It’s time to reflect on the JRMA New Year's Resolutions. Have we managed to stick to those resolutions made in January? Do they remain relevant and have they helped to steer JRMA forward during 2025? Hear from our Managing Director, Judith, to see how we progressed in 12 months...
Let’s start with a tough one for a naturally cautious Managing Director, but yes, we have certainly all taken ourselves out of our comfort zones this year.
We’ve demonstrated boldness by investing. In tangible things like new IT hardware and office improvements, as well as intangibles like developing the brand through our marketing. To be clear, we have invested and not just spent, but we have had to be bold to make these investments for our future.
The subtle difference the New Year of boldness has made is that instead of procrastinating, over-analysing, discussing the issues to death and then saying let’s do it, we’ve missed out the middle bit and just done it.
We have also been bold in our activities. The new default answer to “do you want to….?” is "Yes", rather than an eye-rolling "No". We exhibited at the Careers Fair at the University of Worcester in October and our amazing placement students, demonstrated boldness that knocked my socks off. They created an amazing stand and ran it independently, engaging with the prospective students, and bigging up JRMA!
As MD, I have been bold enough to enrol in the Help to Grow management training course and even found the courage to undertake one-to-one mentoring. For someone who is naturally defensive and poor at accepting advice, I couldn’t be more out of my comfort zone. Deep breaths.
Another tough one and easier to do on reflection than as part of the day job. To me, success in a business is way more than cash in the bank. It is about sustainable long-term profits which come from good quality work leading to customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.
We now have a “Success List” which logs all the achievements towards this longer-term goal, and there are a whopping 50 successes on the list from 2025 (an increase of almost 100% on prior year for a full variance analysis) . Have we celebrated? I’m ashamed to say probably not enough.
A few 'thank you's to the team here and there, two meals out, and the Christmas Party coming up. But there is no time like the present. It is the whole JRMA team who have made the Success List happen and I am extremely proud of the brilliant work they have done.
The JRMA team all work independently for different clients and on different aspects of their work, but we’ve definitely made great progress on teamworking and internal communication. According to Chat GPT there are 10 ways to improve teamworking in a small accountancy business.
We agree with 8 of these ideas, we are pretty good at 3 of them (weekly planning, workflow visibility, customer communication), and we have starting work on the other 5. Interestingly one of those 5 is to Celebrate the Wins!
Beyond the technical AI recommendations, the JRMA team have demonstrated sensitivity to colleagues and their challenges, and have stepped in when necessary so that we all flourish.
On reflection, that is fantastic progress on the 2025 New Years Resolutions. Were they good resolutions and is JRMA in a better place than 12 months ago? 100%. We have a more powerful brand, more customers, and a strong foundation for 2026.
Are you thinking about incorporating New Years goals for your business? Read our blog on the financial tips that start you off strong in the new year.
