Alphapreneurs

The Secrets Behind Building a Profitable Accounting Business | Ft. Reza Hooda

• Rayhan Aleem • Season 1 • Episode 16

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𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘄 𝗮 𝗺𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗻 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗹𝘆, 𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗵𝗲𝘀 𝗱𝗼𝘄𝗻, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗼𝘀? 🤔

In this episode, Rayhan Aleem sits down with Reza Hooda, Founder of Capture Accounting and partner at partner at Walji & Co Chartered Accountants, and Coach and Mentor to accountants inside The Profitable Accountants Community.

Reza shares how buying a small practice during the 2008 financial crisis forced him to learn the skills nobody teaches accountants: positioning, pricing, winning work, leading a team, and building systems.

He also talks about the book he wrote for firm owners, where he distills years of mistakes and experiments into a practical Four Pillars framework, so other accountants can skip the trial and error and build profitable, focused firms faster.

From getting out of the race to the bottom, to choosing a niche, to understanding why pricing always follows positioning, this episode is a roadmap for accountants who want better clients, better fees, and a better quality of life.

👉 Follow 𝗥𝗲𝘇𝗮 𝗛𝗼𝗼𝗱𝗮 on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/4p8pI4a

👉 Check his website: https://bit.ly/47Ggkz3

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𝗪𝗵𝗼 𝗔𝗺 𝗜?

My name is  Rayhan Aleem, Founder and CEO of 𝗧𝗮𝘅 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿 and 𝗔𝗹𝗽𝗵𝗮 𝗣𝗿𝗼 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀. At  𝗔𝗹𝗽𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘂𝗿𝘀 podcast I sit with top industry leaders for in-depth conversations that dive deep into their success stories, market dynamics, and firsthand tips on entrepreneurship and profitability. Whether you're just starting out or already running your own business, 𝗔𝗹𝗽𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘂𝗿𝘀 offers something valuable for everyone.

👉 Follow 𝗥𝗮𝘆𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗔𝗹𝗲𝗲𝗺 on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3U2niHn
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𝗦𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗿𝘀:

𝟭-𝗔𝗹𝗽𝗵𝗮 𝗣𝗿𝗼 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀:
  -𝗪𝗲𝗯𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗲:  https://www.alphapartners.co
  -𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱𝗜𝗻: https://bit.ly/3Yf4VRZ

𝟮-𝗧𝗮𝘅 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿:
  -𝗪𝗲𝗯𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗲:  https://www.taxstar.app
  -𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱𝗜𝗻: https://bit.ly/3ZVjzPD

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🔗 𝗪𝗲𝗯𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗲: https://bit.ly/4nmA53y
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𝗘𝗻𝗷𝗼𝘆𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲? 𝗦𝘂𝗯𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗯𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗔𝗹𝗽𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘂𝗿𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗳𝗮𝘃𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗽 𝘂𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀!

