Ben Walker, Founder of Inspire Accountants and High-Performance Accountants shares some tips that helped in creating a crystal-clear vision in the recent webinar called, “Creating a High Performing Accounting Firm”.

Ben Walker, Founder of Inspire Accountants and High-Performance Accountants share his tech struggles during the early days at Inspire. Here’s what he said:-

Inspire 1.0

The problem I had was using entry-level computers that we don’t update. Maybe we’re using the free or the light version of the software and you’re your own IT girl, or you don’t have the cash to invest in awesome equipment. These are the things I struggled with then. 

Inspire 2.0

Your team complained about their computers. But I see a lot of firms in this revenue range using all-in-one software packages like HandiSoft or MYOB. They do everything in your practice, maybe not everything, but most things in your practice but each thing potentially poorly. 

You have a server on-site, and you sign up with software that’s appropriate for maybe your current size, instead of the business you’re growing into using software that first came out 20 or more years ago. So, I think there’s just such good and efficient software now that we need to be using best-in-class software. 

Inspire 3.0 

Audio and video quality on Zoom and client meetings are poor. We had limited thought put into them. This is an awareness thing. That’s the reason why I’ve got a pretty crazy mic setup and headphones. I’ve got a 4K camera for my webcam. These are distinguished things I’ve made to give that online experience as best as I can with the equipment I can get access to, but also for our team who sit in client meetings every day.

And the other tricky thing was we don’t have scalable software such as enterprise-level CRMs or workflow managers.

Ben Walker, Founder of Inspire Accountants and High-Performance Accountants share his personal story and his purpose with accounting in a recent webinar called, “Creating a High Performing Accounting Firm”.

Here’s what he said:–

As a child, I watched my grandfather build a business where he was able to step back in early retirement to look after my grandmother when she got cancer. My grandmother is still around, by the way. My dad also inspired me when he ran his well-known corporate catering business, giving himself permission to go after his dream and do what he loved while being paid for it. 

And accountants have a huge influence on business success and small businesses – the backbone of our Australian economy. So, these are the things I believe in. 

My chosen path is to have a positive impact on businesses directly through Inspire, which I’m doing, but also helping other accountants build high-performing firms that give them and their clients the ability to put their families first and make a difference in the world.

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.

There’s a few eSigning tools for accountants. We’ve been using eSigning since the very early days of Inspire. In 2013, we used DocuSign, which at the time was the gold standard and one of the first online signing providers.  About 4 or 5 years ago, we started to lose the love for DocuSign. They kept hitting us with quite extreme price rises from 60%, 70% to 80% increases per year so we had a suss with another couple of providers.