What is it that you are not?

We are constantly telling the marketplace what we are: the best accountant, the specialist recruiter, the smartest lawyer, the best informed financial planner. That’s easy to say. But what is it that you are not?

Thinking in this counter-intuitive fashion can help you better identify what it is you should be doing and inform your target audience what you will and won’t do. Look at your marketing, branding, advertising and identify what it is that you can remove.

Get rid of all the stuff you don’t do or don’t want to do. The awareness by you and your target market as to what you won’t do ensures you’ll find more time (we’re all searching for more time); you’ll have less stress; you’ll enjoy the work you do much better; your quality will improve; your repute will get better and the word-of-mouth, referrals and recommendations will come much quicker.

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Everyone wishes for more money, no matter how much they already have. “There’s no such thing as too much money.” But the reason we want it, is not to keep it but to use it to acquire provisions. Those provisions can range from the necessity of food through to lavish spending on trinkets of absolutely no worthwhile use other than to be admired. And, sometimes the admiration is only by the person who owns such trinket.

Money is valuable only in so far as what spending it provides. A person who has ten million dollars in the bank and never spends a dollar is a very poor person. Somebody who has one hundred dollars in their pocket and uses it to have a good time is a rich(er) person.

You cannot evaluate a person’s wealth by what money they spend or by what amount they keep.

You and I will live less than one thousand months. Not a long time when you consider how quickly the months seem to roll past. Our wealth is our experiences, pleasures, endeavours, friends, knowledge, children, family, and the like. Our wealth is not our bank balance, our stocks, our superannuation, our rental properties, our cars, for none of these will travel with us into our graves.

The value of money is how we can trade it for laughter; utilise it to create and share fond memories; travel and see other lands; invest in the growth and development of our children and loved ones. Until we barter and trade the tokens that represent money into these things, money in itself is worthless.

Large amounts of money implies superiority, status, elitism, freedom, opportunity, security, etc. Which is why governments around the world continually shuffle and reallocate money between classes and peoples. Currency has almost become iconic in a way. Money is frequently used as a measurement of whether you’re smart enough, work hard enough, are beautiful enough, or talented enough. In this way it is a marker of human value. People are measured by how much money they have.

Therefore, money becomes a double-edge sword: the ambitious want it to show they’ve successfully achieved, and those with malice can assert that the lack of it exemplifies you’ve not been good at doing what you do.

Money has become a symbol for ambition, a symbol of corruption, a symbol of success, a symbol of failure, of envy, of beauty, of envy, of greed: because money is the repository of all these things.

But it’s not a symbol of true wealth. True wealth is symbolised by the wondrous beauty of the sparkle in a child’s eye when they smile because of the uncompromising love given to them by a parent. True wealth is measured by the time you have to live, to experience, to share, to laugh, to cry, to “feel”.

Money cannot be an end in itself …. ever.

The Law Firm Marketing Masters Blog has rated me one of the “Top 10 Law Firm Marketing Experts in the World” and “Australia’s leading law firm management and marketing consultant”.

It doesn’t matter if you’re an accountant, lawyer, recruiter, financial planner, consultant, coach, professional speaker … the rules are the same.

What are you doing to own your market space?

Listen to an excerpt from the recorded interview I did last week. If you are in any professional services related business this will be worthwhile and valuable to you – it’s not only about lawyers.

Listen Here

An almost-free day for people in the accounting, law, recruiting, HR, business consulting & coaching, speaking, and related professions to help them dramatically accelerate business and find new markets. It’s my way of “giving back” and providing a high-content day.

The registration fee is only $90 + GST, which offsets some of the expenses (lunch and refreshments during the day are included) and ensures that people don’t merely sign up to hold a seat and drop out at the last minute.

There is limited seating. And I imagine it’s not going to last long.

Whether you’re beginning in the profession or a veteran needing a boost, you’ll find a fast-paced, entertaining, and pragmatic session that will include:

• Attracting clients through intelligent marketing.
• Isolating your highest potential constituency and achieving high penetration.
• Creating a fast track to your highest fees for clients.
• Networking smart for results.
• Improving use of time.
• Overcoming the four primary objections.
• Understanding referrals and how to make them work for your business.

The session will begin at 10 and conclude at 4. Lunch will be provided between noon and 1.

Once the seats are taken, I have to close off registration. These are five hours that routinely are included in my $1000 per day and more workshops, but never in the same day. There will be ample opportunity for Q&A, and we’ll have some “hot seats” and role plays from the front of the room.

