What music do you want to play?

Richard Brewin • October 26, 2018

If your firm was a music genre then what music would you be playing right now?

You’re going to need to bear with me on this one!

It’s a serious question. If you were to describe your firm in terms of a genre of music then what genre would it be?

Is you firm a classical symphony: all structure, unified sections and a professional, quality sound? Or is it free jazz: a bunch of individuals producing discordant sounds with no obvious structure.

Maybe you see your firm as more rock and roll, punk, soul, swing, blues, heavy metal?

Ask your team: “What sort of music do you think best describes our firm?”

It’s a different way of prompting a conversation about what you are and how you come across.

Now, think about what music genre you really want to be. This is where the conversation moves towards actions.

For example, you may decide that right now your firm is best represented by popular music – safe, solid, nothing particularly wrong with it but not exciting or different. What you may want to be is much more swing – you want to be smart, cool, chilled out, relaxed.

So, what are you going to do about it?

Look at your offices, your team, yourself. Look at how you write your emails and your letters. Look at your website and your marketing material.

Look at the sights and sounds of your firm. Look at the actions and tones of your people and systems. What can you do to make them more swing and less pop? What changes you from safe to cool, solid to smart, dull to different?

Make your firm dance to the sound of your music.

Will MTD ITSA be the next big gift from the accounting profession

By Richard Brewin • April 2, 2025
Question… Should accountants charge for the additional work and obligations they will have when MTD ITSA finally comes into play next April? Not sure? Let me ask another one… Should business owners and taxpayers be expected to pay for the work that their accountant does for them and for the expertise that they receive? Put down in black and white, the answer seems obvious but there are many in the profession who are losing sleep over this issue.

“Accountants can’t or won’t sell”

By Richard Brewin • February 25, 2025
Accountants selling to their clients is a topic as old as the profession itself. I regularly hear criticism from those looking to monetise the accountants’ relationships with their clients that “accountants can’t sell”. I also come across an attitude within the profession that “accountants shouldn’t sell to their clients…it’s unprofessional…it’s not what my clients expect”.  Let’s tackle the issue.

Progress, what progress?

By Richard Brewin • February 11, 2025
Back in the 60’s and 70’s, when I was a lad, doing the family laundry was a time consuming chore. Mum would disappear into the kitchen and close the door so that the noise around the rest of the house was at least manageable. She would be in there for hours, swapping between washing, rinsing and squeezing out.  Every so often the noise level would resemble a fighter jet taking off on an aircraft carrier as the tumbler element kicked in and then she’d reappear, wooden tongs in hand, to ask for help to reposition the twin tub that had danced across the kitchen floor.