This was, uh, early, late 2007, early 2008 Uh, I handed my notice in and just as we were about to start, uh, starting the contract, my friend pulls out and next thing you know, a few weeks later, the world goes into financial meltdown at the crisis of 2008 Yeah Um, and I'm the guy that, um, mortgage to the help taking a 70% pay cut in earnings And you know, starting a business during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression Welcome to the Alphapreneurs podcast I'm your host, Rayhan Aleem I'm also the founder of Alpha Pro Partners, a bookkeeping business based in Dubai and Tax star, a tax technology startup, automating corporation tax returns Join me on each episode as we talk to inspiring Dubai based entrepreneurs who share their stories, challenges, and secrets On building world-class businesses, I'm really pleased to welcome Reza Hooda to the show Reza grew his accounting firm from 125,000 pounds to over a million pounds of a RR while cutting down his own hours to just a few hours per month Today, he helps other firm owners do the same through his coaching, his book, the Four Pillars and his podcast, A Profitable Accountant Reza, welcome to the show Um, thank you for coming down Um, I know you live in Doha, um, and you've come through the traffic of Dubai, come to the studio Um, so, so much appreciated Similar to me You're on a, you own a, a practice Mm-hmm Uh, but you've done a whole, a whole lot more Um, and I want to Start from the beginning of when you started your firm mm-hmm To, you know, when you left your high profile job working at at pwc Sure I come across many accountants who are setting up out here Yeah A lot of them are new to the journey So, can we talk about your journey? Mm-hmm What made you quit your job at pwc? Then start a firm, um, you know, on your own So that's taking me back all the way to 2008, which is when I made the decision to leave PWC, it was I guess it was always something that I wanted to do I never saw myself as a PW lifer I didn't really want to be employed for very long I couldn't see myself spending 10 years or so to get to partner And accountancy for me was something that I kind of fell So when I, at the end of sort of final year at university applying for jobs, I applied for everything I applied for management roles, I applied for accounting roles I applied for consulting roles, and I had two job offers An offer Offer from Reno, the car company'cause I did international business in French So business was always a thing that drove me It was something that I always wanted to do, you know, set up a business in something that brainwave of an idea just never came to me So either job offer from Reno and a job offer from PWC That was kind of the fork in the road for me in terms of if I had taken the Reno offer, it would've been management, spending time in Paris, keeping up with my French Uh, I decided to do PWC, so knock French on the head, but enabled me to keep studying, get a qualification, and then everyone said, yeah, once you've got the a CA, then we'll do your oyster You can then go and do whatever you want So I took on board that advice and joined PWC and obviously with a big brand like that, yeah, it, it was, um, the sensible thing to do at the time So I joined, I did sort of, I did the, uh, pass the a CA, I did my CTA there, I was there for five and a half years working in tax as a advisor to entrepreneurs and private companies But whilst I'm there, I'm always thinking of what can I do? What business can I set up? So me and a friend of mine at, at PWC as well, guy called Imran You know, we used to meet for coffee breaks in the atrium and over an almond latte Just have a chat to brainstorm What can we do, what business can we set up? And back then the craze was Sheha cafes and I was in Birmingham at the time, so I thought, right, we're gonna set up own Sheha Cafe and did research and say, yeah, it's booming Everyone's doing it This was 2007 And just as we're about to take things seriously And I remember having a conversation with my dad, uh, to say, this is what I wanna do, and he's like, you're ridiculous I said, no, no It's something, it's really good It's, you know, it's booming This is a really good business to be in And then tobacco ban comes in and basically shut half of them down Until the final loophole to open up in another way Uh, so that kind of scuppered that idea, and I'm glad it did because it probably would've been hopeless Uh, so that was 2007, and then at the end of 2007, I was visiting my in-laws Now I was living in Birmingham My in-laws was on the South coast in, uh, near Southampton In between Southampton and Portsmouth That's where my wife was from originally And my father-in-law ran a practice But he had kind of, uh, he'd gone into other businesses, uh, in care sector, et cetera, so he wasn't really paying much attention to the practice It was just ticking along There was two or three people in it It was just something that he had set up and was, it was just ticking along without him and legacy clients going back, um, sort of 25 years And he was having conversations, he was telling me with other practices in the local area To sell to because he wanted his employees that he'd had that were loyal to him that'd been there since he started to continue in, in employment So we got talking and I said, well, you know, my friend and I, we, what about, what if we could, you know, come to an agreement? Where would we, we buy, we buy in, we buy the practice Uh, and he said, sure, will you talk about it with your friend and, you know, come back to me with an offer and let's see what we can do So I did And then myself and Imran, we came, we saw the practice, we went inside, we met with the staff Um, very traditional practice, all paper-based Um, and yeah, one thing led to another and we decided to, to buy in This was, uh, early, late 2007, early 2008 Uh, I handed my notice in and just as we were about to start, uh, starting the contract, my friend pulls out I, I, this was early 2008 I was mortgaged to the hilt and next thing you know, a few weeks later, the world goes into financial meltdown at the crisis of 2008 Yeah Um, and I'm the guy that, um, mortgaged to the hilt taking a 70% pay cut in earnings and, you know, starting a business during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression All my colleagues and people just purely received thought I was crazy, but, you know, I didn't wanna back out there and decided to do it, uh, move my life from Birmingham to the South Coast to run this business And I get there and I think, okay, fine Excited Let's, let's see what we can do I've been at pwc, so surely it's gonna be do to, to run this tiny practice It was about 125, uh, 150 K turnover at the time with about two or three, uh, employed staff Uh But I realized for long that I had no clue what I was doing Like I, no one teaches you how to run a business Mm When you do your accountancy training No one teaches you how to price your services No one teaches you how to win work No one teaches you how to lead and manage a team No one teaches you how to implement systems So I learned the hard way You know, I, uh, this book shows those systems, right? Absolutely That, that book is 17 years of blood, sweat, and tears of mistakes that I've made, uh, is hopefully paving the way, uh, the shortcut for people that don't have to go through the trial and error that I did So yeah, I kind of bumbled along Uh, you know, we, we won clients, we lost clients Fast forward five and a half years and I'm working crazy hours, uh, in the practice and, uh, you know, clients are coming, clients are leaving, staff are coming, staff are leaving And it wasn't really what I signed up for Mm And then I come across a chance invitation to a webinar on practice growth promising to solve all my problems and things couldn't possibly get any worse So I decided to attend And that was the, the seed that, uh, the seed planted that led to the transformation of my results and ultimately my life I realized then that I had, that