7 figure business coaching – expressions of interest

January 15th, 2012

A little story that has never been told before in this amount of detail.

I have been business coaching for 6 years. In my first year (2006) I did $975K in revenue. Every year since then it has been well into 7 figures:

2006 – $975K – just me coaching
2007 – $2.2M – just me coaching
2008 – $3.75M – me plus 1 part time coach
2009 – $4.75M – me plus 2 part time coaches
2010 – $5.75M – me plus 2 full time coaches
2011 – $6.5M – me plus 2 full time coaches

This year my business will do somewhere between $8M – $10M in coaching fees. There are 4 of us coaching this year and mid-year I will hire a 5th coach.

I was doing some research on the business coaching industry and it seems that if a coach can do $25K per month in revenue they are regarded as a super star. What a joke. My coaches do $165K per month (approx. $2M in annual revenue) – and they only work 60% of the year.

I even read of people who coach other business coaches and their claim to fame is that they might have done $400K in revenue in one year – and that qualifies them as a coach to the coaches. You have got to be kidding me. That only qualifies someone to advise on how to get a job.

There are even coaching franchises that you can buy for $50K – $200K. As I look at the numbers it seems that the individuals who buy the franchise are not the ones that are becoming wealthy. The only people who are getting wealthy are the franchisors.

Other professions are well entrenched in their business models – accounting, consulting, legal etc. And many of these professional service firms are gigantic organisations dating back decades.

The business coaching profession is relatively new and is very much a cottage industry. I invented a business coaching model that can create real wealth for the coach – the business owner.

The business model is very straight forward. It is 100% group coaching. What I call coachingclub. Here is my delivery model for coachingclub:

1. I have 8 businesses (of the same type) in each club
2. Each club meets 4 times per year face to face – with their coach.
3. Each club meets 4 times per year over the phone – with their coach.
4. A very cool online service is provided with loads of industry niche content, forum, cloud reporting system, success library, learning centre
5. An upfront fee is charged to join (2 day strategy session is delivered for this) of $3500 – $9000 – depending which service level is selected.
6. A monthly fee is charged for membership of $750 – $2500 – depending which service level is selected.

Now you have to be good for a client to pay you $10K – $30K per year. Very good in fact. And you must produce results for your clients. Our clients consistently rank in the upper quartile of results against their peers. We track their results every month via our cloud based monitoring solution. A client does not mind paying if they are getting value and their KPIs are improving every month.

So far my business has coached 525 clients and currently there are 290 active clients being coached. The average tenure of a client is 2.5 years and we are just about to roll out a solution which will keep them for double or treble that amount of time. With the clients who are currently ‘out’ of the program we are bringing them back in with different serviced offerings.

As I said each coach manages about $2M in fees and since starting 6 years ago I have billed $24M in revenue. Any business should create wealth for the owner.

Over the years I have had dozens of people ask me about the business model. I freely tell them – like I have told it here. But it will not work unless you know the 4 secrets that have been perfected. What I call the “Secret Sauce”:

1. The detail of what happens in the meetings. The accountability methods. The learning style and the group sharing.
2. The niche market (100% of my clients are Accounting firms) is important but more importantly than who is served it is the content that is delivered. The content MUST help improve the KPIs of the client. The content must be succinct and proven in that industry.
3. The finding and keeping client system. No point building a business unless you can find and keep clients.
4. The online experience. The meetings are one thing (and very important) but the online experience is equally important. Chat forum with their peers, learning centre with video based content, success library with templates and an online KPI monitoring service which benchmarks each client against their peers every month.

Why am I telling you this?

Real simple. I am going license my coachingclub method (for accountants) around the globe. I am looking for around 100 licensees who want to specialise in the accounting profession. My business operates in Australia and New Zealand only at this stage.

You might be a business coach, a consultant or a partner of an accounting firm looking for a new career. If you do not know much about the accounting profession – don’t worry – we can teach you that. With 1.5M accounting firms in the world we want to make a massive difference to the accountants and their clients. We think the market has capacity for about 600 licensees.

