RSS feedsThree years ago, Damon Brain was made partner at East Anglian practice Duncan & Toplis at the age of 26, making him the youngest partner in the practice and one of the youngest in the UK.
As Accountancy Age Accounting Technician of the Year 2006, Brain has also been recognised for his unusual career path. After completing his A levels, he turned to the AAT qualification as his route into the world of practice. Having taken advice and considered the more usual option of university and then an ACA training contract, Brain decided he wanted to begin his business life as soon as possible.
It wasn’t that he was determined to take a contrary path for the sake of it.
‘I realised that I didn’t have to take the traditional route into business and
that there was no reason why I would be held back by taking the AAT route,’ he
says.
Brain looked at three accountancy firms in his home town of Boston in
Lincolnshire. Duncan & Toplis was one of the more prominent firms in the
town and, although Brain was not aware of it then, Lincolnshire’s largest firm.
The firm now has nine offices including Grantham, Bolton, Newark and Stamford.
At the time, Brain remembers that the firm stood out to him because of the
friendliness of its people.
In joining Duncan & Toplis, Brain found his niche early. From his first day, with a colleague showing him how to turn a carrier bag full of books and receipts into a set of accounts, he became immersed in the nitty gritty of general practice. For Duncan & Toplis, he says, the slant has always been towards providing a fully rounded advisory service accounts, bookkeeping, tax and family financial affairs.
Get your head down
As far as qualification goes, Brain put his head down and studied for his
accounting technician certificate, attending college one day a week. He gained
his full AAT qualification in 1998 in just less than 18 months. He is also ACA
qualified and welcomes different approaches to his own. ‘I don’t discourage
people from going to university. But this was the right route for me to take,’
he says.
Having parted with Duncan & Toplis amicably, Brain moved to Linoln and began his chartered training contract with Streets & Co, winning a district society prize at intermediate level.
Network to success
Brain believes that networking is central to winning business and set about
getting to know the city’s business community to build up a healthy portfolio of
clients. By the time he had qualified, a move back to Duncan & Toplis was on
the cards. This time the firm wanted to expand into Lincoln and open an office
there just at a point when Brain was wondering what to do next. ‘What
attracted me was the idea of building something from scratch.
Duncan & Toplis had only a few clients, so it was a clear expansion plan and
it came at the right time for me.’
Brain saw the opportunity as a chance to really establish himself on the local
business scene. He set about marketing the new office and divided his time
between this and chargeable work for the firm’s Newark branch. ‘We had no
timescales initially,’ he says, ‘but there was more to it than just opening the
doors.’
Brain’s first client came through personal recommendation. As a trainee, Brain had developed the conviction that networking locally and developing relationships with local business owners and fellow professionals was the route to success. He followed the same strategy at the new office. And although it took time to acquire his first clients, momentum soon started to build. ‘It doesn’t just happen by waiting for the phone to ring. We made a conscious decision to work with banks and 4 other professionals,’ he explains.
Brain has focused on giving business advice above and beyond compliance issues taking the initiative with clients, so that they gain an understanding of how the firm can help as their businesses develop. That said, he has avoided the hard sell. He has won clients not by talking about what the firm does, but by learning what people do in their business. It is an approach that develops relationships and builds trust.
Since then, the client base has developed at a healthy pace. Within nine months, the flow of work meant that Brain could go full-time in the Lincoln office. By the end of the first two years, the new office had acquired 200 clients. Over the next two years, another 150 were listed on the firm’s client roster, with numbers continuing to grow.
Family matters
The common theme of Brain’s client portfolio is the family or owner-managed
business. These businesses range from very small companies with only a handful
of people to bigger businesses with turnover in the tens of millions.
The firm generally does not market itself to listed companies and so the businesses it does serve tend to have strong family and entrepreneurial cultures. The firm is also not shy about getting involved with start ups, but it has a policy of being honest with people about their likely prospects. ‘If we’re not convinced that they can go the distance, we tell them,’ he says.
Family and owner-managed businesses are, of course, the heartland of UK business life. ‘One big attraction is that you are giving advice to the person that matters,’ he says. ‘They take a lot of notice, because you are dealing with their lives.’
The fact that the firm’s client portfolio is largely made up of family and owner-managed businesses means that similar situations recur across his client base and, without betraying any confidences, Brain can offer advice and suggest courses of action that he has seen in action elsewhere. ‘You can add a lot of value that way,’ he says.
Town and country
Lincolnshire has a lot of farms and agricultural businesses and this is a sector
that the firm, as a whole, works closely with. The Lincoln office, however,
markets itself to companies on industrial estates in the area. This brings a
good cross section of industries to Brain’s door, from businesses working out of
small units to large factories. It is a policy that makes the firm easy to
market from a logistical point of view.
Regardless of the location or style of business, Brain’s clients have similar requirements: they need management and financial information. Many clients do not have the budget for a financial director and so Brain and the firm act as their surrogate finance department. With compliance burdens increasing, clients need more assistance with company secretarial work and the firm has seen a huge increase in clients seeking outsourced payroll support.
The biggest issue, however, is tax. Brain says that all his clients want to minimise their tax burden. ‘You soon learn that what matters to the client is their tax bill,’ he says. ‘The more you can think outside the box on that, the better you can do,’ he says.
Personal touch
Although clients look to Brain for his technical expertise, the client/adviser
relationship will always stand or fall by the personal relationship.
‘Qualifications will give them confidence in you,’ he says. But there will be
times when you have to be honest about your limits. ‘You’ve got to have the
strength to say “that’s not my area of expertise.” A lot of this comes down to
people skills. People buy people,’ he says.
He believes strongly in the need to put a personal face on professionalism. ‘People aren’t going to work with the scary, grey-suited accountant.’ Brain sets great store by the fact that he enjoys the company of his clients and the understanding they generate between them is a source of satisfaction. ‘So much of this work is face to face and it stands to reason that if you didn’t have nice clients, then the work would not be enjoyable,’ he says.
Developing an offering that is technically proficient and proactive, as well as friendly and accessible, means your advice is more likely to be acted upon.
That’s an approach that more regional firms would do well to adopt and it’s one that brings job satisfaction as well as a healthy bottom line. Brain’s sense of pride in his own work, and that of the firm, comes from seeing his advice in action and developing lasting relationships.
DO YOUR HOMEWORK
For Damon Brain, making the client and adviser relationship work means doing
your homework and being conscientious around client needs.
Some of the steps he takes to get a better understanding of his clients’ businesses include:
• Take the time to get to know their business. Walk around the factory or office. It pays to make that investment in the relationship early.
• Get to know clients well as individuals. There is no point coming up with one hundred ideas, if they are not the kind of person to implement them.
• Build up trust. If you say you are going to do something then you have to deliver.
• Be original. Without a doubt, you win business through offering new ideas, not just by answering questions.
