Here’s a story from Christine Clifford Beckwith (co-author with Harry Beckwith, of You, Inc. The Art of Selling Yourself) that underlies what I’m talking about.

In 1994 Christine discovered that she had breast cancer which was successfully operated so it’s a good news story.  However, when she returned home from hospital with the “all clear” she received a letter from the hotel chain she regularly used notifying her how lucky she was to have achieved a special frequent guest status that carried some nice rewards.

Because she was advised by her physician to take it easy while  receiving post-operation treatments she realized she would not be traveling as much in the next 12 months so she wrote the hotel explaining that she was recovering from a cancer operation and requested that her benefits be deferred for 12 months.  Here’s the hotel’s form letter she received:

We received your request to extend your frequent guest benefits. While we regret what has happened to you, we also realize that things do happen, and we are unable to defer your benefits.  But we hope to see you soon.

The letter may as well have said: “we actually don’t give a damn about you or your illness, our frequent guest program is simply designed to give the appearance that we care about our guests and to keep up with the “value” offerings of other hotels.  Whenever possible we make it hard for our guests to actually benefit from the program.”

Now, in contrast, Christine also wrote to Northwest Airlines and requested a 12 month deferral of her loyalty benefits.  Here is the handwritten letter she received back:

How can we thank you for being one of our best customers? We are happy to defer your benefits for a year. In addition, we have enclosed four complimentary airline tickets to take you and your family away from the cold Minnesota winter and give you a break from your treatments. Thank you Christine, for your business. We will miss you this year.

Sincerely,

John Dasburg, CEO

Both of these organizations have records of her loyalty to them (share of wallet some people say) so both of them know what she is “worth” to them over a lifetime.  She is a public speaker and author who travels a lot, she is not a once-a-year holiday traveler who stays with relatives.  But even if she did fall into the latter category, she still talks to people about her experience.  She now only travels on another airline if Northwest does not service her destination and she never stays that the hotel chain that she was once a “loyal guest” of!  This is an example of the cost of the lost opportunity that I often talk about – it’s not only lost, it’s invisible because our transaction-based accounting system never reveals details of transactions that did not occur.

If the hotel have bothered to give the concept of lifetime value some attention and modified its systems to reflect the true value of a customer it would today be the beneficiary of Christine’s loyalty and not the victim of her negative testimonial.

In the context of selling service (or ideas as part of services!) I and many other people have written lots about the importance of empathy, of getting into the skin of the other party, of refining your listening skills, of being interested rather than interesting, of using the “right” questioning techniques etc, etc.  All of this should, I believe, be taken as a given.  But I have been thinking about this issue very deeply in recent months and especially about my own experience and that of others I have read or heard about and I believe that the real key to your success as an adviser turns on whether you have a wider and deeper concern for others and that turns on who you are (and can become) rather than what you know.

Let me put that another way.  If your motive for going to work each day is to earn an income and to do that you know you need to generate fees and to achieve that you realize you need to sell your services to clients then you’ll probably be less effective than you could be, you’ll find yourself doing less interesting work that is below the value you could deliver, and your practice will not grow as fast or as far as it has the potential to.

On the other hand, suppose you go to work each day to make a difference to the lives of the people you come in contact with and that includes your family, your friends, your team members, your partners, your clients, your vendors in fact everyone with whom you come in contact.  The minute you move away from a perspective of what you do to one of why you do it I believe you’ll achieve much greater success financially, but more importantly, personally.  In short, you’ll be happier in yourself and with your life.

Now here’s the question you might like to ask.  I came across it after reading Harold Kushner’s book “When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough“ (good book BTW) – the question is: Does it make a difference how I live my life? We really need to revisit our priorities, our values and the virtues we choose to guide our behavior.  Kushner’s main idea is that if we define our success as being outside our self e.g. career, money, possessions, lifestyle, popularity or accolades our life will become increasingly self-serving, hollow and frustrating–whatever we “achieve” is never enough!

A US longitudinal study done with 1,500 university graduates tracked their wealth accumulation progress over a 20 year period.  Group A graduates represented by 1,245 of the 1,500 in the study selected careers that, in their opinion, paid good money and had the best prospects of giving them financial success and security.  The remaining 255 graduates chose careers that were aligned with their personal passion and said that they would worry about the money later. Of the 1,500 students 101 had become millionaires by the 20th year of the study and interestingly only one of them came from Group A!  This observation lends weight to the idea that when you focus on a career choice orientated towards the accumulation of wealth rather than the pursuit of a higher order personal goal that you are truly passionate about the probability of financial success is likely to be lower.