other people had gone on a journey before me that I didn't know what I didn't know, and that I had to invest in myself to become a better business owner, to do the best for my clients, my team, and ultimately myself and my family So yeah, perhaps we'll kind of pause there And that was the, the journey of, of transformation really, of kind of buying the practice, not really knowing what I was doing, getting to the point where I'm questioning myself as to why did I leave a nice paying job and a career path at PWC to run my own business during the worst financial crisis with zero experience, not knowing I'd run a business and not really having the freedom that I wanted when I set up So we, by that time, we had four kids in the space of five years Things were pretty hectic, but I was finding they didn't really have the time to be able to Spend at home I was, you know, I was living in continuous regret watching my kids grow, but unable to make those lasting memories So something had to change Uh, and that was my pivotal moment in 2014 where Thankfully this mentor came outta the blue and I realized there was a whole world out there of people that had, uh, tro in the path before me that had, you know, there's, I'd never really read a business book before then Yeah That, you know, there's a whole world of marketing and sales and coaching and courses and masterminds of people I could learn from to acquire those business skills I desperately needed To be able to run a business to become a better business owner rather than a better accountant I didn't need to become a better accountant I needed to become a better business owner Uh, and that was the unlock for me, uh, back in 2014 There's a few things that I wanna unpack that you've mentioned about your journey, and thank you for sharing that Um, I think what you've been through and what you've went through, there's a lot of entrepreneurs that can resonate I can resonate in in many aspects Um But one thing I wanna start off with is you decided to buy a business rather than set something up from scratch Um, and many entrepreneurs, when they start the journey of entrepreneurship, they would start from scratch Um, some even have partners and you'd also didn't go down the partner, you almost had a partner, but you then went a solo route as well So tell us more about your experience of Running a, buying a business and growing it as opposed to, um, you know, starting something from scratch Um, I wanna tackle that first, and I'm gonna, then I want us to then talk about the partner model as well So, how did you find buying a business and, you know, taking that on and, and growing it? Mm, yeah I mean, it definitely had its challenges because you are now inheriting someone else's employees And that comes with its own challenges, where you've got, you are going into a business I was 27 at the time and there were employees that had been there since my father-in-law had set up the practice back in 1982 Wow So they've been there a long time already They've been there, what, 25 odd years They were like the backbone of the firm So coming in as a junior age wise, to them, that was a challenge'cause you're always gonna get that resistance with that longstanding employees who kind of think that they, you know, they, they in the place that ultimately 'cause they've been there for so long, this is the way it's done, this is the way it's done And that resistance to change And you as a, you know me as a kind of, um You know, young, excited and, you know, wanting to make change You are, you are coming up against a lot of obstacles mm-hmm In front of you to try and make that change So that, that was hard And I had to navigate difficult, uh, situations to be able to make the change that I wanted happen But I would like to say that it was Kind of intentional buying the practice instead of starting up Mm-hmm But actually, I can probably admit this now, I maybe wouldn't have admitted this 15 years ago, 17 years ago, whenever I purchased the practice to anyone, uh, but especially not the employees that were already there So I, because of, although I qualified as a chartered accountant, I qualified as a chartered tax advisor Yeah I was working in the Entrepreneur and private client tax department of pwc And pwc being a huge organization means that you are very much pigeonholed and just do what you need to do in your department So you just do all I was doing with the advisory work, which is great because it was great experience and exposure that I had got Advising entrepreneurs and private clients who ultimately would also be the same profile of client that I would have when I purchased a small practice and looked to grow it I'll be on just a smaller scale So rather than having a hundred million turnover, they might have 1 million turnover, right? Mm-hmm But profile is the same Only managed businesses What I didn't have any experience of is doing any compliance work So when I bought the practice I had never paid a set of accounts before I'd never even done a tax return before Mm, because the tax returns were had done by the compliance department of P wc There was a whole tax return tax compliance center I did all the corporate tax returns, did all the personal tax returns So yes, I'd seen a tax return corporate one, and I'd seen accounts I'd never paid them Bookkeeping I had zero knowledge of bookkeeping I'd never done any bookkeeping before So starting a practice was Would be, had been quite difficult for me to do because I didn't know how, actually, how to do the work Yeah I'd had to invest in people and then have no idea and just trust that they would do the work Whereas this, I thought, okay, well I can actually use my skillset immediately so I can use my skillset to add value to the existing client base that we had Use that to grow because then you, you know, clients ultimately are, they're bothered by tax Like, tax is something that you can use to win clients 'cause you're gonna save them money and that's what people are happy to pay for rather than compliance work, which is much harder to sell So on that basis was, um, so I kind of hit that fact at the beginning, but ultimately, uh, you know, the opportunity arose and I took the opportunity and, uh, yeah, it kind of worked out in the end Uh, but that was the reason why I kind of bought instead of starting from scratch because I didn't know how to do the stuff myself Yeah, no, that's a very, very interesting, um, interesting, uh, yeah Way of, you know, getting to, uh, the end goal, but I mean, you've done tremendously well and, you know, you've got to a point where your business runs on its own, and we'll go into how you, how you achieve that Uh, later on in, in, in the episode, I now want to dive a bit more deeper into your thought process of partner and solo founder Mm Um I set up Alpha Pro I was, I've been in Dubai for nine years and that's when I officially set it up full time And I never wanted to bring on partners 'cause I was paranoid I wanted to have full control I didn't want someone telling me what to do I had that when I was an employee working in all of the different companies I worked at Um, but in hindsight there are situations where a co-founder can be your, can fill your blind spot You can probably grow faster as an accounting firm, having partners, um, sometimes you get to a point where your decision making slows down as well because you've got more than one person to, to, to, to please Um, I've now stepped into the startup board and you have as well, and we'll go into that And, you know, some investors do not invest in a business unless you have a co-founder Mm Because The extreme is if one, something happens to one of them, you've got someone else to kind of take over the business Yeah But in other scenarios, running a startup is hard Mm-hmm Right It requires a lot of hard work hours and, and determination And you need to be an expert in at least technology or sales Yeah To really drive the growth Um, so in terms of when you Purchased the accounting firm from your father-in-law