I hope you're planning to have some fun this summer! Maybe we can add to your fun by combining some golf play time with advancing your sales and marketing skills. I've been busily working with Alicia Olesinski, "Marketing Guru Extraordinaire" on our two-day Long Island sales & marketing retreat on July 24 & 25. Alicia was head of marketing of one of the largest CPA firms in the US,
and has lots of wisdom and practical ideas to share with you in the
area of lead generation.
Long Island is a beautiful place to visit in the summer; magnificent beaches and seaside towns, boating, golf, and lots more. (Not to mention that my wife Marsha is happy that I'm not traveling for this one - I guess that's a good sign!)
There's also a three-day event in San Francisco on June 18 - 20. We launched this "Building Tomorrow's Practice" workshop in Las Vegas last January, and the response was awesome. I have to tell you, if you haven't been to a RAN ONE event in the last year or so, they are receiving rave reviews. I think we've hit the mark in terms of what our members need to really succeed in implementing value added services within their practices.
If you' been to a RAN ONE event in the past year, please respond and share your experience with others. Our network will grow as we help each other win...
As I traveled through North America on the round table tour, I couldn't help but notice how much members enjoyed hearing and learning from the successes of each other. RAN ONE members want to hear about your wins, so they can learn and grow from them. What you succeed at points to what is possible for others.
Please share your story. Tell us how you are helping clients win, or building a great firm culture, or building partner alignment, or transitioning to more advisory work, or any other gains that are making a meaningful difference to you and/or your clients.
Sharing your success helps others win.
Most accountants I know have it pretty good. They make a decent living and enjoy what they do. Things are good. However, as Jim Collins says in the opening line of his book Good to Great, "
Good is the enemy of great". Why is that? "Good" breeds complacency and gets in the way of things being great.
Answer these three simple questions and you'll quickly know how good, or great things are for you:
1) What % of your work do you love doing vs. tolerate vs. dislike? (must = 100%)
2) What % of your clients do you love working with vs. tolerate vs. dislike? (must = 100%)
3) On a 1 to 10 scale, how would you rate your personal income from your practice?
As you think about your answers, where would you place yourself on the "good to great" scale? Is it possible that things could be really great for you - or is this as good as it is going to get? Whatever your answer is, you're right. (See my previous posting on "beliefs").
In my first posting, I shared our vision for YOUR success. Consistent with that vision, I promise to continually challenge you achieve to a higher quality of professional life. Here's my challenge to you:
To move from good to great in your practice, what are some things that would have to change? What actions must be taken for that to happen?
I'm looking forward to your responses!
What a pleasure to receive such great postings from folks who are manifesting great results (check them out)! While many practitioners would happily enjoy a more lucrative and rewarding practice, the truth is most will not make the necessary changes to make it happen. What exactly does it take to make those changes that we know we would greatly benefit from? It requires a change in our thinking. What we manifest in the world, (the type of practice that we have, the work we do, the money that we make, etc.) all follow our thinking.
Early in my life I was fortunate to have a mentor who helped me realize that thinking precedes action and results. He often said, "Rick, 90% of your limitations are self-created. The rest are in your head". As I gradually saw the truth of that, my life began to change for the good. From a practical perspective, this means that if you want to create a different result in your practice, you must first change your thinking. There are two aspects to thinking. One is on the positive side about what we hope to create, our vision. The other aspect of thinking are those self-limiting thoughts and beliefs, the "why it won't work" type thoughts. As it turns out, the real obstacles to our success are not in the marketplace, or in our practice, but in those self-limiting beliefs.
When coaching practitioners, I often ask questions to discover their self-limiting beliefs. I realize, of course there are real issues and obstacles out there to deal with. But the self-created ones are the most insidious because they are harder to see, and often stop us before we start. Understanding how our thoughts limit us and how we can let them go can be incredibly empowering and quite freeing. Assuming you would enjoy a more profitable and rewarding practice, my question then is, what are the beliefs, attitudes, or points of view that seemingly make it difficult to achieve such a vision? What is it about yourself, your partners, your team, your clients, etc., that you feel you have to "overcome" to enjoy your "ideal" practice?
Amazing how rapidly our world changes! A year ago when a respected colleague suggested I start a blog, I was dumbfounded. "Are you nuts? Blogs are for lonely teenagers with acne who want to tell the world about their day hanging around street corners. Why on earth would I want to blog?”
Well folks, here I am. The impact of blogs in the business world has been nothing short of amazing. I just read Debbie Weil’s “The Corporate Blogging Book” and quickly realized that blogs can facilitate a conversation within a community. That excited me because I have been itching to have a dialogue with the RAN ONE community, and now I have the means to do it. Are you ready?
I am absolutely passionate about our vision for RAN ONE clients (that’s you), but I’m not sure how you view that vision. I realize that if we are to have even a chance of achieving that vision, I must know if you share it, if it’s real for you. Knowing the truth of this is very important to us all. Here's my vision of what a successful advisory practice could be:
I see advisory services as an opportunity to create a very different type of practice. A practice where we are paid for value well beyond hours worked; where we are making a difference in our client’s lives; where our work is valued and appreciated. And as a result, we grow professionally and personally.
I might call this a self-actualized practice (a term I just made up).
And here are my questions to you:
1) Does it feel possible?
2) What are the obstacles, if any?
3) How important would it be to you to overcome those obstacles and realize those results?
4) Do you have a different vision of what an advisory practice could be? If so, please describe it, both in terms of what it would offer and what you would achieve.
I look forward to your response of a length and detail that suits you. Please be completely candid. You will help shape the direction of this conversation.
Yours in community,
Rick Solomon, CPA
rick.solomon@ranone.com
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