First come, first served. Register Now:

• Brisbane 16 April
• Melbourne 17 April
• Sydney 19 April

All fees are non-refundable unless the session is cancelled, in which case all fees will be immediately refunded in full.

1. Are you achieving your financial targets so far this year?
2. Are you growing?
3. Or, are you declining?
4. Are you winning major customers?
5. Or, have you already lost some key business?
6. Are you developing new products/services for the future?
7. Or, are you simply relying on what you’ve had for years?
8. Are you becoming more efficient?
9. Is your business productivity improving?
10. Or, have you found productivity declining along with morale and enthusiasm?

Another meeting is scheduled and you discuss it further. The butchers’ paper, the notes, the conference calls, the PowerPoint slides, the flow charts, the diagrams, the numbers ….

Wow, you guys are working hard.

But are you? It feels like you’re doing work, but is it? Is this stuff worth doing? What’s the point? Are you going somewhere with this? Will there be a return on investment?

Compared to all the other things you could be doing, compared to other things you could be investing your time on, is this most likely going to have the biggest pay-off? Is this the most important? Is this your best project to produce results that count?

Or, are you doing it because nobody had the chutzpah to say, “What are we doing?”

Are you doing work that’s worthwhile, valuable, and has a significant pay-off, or are you just going through the motions doing your job?

What should you be doing?

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Mediocrity is a curse that accountants can become comfortable with, live with, but which will limit their growth. And, if their comfort with mediocrity continues for long enough it can deteriorate into paralysis and business failure.

Before anyone thinks it can happen to them, ask yourself where Arthur Andersen is today and don’t just assume it was all because of Enron.

Pricing, fees, hourly rates and remuneration are critical areas in which accountants must take a new approach. Accountants are fixated on neat boxes and clear hourly rates almost as a professional pathology. So it’s not surprising they cheat themselves out of the fee level, revenues, and remuneration that they properly deserve.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants interview Ric Willmot about his thoughts, opinions and expert advice for how accounting professionals can raise the bar, do good work, charge appropriately for their services, and have their clients gladly pay them for it.

Institute of Chartered Accountants Interview Ric Willmot

The Institute of Chartered Accountants interview Ric Willmot. Click here to download PDF

“The time has come,” the walrus said, “to talk of many things:

of shoes and ships

and sealing wax

of cabbages & kings.”

Gutenberg Press

In the 4th Millennium BC, hard bronze was invented in Susa (Iran) by mixing soft copper with small amounts of an even softer tin. Who would have thought?

In 1439, Johannes Gutenberg, a German goldsmith and printer is credited with being the first European to use movable type printing by combining the wine press and the coin punch.

What different ideas could you mix and match to light your creative fire?

How could you mix and match ideas, concepts or processes to help your clients achieve better outcomes and results?

An easy excuse for not trying that little bit harder is that nobody will ever notice that last 5% of effort you put in to making your products/services the highest quality. It’s a terrible amount of work that goes unrecognised by everyone but you.

Answering the telephone within three rings costs many times more than letting it go into a queue with a recorded message that it’ll be answered by the first available operator.

Interrupting your social conversation with your co-worker to walk across the floor to greet and serve a window shopper who has sidled into the store may never get noticed by your manager.

Getting your handicap from 15 to 13 is incredibly more difficult than reducing it from 36 to 26.

Hand-rolling specifically selected Sico and Ligero tobacco leaves encasing them with an African grown Cameroon wrapper to make a Winston Churchill cigar takes significantly more time and effort than White Owl churning out stogies through a machine.

Crafting the design of your new brochure professionally takes ten times longer than using a computer template, and the message is almost the same.

But it’s not. You know it’s not. And, your customers know it’s not. The message isn’t the same at all.

That extra 5% of professionalism and care, that extra 10% of effort to serve the customer, it all adds up and sends a much better message. If you do the same as everyone else you will never be any different and you cannot expect to earn any more. It’s hard getting that last 10% happening. It takes time finessing the final 5% in quality. It’s difficult. It’s difficult because everyone is already busy doing the easy stuff.

The payoff is to identify the work that most everyone have decided isn’t worth the effort. That’s what you will get paid handsomely for. That’s what you’ll be remembered for. That’s what will get you referred and recommended to quality customers who seek quality products and services. Those people will notice the difference. Then so will you.

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