Jackie Hooper runs an accountancy firm in South Wales, together with her husband, her daughter and a small team.
Until she began working with AVN, running her business was really wearing her down.
“I was working long hours for low fees and for some frankly horrible clients who didn’t value the service I was providing. They thought they could get away with not paying me on time and arguing over fees and they took it for granted that I’d be working at weekends. The stress was never ending.”
Because she wasn’t earning enough from the business, Jackie felt she always had to put it first, just to try to increase her income. Inevitably, that meant she didn’t have enough time for her husband and children or for her elderly parents who needed her support.
She says, “I felt constantly guilty that I wasn’t a good enough wife, daughter or mother. In fact, my doctor told me I was at the end stages of exhaustion. So the pain was very real, both mentally and physically.”
She wanted to change things but it just seemed too difficult. So she kept slogging away and slogging away until finally she knew if she didn’t do something, she’d have to walk away from the business she’d spent so long building up.
How AVN helped her change
Once Jackie started doing things differently, the results were amazing:
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- Cashflow improved and they have more money in the bank than they’ve ever had before.
- Debtor days have dropped from several months to less than 30 days.
- She’s cut her working days down to four and has much more time for her family.
- Despite reducing her hours, she now has time to plan ahead for the business and start to move it forward.
- Shae has great clients who really value what she does for them and they work together, not against each other.
- And best of all, when she meets with a prospective client she decides if she wants to work with them or not – “if they don’t like what we offer, I tell them to go elsewhere.”
The key factor in making all this happen was joining AVN.
“They totally ‘get’ all the pain and frustration that accountants go through because they are accountants themselves. The support I’ve had from them has been exactly what I needed. Every AVN member has a coach who works with them to identify the actions that will take them forward and then holds them accountable – so I’ve had a real incentive to get things done,” she says.
Change hasn’t been easy
Jackie would be the first to say the process has been painful at times. Tackling long-standing issues isn’t easy. But as she says:
“Isn’t it better to go through a painful process of change with the promise of big rewards ahead rather than stay in pain with no prospect of it ever getting better?”
“If you’re going through the same pain in your practice as I was in mine, you only have two options – stay as you are and endure the pain; or change the way you do things and create a better life for yourself.”