We are looking at English speaking countries first with one licensee per (approx.) 2500 accounting firms. No one in the world does what we do for accounting firms. No one gets the results for the profession and no one gets the results for themselves.

We love business success and our company purpose is to “Get business owners addicted to the thrills of success”.

We believe the right accountants can step up and make a difference to business.
We believe it is the accountant who is the natural trusted advisor.
We believe accountants can make a difference to their clients if they have the right tools, coaching and training. We have all of that – including new advice tools like cloud based KPI monitoring where we consolidate data of SME business right to the accountants desktop or mobile device.

If you are interested in pursuing this opportunity then send a direct email to me (rob.nixon@nixonadvantage.com) with your CV and reasons why we should consider you. We only want the highest quality licensees to represent us around the world.

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CEO – end of year message

December 23rd, 2011

Season’s greetings,

Well it’s been a fabulous year in my world. Here is a quick summary.

We kicked off the year with our new “lite” version of coachingclub – dedicated to small firms – and so far we have 115 firms in that model. It’s been great to be able to offer something to smaller firms at a reduced price and service offering from the full version.

We then had an amazing conference in February with 270 Accountants there. It was an absolute hoot. Next year will be even better with more speakers, breakout sessions and many surprises.

We end the year with 285 firms currently being coached and we are bringing on around 15-20 new ones per month. The launch of my book was a personal highlight with it now sold in 30 countries around the world.

The launch of the Proactive Accountants Network has been an awesome addition – and we made no. 9 in the country on our first outing. The network is where it is all heading. We will launch differing versions of the network in 2012.

We also released the knowledge factory, a brand new community, forum and most importantly a major focus of helping you to deliver value added services to your clients. By turning our attention to external business building (not just fix up your firm) it means you will get even more help to grow your revenue and profits as the years roll on.

In the background we have grown the team by net 5 this year to a total headcount of 22 people. I just hired a lady who has the auspicious title of “Manager, Strategic Initiatives” and another who will support in the product development areas.

In the New Year we will hire another coach and a few other people to support you. We need to increase the coaching team so our service levels are not compromised. So head count for your support will be up to 30 by this time next year – more than likely 6 full time coaches. I am glad that the profit is increasing as the headcount increases!

Talking of people we also have 36 people working for us in India right now developing web based tools which will support you even more. You’ll see the fruits of that investment at the conference when we unveil our “Cloud Monitoring” service for SMEs. There will be an interface between you and your clients so you can see at a snap shot a digital dashboard (and consolidated) view of your clients performance – real time. It’s a world first and you’ll see it first at the conference.

We think cloud accounting systems are a game changer in the profession and they have the potential to wipe out some firms. We don’t want you to be wiped out – we want to help you capitalise on cloud accounting. What we are doing is a game changer for how advice is translated and delivered. Stay tuned.

This year we have seen more client success stories than ever before. On a daily basis we are getting all sorts of stories through. Mainly on client focussed, value based fees ones – which is awesome. Keep then coming. The awards ceremony at the conference will be very cool as we celebrate the successes of many firms.

I am most intrigued with 8 firms that we have had in “beta” on a new planning system which as they say to us “it’s the missing link in coachingclub”. Each of the 8 firms have had record months since we started working with them in June. You will have the opportunity to get involved in this revolutionary planning / implementation process at the conference and then after that.

Next year we have an amazing amount of Initiatives that we are rolling out. In no particular order…

1. Enhanced branding and marketing of PAN firms – we want to get our ranking from 9 to 6 or 7 next year.

2. A full training division – training your general team, your CSC’s, Business Managers, Marketing Co-ordinators in a workshop environment.

3. SME seminars. So you will be able to invite your clients to a central location (that we will organise) and we will educate them on how to work with you and help you to sell them value added services.

