Edition 527 – Running From: Returning To

When I left my former accounting practice in 2016, I wanted to evolve more towards being a business advisor and less of an accountant.

Truth be told, I tried to run from what I knew. It no longer motivated me.

The drudgery of the compliance wore me down. I wanted to escape.

Plus, pure business advisory really excited me.

Gradually, as I looked to re-pivot my business, there were wins and losses. The wins were celebrated.The losses were commiserated.

In business, you place great emphasis on your strategy. What do you want to do? Where do you want to be? How do you want to be seen? You can be conscious in this thought process, as you gradually move the pieces forward on the chessboard.

Until, at a time when you least expect it, things start to fall into place.

Like people asking, can you help us with the numbers, as you’re helping so much with so many other aspects of our business?

Initially, I said no. I was evolving into something else. Away from the numbers.

But the requests kept coming.

So, I relented, and said “yes, but on these conditions”. Quite specific conditions around timeliness, responsibility and who else plays a part in getting the numbers together.

And then, almost without noticing, the model started to develop. The strategy was playing out. Different to how I’d envisaged it, even though it was a model that I was already adopting with other clients, to some degree.

Then another consulting client asks, can you help us with the numbers too?

The evolution is staring you in the face.

Unless you can place absolute reliance and great stock on the numbers, you can’t get the strategy right. You can’t determine whether the direction a business is heading in, is working, or not. The greatest plans all look good on a PowerPoint or flipcharts at a two day retreat, but if cash is an inhibitor in the business, or you don’t know which products or services are making a profit, you have to get back to basics, before you pivot to something shiny and new.

And gradually, you yourself have pivoted.

Not back to where you came from, but to a different place.

A higher place.

A place of great authority.

A place where decades of knowledge and learning, which instills in you the ability to spot things a mile off, has crystallised into a strategic direction that you never foresaw. Yet the rewards are more bountiful, not in a dollars sense, but in a “making a difference” sense.

Which in itself, was one of the key drivers back in 2016. To make a difference in the lives of the family business owners that we work with.

What have you been running from? Then later, have returned to?

This Week’s Tip

“Strategy is not set and forget. It’s something that should be constantly tweaked, challenged, refined and questioned.”