Luck Favors the Prepared Mind
Volume 11, Number 49
Issue 545
I am always “on.” My off-switch broke when I decided that I wanted to chart my own destiny by being self-employed.
When I was a little boy, I was amazed at the flexibility that my Dad had over his own schedule. He was able to go in late and leave early (if he wanted) at the price of often working evenings and weekends. He loved what he did, serving people as their very personal insurance agent but it was at the price of not having that many boundaries between his personal and professional life. He tried to balance the benefit (flexibility) with the cost (not many boundaries) as best he could.
When I was 11, I enjoyed having my own little mail-order company selling stamps out of my bedroom. My first hourly job was working for an entrepreneur. I worked for him for seven years—all through high school and college. These early experiences with entrepreneurialism made me think on my feet about how to generate sales and profit.
Most people that work salaried jobs have “limited visibility” or “low visibility,” like the weatherperson on TV says about a cloudy day. “How far off can you see in the morning because of fog?” is a question that the morning weatherperson wants to answer for you.
My point is, that as a regular employee you don’t need to have long-range visibility unless it is in your specific job description (as a strategic planner or high level executive). As an entrepreneur, however, (even as just a little small businessperson), you must have, just like the weather person and airline pilot says “unlimited visibility.”
“Unlimited visibility” is something that has TO BE LIVED every single second of every single day by the entrepreneur. The better that you get at visualizing “what ifs”—even the ridiculous—the better an entrepreneur you will be because you have “unlimited visibility” (or as close to it as possible). Every time that you watch the weather on television and the weather guy or weather girl talks about “visibility,” you should be reminded to make sure that you have “unlimited visibility.” Even if the weatherperson says, for example, “low visibility” or “30 mile visibility,” you should laugh and remember that your entrepreneurial visibility is “unlimited.” I spend the majority of my time visualizing things that might happen—both for client service and administrative activities.
With regard to administrative activities, I start visualizing the next busy season during the current one. I constantly work on the working scheduling of my staff for the next quarter, budgeting for the next year as well as visualizing the probable progression of my staff members as they complete their training and education.
Often, I visualize the absurd and the remote—a sort of disaster planning. You’d be surprised at how often visualizing the remote prepares me for the actual way things start to unfold.
When it comes to client service, I have to be constantly visualizing how a client’s next year’s tax return will unfold. Each telephone call during the year and each meeting lets me visualize how the actual return is going to look, even though its preparation may still be months away. Each scrap of evidence that I get from each client interaction makes me visualize contingencies—that makes me a better tax planner.
What if a staff member quits in the middle of busy season? What if one becomes ill? What if staff members start to have trouble in school or in their personal lives? What if they become dissatisfied with working with me? How will I replace them? I visualize each staff member in each of these scenarios almost on a daily basis. Doing this better prepares me for the inevitable.
What if I mess-up a client’s return? What if I make a mistake? How can I avoid mistakes and misunderstandings? What should I be telling each client based upon what situations they are involved in? What are the ways that they can pay less tax? How can I better serve them as their professional advisor? Constantly running the client list in my head against these questions makes me a better professional?
Visualizing the strange and the remote makes me love my job more because many times the visualization ultimately comes true. When it does, staff members and clients often think that I just got lucky or that having me around made them lucky. Really, it’s not luck, it’s just my mind being prepared for whatever comes my way.
David B. Robinson, CPA
Index of Previous Issues of Tax Fax
