Seven Biggest Challenges Bookkeepers Face – No 5 - Management

This is the fifth instalment in a series tackling some of the biggest challenges you are likely to encounter when growing your bookkeeping business.

The fifth challenge is Management.

I used to think I was the only one having any issues growing my business until I started helping other bookkeepers overcome the same sort of challenges. I often hear them say “I have lots of experience and skills bookkeeping but I’ve never studied business and this is my first time running a business. So how could I possibly know the answers?”

I realised I needed a business coach about 12 months after I started my bookkeeping practice after hitting walls time and time again. My only solution to each obstacle was to work harder and faster and longer. After all, I’m a good technician and that “solution” got me through in the past. It suddenly dawned on me that I actually knew nothing about growing a business and I needed help.  I began to work with Peter Cook and in the first meeting he gave me Michael E Gerber’s book, the E-Myth Revisited. Have you ever read a book that completely changed your trajectory?  That book did it for me. It transformed the way I thought about myself and my role and I realised that it was impossible to grow a successful bookkeeping business without learning new skills. Primarily management skills.

If you haven’t read the E-Myth and you want to change the trajectory of your business, take one action this week. Order it and start reading it as soon as the BAS deadline is over (or before if you can make the time). And when you finished that read, Pete’s new book The New Rules of Management which gives you strategies to implement projects that matter. That’s what management is all about.

You’re more than just a bookkeeper. Are you up for the challenge of learning new skills?