This month, I’m delighted to introduce you to Marina Sturmey, who’s building her new accountancy practice in Oxfordshire as the latest member of the Affinity Associates franchise.
Marina has a great deal of experience to draw on. She’s spent much of her career in the finance departments of larger businesses, before building her own successful childcare business after having kids of her own. More recently, she’s worked as a fractional Financial Controller, supporting several businesses at once.
Returning to accountancy, and building a practice of her own, had always been on her mind. She certainly had the experience to do it.
So, why did she choose Affinity?
As Marina says herself, setting up a practice entirely on your own is hard. What the Affinity franchise gave her was a way to do exactly that, with the systems, services and support of an established firm behind her.
She was especially drawn to the outsourcing model. It means she can build relationships with her own clients and do the work she enjoys herself, while calling on a network of specialists for the services she doesn’t provide. From day one, she can offer clients a far broader range of accountancy services than she could alone, without having to build an entire team around her to do it.
It’s a model that also works just as well for bookkeepers looking to grow beyond the services they can offer today. With the right specialist support behind them, they can broaden what they put in front of clients and build a full practice under their own name, much as Marina is doing now.
Marina didn’t reach her decision overnight, either. She spoke to several other franchises before choosing Affinity, which she described as having “the right vibe, the right feel”, and she took her time over it, from her first enquiry in January to signing in August.
You can read much more about Marina’s background, her plans and what drew her to Affinity in her full case study here: Meet Marina Sturmey
And if you’d like more, there are two other case studies on the website:
- Meet Samantha: turning an 8 year partnership with Affinity into a practice of her own
- Meet George: how Affinity helped this ambitious, young entrepreneur launch his own practice right at the start of his career
Whether you’re thinking about growing your bookkeeping business, building a practice of your own, or expanding your existing practice, I’d be glad to talk through how the Affinity Associates franchise model might fit your plans.
All the best,
Dan Allen
Senior Franchise Consultant