Uncategorized – Page 7 – Ric Payne's Blog: The Consulting Accountant

The Creation of a Phenomenally Profitable Firm is a Matter of Choice

I have been looking through some of my earlier writing and came across a report I wrote in 2013 on an analysis is did on the 2012 Good Bad and Ugly survey conducted on Australian firms by Business Fitness.

I was looking for the defining characteristics of firms where the owner(s) were achieving a net profit of $1 million or more and it reminded me that there’s no secret here, the success of a firm (and this applies to any business) is really a matter of choice about where your focus needs to be and how you perform your role as the leader of the firm.

Before you engage in a debate to advance your beliefs, pause to reflect on Ben Franklin’s advice

In his autobiography, Benjamin Franklin advised on how to keep friends and influence people:

“I took delight in it, practiced it continually, and grew very artful and expert in drawing people, even of superior knowledge into concessions the consequences of which they did not foresee, entangling them in difficulties out of which they could not extricate themselves, and so obtaining victories that neither myself nor my cause always deserved. I continued this method some few years but gradually left it, retaining only the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest diffidence, never using when I advance anything that may possibly be disputed the words, “certainly,” “undoubtedly,” or any others that give the air of positiveness to an opinion; but rather say, “I conceive or apprehend a thing to be so or so,” “It appears to me,” or “I should think it so or so, for such and such reasons,” or “I imagine it to be so,” or “It is so if I am not mistaken.”

Do accountants really understand what offering a business advisory service means?

Several years ago, as part of a Principa marketing initiative, I conducted a telephone survey of 58 accounting firms in northern Nevada and California who had described themselves in the phone directory and/or their web site as being accountants (CPAs) and business advisers. Continue reading “Do accountants really understand what offering a business advisory service means?”

A Day in the Office With Paul Kennedy: How One FirmTransitioned from Compliance to Advisory

This is the story of how O’Byrne and Kennedy changed their business model from an unremarkable suburban compliance practice with 500 clients to a remarkable niche business advisory firm with 50 clients and in the process dramatically increased profitability, client loyalty, and team member engagement while having a life-changing impact on the clients they work with. Continue reading “A Day in the Office With Paul Kennedy: How One FirmTransitioned from Compliance to Advisory”

Are you doing all you can to help your clients prepare for retirement?

In this note I want to address something I raised in an earlier blog post about an accountant’s responsibility for alerting clients about the need to take financial planning very seriously and to do so from a young age. My interest in this piqued after reading Tony Robbin’s recent book called Unshakeable: Your Guide to Financial Freedom. Continue reading “Are you doing all you can to help your clients prepare for retirement?”

Attitude vs Skills: Which is more important?

This pretty well sums up why Southwest Airlines is the most consistently profitable airline on the planet. Its co-founder the late Herb Kelleher, used to say “We hire for attitude, train for skill.”

How to read a book a week

I read a lot of books but that wasn’t always the case. I got interested in reading when I had to at graduate school but what really got me into them was the realization that there is so much you can learn that is incredibly valuable in life and in business and all you need to do Continue reading “How to read a book a week”

More proof that delegation is the key

I was going through some early material from my days as the CEO of Results Accountants’ Systems and came across an Advisor Note written by Colin Dunn, one of our team members in the UK. On reading his note I thought it’s just as relevant today as it was back in 1998 when he wrote it -perhaps even more so. So, with a few edits by me, here it is … Continue reading “More proof that delegation is the key”

Why great ideas get left at the door of CPE conferences

There is great content on the web that deals with questions like how to build a great business, how to be a great business advisor, how to charge what your worth, and any number of other “how to’s” you care to think of. With that in mind and given that most of these are free or low cost relative to their potential payoff it amazes me Continue reading “Why great ideas get left at the door of CPE conferences”

Discounting as a Pricing Strategy: A 100 Year Old Story

I’m inviting you to Boston MA 1891. In that year Edward and Lincoln Filene took over the management of their father’s retail store called Filenes. At the time it was quite a successful business that specialized in women’s fashions and accessories but the two brothers built it into one of the world’s leading retail companies by implementing a non-traditional business model. Continue reading “Discounting as a Pricing Strategy: A 100 Year Old Story”