4. Client Alerts. A web based consolidated view of your clients performance (no matter what cloud accounting system they are on) so you can really help them with what they need – real time

5. Client monitoring. You will be able to offer a self-help monitoring service to your clients and add ‘face time’ service around it.

6. Benchmarking. When we have volume of SMEs in 4 & 5 we can offer real time benchmarking by industry.

7. Cloud monitoring for accountants. A new version will be released with more features that will blow you away.

8. A marketing solution for you. We don’t know how we are going to do it yet but we want to help you with marketing on more of a one on one basis.

9. New success library and enhancements to the learning centre

10. A ‘cloud’ based version of coachingclub – for international firms or far flung firms who find it difficult to travel.

11. “One page plan” planning and implementation process. I alluded to it earlier with the 8 firms.

12. Enhanced community. We want you to interact even more on our forum with each other – there is so much value in not re-inventing the wheel.

13. Loads of new content centred around the roadmap to success which is focussed on the 4 critical elements of an accounting firm – workflow, people, clients & revenue.

And for internal purposes an international licensing model (we are building a team who will do this so not to encroach on service levels) and an employee share plan for my wonderful team.

I am more fired up than ever about the Accounting profession and what it can do for society.

I am going to write about the “firm of the future” in the new year so stay tuned how cloud accounting and value added services play a big part.

So from my team to you – thank you so much for being part of the community. It has been an awesome client success year and an awesome business building year.

From me, my partner Colin my team & my family to you – Happy Christmas and have a wonderful new year.

Over and out for 2011.

Rob

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11 opportunities for 2012

December 21st, 2011

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Opportunities everywhere for cool accountants

November 30th, 2011

As the year draws to a close Accountants all over the world should be thinking about what they are going to do in 2012 and beyond. Here is an article I wrote for our monthly newsletter which you might find useful.

Opportunities Abound

In the accounting profession today there are many opportunities that you could (and should) pursue. As an observer to the industry and having the opportunity to speak with your suppliers, alliances, hundreds of firms and your professional bodies I get to see what is going on from a ‘vendor neutral’ point of view.

I have 11 key points that you should plan/fix/alter/stop doing/start doing/implement and make happen…immediately:

1) Cloud Accounting.  My estimate is there are (currently) 3.5% of SME’s in the western world who have an internet (cloud) based accounting system instead of a server or CD based system. Although a small number this is not a passing fad. This is like internet banking 10 years ago. Back then we had cheque (check) books and passbooks and people were unsure and concerned that their information was unsafe and vulnerable. Now, what’s a cheque book?

What does this mean for you as the Accountant? Whether you like it or not this will gather in speed at a rate of knots and the way you interact with your clients will change. They will have real time information and you will as well. Once the client is ‘on the cloud’ your processing will be faster (for compliance) and you will be more efficient – some estimates are 30-40% less time for annual compliance. Will you 1) downsize the team, 2) reduce your costs to your clients or 3) refill your new capacity with value added work? I suggest all 2 & 3. Whatever you do start promoting it to your clients. It’s a good thing and the right (ethical) thing to do.

2) Generation Y. The next partners are currently 20-30 years old. Some of them in the past couple of years have already branched away from the staid traditional firm. They are sharp, technology savvy and they want faster results and are less patient. Is your firm geared up for them? If you are an old ‘fuddy duddy’ firm that is stuck in the dark ages do not expect to keep them. They will use you as a training ground and then leave to start their own firm. If you are a firm that offers modern solutions, modern environment (please please bring in an office planner to help here) and a career path then you may keep them. I found out that the average age of a partner (in Australia) is 57 right now. They are your succession plan.

3) Your current team. Many partners I meet do not truly value the intellect & creativity of their current team. Yes, they may be quiet and reserved but they have some great ideas. They just need to have a forum where they are asked, listened to and heard. If you have the team engaged and on board it makes your job so much easier. Don’t shut them down, let them speak, share the numbers and you’ll be amazed what they come up with.