and your friend pulled out What were you feeling at that time and did you think about bringing on another partner? Uh, if not, why? And if you went back, would you have taken on a partner to kind of help you with the load? Yeah, no, it's a great question I, yeah, when he first pulled out, I questioned whether I should proceed or not, but I I guess thankfully the, the person I was kind of buying from was, was family and therefore he was very supportive and I think that definitely helped So I cannot say that it didn't, it definitely helped that there was someone that I knew that was, uh, trusted that Had a vested interest in seeing me succeed as well So it definitely helped that when I initially bought and joined that he actively helped to transfer the goodwill that he had with clients to me So he would introduce me and he would obviously say that I've got this background and that background, and really helped to transfer that goodwill that he had To me So the clients would stick around and they would kind of get that obviously they trusted him He had a reputation with them He had had the clients for many years So that definitely helped for him to be around to, to pass that across to me Uh, but in terms of you Growth and managing the team and responsibility for workload and training and all that kind of stuff Then obviously just, uh, sat with me and that might have been helpful with a partner, but you kind of just get on with it And I think there are, there are obviously pros and cons Of having a partner I think looking back, it may have been helpful, but equally it's been, it's been fine in terms of the accounting firm I can see other situations where having a partner would be really helpful Like the journey I'm on now in developing some software as a solo founder without a kind of a CTO or Chief Technology officer That is difficult because then you are at I Mercy of kind of developers and you're paying a premium and if you don't really have any coding knowledge when it comes to software, it can be tough, but And then with the accounting firm, it's been, it's been okay And I've, in the last 15 years of having active, when I did have active client involvement, there are many partnerships that I have seen go south and go sour, and I've had to be the mediator between them, so Oh, wow Wow So you've, you've, you've been in that process? Many, many, many of them that I've seen, that I've had to, and, and a lot of them are family as well, like brothers falling out and then not speaking to each other, without us having to Advise on splitting the business and dem merges and, and that sort of thing So when you look at that, you think, okay, fine Well, you know, we've done okay The fact that it was just me, there's no one to fall out with at least what's been like, uh, an extreme example of, uh, split without naming names, obviously Yeah, yeah, yeah So, I mean, yeah, brothers falling out that, that ran a very successful property business and, uh, they had different goals and aspirations And act as a mediator to, to, to split the business Otherwise they were ready to kind of sell up and part ways and they would've had to paid millions of tax to do so And the sad thing is that they, you know, they still don't speak to each other over, over business Um, another case of uh, um, sadly is passed away now, but, um, longstanding client of ours, he was in business with his, um, with his cousin and, and they fell out And I remember like being the middle, literally being the middleman where they wouldn't speak to each other, they would just speak to me and I'd be like having to, you know, negotiate and arbitrate and media between both sides in order to try and reach an agreement on how do we now split the business? How do we move forward? How do we kind of find a, a solution Mm Uh, in these, in these situations So I mean, I learned a lot from that if I was gonna do a partnership, and I have now in recent times, uh, you know, gone into, invested into certain businesses where I'm a, I'm a partner now Mm-hmm Uh, and therefore I make sure that things are agreed We've got heads of terms, everything's written down, you know, which is, um, uh, you know, tradition for us as well in terms of, you know, our religion as son of the prophet to say, you know, write things down between, you have things Agreed Not just verbally, but written in a document So that's good practice for us to do as Muslims anyway, uh, and that, that's really important So then it's something which hopefully you don't have to look at, but if situations arise where you do fall out, then least you've got something that you can refer to to say, look, this will be agreed And therefore, hopefully that mitigates the, um, the fallout and the issues that could arise in a, in a very messy, um, business divorce, as it were And on the flip side to that, I'm sure you've, you Coach, accountants Mm-hmm I'm sure you've seen accounting firms that have had partners and done, have done really well Absolutely Yeah What, what's been like the main driver of the, the success of some of these partnerships? Yeah I think where you have, uh, complimentary skill sets where you have an aligned vision and goal, then it can work really well Uh, so if you have the same sort of values, yeah, there are, uh, many, many cases of two, three partner firms that have, uh, that have succeeded And yeah, it just helps because it can be the downside of Just being you as a solo practitioner is that it's lonely There's no sounding board to ask you Second guess yourself Sometimes it's everything falls on your shoulders, so it can be quite daunting and overwhelming and, uh, feel quite heavy on the shoulders being on your own And I guess that's the, the benefit that, um, I'm able to provide accounters now in my community where it's essentially like having partners Yeah But without the, you know, having to give your profits, uh, away, they can all get in a safe space and ask questions, which They couldn't ask anybody else because nobody gets you like a fellow accountancy firm owner If you are an accountancy firm, owner yourself, you can't talk to your clients about these things because they expect you to have all the answers when it comes to business But you are just like them You're just learning the ropes Mm Know sometimes as much about business as they do, uh, but you can't admit that to them So Having a safe space where you can talk to other practice owners about the challenges you're having, you know, your cash flow issues or your pricing or your team issues, or your confidence issues when it comes to pricing, you know, is um, is highly valuable One of the common themes of this podcast when I'm speaking to entrepreneurs is the concept of having a mentor and a coach And we just touched upon that in the previous um, session I'm a big believer of having coaches and mentors Um, I myself have a coach I have a mentor as well Um, and some of the things that they're able to do is, they may not be a better entrepreneur than you, but they, at least they can see your blind spots Mm-hmm You know, Michael, Jordan, Christiana, Ronaldo, Messi, they all have coaches Hundred percent Um, because they can observe what they're doing and give them, give them feedback on how they're doing and how they, how they can improve Even the likes of Steve Jobs, um, you know, the Google, uh, the Google founders, Amazon founders, uh, Jeff Bezos also had the same coach who was called Bill Winters, and he wrote an amazing book called The Trillion Dollar Coach, um, which I recommend for everyone to read And you have a coaching club as well for accountants, uh, based in the uk Um, and you have a number of accountants that you coach around the world Tell us more about how you've been able to empower the, your, you know, your, your accountant, the accountants who've come to you for coaching and mentoring, and what are the benefits that you've seen off the back of that? Yeah, yeah, sure I guess it might be worth just talking about how it began, because what I'm doing now is pretty similar to how I