Author: Ric Payne

Take a look at this firm’s advertisement through the eyes of a customer or prospect

There’s a session we do at Boot Camp where we talk about the issue of differentiation in the context of positioning and ask participants to list the services or activities their firm offers that represent customer value propositions.

Predictably, the list is long but we rarely see anything on it that other firms don’t do, could not do or represent something of real value to a client.  People buy, or are at least interested in, differences and yet the typical menu of services offered by accounting practices in print or on the web reflect sameness.  How can you expect a prospect to think about switching to your firm if you are not different in a way that is likely to be more valuable than your current service provider? Continue reading “Take a look at this firm’s advertisement through the eyes of a customer or prospect”

It’s what you believe not what you sell that’s important

After Steve Jobs announced he needed to take leave for medical reasons back in January 2009, Tim Cook, as interim CEO, was asked by an analyst whether he expected to be the permanent CEO.  According to a post by Bill Taylor on the Harvard Blog site, Cook did not answer the question directly but instead said …

“We believe that we are on the face of the earth to make great products, and that’s not changing,” Cook declared.

“We believe in the simple not the complex…We believe in saying no to thousands of products, so that we can really focus on the few that are truly important and meaningful to us,” he added.

“We believe in deep collaboration and cross-pollination of our groups, which allow us to innovate in ways other cannot…And I think that regardless of who is in what job those values are so embedded in this company that Apple will do extremely well,” he concluded.

Success in life and in business really does turn on why we do what we do.  It’s the core values we hold close that determine how we organize ourselves and our business.  On reading Cook’s statement of their fundamental beliefs it’s absolutely clear what their competitive strategy is. It’s unequivocal.

Once the “why” is clear – we are here to make great products; the “what” logically follows –  focus on a few products that are meaningful and important; and from there the “how” becomes self-evident – deep collaboration and cross-pollination to innovate in ways others cannot — that’s Apples’ competitive advantage.


What do you want your business legacy to be?

When Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard graduated from Stanford in 1937 they decided to start a new business. They subsequently memorialized their early discussions in a set of “founding notes” which, in relation to the question of what they were going to actually produce, simply mentioned “we want to direct our efforts toward making important technical contributions to the advancement of science, industry, and human welfare.”   The question of what to manufacture was noted in the meeting minutes in the following way … “The question of what to manufacture was postponed.” Continue reading “What do you want your business legacy to be?”

Strategy in times of rapid change

A typical definition of the word strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a vision, the two key words being “plan” and “vision”.  I’ve been talking about strategy a lot lately because I believe the lack of a coherent strategy is the barrier that prevents firms from achieving their full potential.  They either lack a vision, they lack a plan of action or they lack both.  In other words they lack a strategy. Continue reading “Strategy in times of rapid change”

Do you have an elevator speech?

You need to be able too win over prospects in 118 seconds – 8 seconds to hook them and 110 seconds to reel them in according to Jeffrey Hayzlett.  In the April, 2012 edition of Success Magazine Hayzlett describes how to structure your speech. Continue reading “Do you have an elevator speech?”

Your edge quickly becomes the margin

The purpose of developing and implementing a competitive strategy is to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage.  Competitive advantage means the firm earns higher-than-average industry profit.  There are potentially as many successful strategies as there ideas for getting an edge.  However, some strategies are easily copied and the edge quickly becomes the margin.   Continue reading “Your edge quickly becomes the margin”

The top 100… does size really matter?

About this time every year I wait anxiously for my copy of Accounting Today’s Top 100 US accounting firms – well, perhaps I’m not that excited about it but I certainly find it interesting that we seem to place so much store on revenue as a measure of success. This year’s report (as is always the case I might add) is interesting so I thought I’d make a few observations. Continue reading “The top 100… does size really matter?”

How important is positioning?

A friend of mine can trace his ancestry back to the royal families in Russia (so he says) and he certainly inherited a name with about 23 characters in it and several syllables.  He was a very good accountant and had an extraordinarily loyal group of clients.  But when he ran a client advisory board Continue reading “How important is positioning?”