From side gig to success abroad: My Accounts x Excelerate Marketing
The Excelerate Effect shines a spotlight on the small businesses in our network that are excelling in their industry, gearing up for growth and harnessing the power of marketing to take their businesses further than ever before.
Excelerate Marketing sat down with founders and directors from businesses in a range of industries, exploring the business attitudes, lessons and levers that have set these businesses apart.
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My Accounts
The most successful business owners never stop learning and never stop looking for little advantages they can get. Those with an eye for success adapt tools from not only mentors in their industry but other businesses – big or small.
Even if your business is still in the “idea phase”, you can learn from the achievements - and even the mistakes of others. After all, most business owners don’t just want their own businesses to succeed but are happy to support and uplift other businesses in their community too.
Noel Tiufino was only 19-years-old when he joined My Accounts 13 years ago. Nowadays, it has offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Philippines that provide complete bookkeeping support to other businesses, thanks to his motto of never settling.
We sat down with Mr Tiufino to find out what he can teach other business owners about how he took My Accounts from a small side gig to an internationally based triumph.
The importance of getting started
Some of the biggest ideas from the most successful companies haven’t started from a place of wanting to change the world. They’ve instead started from small conversations with friends or colleagues around what gaps they’ve identified in their community or industry.
In fact, when Noel Tiufino joined My Accounts, he had simply identified a gap in the accounting industry and thought filling this would earn him some much-needed cash as a 19-year-old.
“In its first iteration, I don’t think I ever had the vision that [My Accounts] would become the company it is today. It was very much just a way for me to make some pocket money on the side,” he said.
Mr Tiufino is not alone in finding success with his side gig designed to earn him some extra cash. In fact, global giant Apple famously started as a side gig by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in Jobs’ parents’ garage by building personal computers in their spare time.
“There’s been lots of iterations of the business since its foundation. It’s now much more of an adult business, in that we’re achieving goals that we set out and are now accountable to shareholders,” he said.
Whether you’re considering turning a hobby into a money-making side project, or just want to spend some spare time closing a gap you perceive in an industry or community, all that matters is that you start.
And My Accounts is a testament to the power of “just starting”. If you’re fulfilling a need and you wholeheartedly believe in your product/service, if you keep on moving forward, you’ll find that success follows.
“In the market, the community continued to refer and refer. The need for it was there, and we built it up from there and continued to bring on more and more qualified people,” explained Mr Tiufino.
Never settling
When asked exactly what Noel Tiufino attributes to the success of My Accounts, after praising his staff, he makes a humble confession – he doesn’t like to say he’s successful.
“Success can be a static thing,” explains Mr Tiufino.
“I have a fighter mentality and don’t like being able to say I’m successful because then it means we could rest on our laurels. We’re always trying to push for bigger and greater things.”
For outsiders this may seem confusing, but for business owners, this mentality can be crucial for your business to advance. Whether it’s in business deals, in your business model or in training your staff: never settle, as growth is always possible.
This doesn’t mean you can’t celebrate your wins though. It’s important for business owners and employees to focus on their victories. But after you’ve popped the champagne and congratulated one another, keep that growth-mentality by looking to the future for more achievement avenues.
Knowing when to let your team shine
Business owners are prone to bottlenecking their workloads due to how many extra hours and tasks we take on. A recurring theme in this interview series has been around knowing when to let go of the reins and outsource.
Noel Tiufino, however, understood this lesson from the get-go, and attributes this directly to the businesses thriving still after 13 years in operation.
“The thing that I did early on is to bring on more qualified people – people who were better than I was. I was never short of being able to say that I was not the best accountant or best bookkeeper, but am more than happy to lead this company.”
If you have the vision, but not the expert skills, consider bringing on experienced team members who can propel your business and help you achieve your goals. This, after all, is exactly what business owners need to do to lead from the front.
“Without a doubt, having the best team around me is the biggest factor to the achievement of the goals we set out to accomplish,” explained Mr Tiufino.
“My role is just to just clear their path so they can do what they do best.”
Building tribes
It’s impossible to talk about My Accounts without talking about one of Noel Tiufino’s greatest talents: being able to find the right people and retain them.
“Having the right people in the right roles is the biggest key for My Accounts achieving what we set out to achieve.”
According to the Australian government department of Education, Skills and Employment, almost a quarter of people who start a job end up leaving within 12 months. But almost three-quarters choose to stay, and this can be directly attributed to the role itself and the company culture.
My Accounts was able to build such a successful team by understanding each employee’s skills and assets and allowing them to advance in areas they seek out to improve.
“By identifying staff character traits, we can determine the role people work best in. This allows me to focus on business development, top-line growth, and strategic partnerships.”
“We’re running in our own lanes but in the same race,” he said.
My Accounts has also been able to create a supportive network for his staff in a time when a more isolated, work-from-home model became the new normal, especially for his Melbourne team.
“What was important was ensuring that the physical and mental health of our team was looked after. While we were set up to work remotely, being locked down further wasn’t ideal given some team members weren’t interacting with anyone for significant periods of time.”
“As humans we’re always craving connections and seeking them. This was having a real effect on not just our team but clients too. So, we stepped up and made a significant amount of effort to do as much as we could for our team.”
Every business owner values their staff and wants to foster a healthy and nurturing team environment. After all, we tend to look at our employees not just as workers but as family.
There are a few things business owners can do right now to help their staff, including making regular, one on one meetings with employees that need more support.
Mr Tiufino did just this, saying: “I found unstructured, no agenda check-ins to be the most effective. This whole thing made me see beyond business; it became very human again. We felt this almost primal need to help everyone survive and make it through this together.”
Business acceleration
In a time when businesses could allow their marketing to grow stagnant, My Accounts accelerated by shaking things up.
“The way our marketing team has adapted this year has been the aspect of our business that has accelerated the most. A pivot to online and a greater focus on digital marketing was necessary, and the team did a great job,” he said.
As Noel Tiufino and My Accounts have exemplified the importance of never settling and keeping moving forward in this interview, so does this quote remind us all shake things up when you need to make a positive change.
Don’t get bogged down by those tough moments but persevere and look for new roads to take. Outsourcing your marketing to a bespoke team like Excelerate Marketing could be the step your business needs to take to keep accelerating in 2020.
Our team offers solutions and strategies for all business types and can help your business, much like My Accounts, shake things up.
Watch the full webinar HERE