Removing Unpalatable Choices

A young small business book-keeping duo collected a £30,000 start-up prize on Sky News recently.

Another lovely tale of startling entrepreneurial success from spare-bedroom-to-50-employees in a jiffy.

My experience is that whilst local accountants do offer such services, no-one has yet sought the “global domination” of these two Welsh ladies. So good on them.

They interestingly use both their blog and twitter to provide comfort for those who may be cautious, encouraging #askmrp dialogue.

But it is their naturally exuberant pitching which disarms even more. And it is around this ‘new product’ angle that my sales best-practice eyebrow was raised. Here’s my favourite line from the report.

“People aren’t expected to do their own plumbing –
so why shouldn’t they have access to an accountant?”

It’s a classic outsourcer’s call. And then this killer paragraph from the video.

It all started really from just seeing –

I suppose both of our families have run small businesses or been self employed –

And just really seeing that there wasn’t a service that allowed them to keep track of what they were doing for a reasonable price

They had a choice of using some sort of software or spreadsheet themselves, doing most of the work themselves for the year, then seeing the accountant once a year

Or really paying an accountant an awful lot of money to have that sort of monthly service

And what we did was put together a system which meant that they don’t really have to worry about any of that

We’ll just sort it out for them for a good price

Despite being bean counters rather than seasoned reps, it’s a great job. Cunningly, this pitch is also precisely 30 seconds.

Why they started, the problem solved, framed by two horns of the dilemma, and where their solution fits in.

All in just 125 words.

Yes, their words and delivery can be refined, but their authenticity and impact puts many a professional salesperson’s new pitch to shame.

Now, if only I could temper the girls’ enthusiasm for America…