Mumpreneur Feature – Dawn Brown

I’m Dawn Brown, sister of the lovely Sonia, mother of Zara aged 2 and Oscar who is almost 1. I’m also a Chartered Accountant with my own accountancy business. ABCNorthEast (http://www.abcnortheast.co.uk/)

I run my own chartered accountancy business, ABC North East specialising in small businesses and personal tax returns.

ABC North East was started in January 2008 so we are 4 years old now!

Having worked for large companies for many years since qualifying as a Chartered Accountant I was getting frustrated at being limited to working for somebody else and not being able to have a direct impact with my career. I wanted to work for myself to get more flexibility as we were planning a family, to get more career satisfaction and just to prove to myself that I can do it!

I love my clients, I love that I don’t have to answer to anybody else and that I can be myself with my clients. My clients appreciate that I have a family and work around them and they appreciate that I don’t try and overcomplicate everything. I love that I can pretty much choose my workload and how many hours I work to fit around my family. I love seeing my clients doing well, it’s particularly satisfying when you are with them from the start and see their business really take off.

It can get pretty lonely at times but this is where the world of social media comes into itself. Without twitter I think some days I could go insane as it’s very easy to spend all day working on client accounts and not interact with anybody.

I would have spent less time worrying about it and more time trying to get new clients. It’s a very slow business to build up initially as people don’t tend to change accountant very often but once word gets around and referrals start coming in the clients gradually start to build up.

1)    Consider very carefully whether there is a market for what you want to do.

2)    Get professional advice from an accountant

3)    Check to see whether you would be eligible for any government / small business grants

4)    When choosing an accountant, choose somebody that you a)understand, b) like and c) don’t be afraid to shop around for quotes as many accountants charge ridiculous fees and some of us are very reasonable in our pricing

5)    Get online and use social media such as twitter and facebook. It’s a great way of spreading the word about your business and generating new clients

6)    Have fun! And don’t get disheartened if you hit a rough patch, it happens to us all and just requires a bit more work to get through it 🙂