This was the message to accountants in a press release issued last week by the Tax Advice Network.   In it I warned that:

Accountants across the UK are likely to see a surge in requests for Tax Credit advice from couples considering getting married following the release of a controversial report highlighting the failings on the current Tax Credit System for married couples.

This followed on from The ‘Individualists Who Co-operate’ report issued last week by Civitas.

In fact I have been suggesting for some time that More and more accountants will find themselves having to advise on tax credits.

And this is also a  point I invariably make in my talks about How to avoid professional negligence claims and Mastering the Credit Crunch.

Question one I always ask for a show of hands as to how many accountants in the audience advise clients about their entitlement to claim tax credits. I’ve spoken to groups of all sizes, from 20-180 and to date no more than 5 hands ever go up. This suggests to me that the vast majority of accountants are not currently advising clients about their entitlement to claim tax credits.

We know why don’t we. They are merely a new(ish) dressing for a social security benefit. Accountants have not traditionally advised on benefits. It’s not cost effective to do so and we don’t know all the rules. Some, but not all, accountants make clear in their engagement letters that they do not advise on tax credit related issues. That is their prerogative and in so doing they probably reduce the prospect of a client making a successful claim for negligence at a later date.

Question two I then ask the accountants whether they advise their clients on how best to offset losses, on Capital allowance disclaimers, pension reliefs and (now) Annual Investment Allowances (AIA). Of course they all do. Indeed, securing tax refunds tends to go down well with clients. In fact, clients tend to value anything their accountant does that reduces the tax payable or that secures the biggest tax refunds. And if they perceive that their accountant isn’t doing all they could in this regard, they are inclined to switch to one who does.

Question three So what happens if the loss claim, the AIA or other advice reduces the client’s income to a level whereby they would be entitled to claim tax credits?

So far as clients are concerned, tax credits are TAX credits.This means they are seen as TAX refunds. Exactly the sort of thing that clients expect to get help on from their accountant. And if their accountant doesn’t help in this regard then it won’t be long until the client switches to one who does. Especially if the client becomes aware that he missed out on claiming tax credits as his accountant didn’t tell him when he should have done so. (The 3 month limit on ‘back claims’ is a real problem here).

If the commitments I note at the end of my seminars and training sessions are anything to go by, an increasing number of accountants will be advising clients on their entitlement to claim tax credits. It doesn’t have to be time consuming and it can be done profitably.

Anyone know how much a client could claim in tax credits this year if they registered for them from April and , as a result of AIA (or losses) they have no taxable income this year? Assume partner has no income and there are 2 children.

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Some readers of this blog will be aware that I recently created a new seminar for accountants:  Mastering the credit crunch – Your practice, your advice, your future.

During what was a highly practical and commercial half day I suggested that the credit crunch (or recession as now seems to be accepted as a more accurate description of the economic climate) presents new challenges and new opportunities for accountants.

Simply stated, if we carry on doing what we’ve always done we will probably be LESS successful than in the past. Why? Because more of our clients will be suffering financially and this will impact on their willingness and ability to pay us and to stay in business. Our fee incomes and profits will fall unless we do things differently.

Feedback from the hundreds of accountants who attended the seminar was more positive than I had previously dared hope.  And I will shortly start sharing with the attendees the follow up feedback that is still being collated.

In the meantime I have no plans to repeat the seminar so am now  making the slides and notes available for download through the Tax Advice Network website.

I’m serving as an evaluator at my local speakers club, Harrovians, this evening. The club is affiliated to Toastmasters International and encourages evaluators to follow a well established structure when evaluating speeches:

Commend, Recommend, Commend.

I was about to post an item about this but then checked and realised that last July I posted an item here entitled ‘sandwich feedback‘ which is much the same thing.

I won’t repeat what I said last year. Instead let me amplify those thoughts.

I believe that when we provide feedback we do it to motivate the other person. One of the challenges is to get the balance right. The more experienced the speaker the more interested they will be in the constructive observations (the ‘recommends’ element of the praise sandwich. Certainly that’s true for me. It’s always nice when someone cares enough to package the constructive feedback inside some positive comments but what I’m most interested in is how to enhance my current efforts.  I’m lucky. I typically get rated 4 or 5 out of 5 by over 90% of every audience I address. But I’m not complacent and am always keen to improve and get better – whilst accepting that you can’t please all of the people all of the time.

The degree to which someone packages their feedback is an indication of how constructive they are seeking to be or how simply critical they are. If the latter then perhaps they have their own agenda.

The bottom line is that constructive feedback is only worthwhile if the recipient is in listening mode and is interested in taking the feedback on board.  What can you do to help ensure that happens?

Last week I encouraged you to identify and ditch your duff D-list clients.

That’s fine if you’re in a position of authority in your practice – a sole practitioner or a partner for example. But what if you don’t have that level of authority? Then it becomes a question of how can you best deal with difficult clients?

So here’s my top 5 tips drawn from one of my business coaching modules for accountants and tax advisers. You’ll appreciate that many of the techniques can apply equally when you’re faced with difficult colleagues, partners and staff! If you have tips and ideas of your own please add them by way of comments to this posting.

1 – Separate the person from the problem If you need to confront the client, be clear that it’s their behaviour rather than them that is the problem.

2 – Affirm rather than accuse Be clear that you focus on how you feel as a result of their behaviour. “When you do that, I feel….” rather than “You make me feel ….”