learn and how I managed to transform my practice through learning from somebody else who was my mentor My first mentor back in 2014, uh, a guy called Mark Wickersham I joined his mentoring program and it was Once a month, he would deliver some training for 90 minutes on a group level It wasn't a one-to-one, it was group coaching And I remember I would sit there and my PA would know that yeah, door is closed, is not to be disturbed And I would take notes and I'd make sure it action something from each session that I attended and that it was hugely different transformation for me So in 2014, uh, we were struggling, but by, by 2016 I remember we had, um, so he, he, his focus was on pricing So before that I was charging by the hour doing time sheets And he introduced me to the world of value pricing And that changed the game for me So that was the place where I first started and I got the biggest results And therefore when you, when you, when you hear someone telling you something and you see they've got the credibility'cause they've done it themselves and they've got results, and then you take what they are teaching you and you apply some of it, and then you get results That gives you the confidence that, oh, this stuff works Maybe I'll do it again Because initially everyone has skepticism We're all skeptical of anything that we see here, and slowly there are things that we see, we observe, we take a leap of faith, which add to our level of certainty The best level of certainty is when you are taught something, you do it and you get a result, then you'll do it again, and then you get a better result So that's what I started to do Take little bits of what he was teaching, implementing it, and getting results 2016 I remember pitching a fee to a client based on value pricing for 66,000 pounds, and I was booking it and uh, I laid out exactly how, you know, he showed me to do it with three options and chunking the price down and all that kind of good stuff And the client went for it And not only that nice, but the client decided, 'cause again, I te and now I teach the stuff, but I, you know, I, someone taught me about giving options in pricing and the options were either you spread it over 12 months or you pay in advance for a 5% discount and they wanted to pay an advance and a 5% discount So I got the whole chunk upfront before I even started any work, which was mind blowing for me I thought that would never be beaten, but Again, pricing is about confidence Your prices will represent the level of confidence that you have at any point in time My level at that point was 66 Two years later, I had another opportunity At that point, my confidence levels had gone up 'cause I had two years of, uh, of additional experience and, uh, training and proof to go with it So, 2018, I got opportunity, another opportunity, and, uh, pitched a fee of 147 odd thousand, which again would've been Would've been, you know, um, pretty impressive to PWC partners to win those kind of fees Uh, but you know, that's all this stuff works and it's pricing based upon the value And I'm just taking a, share, some more share of the value that I'm generating for the client And they accepted, and again, they chose to pay in advance So we got a, you know, 5% discount, hundred 35,000 pounds paid in advance before we'd done any work And that enabled me to, uh Then from 2018 onwards to start really investing in good people to take away some of the client relationships I'm less involved in the practice 2019, my mentor, who I'm learning from I'm still, you know, attending these courses, even though I've probably seen the things two or three times I, you know, heard it But, you know, once, once you get so much value from someone even Hearing them again, helps to consolidate You might hear something new and often at times, we need to be reminded more than we need to be taught Well, I mean, it, it goes back to sports, right? Mm-hmm You know, repetition helps affect the kind of the perfection, right? So if you are playing any sports as well, you know, why do footballers, you know, practice to kick a certain way? Why do golf swingers, you know, swing a certain way? Because there are times when you are Uh, the, the, the consistency of what you do helps you then execute that later on down the line And I think that is still a very important thing to do Even we, I, I'm a member of EO in, in Dubai and we have learning days, and some of these learning days, they do repeat the same content Mm-hmm But I go again, and reason why I go again is because sometimes they give you a menu of things you should fix in your business, but you just want to focus on one Then the second time you come, there might be another thing that you wanna fix and you want to hear it out, the whole theory behind it Mm-hmm And ask questions as well And I think you should never be, um, you know, too big to go back to a hundred percent you know, what, what you've learned Because there's always You as an entrepreneur is changing Your business is constantly changing as well So what your, your challenges last year completely different to what your challenges are this year Yeah Um, so a hundred percent relate to what, what you're saying Yeah You know, it's, it's good to have that repetition as well Yeah, yeah, for sure So, so then as I'm getting these, these results and my mentor is like, he's taking note and he is like, well, can you come and chair now?'cause he had been outta practice for about 20 years So I became his kind of star student and he said, well, you know, why don't you come and share what you're doing in practice to the group that he had built up of other practice owners and I, and I'll pay you per session I said, okay, fantastic Why not for the time? And, uh, you know, I, I like the stuff and I don't mind sharing what I'm doing So I did that in, uh, 2019 We kicked off, we did one session I went down really well and he's, then we had a chat and he said, well, why don't you do this every month and I'll continue to pay you It's fantastic And he goes, you can build up your audience on the side as well if you want So I said, okay, fine Well let, let's do that And it was something new for me to kind of get into and start exploring the whole world of, uh, of content marketing and social media and that kind of thing So it gave me something else to do now that I didn't have as much involvement in the practice anymore because the, the team were, were running a lot of it So I started that and building my audience, and after about a year and a half My audience has kind of grown where we'd kinda become competing businesses So we decided to kind of call it a day and we parted ways amicably, and then I continued down the route of continued to grow my audience and the coaching community that, uh, that I was building But ultimately it's uh, it's giving practice owners, accounting firm owners, the courses, the coaching and the community to be able to grow and scale their accounting firm and build an accounting firm that gives them more time, money, and freedom It's all well and good getting the coaching, but also being in a, in a community of other practice owners, that is massively valuable in itself Yeah, hundred percent So being able to provide that space and that, uh, that safe space, bringing people together Every week in my community, we have a weekly lunch and learn where I even, I'm not there The group, uh, of practice owners, they get together every Thursday There's a host from within the, the PAC group, and they will just have an hour where anyone has a specific question, be it technical, non-technical, a particular challenge They can come and they can ask in a, in a safe space, knowing they're not gonna be judged, they're not going to have to, uh, you know, not gonna Feel bad or anything like that Uh, and they know that they're talking to people that get it And that's, that's massively valuable So we have that for the whole pack group And then we have a new firm group as well So this is for smaller firms that have only been around a couple of years