Planning Successful Cloud Conversion in Your Practice
@Blue_Hub
Matt Flanagan, Co-Founder, BlueHub Matt Flanagan is an industryrenowned cloud business systems specialist, working in close partnership with forward thinking companies, Xero and Receipt Bank. Matt has over 15 years’ experience in business systems, focusing on change management for organisations such as HMRC and the NHS.
We often hear about the firms making waves with Xero accounting, maximising client conversions and onboarding new clients to grow their practice. They are confident and proficient with their offering and they understand how to leverage the Xero ecosystem to the benefit of their clients and their team...
B
ut how did they get there? What did they do to excel in a space so full of new things... new systems, new processes, new services?
new clients you will gain along the way. There are a number of reasons that the planning is so important:
Planning.
You need to know where you want to go and how you’re going to get there. Using SMART goals will help you be really specific, not just about how many Xero clients you want but the time frame for each stage and how realistic these targets are.
You may have heard of the 7 P’s... Prior Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance. Well it really hits the nail on the head. The more you organise and develop your internal processes the more success you will have with your cloud conversions and the more
Vision and Targets
Knowing your audience Once you know where you want to be you can start to look at your
client base and see how you can segment your clients into the stages for conversion. This might be by year end, so you can discuss and prepare clients for the change in advance, or by sector, letting you learn a few appropriate apps by sector rather than tackling the ecosystem head-on. Many practices haven’t looked at the clients in this way before and do not have an up to date database ready for segmentation. If you need a hand, give us a call and we can work with your data and show you how to use it effectively. Responsibility and Resources Getting your internal processes tuned up for the new way of working is vital. It isn’t as simple as assigning accountability, there needs to be set communication systems in place so that any barriers to change are discussed and overcome. You will likely experience a number of issues, particularly as your team gets to grips with onboarding clients to Xero and other financial and operational systems. These need to be seen as learning opportunities and not walls that divert people back to manually working.
36 / Issue 12
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