What a night we had last week in London at the Xero Awards! As always Xero put on an amazing show. After a hectic day of back to back webinars I travelled down to London and met my VA Gemma, where I tried to teach her the workings of the London underground,to no avail! . Unfortunately Gemma’s business partner Katie couldn’t make it so we didn’t have the full team there, but we were able to meet team member Anthony for the first time face to face which was great after working with him for the past 3 months. Carl, my husband (my good luck mascot) joined us and the evening started with a sparkling reception with canapes where we mingled with Shezelle Hunt and Josh Probert from Next Minute who were also finalists for an award. We were also joined by Ami Copeland from ICB, it was lovely to have her there to support us.

As you may know we were finalists in 3 different categories, Sole Practitioner of the Year, Bookkeeping Partner of the year and Innovative Partner of the Year. First came the announcement of Sole Practitioner and that was awarded to Joan Adams of Adams O’Rourke Accountants, a big congratulations to her! Secondly the winner of Bookkeeping Firm of the Year was announced. The competition was tough in this category as there were 4 finalists all of top calibre. The winner was announced as Fresh Financials. It was an emotional moment for Emma Fox, Founder and Director of Fresh Financials. As she took to the stage with her team she said how she’d built a team of working Mum’s so they could fit work around family life which was the most important thing. A very well deserved win. The only category left which we were in was Innovative Partner of the year, I really didn’t think I stood a chance in this category and I was so shocked when LJM Bookkeeping were announced the winners! We’re so proud to have won this award. The hard work and dedication of introducing software into my business in order to support clients and give them more time back is really paying off!

I was swept from the stage like a celebrity for photos and went back to join my team who were all very excited that we’d won the award. So then it was time to party and that’s what we did. There was a live band who entertained us last year too and a DJ so we danced the night away. Big thanks to Xero for putting on such a good show and making all of this happen for so many of us in the industry.

If you’ve considered nominating yourself for an award in your industry I highly recommend doing so. Even just the process of the nomination gives you time to reflect on everything you have achieved in your business. As busy business owners we don’t always have spare time to think about how far we’ve come in such a short space of time. For me, technology has changed so much since I first started my business 12 years ago and I’ve embraced it in order to become more productive and efficient. 

Last year I was in the finals and came away without an award, but I still learned so much from the process and had a great time regardless. Being able to show the world that you’ve been shortlisted for an award is a great achievement, a massive boost for your morale and shows your audience that you are reputable in your industry.

Winning the award was the icing on the cake. I feel so lucky and proud to have been given this opportunity. I’d like to thank all the software partners for giving me such great platforms to work with, my husband for always having faith in me and my team for giving me the support I need to concentrate on what I love doing best.