{"id":7054527,"date":"2026-09-02T07:23:31","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T07:23:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/accounting\/theres-one-question-every-sole-practitioner-accountant-should-regularly-ask-themselves\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T07:23:31","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T07:23:31","slug":"theres-one-question-every-sole-practitioner-accountant-should-regularly-ask-themselves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7054527","title":{"rendered":"There’s one question every sole practitioner accountant should regularly ask themselves"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The first time I told the following true story to a friend, I realised it had profound implications for many sole practitioner accountants.<\/p>\n

Long ago, in a firm far away\u2026.
Shortly after I was promoted to a manager role at Touche Ross (now Deloitte), I was sent on a management development course with around 20 colleagues from across the firm.<\/p>\n

One of the exercises was deceptively simple. We were asked about our ambitions.<\/p>\n

Like most of my contemporaries, I said I wanted to become a partner in the firm.<\/p>\n

The facilitator then challenged us to think about what other careers might appeal to us. At first, it felt like an odd question.<\/p>\n

Weren\u2019t we all there because we wanted to become partners?<\/p>\n

As we explored the possibilities, however, the list grew surprisingly quickly. We talked about becoming a partner in another firm, taking a senior non-partner role, moving into industry, perhaps with a client, running our own accountancy practice, starting a completely different business, or working in the charity or education sectors.<\/p>\n

It transpired there were plenty of alternatives that few of us had considered. That is not however the lesson I want to draw.<\/p>\n

On the course we were split into pairs, with each pair allocated one of the possible career paths. Our task was to identify what someone would need to do over the next year or two to put themselves in the strongest position to achieve that ambition.<\/p>\n

When we came back together, we compared what each group had produced.<\/p>\n

What I remember most clearly is that, once we had examined what becoming a partner would really involve and compared it with the alternatives, very few people still seemed enthusiastic about following that route.<\/p>\n

Perhaps that says something about that particular group of managers. Or what we thought about the route to becoming a partner in such a firm back in the day.<\/p>\n

The lessons of that exercise impacted my own ambitions and I left the firm within a few months.<\/p>\n

I later heard that many of my contemporaries did the same and that that particular exercise was never repeated.<\/p>\n

The exercise wasn\u2019t valuable because it persuaded people to leave.<\/p>\n

It was valuable because it forced us to examine assumptions that most of us had never previously questioned.<\/p>\n

Are you still chasing the right prize?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I see something similar when working with some of the sole practitioner accountants whom I support.<\/p>\n

Many spent years looking forward to running their own practice. They worked hard, made sacrifices and eventually achieved exactly what they set out to do.<\/p>\n

Once they get there, however, many assume that the only challenge is making the practice more successful.<\/p>\n