NICHE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT
Doing other people’s dirty work has become a sure way to make a buck for these Fast Starters newcomers. …”Books Onsite founder Tim Johnston is | Books Onsite was founded in 2006 with three staff. New customers would get their books and systems reviewed by Johnston, a CPA, then one of two bookkeepers would maintain the business after that. The company payroll has since grown to 45 staff. The biggest challenge, Johnston says, has been controlling the growth and maintaining quality – and the key to that has been good staff. “A lot of people say the client comes first, but for me it’s staff first and clients second.” Clients may not like to hear this but they should, Johnston says, because good staff lead to great service, which leads to happy customers. Johnston has so far resisted franchising the business, unlike competitors including Ledgers Bookkeeping and Express Bookkeeping “It’s great for rapid growth, but whether you can retain quality, I’m not sure,” he says. The economic downturn has, paradoxically, been a help to Books Onsite. | Outsourced services are more in demand than ever and great staff are much easier to attract and retain, Johnston says. “We are able to offer staff the flexibility of what days and geographical areas they prefer to work, which they can’t achieve by working directly for one client- this flexibility means our staff retention levels are very high.” B |