Where they may not want to ask certain questions to the wider pack group, which may have, you know, practice owners turning, you know, millions so they can ask in their small new firm group as well And so we, in the, in the WhatsApp community, we've got subgroups, a new firm group, and then a, an all members group and then a mastermind group, et cetera So, you know, people have a certain space where they can go to, to, to seek answers to questions, comfort mindset, confidence, all that kind of stuff I also wanna kind of di dive into the Mastermind as well Mm-hmm So Um, I'm a member of EO and we have this concept called forum And in our forum you have entrepreneurs and you are very open in terms of what you talk about You know, you talk about your problems, or not just problems, but successes as well Mm-hmm And I know this is, can be quite re quite important to have a mastermind because sometimes you just wanna have a very select group of people that you can trust and you can be vulnerable to as well Mm-hmm How does that mastermind work? With you and, and your community as well Yeah Yeah So, so very similar to what you've just said It's the Mastermind is for kinda larger practice owners Mm-hmm So anyone doing more, sort of half a million upwards So it's a much smaller group and Similar sort of thing We meet at least, uh, once a month, once or twice a month, uh, online And we also have a separate WhatsApp group But in that, we go around the room, we share wins, successes, and the reason for that is to help inspire, motivate other people as to what is possible Mm-hmm So when they hear that other people like them are achieving wins, client wins, fee wins, team wins Spending time away from the practice wins That's all good to share'cause it helps motivate and inspire others as to what's possible But then also having that hot seat where people can come with their challenges and their problems and be able to then benchmark as well So you know, benchmarking margins or benchmarking even salaries or looking at their team structures As you, as you scale from half a million onwards, it's more about kind of team and systems and that kind of thing So they're more of the kind of discussions that we are having, uh, in the mastermind group, which are highly relevant and just help people to, to move on a lot faster rather than try, you know, figuring it out Often you just procrastinate on a decision because you're not sure whether to do it or not Whether if you can just meet with a like-minded room and there's other people who have been in that situation before Mm Can help you make that decision then ultimately The, the, your growth is dependent on how, on the speed of your decision making, the, the faster you can make decisions, even if there might not be the right decision But it means that you can then make the right decision if it turns out to be a wrong decision Yeah Uh, but if you never, if you're not unable to make a decision, you're just gonna stagnate and still your growth ultimately Yeah No agree a hundred percent Um, I want to kind of pivot now to personal branding Okay Um I think you'll, you have the gold standard when it comes to personal branding Um, I'm not sure about that You know, you, you, you've, one of the things a lot of new entrepreneurs and a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with is their personal brand So even when I first set out in business, I didn't wanna show my face I didn't wanna kind of be the, do podcasts, do videos or anything like that I just wanted to sit behind my keyboard and just write blogs and that's it Um, but With business, particularly with accounting, you know, people, your customers are doing business with you and they need to trust you And even if they don't meet you, they need to trust your process because ultimately you've built your business, you've built your process, which they kind of, their, their business relies on your process to, you know, run their accounts, do the tax returns, you know, look at cashflow, post the journals, post the bookkeeping as well So they need, they need to trust in you And that's something I've realized over the years, uh, growing Alpha Pro Partners Um, but for you particularly, you know, you've got a book, uh, you know, you do podcast, you do webinars You, um, you know, you have your own, your, your own group as well You do a lot of content, ri written content as well Uh, and you're active You're consistent as well for the entrepreneur who's just coming into business Can you tell us your perspective of what you think personal branding is and how do you, what kind of tips can you give entrepreneurs to, to be consistent, to, you know, start that post to maybe start writing a few lines of the book? What kind of advice do you, would, would you give? Yeah Yeah I think personal brand has become even more important Nowadays with the advent of ai, which is enabling people to generate things like written content at scale, and you don't know whether an AI is written it or a human is written it, whereas personal brand actually, like you say, getting face on camera is what's gonna be left when everything else is just sounding the same So this was not something I did intentionally of or in a built a personal brand It was a means to an end It was, I saw on social media that to kind of build a To build a, to build a, to build a business, a coaching business as it were, to help people You need to get out there and share what you know to other people And the best way to do that is through the medium of video I was, you know, my, the videos that you see now are Thousand times better than what they were at the beginning You know, what people see now is take, you know, 1082 and if you haven't done any, you are at the start So you're, you are not, you are not gonna be as good as your version 2, 3, 4 years from now Mm-hmm But you won't get to that version if you don't start now So you don't always say you don't need to be Great to start, but to be great, you need to start And at first it's all about quantity Just put the reps in because ultimately you will get better over time Mm-hmm Quantity over quality And you will have those feelings of, and I had the same when I saw other people doing video And the reason why I started video is because I kept hearing from other people, from mentors and other people that I'm Learning from is that do content marketing This is what's gonna separate you This is how you're gonna get credibility This is how you become the expert in your space so that people want to work with you rather than you having to go and chase business So I forced myself to do it, and my first videos were awful I hated the way I looked, I hated the way I sounded, but over time I just stuck with it because I knew it had to be done And if I look back at my videos from five, six years ago, they were awful But it had to be done And then, and then it's about mine's the same, by the way Well, exactly And we, we all start, we, no one starts being polished straight away You've gotta put in the rest So it's just about, hopefully people hearing this will, will think, okay, fine Well, yeah You know, go and look at my videos from five, six years ago Mm-hmm And it's fine not to be polished when you first start, but you're never gonna get to The stuff that you see, you see now that you like, if you don't start now, and video really is, is the quickest way for people to know, like, and trust you in order to do business with you We know that people have to know, like, and trust you to do business with you Mm Video is the best way or the quickest way to do that After in person the, you know, in person, you're limited to your one-to-one conversations If you can get in front of a group of people, fantastic If you can do a video, you're basically getting out at scale Yeah So your ability to reach people at scale through video is unmatched, apart from if you get a gig on a stage, for example So it the, because of, you know, social media is fantastic, it's allowed us to have this potential reach at scale, which