3 – Promise yourself a reward When you can’t avoid a meeting with a dreaded difficult client, promise yourself a reward if you manage to handle things well. Could be chocolate, a quick look at a favourite website, an extra treat on your way home or anything else that you can arrange as a reward for yourself. Or team up with a colleague and reward each other.

4 – Keep your cool Don’t make matters worse by getting into a heated argument, shouting or going off in a huff.

5 – Keep notes Ideally make your notes during the meeting or phone call but certainly as soon as you can afterwards. You’ll want to be absolutely clear about what transpired and any advice you gave. The clients from hell are the ones most likely to complain and to cause grief down the line. The more contemporaneous records you have the less mud can stick.

As well as addressing such issues during mentoring and business coaching sessions I also run a half day interactive, entertaining and educational course on dealing with difficult clients. More details on my website.

I’m not one for making annual new year resolutions – or indeed ‘predictions’. Indeed, rather than risk ‘predictions’ for 2008 I offer instead three of my hopes for the new year, that Accountants will:

1 – earn more money by advising their clients about their menu pricing models – so that clients know they’ll pay higher fees if they leave things to the last minute;

2 – stop risking PI claims by advising on tax issues where they’re not sure how the legislation really works;

3 – engage a professional business coach to help them achieve their potential;

On a related point I have updated my business cards so that these make clear that I specialise in:

Improving the results of businesses that target or operate within the UK tax and accountancy professions

Three of the principal ways in which I do this are related to my 3 hopes above:

1 – Speaking at conferences and seminars for accountants and tax advisers on business development related and Risk reduction issues;

2 – Running the Tax Advice Network – which provides accountants in general practice with access to their choice of specialist tax advisers; and

3 – Providing mentoring/business coaching to ambitious professionals to help them to achieve more success, peace of mind and confidence at work.

I came across an old Chinese proverb recently:

A man without a smiling face must not open a shop

It reminded me of something my kids said recently at the surprise party that my wife arranged for my 50th birthday. My wonderful (teenage) kids gave a speech that included a short description of me as a ‘smiling man’. I’d like to think that my smile is welcoming and infectious. Is yours?

As professional advisers we need to present a professional image – it needs to be a welcoming image too. Too many frowns and serious looks will not make it easy for new contacts to warm to us. And if they don’t like us…. [my recent blogs refer!]

It is becoming more and more common to ‘Google’ someone before meeting them for the first time – whether for a potential business meeting, to interview them or to be interviewed by them. If someone Googles you now or in the future what will be revealed?

I’ve just given an interview to a journalist who is writing an article about the possible uses of Facebook by certain professional advisers. During our conversation I outlined what I saw as some of the benefits and also the dangers of professional advisers playing around on Facebook. And I explained why my comments apply equally to other forms of online networking sites.

Possibly the 3 most well known and useful such platforms to professional advisers are:

• LinkedIn – currently largely used by corporate job hunters, those who are headhunting them and those who know them;
• Ecademy – mainly small businesses and corporate refugees who have set up their own business/consultancy;
• Facebook – mainly used for sharing how much fun you’re having in your life. So this is seen as the main ‘social’ networking site.

Until September 2006, Facebook was only available to ‘college students’ but as they graduated so they wanted to continue to CONNECT with the people they knew. And everyone they knew and wanted to stay in touch with was on Facebook. It is now becoming ubiquitous but sadly a lot of people who are experimenting with Facebook or just playing around may be creating problems for themselves down the line.

I titled this blog ‘Managing your online reputation’ for a reason. These days Google is recording history in real time. Everything we post online is there for the future and can be found by Google and the other search engines. That means that when someone Googles our name – before meeting us, interviewing us or being interviewed by us, they can find out:

• What we’ve said and written;
• What we like/dislike;
• What other people have said about us (good or bad);
• Who we’re associated with and what other people have said about them (good or bad);
• Where we’ve been and what we’ve done and who we were with;
• And so on.

Thomas Power, the founder of Ecademy explains that the online networking sites are just like online magazines. Our profiles on the sites are just like adverts in a magazine. We’d always be careful about the impression we gave in an advert – so we should be careful about the impression we give with our profiles. And that presents an interesting challenge for ambitious professionals. On the one hand we want to control what Google finds when people look for us online. On the other hand we want to secure new profitable referral and work opportunities for our interactions on these sites.

If you just create a simple, professional profile on these sites, as your online advert, you will find it about as successful as waving your business card around in a dark room. No one will find your profile unless you shine a torch on it. You do that by interacting on the networking site, commenting on blogs, asking and answering questions, creating your own blogs, postings on the Facebook wall, joining and contributing to clubs and groups. Being seen to be a valuable person online. And this takes time.

Initially it’s best though to take it slowly. Join. Watch. Dip a toe in the water.Explore. Contribute. Help others. All this before you ask for help yourself. And all this whilst keeping in mind the need to manage your online reputation.

Incidentally – why had the journalist contacted me to talk about this topic? Because the editor of her magazine had seen my previous postings on the subject and was aware that I had established a number of groups on Facebook. My online reputation as a writer and speaker on this and related subjects for ambitious professionals is growing. Why? Because I’m managing it. At least as well as I can.

I’ll return to this theme in a future posting on this blog. In the mean time I’d welcome feedback and thoughts about what I’ve posted above.

Here’s a link to my previous blogs about uses of Facebook by professional advisers.