eye's. Or even, is there anything about your dress that you would find wrong if it was on an MP or a bank manager?

pDm wrote:

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How the hell did you find my picture? :)

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 On your facebook thingammyjig.

That doesn't look comfy.

Fantastic. Well worth the wait, only, i can't wait for next week.

Gonna give us the funny story pDm?

Morning Neil :)

You know, I've just spent the last few minutes trying, but it looses a lot in translation. If only I could set it to music and write paragraphs in full technicolor.

All I will say is: Drag Queen, garden party, LOTS of alcopops and an open fire pit - I have this naughty mental image that's a bit too much like a Warner Bros. cartoon, where Droopy sets fire to the Wolf in Bo-Peeps wig!

I shouldn't laugh - but I did.

The tension is really building up now!

Hello, hello!

I've been very naughty this week and hardly been on the forum at all. I can see from all the recent posts I've got a lot of reading to catch up on. Another time of year thing? There's always more to learn.

Thank you, Frauke and Fiona for your well wishes - and it's a real pleasure to finally be able to say...

This weeks blog: I got one.

 

pDm

 

 

-- Edited by pDm on Saturday 31st of March 2012 12:04:49 PM

Excellent news pDm.... I would only count it as one though as these things seem to come along in three's so you don't want to waste two on a single fee! lol

all the best,

Shaun.

Really pleased for you.  I do hope these things come in 3s - 2 more for you and 1 for me!  Hope Twitter works for you, just remember to limit your time spent on it. 

Best wishes

Sylvia

Congratulations two from one! It gets easier from here, but you need to make sure you get paid and get your clients into good habits from the start!

Hi pDm,

Sure that you did all of this in basic management accounting but for pricing models look at Ansoff's product / market matrix.

for cost reduction look at the idea's behind Porters Value chain (in itself it's more geared towards manufacturing than service industries).

Also look at Cyert and Marches performance prism.

At the end of the day there are only really two approaches.

- cost leadership

- differentiation

Most bookkeepers just go for cost leadership by undercutting the competition. To my mind this is the wrong approach. Channel don't win market share by offering the cheapest perfume.

To differentiate your services means offering something that others don't. I differentiate my services by being traditional whereas the competition is hell bent on giving the clients what they feel that they need rather than what the client actually wants.

kind regards,

Shaun.

I have a fantastic facility on my phone to block sales calls. Obviously you can only do it after the first one is received, but it gives them a great wee message. It says "thank you for calling, unfortunately everyone is busy dealing with other telesales marketers. Your call is being placed in our queuing system and due to the number of telesale's calls we have to deal with your call will probably never be answered. Here's some terrible music while you wait."

You've now got, I pressume one limited company and two self assessments or is the mother also going to be doing that?

To be fair I would also have advised incorporation unless the client had specific reasons for not wishing to go down that route.

Have you learnt exactly what you role will be going forwards? How much exactly has the mother taken? Who files the VAT returns, Who handles the Payroll, Who deals with year end payroll procedures?

You might need to review your engagement letter in light of your changed status with the newly formed entity.

Good luck with the client going forwards,

Shaun.

Hi all,

Unfortunately there's no blog post today, even though this week has been packed to the rafters with a hell of a lot going on, almost none of it has been related to bookkeeping.

This week in brief:

• I have quite unexpectedly been promoted to a new day job. More money, and of course more work.
• Completed Tutor Marked Assignments 2 and 3 of IAB,Lv3 without any errors.
• Finished reading Module 1 of IAB,Lv4 (tax).

I'm sure you'll forgive me not trying to spin those few morsels of news into a propper blog!

The new day job has certainly taken over my priorities for the moment, and looks like it will need to stay that way until I've got it all figured out and running the way I want it. Bit of a project, you might say.

Should be back to normal with the blog next week *fingers crossed*

Have a great weekend everyone,

pDm

Can't say i'm not disappointed, but it seems you have a decent excuse so i'll let it slide this week pDm lol.

Congrats on the promotion. Dinner on you then?

Congratulations on the promotion (!)

I think you've done really well to date.

