Author: admin

When was the last time you drew up a list of every “hidden asset” in your business?   “Hidden assets” are the things that your business takes for granted and does little or nothing with. Things that, with a bit of creativity and lateral thinking, can be used to create exciting new opportunities and profits.…

It is still a common misconception that the phrase “Survival of the Fittest” means that the strongest will win. That is not what that phrase means, nor what it was intended to mean. What it really means is that those who ‘fit in’ best will be the ones to survive. It’s not about strength –…

Ok, so the world is in panic. But out of every crisis there comes an opportunity. The definitions of ‘Crisis’ are :- a time of intense difficulty or danger. “the current economic crisis” a time when a difficult or important decision must be made. “the situation has reached crisis point” the turning point of a…

Each day I speak with lots of different business owners over the phone.  As you would expect sometimes, I get an answerphone or an answering service. Sometime one of the team picks up the phone. At times I encounter a pleasant person who answer the phone with the firm’s name and takes the details and…

Mergers, on the face of it, are a great way to scale up and position the newly formed firm as larger.  Finding another firm, getting ‘married’ to them and becoming one entity, often sharing resources and overheads, reducing costs, tapping in to the skills of other partners, seems like such a great idea.   I…

Social media is full of solutions, I get out my credit card and hey ho! I’ve bought a solution to a problem I didn’t realise I had. Once I’ve looked at their advert, or even stumbled across it, that’s it, it’s everywhere. You hear about mattresses in a box, well look at it once and…

The last couple of weeks we have had 2 amazing members achieve AVNExcellence Six Star, which is fantastic achievement and they both have amazing practices. Big calls out to MDH and Blend Accountants, the two practices that have made massive changes to their practices in the last few years. But at what point did they…

I would love your thoughts on this one……. My 12-year-old son had a science test set by school. He came home and we set out a revision timetable using his schoolbooks and BBC Bite Size (this is a fantastic online resource by the way to support the national educational curriculum) We provided lots of encouragement…

In a world where everything has a price – sometimes giving a little bit of help or support can go a long way. We are also so busy that doing anything extra seems like a big ask. Many years ago, I picked up a little book called ‘Random Acts of Kindness’. If you haven’t heard…

Having a wish to improve, earn more money, work less hours doesn’t happen by chance. It happens by deciding on what you want to – having an aim and then working towards it. Often our role at AVN starts with helping Accountants determine what they want from their lives and business – this isn’t navel…