Monday, May 06, 2013

The next #INABAaward goes to Elaine Clark of CheapAccounting.co.uk

This is another (virtual) award of an INABA to an accountant who operates in such a way as to confirm my contention that ‘Boring Is Optional'.

INABA stands for 'I'm Not A Boring Accountant' - more on the awards here++++ 

Elaine Clark is a forthright and feisty lady with firm views about many accountancy related topics. She is MD of CheapAccounting.co.uk and I'm sure no one would ever suggest that she was boring. On the contrary she has successfully built up her business and is widely recognised as a trail blazer in the use of social media within Accountancy. Rather than simply follow the herd she has a clear focus and marketing objectives.

Elaine was included on Accountancy Age's 2012 power list and has won the Woman in Finance category of the Network of Aspiring Women Awards. Elaine's articles are regularly published on a plethora of sites including Accountancy Age, Start up Donut, WiRE, Accounting Web, ICAEW and Business Zone.

I admire Elaine for the way she has persisted with her passion and am constantly impressed by her new ideas, initiatives and activities.

In her own words:
Wow, yes, definitely not a boring accountant because running an accountancy practice means that you have to be so much more than an accountant; especially when that practice is in the Cloud. 
Not only do I need to be a marketeer, a sales person, a PR guru, a writer, a prolific tweeter and goodness knows what else but I have to keep up with all that new fangled technology stuff and re-engineer Practice workings to take advantage of it, keeping costs low so that our client fee very competitive. How else can we be called CheapAccounting.co.uk! 
But mainly I guess I am not boring in many people’s eyes because of my reputation on social media. It’s difficult for me to say just how or why that happened but I am often told that I have a certain persona on twitter. Of course I would add that some of the time I have to wear my “thick skinned” coat to fend off the flack from those that do not find me “their cup of tea”, although recently the noise from the naysayers of the past has been dying down. 
I guess I am like Marmite and luckily I love Marmite!

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