4) Your own client base. This is an obvious one however one over looked and not systematically focussed on. And that is, how do we ‘put a fence’ around the client so they do not leave. That means that you analyse what they are buying from you now, you work out what services you have to offer and then systematically promote what you have to offer to existing clients. Your goal would be to have the average fee per client well over $20,000 pa and that they only ever buy (on average) less than 30% from you in total. That means you are continually innovating new services. The table below is something you can develop and analyse (with your services of course). Oh, BTW, make sure all new services are sold on value based fees – not time (what a waste of time that is to sell on time!)

Client service matrix

5) Value added services. In line with point 4 you need offer (to all clients) 7 key services over and above government regulated compliance services. We call it “the awesome 8” – the 8th one is an output of the rest. Offering help with 1) Growth of revenue or wealth, 2) Profit improvement, 3) Cashflow management and improvement, 4) Asset protection, 5) Tax minimisation, 6) Succession planning or selling, 7) Financial retirement. And then if you do that you’ll help your client leave a lasting legacy.  All services should be productised so team members other than the partners are delivering them.

Awesome 8

6) Being curious. Why is it that Accountants do not ask many questions about their client’s background, objectives, motivations & problems?  A cynic in me would say that you are supposed to know the answer to everything. Mind you, I think I am right! You seemed to be trained to provide answers to clients rather than dig for the real problem / opportunity. Try spending more time ‘zipping it’ and asking open ended questions rather than jumping straight to the ‘how’.

7) Trusted advisor status. This one gets me going. You have this implied status of being the trusted advisor. You have studied hard, you have a certificate on the wall, and you’ve been aloof (generalising here) and a bit standoffish, you’ve been reactive and offered little value to your client base – yet you still have the status. In my view this status is by title only and not earned. If you want to be the trusted advisor you need to live it, demonstrate it and actively promote it. The trusted advisor (and their business) should be running a better business than those that they advise. Are you?

8. Unmotivated accountants. What an opportunity to buy cheap fees from ‘older’ practitioners who have had enough. If the average age is 57 for a partner and they have $750K in fees with a $150K profit then offer them $500K (or less). Surely the valuation should be a multiple of profit. Many firms will close shop because of cloud accounting. Great. They shouldn’t be there in the first place.

9) Value based fees. Time based billing in arrears (I have written about it before) is a highly unethical behaviour. Team members ‘pad out’ their time sheets, they fill the available time with what work they have to do and you as the partner are incentivised to ‘drive up productivity’ – which means taking more time than needed to do the task. You will never realise your potential charging by the hour – or any unit of time – and you will not be motivated to do the task in the least amount of time (better for client) possible. Charging for the value that you bring to the table is the only way. You work out the ‘value add’, you articulate this to your clients, and you charge an appropriate fee based on your contribution to the clients financial and/or emotional results.

10) Roof top marketing. Accountants are some of the best kept secrets in the world. You do amazing work for your clients (too often when you are asked) yet very few clients know of the results you achieve for your clients. You need to shout it from the roof top how good you are. You need to continually promote how good you are via the success of your clients. You need case studies, testimonials, stories and examples of other clients you have worked with. If you are selling me something new I need social proof that you can do it. Stories help build trust. Remember this phrase “promote how good you are via the success of your clients”. Bring in some expert help (we can guide you) to do your marketing.

11) Limiting Self-beliefs. There have been 10 good ideas listed here and as many accountants read it they will nod in agreement with the concept and at the same time many (you?) will have a lot of ‘chatter’ going on in your head.

Like… “I/We could never do that we are not in the right location”. “I/We could never do that we do not have the client base”. “I/We could never do that we do not have the skills”. “I/We could never do this we are too busy”. “I/We could never do this we do not have the right team.”
Blah blah blah. Whatever is going on in your head is just an excuse. It erodes self-esteem and confidence. Self-confidence is a killer in this industry and I am convinced time based billing is the root of the issue. You have to shake out of your current belief system and become proactive. Your clients need you, they do not know what you do and if you are the least bit proactive they will think you are awesome.