didn't exist 20, 25 years ago Mm So if you wanna grow your business, if you want to grow your credibility, grow your personal brand And what you'll find is that your, your personal brand, IE The content that you put out has the ability to be that, that umbrella that will sit on top of Anything that you touch So now, for example, I'm able to leverage my personal brand, not just to help my coaching business, but also my accounting firm and also my software business, and also anything else that I do Mm-hmm Because that has the ability to sit on top of everything that you touch, and instantly people get that credibility because they've seen you, they know what you're all about You know, you've got a certain If you've developed any kind of, uh, thought leadership in a certain space and people align with that, then it just helps everything else that you touch underneath So, I, I can't emphasize, emphasize that, not, I think also tactically, um, I, you, you once said to me that, I don't think you do this anymore 'cause you moved to Doha, but you, when you used to drive to work, you used to record your podcast as well, right? Mm-hmm Yes Um, what made you think to do that? Podcast Yes My audio podcast Your audio podcast? Yeah Audio podcast I, 'cause initially I thought Right Okay Well, I, I was, I was already already doing video by then Yeah And I wanted to do an audio podcast, but I knew that kind of building a podcast takes time Mm And it's not something that's gonna get me business straight away So I didn't really want it to eat into a chunk of my day where I've gotta sit, I've gotta get a studio, I've gotta get mic set up and take up my time So I thought, well, let me just In my car, get a headset on and just start recording my thoughts every week and let's see what happens'cause uh, you know, I had podcast takes a long time to get any traction because unlike social media, you don't get, um, you know, people aren't gonna scrolling on podcast Usually people find a podcast because they get a recommendation or they're searching for it in particular, or they've had an email or they link to a podcast Yeah It's not some something that you are browsing like social media that you're gonna find So it was a slow burn Um, and also where the podcast is, although it's fantastic in terms of the quality of clients that you get from a podcast are some are the best clients that you will get'cause they've spent a long time listening to you, they have spent a lot of time with you or that you won't know it It's hard to keep up with a podcast They say very few podcasts get beyond 20 episodes, like 90% don't even get to 20 episodes So if you are doing more than 20, you're in that top 10% And what I found is that, uh, yeah, the, the, the podcast has, has, has now grown and it, I often hear when people come in, they say, oh, you found you on your podcast It's a way that you can Show a different side of you as well It can be really personal with the audience that are listening to you, that you have their, their hair on And yeah, I've, I've struggled to do it in Doha because I don't have that commute and I've got Uber in the background There's no, there's no traffic in Doha, right? There's no traffic in Doha I don't have that regular commute I'm working from home now, so I need to find my, uh, yeah, I've lost my rhythm with my podcast, so I need to get back to that Uh, there's been a couple of weeks that I haven't done it, but hopefully we're back on the back on the podcast Um Train, uh, before long Cool So I've listened to, to the book, uh, you know, from start to finish, um, and I read a lot of books Mm-hmm Or listen to a lot of books You know, I probably listened to around two, three a month only 'cause there's a lot of traffic in Dubai Probably now I'm doing more Right Um, and I was very impressed with the book because Thank you for me, you know, I've read the likes of, you know, atomic Habits I've read the likes of, um, you know There's a lot of books that I've read that are quite deep in, you know, the toolkit of what you need to be as an entrepreneur Yeah Um, and I, I rate this as up there as well and what I really liked about it is, you know, you are being very specific towards accounting firm owners Mm-hmm It doesn't even have to apply to accounting for, it can apply to any service business Yeah Uh, because you talk about, you know, the people, the price You talk about the process as well, the sales funnel Um, and it's all relevant whether you're an accounting business or you're marketing or consulting Um, and I think, you know, you've put a lot, clearly, you put a lot of, you know, blood, sweat, and tears into the book to make it, to make it happen Tell us about your process of writing the book Mm If we have an accountant who's, who's looking to set up the business, what kind of things would they get out of this book from your point of view? Yeah Yeah, good question So the decision to write the book came, I remember it was December 21 or 22 December 21 I think'cause it came out in 23 December 21 I'm on holiday in Barbados and so it's Christmas We tend to get out and we're so yeah, kind of had that head space to think Uh, new Year's is coming up, which means new resolutions, tighten goals, all that kind of thing And I thought, right Okay Well, my goal this year is something that's been on my mind for a while, and I'd written mini books in the past, you know, kind of lead magnet type books, eBooks, mm-hmm For the accounting firm, and that's the stuff that I was teaching accountants So I was teaching them, I'd the, you know, put yourself out as an expert, write a book, write an ebook It doesn't have to be War and Peace, but just something that shows that you're a credible expert in your space So I've done some mini eBooks already for My niche in property for, uh, content creators, for, you know, tax strategies, et cetera, and, and got results I thought, okay, I need to do something a bit more substantial Like everything that I'm, I'd already started my mentoring program, so I'm teaching accountants this, uh, this four pillar framework of mind that is kind of encapsulated everything that I'd done to get my practice to run without me, uh, on less than a few hours a week So I made that decision in Barbados, and the first thing I did, then I remember being on my phone, going on LinkedIn and looking for a book coach Because I knew if I didn't have somebody holding me accountable, that I would not be able to, you know, I'd probably get distracted or I wouldn't really finish the project'cause I wanted to do it in six months thought, let me reach out to somebody Uh, a book coach didn't know they existed, but started, you know, searching on LinkedIn and lo and behold, they did exist So, and it just goes back to entrepreneurs having coaches, right? You, you had a coach specifically for specifically a, a, a task that specific you wanted to Yeah You know, achieve So I wanted to, to learn from someone who, uh Clearly was an expert in, in that space who had advised other people on how to write good books and hold me accountable And I found someone who had herself written a book on, uh, on how to write business books So I engaged her She helped with, you know, the structure and getting the thoughts outta my head and how to we lay that out and then holding me accountable So every month I would've homework and I would have to deliver x number of chapters to her that she would kind of review and then give me her feedback on developmentally I remember saying to her that, you know, I wanna get down in six months, and she's like, she'd laughed a little bit She's like Okay, let's see Normally people take at least 12 months Oh, no, no I'll get it done in six months She was right I took more, I took 15 months in the end Um, but that massively helped that having that, that guide to hold me accountable to review what I'd written The process itself was literally me finding time And the way I did this was I basically blocked out mornings Mm So nobody could book calls with me I didn't have any of my webinars

