REWIND: This is one of my first blog posts. Thought I'd share it here again. Speaks pretty much to everything that motivates me to work with business owners.
I guess my story started quite a few years ago when I was working in marketing for the life insurance and disability market. We marketed only to business owners and professionals, a special product range developed for the different professional Associations. Naturally, in the process I got to hear the stories of many of our clients, and it always seemed odd to me that nobody else seemed to be at all interested in their business challenges. Certainly not the advisors they were paying for help in different areas!
This puzzled me a bit, even though I really did understand that Nobody cares about our business!
When I asked these owners if they got help with their business planning and managing and growing and developing their business, the answer was invariably, No.
So I thought then I'd start asking accountants whether they were actually helping their business clients with these things. Then the answer came back time and time again
"Oh yes, we can do that."
But do they actually do it?
"Er... No."
Why not? I asked
"...You know "(look of incredulity on their face) "Nobody has ever asked me!"
Well I dont know how someone is going to ask for something they dont know they dont know... or quite reasonably expect their accountant would tell them about if they didn't know something they needed to know.
So began my interest in finding accountants and other advisors to business who actually wanted to help their clients grow their business (which of course, can only grow the business of the advisor too!). That's about my story in the nutshell.
What did I discover then? I guess you can imagine that the accountants by and large aren't doing much of it because;
1) they dont really know how and
2) they dont know how to get paid for it. Add to that
3) they are not working on their business either.
That is pretty much where I am at. You could say this became my Mission in some ways. Smarter thinking for business. Something you can't do that you want to? Okay, I can help.
I think of every business owner who has put so much on the line to start their business (including accountants!) and the statistics on how many fail, and many of them fail only for the sake of-imagine it- one inch difference in strategy. It's miniscule! All it takes.
Of course I hold the belief very closely to me, that the time and the way we spend that time in our life, is our life, and so it is far too precious to fail for want of that extra inch of difference.
Hope that makes sense.
Lindy
www.designbusinessengineering.com