A final word:

I am SOOOO excited about the accounting profession. It is at a cross roads right now. Based on our research there are 5 key things you are looking for 1) Cashflow, 2) Profit, 3) Growth, 4) Happiness & 5) Lifestyle improvement. Focus on these 11 points and get from where you are now to where you want to go. My coaching team are here to help.

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Cool photos of the past few weeks

November 27th, 2011

Queenstown 001

Queenstown 018

Ship

Tiger

Toilet 1

Toilet 2

Toilet 3

Basement 1

Basement 2

Dolly 1

Dolly 2

Dolly 3

Glam 1

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Self imposed sabbatical

November 27th, 2011

I have just finished my 18th year ’seminar touring’. Time for a rest. I am going to have 18 months of Zero seminar tours. I will still do the odd keynote address, speak at my conferences and coach a handful of firms. Just no seminar tours for a while.

I have 5 others in my business who have already stepped up to the plate to train next year which is awesome. Over the next 18 months I am going to write another book or 2, build a house, spend a LOT of time at home and also spend some time working out the next few years. My golf handicap will plummet next year as well.

I finished my last flight for business last week. I was thankfully down on last years flight numbers with only 75 flights so I will probably lose my ‘platinum’ status with limited travel next year. That’s a good thing.

So for seminar tours. See you in March / April 2013. That’ll mark exactly 20 years working with the Accounting profession. Might be a special tour!

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Always learning

November 20th, 2011

In the past 90 days my team or I have attended a whole range of seminars and brought into our business a range of experts to advise us.

With the world changing so fast you have to keep abreast of the latest and greatest techniques and developments for building a successful business. In no particular order, in the past 90 days, we been in the presence of:

Tony Robbins – personal development
Verne Harnish – growth
Jack Daly – sales
Joanna Martin – presentations
Robert Kiyosaki – money matters
Donald Trump – entrepreneurship
Sir Richard Branson – entrepreneurship
Timothy Ferris – personal development
Taki Moore – marketing
Paul Dunn – service
Alan Weiss – consulting
Harv Ecker – personal development
Patsy Rowe – business etiquette

+ another 25 or so speakers from 3 multi day events we attended.

Often people think that they need to ‘bring in the coaches or consultants’ when you are under-performing. We are leading the world in what we do and we continually re-invest in coaching and training.

I find that no matter how successful you are you will always learn from someone – provided you are open to learning.

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Sorry Virgin – the product does not stack up!

November 9th, 2011

Attention the Virgin Australia CEO – Mr John Borghetti:

Dear Mr Borghetti,

Let me state this. I am a massive Virgin fan. I love everything the brand stands for and my wife even bought me a ticket into space on Virgin Galactic for my 40th birthday – no. 293 in the world and flying sometime soon. I even got to run with the big big boss (Sir R) in the London Marathon last year and to hang with RB for 4 days last year at his retreat in Morocco was just awesome.

So big fan yes. However, last night I was a first time customer on Virgin Australia Business Class. The seriously delayed Brisbane to Perth flight – arrived at 1:40am into Perth!

Onto the story.

I have been flying business or first class domestically and internationally for the past 17 years. I have had millions of frequent flyer points/miles accumulated predominantly on Qantas or affiliates. I do about 100 – 130 flights per year for business or leisure. Rarely am I down the back and I think I am the type of customer you are targeting with your new Business class produce.

So last night was my first time Virgin flight on Virgin Business class. I have been on all the major airlines, the best aircraft and so called best service. Virgin has some of the best service around. Sarah my flight attendant was just super. She couldn’t have been better with what she had to work with. Mind you, I would have liked to have seen her in action on a full cabin – I was the only one in business class!

Good service – not a great product.

If you want to woo the travelling business & political community you have to provide something better than your competitor(s). Not just providing young vibrant types with nice smiles and service but a better product as well: For example…

• I checked into the Brisbane lounge at 7:15pm and asked for a Gin & Tonic – response was ‘no spirits’ – beer or wine only.

