Burnell & Co
In a nutshell
-
Burnell, an accountancy business, wanted to grow their business by providing innovative accountancy services
-
Pure worked to support Burnell in developing an innovation breakthrough strategy, sales and marketing approach and implementation plan
-
Burnell, rebranded as Spark Accountancy, has now seen its revenue grow by 90%, customer base has grown by 65% and has recruited 5 new members of staff
Company background
Phil Burnell started his accountancy business in early 2014 after working for a large practice in central Birmingham. Based in Sutton Coldfield, the company traded as Burnell & Co and offered friendly, down to earth, personal accountancy services.
With a small but strong group of customers, purchased from his previous employer, Phil had ambitious plans to significantly expand his business. He had a clear idea of how he wanted to grow the business - by utilising progressive cloud based accountancy software applications to offer a more engaging, interactive, and forward-facing service to clients.
The challenge
As Phil’s business coach, we found a number of significant challenges:
-
The business was a new start up, with a young profile, in a competitive market - it would be essential to establish credibility.
-
The business was planning to adopt an innovative approach to delivering traditional accountancy services and so customer benefits would need to be clearly defined
-
We would need to change perceptions of accountancy services
The approach
We worked to support Phil in three key areas:
-
Innovation breakthrough strategy - working alongside Phil to undertake a strategic review of the business, including financial performance, customer types and perceptions, products and services, pricing, service delivery and competitor analysis.
-
Innovative sales and marketing approach - provided coaching to help develop a focussed business development growth plan, establish a meaningful sales proposition, define the key messages, outline potential target sectors and customer profiles and create appropriate routes to prospect engagement.
-
Implementation plan – created a detailed, timed implementation plan, incorporating the outcomes of the breakthrough strategy and the innovative sales and marketing approach. This include deploying effective marketing communication activity as follows:
-
Product and service configuration – created a range of packaged services, providing a clear specification to manage customer expectation and establish value perceptions
-
Proposition development – established a relevant, meaningful proposition appropriate for selected target sectors and customer profiles
-
Brand development – created a new company name and visual identity that better communicated the company’s innovative brand position
-
Digital media – developed a new website providing company information in a more vibrant and dynamic context, consistent with the company’s innovative positioning
-
Social media – developed a significant, consistent output of social media content and activity to establish brand awareness and credibility amongst selected target audiences
-
Physical environment – established a new office lay outand installation of internal and external signage to create improved environment for both staff and customers
-
Results
Since working with Burnell, now rebranded as Spark Accountants, the company has seen fantastic results:
-
Revenue growth in year two, following the development of the strategy and its implementation, was 90%.
-
In the following 12-month period, the business increased its revenue by a further 45%.
-
The business has grown its customer base by 65% over a twenty-four-month period
-
The increase in business growth necessitated the recruitment of 5 new members of staff
If you want further information on how Pure may help you and your business, get in touch today.


