Helping Owners use Financial Information to Build a Better Business.
Meet Steve Price at BWP Inspire
When you say on your website:
“We improve the lives of our clients. I reckon accountants have the ability to really create an impact when we help a business owner use the information in their numbers to build a business that creates a better life for themselves. This is what we always strive to do, and it stems right from our core purpose.”
You need to walk the talk.
Steve Price, Managing Director of BWP Inspire and his team in Manchester do just that.
The Challenge – Getting Clients to Understand The Benefits
Helping many clients at the same time, rather than one at a time is perhaps the best way to amplify the impact you can have on your clients lives and ultimately their business. But when business owners are flat out spinning plates, how do you get them to slow down long enough to listen, and to fully appreciate the value in their financial information?
Steve knows he can make a profound difference to his clients’ success but persuading those clients to take sufficient time out to be educated, and more to the point, to happily pay for that education, well as we all know that can be a tough call.
The Solution – Introduction to FiMBO:
As a firm, BWP Inspire use VFD Pro to streamline the production of Management Information and Growth Planning / Exit Preparation.
When Steve first heard about FiMBO the timing could not have been better, but there was a problem. The FiMBO training programme, (Financial Management for Business Owners), consisted of 12 x one-hour training modules, but what Steve needed was a short introduction he could present to business owners.
Having discussed the requirement with the guys at VFD, they quickly created a concise overview of the 12-week programme, the only question was this: Would it work?
The Business Objective:
The plan was to persuade 6 to 10 business owners to commit to joining a Business Masterclass in three steps:
Step 1: Invite potential candidates to listen to the Introduction to FiMBO and invite them to sign up to the FiMBO training programme paying £275 per person, offering a £50 saving if booked on the night.
Step 2: Deliver the 12 one-hour Financial Management Training modules (FiMBO) as a paid-for online course during which the masterclass would be introduced as an optional next step.
Step 3: At the end of the 12 weeks, having given the delegates a sound understanding of business finance, invite them to sign up to join the Masterclass, 6 to 10 businesses each paying several hundred pounds a month to participate.
The Result:
Step 1 surpassed all expectations, the introduction to FiMBO was delivered to a group of 35 business owners and incredibly 19 signed up on the day which was great, but it gets better because four of the businesses confirmed they wanted to take up the offer of the Masterclass immediately, not bad for one night’s work.
The 12 weeks Financial Management Training is currently ongoing so the final result will not be known for a little while, but if the feedback received from session one is anything to go by, Steve is confident this is the start of something huge, and more to the point, they are bang on target to…
“Improve the lives of their clients, having a positive impact by helping business owners use the information in their numbers to build a business that creates a better life for themselves” = bang on their core purpose.
Recommendation:
When asked what Steve would say to Accountants who are serious about making a real difference to their clients’ success, the reply:
“As an accountant, you need to be clear on your ‘Core Purpose’, and you need to ‘walk the talk’. If like me you want to do all you can to make an impact on the lives and businesses of your clients and others, you need to find practical ways to deliver on the promise.
Partnering with VFD Pro has allowed me and the team at Inspire to do just that by helping clients to manage finance and in doing so be more successful.”
Click on the ‘Live Chat’ on the right to find out more, or ‘Contact Us’ to book a time to discuss.