Morning all - I'm baaaaack! This weeks blog: And then it all went, BANG! http://thebookkeepersintown.wordpress.com/2012/06/30/and-then-it-all-went-bang/ (doing all this from my phone this week as I'm away from my PC propper - sorry for the rubbish link) pDm

I bet you all thought I was going to skip this week, didn't ya?!

Weeeell, you're nearly right, because I almost did. See inside this weeks episode for more details, but publishing by Saturday lunchtime isn't realistic for me anymore...

This weeks blog: Undervalued myself, again!

 

(it's not as bleak at the title suggests)

Next week: Who knows? It's all a bit freestyle at the moment - I'll surprise you - and probably myself too!

As Shuan (and you are realising) says, you do need to make sure you price things correctly.

You need to learn from your "mistakes". We often see people on this site say that £200 is a lot of money for a simple set of books or paying more than £15ph is a lot (!). These are the amounts I charged over 25 years ago, and after all this time am shocked that people think these rates are expensive (!)

There are only so many hours in a day any person can work. When I was last employed (more than 4 years ago) I used to get paid £18ph, but would only do about 1-2hrs work a day. The rest of the time was taken up doing "other things", which could have been classed as work, but was in fact not particulary hard, technical or "taxing" in the way that I now have to do for my clients. If I was able to work for my own clients in the same way I worked for an employer, it would be reasonable to charge a lower hourly rate than I do, but the reality is working for an employer I was unlike to "burn out" so expect to get paid a lower hourly rate. Working for a client is physically and mentally harder, so I expect to be paid a higher hourly rate. Also of coure the amount I charge has to cover the times I can't work - which of course and employer would pay me.

With an employer I get paid £x per year. If I actually took this amount and divided it by the number of hours I could work (i.e. after removing holidays, training, CPD, sickness and anything I can think off) the hourly rate would really be about £30+ not £18 as I beleived I was being paid. If we price our work against employee rates, we need to also look at the the amount of actual work done - rather than the time only.

Interestingly a business plan is never something I've written for my business. I do have plans, it's just that they live in my head and are very organic. I always thought a written plan was a waste of time because I know I'd have done exactly what you did, wrote it, filed it and ignored it for months.

Just a question to others though, did anyone have a business plan that they feel really helped their business develop?

Kris

Welcome back pDm, i haven't enjoyed a brew in the morning like i did this morning for quite a while now.

It's fantastic that you're busy, and getting paid too!

Take care,

Neil

Shamus wrote:

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[lots]

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Shaun, I think we're arguing the same point from different angles. I agree with everything you've said above. But if you look at the questions most asked on this forum (What software... , How much should I charge..., Who should I join..., etc.) and the results I'm putting forward, what you have is a numerical representation of those answers in one easy to read format - nothing more. Which where you consider how spread out and convoluted those answers sometime are, might by some, be considered as useful.

Call it an summary of opinions. And thank you for challenging me to clarify - I wouldn't want to appear misleading in anyway.

;0)

-- Edited by pDm on Saturday 6th of October 2012 03:32:54 PM

Hoi-Hoi the forum! Lovely weather we're having... er, no.

I suddenly realised i was in danger of becoming late with something I promised a while back. The results are in and I don't think there are too many surprises, but I know you'll all be interested.

This weeks blog: One year on and very useful.

 

See you on the forum! ;0)

Shamus wrote:

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there are still too few replies to make the information useful...

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I have to disagree (slightly). So small a cross section doen't make it entirely accurate - but I did find the information very useful. A more scientifc approach (with crossreferenced answers to each individual) would of course give stronger and more valid results, but that wasn't the intention. It's also why I wanted to show how many people had actually answered to give a context.

For a new start-up even realising where the majority of even such a small group are headed can be very useful indeed! Especially in the results to "Who supervises for MLR?", where the results are too close to call with an almost even split across all the answers. I was also worried that if I asked for any more detail than I did, people wouldn't want to respond and "give too much away" about their businesses.

All I'm saying is - take 'em with a pinch of salt. But use them if you like.

"Useful is in the eye of the beholder."

pDm