Q&A: Bill McGregor on the adventurer's career path

Accounting was never the path that Bill McGregor thought he would pursue.

When he was finishing an economics degree at the University of Ulster, Bill didn’t have a clear idea of what step to take next.

“I had a lot of thoughts in my mind – mostly about doing something in finance – but no fixed ideas,” says McGregor.

“A lot of my friends were entering accountancy, so I thought I may as well try it too. I started working in a large accountancy practice and learnt a lot during my time there.

McGregor enjoyed the work, so much so that he stayed at the practice for 25 years; then he moved in-house at a hotel.

“When you work in an accountancy practice, you don’t see the day-to-day running of a business and I really wanted experience on that side of accountancy.

“I took up a position as a company accountant/financial controller in a hotel in Northern Ireland. It was fantastic to be hands-on, get involved in the daily operations of a business including managing budgets, staff and suppliers.”

Having experienced accounting on both sides of the fence, McGregor decided to start his own practice in 1999.

“It definitely wasn’t the path I thought I’d go down, but I’m very glad I did.”

He shares with Financial Accountant how he started BMG Accountants and Tax Advisors, the strategies he used to navigate COVID-19 and how he’s grown his business to support 500 clients.

How did you decide to start your own business?

When I was working as an accountant at the hotel, I started gathering clients because family and friends often asked me for accounting work. It got to the stage where it was too much to manage alongside a day job, but I always had a fear about whether my own business would bring in enough income.

My wife was very supportive. She said to me: “What’s the worst that could happen? If it doesn’t work out, you can go back to your day job. There's no point sitting on it and having regrets in years to come”. It got to the point where I thought I had to take this leap. If you don’t try, you’ll never know. Looking back now, it’s something I wish I had done earlier.

It sounds like your wife was a huge support long before she joined the business in 2017. Can you tell us about working together?

The mix of our skills has been great. My wife has 20 years of experience in banking and she also ran her own business for a period of time. She has great business acumen so I learn a lot from her.

Together we navigated COVID-19 which wasn’t always easy as we saw a number of businesses close. You couldn't help but think about the impact the pandemic could have on your own business, but fortunately for us we adapted to the circumstances. If anything, our business grew.

We had so many clients asking for advice – often we had 150 phone calls coming through in one day – so we came up with the idea of hosting a Zoom session for everyone on a Saturday morning. We invited clients and professionals from other sectors such as banking and mortgage brokerage. We could see there was a huge need for us to provide support, and we thought a Zoom session would be the best way to get information across to many people efficiently and quickly.

The motto for your business is ‘Small enough to care, large enough to cope’. How do you strike this balance?

We deliver a really personalised service. From my initial training in larger firms, I could see that smaller clients sometimes get lost. We want each of our clients to feel valued and for them to contact us whenever they want. We nurture good relationships with them and want to see them on a regular basis.

The biggest challenge during the course of running our business has been the growth and managing that. In the past couple of years we made a decision to bring in additional staff and they’ve been fantastic. We’re always mindful of the fact that we don't want to grow to a point that our service levels drop.

We’ve also embraced new technology to automate some processes and reduce the time we spend on certain tasks. We tried to introduce new technologies before the pandemic but I think it really sped up the degree to which our clients were willing to embrace technology. We introduced apps so that people could upload their invoices or bank statements and offer remote meetings.

You have built up a significant amount of business experience and knowledge, which make you a very valuable mentor at Young Enterprise. What has your involvement been with the charity?

Young Enterprise provides local groups with a small budget for them to come up with a viable business idea or product. They were looking for professionals in the business sector to come and give guidance.

At the end of the year everyone goes along to an event and the groups all present their ideas. It’s fantastic to see the ideas they’ve all come up with and their level of enthusiasm was incredible.

I always tell young people to seek as much advice from others who have gone along a similar path. Learn from their experiences and knowledge. I also always emphasise that they have to be prepared to put in the hard work. They should enjoy running a business – some people have this idea that self-employment is easy. But it’s rarely 9-5. It’s tough and it requires long hours.

You’ve also been volunteering at Ards and North Down Community Resuscitation Group (AND CRG) for the last five years. What do you find rewarding about this work?

I really believe in AND CRG’s mission of trying to raise awareness and funding for medical support in rural areas. In particular, the group is looking to have defibrillators fitted in rural areas where an ambulance would struggle to get to quickly.

I help on the financial side but I also try to educate others about the important work the group does. I’ve really enjoyed helping and I think it’s nice to give something back in a voluntary capacity.