Ben Walker’s Business Lessons From Inspire 2.0 (July 2015 to March 2020)

There were a lot of good times and lessons learned during Inspire 2.0 

Inspire’s revenue grew from $426,000 to $1,6500,000 million and they went from 25 to 120 clients during that time.

As the business owner, Ben was working crazy hours, cash flow was still a stress, and there was no work life balance. 

There was also a period where Inspire increased their team members, and then also reduced their team members by quite a lot. They were trying different models of team structures and unfortunately, it was a lot of trial and error. But, it has helped give the foundation for the next stage of Inspire’s growth.

So, what do we put in place? 

Sales Process – It converts most of the clients you want to work with. If it’s converting all of them, that the price is probably not high enough and that there’s one thing that might be wrong. 

And if you’re not converting any, then it could be sales skills or a really high price. 

Showing the value for the client – We think part of sales is actually saying no to people who don’t fit our target client profile, whether they’re just a plan out muppet. We are going to say no to them upfront or not in the revenue range or team size or profit level.

Maybe they are too new at business for our stock standard client and whatever that is, that’s what we’ve got to work out in that product step. 

Documented Sales Process And Training – Things that helped and regular training as well. Ability for clients to test you before going all in and in terms of the ability for any of our team to know how much something costs is literally having a pricing menu and a pricing calculator.

Hourly Rates – So, we don’t do hourly rates at Inspire. We’ve got set prices for different things and it does change depending on the size of the business, the number of entities and turnover. But this has helped to scale our sales. Anyone can log in and see how much something’s going to cost.

Have you ever experienced a really bad team culture where good team members don’t stick around and you find it extremely tough to find good people to join the team? 

Are you constantly chasing your tail with work – never meeting ATO due dates, clients blowing up wondering where their job is at and always needing to work crazy hours to keep up? 

Complimentary products such as bookkeeping and financial planning are just some of the things that have helped. It also develops a clear product ecosystem. 

Undoubtedly, a client benefits from complimentary products. Clearly, because they are able to have a complete and remarkable experience in their financial world. Additionally, if bookkeeping and financial planning weren’t offered, it is crucial that a partnership is in place. As a result, these services can be delivered if regularly needed or asked for. A few examples of partnerships include, broking, financial planning and insurance just to name a few.

Creating a marketing machine is beneficial as it generates high-quality leads each week that fall within your target audience. It also aids in building relationships with prospects through education and value well before they become clients. 

In terms of assets, having a marketing plan and a good marketing calendar is crucial so you can map out events, social posts and the overall finish of it. Creating a marketing machine is a game changer.

To bring your marketing into the current era, branding, websites and the way you come across digitally all play a massive role in success. 

In the accounting industry, you have to be okay with speaking in front of a camera or in front of people, but these can all be used to generate content from the backend. It saves time if content is able to be captured upfront. On top of that, when you have a team behind you, posts, videos and blogs are all able to be delegated to them. 

I have been feeling that we need to review our prices and implement price increase at inspire. 

That is due to the way salaries, subscriptions, and other inputs to our business. 

It has been increasing over the last 24 months.

At the same time, I’d share my thought process and an insight into what happened to me and inspire in 2020. 

That time led to a price increase of 200% at the high end (but between 10 – 50% on other services).

Growing a firm or starting out in business, there will be a lot of ups and downs. Ben Walker shares the common struggles he faced when growing his firm, Inspire Accountants. These common struggles can be the difference between a surviving and thriving firm. Here’s what he said –

It’s been extremely difficult in the last 12 months when it comes to finding and hiring accountants. 

We think that’s not a surprise, not only in the accounting industry but in ANY industry.

We’ve just hired 3 accountants in the last 3 weeks! 

How many times should Accountants be following up ethical letters?

If you’ve got the information and can start working with client, we wouldn’t give it any more than a few days till we accept the appointment and progress with the work.