Blumer & Associates, CPAs, PC - Certified Public Accountants

Watching Simon Sinek’s video and reading his book has lead us to create our own ‘Why’ statement.  Everyone needs to know why they exist, and it really helps when you write it down.  Your customers want to know why you exist too.

Here is our ‘Why’ statement:

“We exist to help creative customers enjoy their work and lives more deeply by managing the technical side of their business with effective technologies and provide them with business intelligence through challenging coaching and deeper education.”

More than anything else, we want to know who we are NOT for.  It saves everyone such heartache when we know who we are supposed to be serving.  If you come into our firm, and we are not best for you, then you will not like our firm, and we will probably not like you as a customer.  It sucks to be in this place.  But if you ARE right for us, then we are ready to change your life and you are probably ready to receive it too!

A ‘Why’ statement helps to avoid the wrong customer and solely focus on the right customer.  And it helps to let your ‘Why’ statement be the foundation on which you stand for all strategy decisions like,

Should I offer this service?
Should I hire this person?
Should I grow in this way?
Are we right for this customer?
Are we wrong for this customer?
Are we ready to grow bigger?

You ‘why’ will be your go-to statement that you can base your decisions on.  To be sure, it will show a lot of people that you are not the right provider for them… but that is exactly what you want.  You need to stop serving the people you should not be serving.  You need to be focusing on those that you can add value to and change their lives.

In 2012, why not stop doing business… and start changing lives?

“In embracing change, entrepreneurs ensure social and economic stability.”

George Gilder

Have you heard of ROWE? My guess is that our creative customers are already implementing a ROWE, whether they know what it is or not. ROWE stands for Results-only Work Environment, and if you want happy team members and innovation, it’s the only way to go.

ROWE essentially means that people in your company are evaluated on the results they actually produce, not on when or where they work. ROWE is more than flex time. ROWE means that your team members come and go as they please. They won’t need to ask you if they can leave early to go to a doctor’s appointment. They’ll just do it, and you won’t care because you TRUST them to do what they have agreed to do in your organization. In fact, they may not even come in that day at all. Attendance is not key. Results are!

The benefits of a ROWE are tremendous for the employee obviously, but the business owner will be rewarded too. You’ll be rewarded with talented people that want to work with you. Why would smart people choose to work in an environment where they are forced to stay there 40 hours a week, whether they need to or not? When your people know they are trusted to do their work and they have the freedom to do it when it is best for them, they will work efficiently and effectively. They won’t be killing time until 5 o’clock. They will work like crazy when a deadline is approaching, and they will relax at home (or wherever!) when the work slacks off.

I realize that ROWE may not look the same for every business. I have been describing a typical office scenario. If you are a dentist or run a retail business, you of course will need to staff your office to take care of your customers. But the mindset will be the same. With ROWE, you will care more about the results than the clock.

There is so much more to ROWE. And we’ll explain what it looks like at Blumer CPAs in a future post as well as explain what it means to you, our awesome customers. In the meantime, check out the ROWE blog. It’s full of good info to help you figure out what ROWE might look like in your business. Do you ROWE? Let us know!

Strategy is all about doing things on purpose.  It’s about being intentional.  If you step outside of your business and look in from the view point of a third party, you will see how you may have done things over time withOUT intention.

Where there is no intention, there is no strategy.  Have you been intentional in your business?  Answer these questions…

1.  Are you doing what you thought you would be doing?

2.  Are you doing what you want to be doing?

3.  Are you managing chaos into order?

4.  Is your business running away with you?

5.  Do you control how your customers deal with you, or the other way around?

6.  Do you enjoy your work?

7.  CAN you enjoy your work?

8.  Would you do things differently if you started your business now?

9.  What one thing do you need to stop doing right now?

10.  What one thing do you need to start doing right now?