Our Philosophy

As a relatively small but boutique accounting firm in the inner northern suburbs of Melbourne our philosophy is to help our business clients grow and succeed.

We strive to earn your trust and referrals and offer strategies and practical solutions to help you grow your revenues, profits, business value and personal wealth. We also offer advice on asset protection and business succession planning.

Given you need to feel comfortable discussing your business and personal financial situation we also offer you a totally private and confidential environment.  Our team are committed to ongoing professional development so you enjoy access to the best technical tax and accounting advice available from. No job is too big or too small and we adopt a hands on approach with our clients including visiting their premises and helping them with their marketing, website, SEO and social media strategy. Being in a services industry we are accessible after hours by appointment and return calls at our earliest opportunity.

We aim to help you fast track your business success and have developed the business accelerator program to streamline the process. Below we describe the four step process.

The Business Accelerator Program

We believe business owners want a lot more than just basic accounting and tax compliance services from their accountant. Here at Linda McGowan Pty Ltd our client brief includes helping you grow your business, your revenue and profits plus build your personal wealth. Over the years we have developed and refined a four step process designed to fast track your business success that we call ‘The Business Accelerator Program’.

Michael Gerber pointed out in his best selling book ‘The E Myth’ that, “Most people work IN their business. The secret is NOT to work IN it, it’s to work ON it so that you don’t have to work IN it.” While you’ve probably heard it all before the fact is, most business owners struggle to find the time to work on their business because they’re caught up in the day to day operations. They have simply created a job rather than a business that works independent of them.

Our ‘business coaching’ services are both broad and deep and if you need a business plan, succession plan or financial blueprint for the future we can help you. One of our major points of difference is the fact that we take a hands on approach with our clients marketing. If you need help with your branding, marketing plan, website, social media strategy or any marketing collateral we have the knowledge, tools, resources and experience to help you.

We aim to make your financials more meaningful and when you work with us you have a true business advisor committed to your results. Growing a successful business is a process and The Business Accelerator Program works through the 4 steps including:

1. The Foundations

Before you can take your business forward you need to make sure that your decisions are based accurate financial information.  One of our first tasks is to make sure you are using the right accounting software in your business. We match your level of accounting knowledge with your business needs so you minimise your basic compliance costs.

Secondly, we review your business structure to make sure you are minimising your exposure to income tax, maximising asset protection, complying with any regulations and can access future capital gains tax discount concessions.

At this stage we also discuss your business branding (logo and positioning statement etc.) to make sure you have the marketing basics in place to grow your business. We like to think this step in the process is all about ‘starting with the end in mind’ so you maximise the value of the business on sale.

2. Compare and Repair

We work with clients who want to grow their business and their wealth. Once we have the foundations in place we move to the ‘Compare and Repair’ stage. This starts with benchmarking your business against your competitors so you understand what is working in your business and what needs working on.

We then look at the 4 ways to grow a business and identify the key profit drivers in your business including your profit margins, the number of customers, the average transaction value and how often those customers buy from you. Sometimes improving your bottom line doesn’t require a lot of changes but you need to ‘know your numbers’.

We can then measure and monitor your business performance and look at some marketing initiatives to increase the number of customers you serve and get them to buy more often and potentially spend more. This is one of our major points of difference from other accounting firms.

3. Growth Phase

With secure foundations and an understanding of what drives your business growth you can implement your action plan. Using some intelligent software programs we can quantify the impact of the changes in the key profit drivers and give you a ‘game plan’ for the future. This provides financial targets that we can measure and monitor as you grow.

Without a marketing plan all roads lead to nowhere so we help you identify your ideal customer and pitch your marketing efforts at your niche markets. This service extends to developing or reviewing your marketing materials including your website, corporate brochure, e-booklets and the use of social networking sites where applicable. Clearly, we don’t just keep the score and tax returns are the start of the client process not the end.

4. Plan and Protect

When you have worked hard to build a business and create wealth you need to protect your assets. In this stage we also offer you advice and services designed to protect the financial security of you and your family.

From personal tax returns right through to financial planning and risk insurances we are here to help you build and protect your family’s financial future. If you are interested to learn more about our Business Accelerator Program contact one of our pro-active team members today on (03) 9383 2700.

At Linda McGowan Pty Ltd, we believe in providing pro-active, quality advice to our diverse client base and our core values include expertise, confidentiality, teamwork and commitment.

Linda McGowan - Strategies & Solutions for Business Owners