• The food in the Brisbane lounge from 7:15m – 9:15pm (flight delayed out your control) was at best ordinary. Toast, soup or make your own sandwich. Cheese & crackers ran out at 8pm with no replenishment. Not sure what was there for dinner time. Some ‘time poor’ travellers like me actually use the lounge as a meal replacement service you know. The food needs to be good.

• Wine selection was pretty substandard as well – no wine glasses at one stage.

• Your new planes have seats that don’t go back very far – not sure what the pitch is but 10% would have pulled it up. For a 5 hour 20 minute flight to Perth – not good enough.

• The lamb meal was cold and when I said a ‘red’ wine a tumbler like glass appeared with whatever was in it. No selection offered.

• With new planes what an opportunity to put power for laptops and wireless technology in. Alas – it’s economy with a larger seat and multiple the times the price.

• There is no inflight entertainment – not even a drop down screen.

• And last but not least there was no pillow. I had to ask for one and 10 minutes later it seemed like the only pillow on the entire plane arrived.

As a ‘full freight’ paying business class passenger I expect more. I gave it a try but I am in no hurry (other than my booked flight home) to give it another. You need to work out who you are serving. Are you the leisure market, the commuting market or the business market?

You have an opportunity to do better. I hope you do.

Yours sincerely,

Rob Nixon
AKA – weary traveller

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The Proactive Accountant – Seminar Tour

November 4th, 2011

From the 1st to the 23rd of November I am presenting my latest seminar tour “The Proactive Accountant” across Australia and New Zealand – We promised the slides would be available to you on my blog, so here they are!

The Proactive Accountant

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Sustainability Index # 2

October 26th, 2011

Since I put up this post on Monday I have had some negative and positive remarks. For most it has been a wake up call to the real value of an Accounting firm. This morning I was asked a question by a journalist:
“Isn’t the whole notion of professional services that the value is the people? The power is the partnership…why on earth would you seek to extract it from the overall value of the firm”?

Good question. Here is my response.

Yes the power of the firm is in the people – without a doubt. Im not saying we remove the partners completely. I am suggesting that we get better utilisation of partner time and we get more leverage of people per partner.

The key thing here is how much of an asset is the firm if the owners have bought themselves a job? Typically in small firms or firms that are larger with low leverage (people per partner) they will have a very low sustainability index. What partners need to do is get super effective with their time and only do 3 things:

1)      High end delivery work for a low percentage of time – so if they are doing client work they are getting paid well for it – say less than 30% of time and more than $500 per hour type work.

2)      Nurturing existing clients – service, sales, finding opportunities – say 40% of time

3)      Leadership – new ideas, driving performance, working ON etc. – say 30% of time

Most partners are doing low level work and too much of it (low leverage) or with their non-chargeable time they are doing administration work.

When this is the case everyone misses out. They clients are not serviced properly, the partners are not doing work they should be doing and profits are not where they should be.

It’s all about balance. An accounting business (like any business) needs leaders but the leaders can get leverage if they hire the right people and ‘get off the tools’

There are 5 business models in the profession – 4 good, 1 bad

1)   Solo person (no employees) – adviser & outsource the rest – good cash business with low overheads

2)   Small boutique firm that specialises in niche markets or niche services – still reliant on partners but very profitable

3)   Trying to be everything to everybody – low leverage, large client base, often with low leverage of people per partner (generally less than 7:1 ratio)

4)   Growing vibrant firm with great leverage of people per partner – more than 12:1 people per partner

5)   Part of a consolidated group – where the partners are now employees

All 5 are valid however no. 3 is what I call ‘between a rock and a hard place’. If 1 or 2 people go on leave (or leave) then it is the partner(s) that are back on the tools doing the work.

It is no. 3 where most of the profession sits and it is no. 3 that will have a very low (sometimes negative) sustainability index.

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