Anthony Bell: Making it big in financial services

Branding is one thing, he admits, but it’s also about credibility in the marketplace for how clients see the firm. Perception of clients is everything for Bell Partners, and with 80 percent of Bell’s clientele being SMEs, he has found it extremely helpful to be a small to medium business advising other small to medium businesses. “Our clients come to us for advice and ask: what did you do when found this… and how did you handle it when there was a cash flow crisis. The fact that we’ve been through it ourselves can be pretty valuable.”

But it comes with added pressure to be a good business owner, too. “I knew that for clients to be attracted to us they had to see us as a pretty good business too,” he explains. “I knew we needed to have a well-run practice ourselves in order to be able to confidently say that we can help you with your growth, advisory and profit improvement.”

There are now around 70 members of staff, which has meant the business has been able to steadily grow its clientele and services, but still remain a boutique offering. That growth means the business is now up to the $10 million mark, with a healthy 25 percent increase from the previous year. And all growth has been funded organically.

The business basically handles everything in the usual accounting offerings, as well as wealth creation, IT (headed up by an IT expert, not an accountant), finance (offering brokering services) and a new investment (private equity) division, offering a complete one-stop shop for their clients.

While the inclusion of the finance, investment and wealth creation divisions seem a natural addition to the accounting side, you’d be forgiven for thinking the IT department was a tenuous link. Not so, says Bell. “We had clients coming to us and asking for IT advice, and we decided that we should include that service.” And that’s the same thinking behind the other departments. “We wanted to be able to offer everything the big accounting firms could offer, but at the boutique end. So if they had an IT department, we needed an IT department.”

Today Bell’s time is divided, with 20 percent of his focus on working on the business and 80 percent on the clients. “I’m a big believer, in our game, that you have to be on the tools.” Although he recognises the importance for business owners in other industries to be working on the business rather than in it, he maintains that the accounting industry is so technical that he needs to be on top of the tools and working with clients to keep them happy.

“If I head up an advisory team, you’d like to think I’m the best at it. So you like to think that a product gets to the clients not because it’s been delegated but from a management structure the clients have got access to.

“And I’m in the business of giving out business advice, so it keeps me pretty sharp, staying with our clients’ businesses. I learn tons from them. And that’s one of the things that fuels my creativity and ideas. So I’d hate to take myself out of that playing field.”

Bell’s five-step plan

1.   Put yourself last. Don’t come to work viewing your profit. The best businesses are those that focus on delivering their best product. And strangely enough they tend to go on to profit quite well, too.

2.   Constantly innovate. Stare at your competitors on a daily basis, and what they are doing, what they’re not doing.

3.   See things before they happen in the business.

4.   Always be recruiting. Even if you’re not looking for staff, if you come across great recruits, grab them and “warehouse” them.

5.   Never wait to see what happens.