Thoughts on Advisory. Nothing has changed in 23 years.

Exactly 23 years ago I presented a program in Reno Nevada at the Peppermill Casino to 593 people who were members of the Results Accountant’s Network in North America. This was followed with the same program in Sydney and Stratford-upon-Avon in the UK. In total 1,176 people attended. It was called Results Revisited and it drew together every idea we had shared with past delegates to the Accountants’ Boot Camp on how to add business development advisory services to their service arsenal.

Continue reading “Thoughts on Advisory. Nothing has changed in 23 years.”

The Law of Attraction meets the Law of Common Sense

No so long ago I waxed lyrical about the importance of  pricing your services at what you’re worth. I used as an example an orthopedic surgeon I had needed a couple of years ago to fix a rotator cuff tear that resulted from a skiing accident.

I said how his fee was not an issue and when you need the help of a professional you look for the best in town not the cheapest. I also said:

The surgeon was Dr. Kyle Swanson and he’s at Lake Tahoe Orthopedics & Sports Medicine — I mention that to make another big point: when you get great work done (irrespective of cost) by a skilled professional you are very happy to refer him/her. I have referred Kyle dozens of times to my ski buddies because we bust and tear body parts quite regularly – birds of a feather flock together which is exactly what relationship marketing recognizes. But referrals rarely happen in relation to low level work (because there are so many obvious solutions) and when they do all you get is lower level, low price work. I raise this point in the context of your post because when you focus on, and engage in, value creation you get talked about and you get referrals to value-seeking clients.

This is where the law of attraction seems to have come into the play because on Christmas Eve, just a couple of weeks after my original post I experienced another incident.

The result is nicely summarized by the following extract from Kyle’s Operative Report which is shown below.

POSTOPERATIVE DIAGNOSES

  1. Right knee anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear
  2. Right knee medial collateral ligament tear (MCL) tear
  3. Right knee posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) avulsion

PROCEDURES

  1. Right knee anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction using bone-tendon-bone autograft
  2. Repair right medial collateral ligament (MCL) avulsion off the medial femoral condyle

And there you have it!

Lesson learned …… don’t invoke the law of attraction with the possibility of negative outcomes.

Why leaders need to worry about digitization

This is a thought-provoking video discussion between two heavyweights from MIT and McKinsey. Even though they’re not directly talking to leaders in the accounting profession their observations and insights give food for thought. Continue reading “Why leaders need to worry about digitization”

Value Pricing: Some Mischievously Misleading Musings

Recently, a practitioner named Frank Stitely, CPA posted his thoughts in CPA Trendlines on how charging a very high fee for work that only took a few hours can backfire. Understandingly, this post invoked a lot reaction from the proponents of value pricing including me. Continue reading “Value Pricing: Some Mischievously Misleading Musings”