We all want to work less, and I can’t think of any group that works as hard as tax accountants in March and April, when the entire country needs assistance in about an 8-week span of time. No matter what you do, you might want to find out how you can cut your hours while maintaining or growing your income level. Here are five ideas to get you started.
1. Say “no” to activities that are not profitable.
Too often, we fill our day doing “freebies” for clients, friends, and well-meaning, really “nice” people. A quick email here, a fast phone call there, scope creep, favors. These add up to no income for you during the time you are spending on them. This translates to working harder but not smarter.
The antidote is to put your foot down and set healthy boundaries with clients and others as to what you will and won’t do. Start by having clients agree to a detailed, scope-defined contract up front if you’re on fixed fee, or being more disciplined about tracking your time if you’re charging hourly.
2. Learn to build leveraged revenue.
One obvious way to leverage revenue is to hire staff, but not everyone wants to grow their business in that way. Luckily, there are several other ways to leverage your revenue. You can leverage your resources such as your content and skills and generate multiple streams of income from similar information. By creating group programs, you can leverage your client base and your time. And by learning how to position your company well, you can leverage your marketing materials to produce more in less time.
3. Learn to leverage your time.
One of my clients’ favorite ways to make more while working less is by implementing time-saving techniques I teach in Accountant’s Accelerator that I learned from the multi-millionaire business owners that I studied in 2010. Many clients who are disciplined about implementing just one technique are getting a pickup of about 15 to 20% free time per day. One example is to learn time-batching.
4. Be proactive in your marketing.
Instead of waiting until you’re low on clients and jumping into the next networking meeting, I recommend selecting a few marketing methods, sticking with them deeply, measuring and improving them carefully, and reaping the rewards. Having a numbers background is a plus to approaching marketing this way. This is a great way to deal with an area most people are uncomfortable with.
5. Become aware of your mindset.
It’s easy to brush past this one as woo-woo, “not for me,” and something that you can’t really change. But if you’re thinking that, you’re the one that could probably benefit the most from some of the latest discoveries in brain science.
Neuroscience has made phenomenal strides in showing us the sources of discrete personality characteristics, the individual differences and range of personality in people, and how all of this affects our actions. There is a certain trait that some people have that predisposes them to more unconsciously sabotaging behaviors than others, and this trait can occur in normal people like accountants.
The good news is this trait can be changed by increasing your awareness, discovering how you impact others and how others feel about you, and examining the beliefs you might have that are holding you back.
These five ideas are a great start to learning how to work less while making more.
Sandi Leyva, author of Insightful Accountant's Accelerate Your Practice series, is hosting a webinar called 'How to Close More Clients and Earn More Revenue in Less Time,' on August 1 at 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time. For more information and to register, click here.
Sandi Leyva
Author Bio: Sandi Leyva, CPA, CMA, MBA, and founder of Accountant’s Accelerator, has helped thousands of tax and accounting professionals earn more, work less, and serve their clients better through her innovative marketing, training, and coaching services. Author of 30 books and hundreds of CPE courses, Sandi has won 12 awards for her thought leadership. Visit her at accountantsaccelerator.com and acceleratorwebsites.com.