Darren Smith’s bottom line grew 25% in 12 months

Darren Smith is Principal of DJ Smith Group Chartered Accountants (est. 2008), with offices in the south eastern suburb of Clayton and Melbourne CBD.

• service small business & professional clients, plus self-employed taxpayers
• majority are privately owned SME’s, with many facing second generation family management
• client base includes aged care, clothing & footwear, engineering, hospitality, home builders, practitioners, property investment, retirement accommodation, solicitors, importers and manufacturing

How it began…

Darren began working with Andrew Robertson with a very different mindset to the one he has today.

Darren really wasn’t clear on what growth looked like… he was thinking like the typical accounting firm and viewed growth from new clients as the only way to grow. In addition he felt he had to be involved in everything regarding clients as the team were not stepping up.

Despite having a solid foundation, DJ Smith Group faced several challenges…

Darren had built a good business, and he was looking to grow group further. He realised though that his time was limiting their growth opportunities. Although the team were doing their jobs, they weren’t taking a great deal of ownership. Further, he wasn’t confident that he had all the necessary skills to do more value add work. Not being sure what to offer existing clients, he felt they needed more, and larger clients to sell too.

Darren’s starting goals…

• Growth, in both revenue and profit;

Although he qualified this with: “I don’t know if I want to increase profits, because I don’t want to work any harder”

• Working fewer hours; and
• Team “stepping up”.

I started working with Andrew because I wanted to see what other accounting firms were doing and how we could grow our income and bottom line, the practice was running well but I was still tied up in everything and finding it tough to make the time to implement growth ideas.”

Starting with his vision and what he wanted to do which led to a clearer focus on implementing alternate ways of doing things, we designed a plan together which took into consideration how Darren worked, the skills & personality of the team and client demographics, the following were achieved:

Activities completed:

• Rejigged roles and responsibilities;
• designed value add products;
• Implemented a delegation plan; and
• designed a new client selection process.

Personal impact on Darren (in his words):

• “Made me focus on adding value to existing clients rather than getting more clients”
• “Gave me an awareness of valuing my services more appropriately”
• “Helped me to understand where best to spend my own time and how to delegate more effectively”
• “Taught me to be more selective with the new clients we do take on”

Results for the Firm (in his words):

• “We have a more engaged and effective team”
• “My own time has been freed up to develop additional services / offerings that have a higher recovery rate”
• “Our bottom line has grown 25% in 12 months”
• “Our average hourly rate recovered has improved by > 20%”
• “Staff recoveries moved to 100% plus”

Where Darren is heading now…

I am now in a position to drive the practice forward and spend more of my time working on strategies that will drive growth and profitability.

New 3 year Vision for the Firm…

Overall, less reliance on compliance and more value add and wealth creation services.

• Total revenue will be 36% higher than currently ($1.5m) with just one more person added to make a team of 6.
• Value Add Services will make up 50% of revenue, which will bring the firm’s profit to 47%.
• The team will look after the client’s daily ongoing needs and produce the bulk of the preliminary value add work.
• I will transition towards higher level strategy with clients to help grow their business and wealth position, in a 4 day working week.