Here are some thoughts for the day: step outside of yourself for a moment and think about what you see, do you like it? Are you having fun at work, at home, at play? Is your primary motivation to make a difference to the lives of other people? Do you have “balance”? Does the way you have chosen to live your life positively impact the people around you? Does it positively impact you?

I’ll be having 5 retreats of 7 days each (Sunday to Sunday) starting January 3 and thereafter every two weeks until February 14 and one last one on February 21. But there is going to be a special week.   February 7 is Superbowl weekend here in the US – that is a HUGE weekend! I’ll put on a special retreat starting Feb 4 and finishing on Feb 11 if you’re an Ozzie, a Kiwi or a Pom and you’d like to experience this phenomenon at least on TV with a beverage in hand + a roast Turkey Lunch (the Superbowl is one of those items on your list of 100 things to experience before you die).

You will invest $1,695 per person (in your local currency or £1,050 for UK). This will cover your amazingly comfortable accommodation and “inside” meals that I prepare (or probably buy in) and they’ll be phenomenal! You will need to cover your own travel, entertainment, “outside” meals, beverages, lift tickets etc.   You MUST be willing to share your numbers and your soul to ensure the success of the retreat for you and the other people.  This is going to be a serious executive retreat but it’s also going to be a winter vacation that will unquestionably pay for itself. BTW, if you have never skied and you’d like to learn, this is your chance.

My house is in California but on the Nevada side (2 minutes from my house) you’ll find Casinos (e.g. Harrahs and Harveys) which means gambling (if you’re so inclined), good restaurants and great entertainment.

If you’re interested send me an email and let me know what dates work best for you.  I will then send you details of the program and travel suggestions.  The best way to do this is to email me at ric.payne@principa.net.  Please remember, it will be serious work, it will be bunk style (but very, very comfortable) accommodation and most important will be fun which is what life is meant to, and can be.

Please note I can only accommodate 5 people per retreat so if you’re interested start the ball rolling now.  This will  be a great opportunity to have some fun, to extract from me everything I know, to meet people who share the same challenges as you, to play in a winter wonderland and to develop a workable plan for your for for the next 12 months and beyond.

As far as exclusive retreats go, they don’t get any more exclusive than this.  I think it will be fully tax deductible (that’s for you to judge based on your local tax laws) but I know it will be incredibly valuable.

Ric.

One emerging trend that can’t be ignored is the growth of the “middle class” in China.  I read recently, that by 2011, 290 million Chinese are expected to reach the bottom rung of the middle class and by 2025 it’s expected that there will be 520 million Chinese at the upper end of the middle class scale.  These people will be looking to buy the same things middle class people have been enjoying in western countries for a long time.  The demand stimulus that will come from the emerging economies including India, Russia, some ASEAN countries and some South American countries will be the highlight of the 21st century.

It seems to me that we should be looking at the present situation with a “glass half full” attitude rather than a “half empty” one.  In fact, in my view, the glass is actually more than half full.  In a recent series of seminars I have been doing I’ve put the proposition: if you were planning to start a business at what stage in a business cycle would you like to be?  Looking at the diagram below, what’s your answer?

When I ask the question everyone says they’d prefer to be starting a new venture at the (or near) the bottom of the cycle.  That being the case surely it makes sense for us to be really optimistic about the future and looking to make investments in it.  It’s also significant to note that the above diagram reflects another relevant fact of economic life: booms and busts constitute the essential fabric of an economy and have done for thousands of years but each successive boom ends at a high position than all those before it.  In other words the good times will return and they will be better than anything we have experienced in the past.

In these times of economic opportunity SMEs need the help of their advisors more than ever.  In particular they need someone to help them identify and focus on their core business strengths , they need help with managing cash flow and pricing, they need assistance with identifying their pockets of profitability and areas of loss.  Importantly they need someone to give them the emotional support required to weather the storm in the knowledge that they are on the right track and they that can capitalize on their strengths and take advantage of others’ weaknesses.  Large businesses have CFOs who are there to support the rest of the “C-team”–small businesses do not even have a C-team let alone a CFO.  They need their accountant, their trusted advisor, to assume that role.  SME’s will lead the world out of recession and to the extent that accountants have the potential to have a dramatic impact on their clients’ profitability (and therefore collectively on GDP) they have an incredibly important job to do.

One of our clients, Cameron Patterson, very kindly reminded me of a small audio segment taken from one of my Boot Camp presentations.  It is a short piece where I talk about the real reason we, as professionals, should be helping people run a better business.  In my view it cuts to the core of our primary professional purpose and to a very large extent explains why I do what I do now. If you’re interested, click here to listen to what I had to say.

Here is a CNN report … I must say I’m sorry.

Ric Payne named and shamed … see for yourself>>