Mosaic Experts – a company that has TIME
It’s been over two months since I got fully devoted to growing my first business and I wanted to share my initial thoughts. Those of you who have ever worked with me are fully aware that I have strong opinions, but these conclusions were surprising even to myself.
Why start at all?
My motivation for starting my own accounting practice was clear and three-fold. I wanted professional freedom to follow my business intuition and to see how far I can reach by bringing my own ideas into life – standard reasons why most entrepreneurs decide to take this path less travelled and venture on their own.
What is more, I craved to escape the catch-22 of being stuck on conference calls for most of the day, which resulted in working the second shift after hours, having my mobile phone constantly blowing up with message alerts and unanswered calls.
Finally, after two pandemic years, what became the norm was the alternative between office and remote work, the so-called hybrid model. I believe people have changed more than organizations have and this is not satisfactory. By starting my own company, I wanted to go one step further and figure out a solution that would enable me to maintain the level of professionalism I am used to representing without compromising my private life, which I consider to be the only true choice.
What have I discovered after two months?
T I M E
I work around my life and not live around my work. There’s time for everything that matters to me: a breakfast with my kids, taking a long walk with my dog, then working constructively on my business. Days of high productivity just because I am in the flow and work basically does itself. Days with hardly any productivity because life takes over or I just need to recharge. The balance is still 100% so why not?
My focus is on whatever feels appropriate at the given moment. I work in intervals, uninterrupted, taking urgent calls, leaving those that can wait for later (the Eisenhower Matrix comes in handy here when making such choices). When I feel like crunching some numbers, I do accounting work. When I feel more creative, I write or strategize. When I have a worse day, I do repetitive work that doesn’t cost me much energy. These are the practices I’ve developed over the past 10 years but now I apply them without losing the focus on deadlines as they still exist in the finance world. It is more a matter of choosing priorities without compromising my own needs at the given moment.
Why such a model makes business sense?
I can now honestly say that my energy is focused on creating value for both my business and my clients, in the short and long run.
I finally have the time to think, which is crucial to developing a scalable infrastructure, deciding which tasks to delegate and to whom, how to balance operational work and strategizing about the next steps that would lead to a healthy growth of my company. My current role is not that much different from the ones I had before – it also often feels like banging my head against a wall. The key change is that now I can crack these walls open more effectively if I find the time to focus on finding a solution. I am doing all this with a hope to build strong fundaments of my business and avoid becoming a giant on clay legs, unaligned to its operational capacity – a scenario I have witnessed one too many times.
My client relationships also benefit from a slower approach, me being able to devote as much time as needed to discuss the challenges my clients are facing in their organizations. Signing a contract in 20 minutes and talking for another two hours has proven to be surprisingly fruitful in new ideas, not all of them to be realized at once but a promising new start. If a certain topic requires more effort than it initially seemed, it is worth prioritizing it to ensure smooth sailing at a later stage. Business relationships are not that much different from personal relationships after all in that they evolve and have changing requirements at various stages of cooperation.
What have I personally gained?
I found the time to live my life and run a business, which translates to a balanced reality of my daily life. This may not seem much but for me it is everything. I no longer need to excuse myself for having a personal life, needing to run some errands. While it’s only been a couple of months since I made the change, this change took an almost immediate effect and was officially the easiest part of the whole “going on my own” process.
Moreover, I regained and even strengthened my internal motivation to work in the accounting, tax, and finance world. I couldn’t be happier about it as I had consciously been developing this kind of motivation for years as I believe it to be the strongest and the most precious one, driving results independently of external circumstances.
What did surprise me was that I even managed to find the time for some pro bono consulting work for friends who needed it to help them kick off their dreams. It only seemed natural to help based on my own experience and I do hope to be able to allocate several hours a month for such activities.
What is crucial for this model to work?
Such a workstyle brings more questions than answers, even for such a small company as mine. It’s been a learning curve, on which I course correct and redefine known patterns on a daily basis.
The key ones I’ve identified so far are related to communication. Where does my freedom of choice and time-management end in the context of cooperation with other people, still working within fixed timeframes (especially if they overlap with mine by only 4-5 hours)? How to reconcile different expectations as to my responsiveness from clients and business partners? Is this scalable when I hire full-time employees, given the limited options available withing the Polish Labour Code?
At this point, the major conclusion I’ve arrived at and tested in practice is that communication is the key to overcoming any blind spots in mutual expectations with a sidenote that it is a two-way street, and one is only responsible for one’s side of it. A short phone call can work miracles by rearranging priorities and providing clarity. It really is as easy as that but requires a second to stop and think about it and then – act on the thought.
Another factor I want to mention is to avoid overcommitting. This is sometimes easier said than done and I must admit I still fall prey to it. Tax deadlines, accounting deadlines – they are inflexible enough, all arrangements “in between” are a means to an end. If the main goal is delivered, does it matter whether there was a delay of several days on the way? Usually not, but if yes – the previous paragraph applies.
Finally, let’s mention automating any processes that can be made simpler, which should not be a surprising finding, especially in modern accounting. While it requires some effort and investment initially, the payoff in terms of regained time is quick to notice. A well-implemented OCR, analytics and accounting schemes free up time that can later be used for analysis of client figures.
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My accounting start-up is growing slowly but steadily, my quality of life is growing exponentially. This is the true value of my enterprise as it is a win-win scenario for my clients and myself. I am positive about its further development as long as I remember why I took the first step. If you share the same approach, I hope our professional paths cross one day.
This is how a #HumanistInFinance #MosaicExperts begin.