before 1:

00 PM so that was my time That I'd have a few hours in the day, a half a day, every single day of Headspace I wouldn't write every single day, but it would at least it's there Some days I'd procrastinate, wouldn't really get much done, but other days I'd have a good stint that, okay, I've got, you know, three to four hours here where I can really get into the zone, I can do the deep work And that's when I found all the hacks of having to, you know, get my, put my phone in a, in a lock or put, uh, turn on do not disturb or put it in a different room and, you know Because it's hard It's hard to do hard things Yeah But if you do hard things, then life becomes easy If you never do the hard things, then life will be hard later on So it is one of the hardest things that, um, I've ever done to actually get it done And it was kind of painstaking when it gets to, you know, it's still going on after 12 months, 13 months, it took me 15 months at least to finish it And then it went for design, et cetera And it came out, so I started in January of 22, and it ultimately came out in May 23 at Accountex, uh, was when it was launched So yeah, start to finish was about 15, 16 months And you did the audio version as well, which you Yes You also, um, yeah, kind of You, you was the one who's narrating it as well It's a really nice story that you've, um, you've shared with us Um, how about some of the, what if, if our viewers was to go into it, whether they are a marketing or an accounting or consulting entrepreneur, what are the key things that they'll get out of this? The book as well? Mm So my aim was to Write it for an accounting firm owner, but as you rightly say, the principles could apply to any service business Mm-hmm Ultimately, it's about the, as we said at the beginning, the business skills and follow my, the journey of how I start to get results So kind of focusing on the, on the four pillars as I call them, as I kind of had that name at the very beginning that I wanna call it the four pillars So that was already sorted at the start Uh, and going through my journey of starting with my pricing first and then moving on to the other four pillars But depending on whether you, you've already got an established practice or not If you don't, then ultimately positioning is where you start, and that is the key And that's ultimately what I'm talking to accountants about Still now, regularly, the most accountants, the number one challenge that they have, and I know this through actual data, I've got a group of A Facebook group of accounting firm owners and they ask them one question when they join What is your number one challenge? 80 to 90% will say Getting clients, winning clients Finding clients growing my firm So I know the number one challenge for most practice owners is how do you win new clients? Mm So this will will go into that process of what is the first thing that you have to do, and ultimately it's your positioning Yeah Your positioning in the marketplace and everything else follows from that Your pricing will follow your positioning By positioning, I mean How, how clear are you and your who? How clear are you and your target audience? If you are just an accountant that says, I deal with small businesses, you look like every other accountant Mm-hmm If you look like every other accountant, you are a commodity If you're a commodity, then the only thing that a client has to compare you on with another accountant Price Yeah And that's never a good thing'cause that's gonna be a race to the bottom So if you wanna get outta that trap, you wanna get out that sea of sameness with every other accountant You have to differentiate And the way to differentiate is to specialize in a certain area to begin with Laser focus, find a niche, choose a specialism Become the credible expert in that space Mm And then once you've nailed that niche, then you can go wide Even the largest companies in the world today Who sell everything to everyone Amazon, for example, where do they start? Books? Yeah They start with one thing, selling one thing to one target audience, and then they expand it So that is the best advice The biggest revenue is AWS as well, the biggest profit, um, that they make Yeah Which is the web services Yeah So positioning is key and, and that applies to any service sector, any business, whether you're a market agency, whether you're a lawyer Every, uh, you know, every service industry, if you're just a marketing agency, that you're everything to everyone Mm When you're try and appeal to everyone, you're appeal to no one So if you, but if you say, I'm a marketing agency for accounting firm owners You're gonna get a, when accounting firm owners look at your website and they see marketing firm for accounting firm owners, they're instantly gonna feel that you understand them Yeah Because you deal with other people like them, and you're more likely to get a lot more business from accounting firms who will be willing to pay you more because you are now the specialist in the area You get them, you can talk their lingo You've gone inch wide, mile deep into that particular sector So, you know that advice I, I got through the hard way reading the books and listening to people, you know, marketing gurus, et cetera And that was a common theme, that laser focus, choose a niche target audience is key Choose your who, ideal client or that kind of stuff And it all starts with that And the thing is, most, a lot of accountants, you know, they, they will engage marketing agencies But what the marketing agencies will do is just the tactics No, but they won't, they won't challenge them on the one thing, which ultimately has to come before tactics Mm Which is your, your strategy Yeah Your strategy is your positioning No one's gonna challenge you on that and therefore you need to So I wrote this book essentially for my young, you know, younger self that I wish I had something like this when I first started to tell me, look, this is the first thing you need to do Uh, and ultimately to me Solving that challenge of getting clients is the big domino It knocks down a lot of other problems So if you are struggling with cashflow at the moment, you're struggling with profit, you're struggling with knowing or having the ability to hire people, struggling with pipeline, having that marketing system in place where you, you have that steady stream of clients coming in, that knocks down a lot of other problems that you have in the business So that is the thing where I tell practice owners Get accountants, do the accounting work If you're find that you are spending all your time just doing technical work, investing, getting other accountants to do the accounting work so you can spend your time, money, energy, and attention on learning these skills of marketing and getting your positioning strategy right, becoming the expert in that space to then win clients, which will then solve your other problems Mm-hmm Yeah, no, I a hundred percent agree with, with, with what you say and The book is covered The book covers this and a lot more Uh, can, can the first 10 listeners who share their podcast get a copy of the book? A hundred percent deal Okay, great Um, Reza, it's been a pleasure, uh, having you in the show I feel every time I meet you, I learn something new Um, and I'm sure our listeners will learn lots, lots from from this episode as well What's the best way our, our viewers can get in contact with you? Cool Uh, first of all, thank you so much for having me It's been a blast Uh, I'm most active, active on LinkedIn, so send me a connection request on LinkedIn You'll find that, uh, yeah I share content every single day for accounting firm owners So if you're a firm owner, wherever you're in the world, then let's connect on LinkedIn Cool Uh, we'll have that in the show notes as well Cool Cool Thank you very much Thank you for having me Thank you for joining us on The Alphapreneurs Podcast I hope you enjoyed the show Please subscribe and give us a five star rating and a review Your feedback is appreciated For show notes and more, check the link in the description and connect to me on LinkedIn and search for Rayhan Aleem See you in the next episode