Vocabulary of accountpreneurs that I did not learn in my MBA and accountancy classes

I don’t remember being taught any vocabulary of the accountpreneur during my study of accounting and MBA. The curricula of most accountancy courses are as rusty as the image in this article.

As a dedicated student that never missed a class for any reason during my time at the university, I earned every right to be proud of my achievement when I graduated with a 2.1 in accountancy from a well-respected university. As if I hadn’t had enough, I proceeded for a master’s degree in accounting and then topped it all up with two professional qualifications. Yet, I did not formerly learn much about google age of internet of things.

It took a lot of continuous personal efforts to keep picking up both hard and soft skills of the new age accountant. You may in addition to all the tips given in this post also decide to learn computer programming as an accountant.

Marketing was a major module in my accounting curricular. As comprehensive and broad as those courses were, I was never taught any of the terms below. That is why am writing this article, before you enroll for any accountancy course, MBA, or professional accountancy qualification, I encourage you to spend sometime familiarizing yourself with the course contents to make sure you are not be taught 19^th century tricks to be used in today’s business world.

There is no point in trying to solve today’s business problems with yesterday’s tools as business owners now require their accountants to be more than just statutory tax preparer but to be business advisers and partners.

For you to be that kind of accountant that meets this new expectation of your clients, you have to learn the language of accountpreneur. Oh, before I forget, let me quickly explain what I mean by accountpreneur, accountpreneur simply means accountants that know how to make money without necessarily being employed. Ok, enough of this intro, lets get down to business.

12 Vocabularies of Accountants with knack for entrepreneurial spirit

Below are 12 Vocabularies of accountpreneurs that I did not learn in my MBA and accountancy classes but you now have the opportunity of learning them

1. SEO: SEO stands for search engine optimization. It is all about making sure that your business is visible in the web through search engines. In this modern day where everything is now interconnected through the web, you will achieve little or no success if you confine your business to just the old bricks and wall business models. At the very basics, you need to know the on-page
2. Adwords: in the past, we all about classified ads in the newspapers but now, we talk about online advertising. To run a successful online advertisement, one needs to understand the mechanics of online advertising.
3. Keyword research: using free keyword research tools like the one provided by google, an insight can be gained into what people are interested in. For an accountant to fulfil their potential of being credible business advisers, they have to understand the basics of keyword research.
4. Affiliate marketing: there are times when your client will fall back to you for advice on opportunity of marketing other people’s products. You will be taken off guard if you have not taken time to acquaint yourself with what affiliate marketing is and how it works.
5. Pay per click ads: PPC ads as it is popularly known is a form of online advertisement where clients pay the advertisement company wherever an advert that is placed on one of their networks is clicked on. As an accountant that might want to go it solo as an entrepreneur, knowledge of PPC will help you know the best online advertisement is best for your business.
6. Traffic generation tips: to say the least, you have to be a master in generating free and targeted online traffic as an accountant that is looking to have any sort of web present.
7. Blogging and content marketing: the post you are reading now is an example of blogging and online content marketing. Accountants as communicators should equip themselves with one of the greatest gifts of our generation- the internet to communicate to others. I am a regular contributor to one of my clients website.
8. HTML5: in as much as you are not required to be a professional web developer, knowing a little bit html will give you confidence to work with clients that into web technology for example. It will be easy for to take up a career in XBRL (extensible business reporting language) which is the future of business if you are comfortable with coding.
9. Web hosting: web hosting is a term that you will have no excuse for not knowing how it works. You will probably not be reading this post if I did not bother to put it all up on the internet.
10. Web design: very few people now call themselves web designers as almost everyone knows how to use plugins to achieve almost anything they want to get done on a wordpress blog. You have to know how to install a WP database and then make some adjustments using plugins that have shortcode capability.
11. Mobile marketing: I won’t be exaggerating if I say that the era of desktop computing is nearing its lifecycle. In fact, Cisco and some other networking and technology company have estimated that mobile devices will cross twenty billion in 6 years’ time. The market is in the mobile world, you need to master the art of mobile and online marketing as a modern day hybrid accountant that you are.
12. Social media campaign: I bet that this is not the first time you will be hearing about the buzz phrase ‘big data’. Big data analytics is now a major component of complete business strategy that a company cannot afford not to be tapping into. Accountants as board members need to have good and functional knowledge of how a company can leverage on the power of social media campaign that is made possible by the advent of big data.

If you own a small business or an accountant and you are not familiar with the concepts that are briefly introduced in this article, I strongly recommend that you spend some time learning these as they will do your business so much good.

I am not by any means discouraging you from studying accountancy or going for an MBA, my aim of writing this article is to highlight the importance of learning practical skills that will enhance your accounting career as a professional accountant. Let this post act as an eye opener for you on what to look out when choosing an accounting or MBA course.