I attended my second BNI meeting today, and submitted an application form to join. However, something is niggling away at me...
I'm not sure where bookkeeping ends and accountancy starts. The accountant there has asked me not to mention tax or management accounts.
I have no intentions of promoting tax but I think I should be able to tell people that I can produce management accounts. I feel that management accounts fall under bookkeeping, and that year-end and stat accounts fall under accountancy.
Does anyone else attend BNI? What does everyone else think? I don't want to undersell my services...
-- Edited by Jo Gordon on Tuesday 29th of May 2012 07:21:23 PM
Well done. Rocking the established order already. Not been to one of these so unsure of the etiquette but I'd agree on your definitions. You have to do a better job or win on price or both.
Other than that if you join a club you must adhere to the rules. Just find out that those are the rules, and that if the Network is useful to you, you're not standing on anyones toes, at least unintentionally.
Hi Jo. Congratulations for joining your chapter. I have been a member for the last year and it has paid off for me. If the accountant has asked you formally not to mention it you may find it is a condition of your application and will be agreed by the membership committee. Speak to your chapter director to see if it is a part of your application. There are other ways to promote your business and can be said in a way not to rub the accountant up the wrong way. You can help reduce costs by looking at overheads and seeking out better deals. You can also help your clients reduce their accounts bills whilst also improving the profit margin for the accountant. if you read between the lines I think you will know what this means. Etc
Also bare in mind that you may not be able to promote yourself as a management accountant but it does not stop you from actually doing them.
You will find that some businesses in your chapter will have a natural cross over but it does not stop the referral process.
One other bit of advice be creative with your 60 seconds, try to be specific with who you want to speak to. I.e. name an accounts firm but also name the person who you want to speak to. You never know who knows who in the room. (ps I chose accountant as this industry knows how valuable a good bookkeeper is)
I've only been to 1 BNI event, as a guest, and it's a venn diagram field day. There were 3 IT businesses there, several design businesses, a couple of solicitors.
Jo - this is one of the reasons why I decided to reposition Crunchers away from bookkeeping; I don't want accountants telling me what their value proposition is.
I don't want accountants telling me what their value proposition is.
I really need a translation popping up at the bottom of the screen. lol
If Crunchers are positioning themselves as accountants then isn't that exactly what they would be doing to bookkeepers?
I can see your arguement that we should all be accountants to be taken seriously but that's an awfully big knowledge base to acquire which many bookkeepers don't want and are quite happy with the existing bookkeeping related services models that they already work with.
Jo hits on a very good point in her first post where she states that it's difficult to know where bookkeeping ends and accountancy begins.
We do tread the same turf and looking at the scenario that we have here it's simply the accountant warning the newbie off their turf.
To quote Don Corleonne "It ain't personal, it's just business".
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
I've asked one of the chapter leaders for clarrification on management accounts. Regardless of his response I'm going to join anyway as the other networking groups I've tried are just that - networking and not referral based.
Every bookkeeper who I've spoken to who attends BNI has said it's paid off, so I guess I have nothing to loose.
Thanks for the tips too Peter. Let's hope I get as much success from it as you have...
I belong to BNI and have done for some time, in my current chapter I offer Payroll & Bookkeeping the accountant offers the rest, it has never been a problem for me.
I am a bookkeeper and as Shamus said in his post I am very happy to be called a Bookkeeper.
