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?

“Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

Luke 2:13-14

Happy Thanksgiving from the team at Blumer CPAs and the Muppets’ Swedish Chef!

Two and a half years ago I wrote a blog post called “Why I Fire My Clients.” At the time, it received a number of hits and still remains one of our most popular posts. A lot has changed in the time since that post was written, but we continue to be selective in who (whom?) we choose to serve. We have learned that bringing the right customer into the firm means we don’t have to part ways later, which is why we slow down for onboarding. Nice. Still, occasionally we have to end a customer relationship for the good of all involved.

So why do I fire my customers? There are a number of reasons not to work with certain people, but one way to guarantee that you’ll need a new CPA firm is to be unkind to our team. Simon Sinek said, “Treat your employees like family, and they will treat your customers like guests.” My team comes first around here. They work hard for me and for our customers. They are creative, brilliant, and caring people. I wish I could double their compensation and give them all a company car. But I can’t. What I can do is make sure they spend their days serving customers that value them and what they do. I can ensure that they will be treated with respect, even when they aren’t perfect. Fortunately, we have the greatest customers in the world, so it rarely happens, but I can think of two who were fired this year after being rude to my team. Life is too short for that nonsense. I wouldn’t let my kids be bullied, and I won’t let my team be bullied either.

So who is the right customer? Who gets to stay? We will not fire the customer that understands our value. We desire to work with those who appreciate us and treat us kindly. We want to work with people that are willing to partner with us and be coached as they grow their businesses. If you already know everything, we aren’t right for you. We also aren’t right for bargain hunters or people that want us one year but not the next. We desire relationships with our customers.

As I said in my post in 2009, dumping the dead weight frees us to do great work for those we love to serve.

Hear me good customers: We love to serve you, and we are willing to do all things necessary to continue providing the best service to you.
Hear me bad customers: your days are numbered (and the number is very small).

We love serving creative customers and being around creative people. We believe in innovation and new ideas. That is why we are so excited to be a sponsor of the 2011 Indie Craft Parade, being held this weekend at Huguenot Mill in downtown Greenville, SC. We can’t wait to see and be inspired by all the creativity! A lot of hard work has gone into this event and you do NOT want to miss it! Check out all the details on the Indie Craft Parade website. Let us know if we’ll be seeing you there!