Client Story | Eric Bonney, Managing Shareholder | Harvest Tax and Accounting
Challenges
My client, Eric Bonney, is a highly-driven, entrepreneurial-minded tax and accounting professional. When Eric and I began working together, he was 6 months into running his newly acquired bookkeeping and tax accounting firm. He was experiencing the very common feeling of being “lonely at the top” in his small business; he didn’t have someone internal with whom he could lean on when making important business decisions. He was looking for a business coach he could be open and honest with, who could provide an objective perspective, and with whom he could talk through important and sometimes sensitive matters. Eric had prior experience working for larger CPA firms, as well as owning his own firm several years prior. He wanted support to avoid making any of the same mistakes from the past. His greatest pain points were time management, prioritization, and delegation to his team.
Eric shared he felt very reactive to his inbox, and was not satisfied with the way he was prioritizing – and not really using- time blocks in his schedule. Business commitments were constantly creeping into his personal time. Email gave him extreme anxiety. He was more overwhelmed on a typical work day than he liked. He wanted to work more on the business and less in the business, especially since he had team members he could rely on. Eric wanted to utilize his time more effectively and knew the importance of having an accountability partner to do so successfully.
Solutions
Since beginning a coaching relationship with Elisabeth at Peak Productivity, Eric has experienced improvement in his productivity & leadership skills, and is a more confident and well balanced business owner.
Eric has become much more comfortable delegating tasks and responsibilities to his team members. He has also given his administrative assistant the responsibility to manage his calendar. Eric has healthy boundaries in place, scheduling client meetings for two designated days a week, allowing the remainder of his time to be focused on business development and team management. Eric is using the firm’s project management technology tool more consistently and effectively to track client information and to document tasks and workflow for himself and his team members.
The team at Harvest has defined best practices for their new client onboarding experience and is clearly communicating deadlines and expectations with clients (whom they call partners) so that both the client and the firm can work together in a collaborative, proactive way. By providing himself, his team, and his clients with systems and processes, his stress level has greatly decreased.
Eric has implemented more personal boundaries to eliminate over-working on the weekends and to better protect his personal time to rest and recharge. He experiences less guilt taking (well deserved) time away from the office and is prioritizing work more strategically. The solution that worked for Eric was to commit to utilizing his task management tool daily and trusting tasks won’t get lost or forgotten.
Providing both strategy & accountability on a weekly basis has enabled Eric to stay committed to his 90-day action plan(s), to remain focused and on-task with quarterly initiatives, to delegate more successfully to team members, and to better recognize his personal wins, the wins of his team/company, and to see measurable progress and reach significant goals within the first 2 years of business ownership.
In Eric’s Words
“Coaching has really helped me focus my energy better ON the firm and not IN the firm. It has allowed me to better manage the anxiety and stress that comes with the position, and to be able to get comfortable with the new reality of ownership.
Working with Elisabeth has helped get me out of my calendar and has given me MUCH more time to focus on our Partners (clients). However, the BIGGEST impact has been both professionally and personally. She has helped me become a better person and a better leader for our team. She has shown me how to lead with empathy and compassion towards my team, and because of this our team has thrived and grown!”
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