In this year end, new beginnings routine, I am being buried in emails and requests for meetings where the sender swears they have the better mouse-trap for growing my business. Of course, these are people who have never been to my business, never spoken to me personally about my business or even asked what I do between beginning and stopping work to create my daily routine.
Funny thing about routine. Routine, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder. Routine means doing the same over and over. I have had clients describe it in basics. The simplest one a favorite client told me is the ability to wash, rinse and repeat over and over. Routine is always something I look at. But I am always interested in everyone else's take on the question.
Three of my best examples come from clients. The first one came from one of my golf buddies. He and his wife moved their CPA business out of Houston to a golf community north of San Antonio. They did it after an extensive study of what overhead they could eliminate, how many clients they actually saw in their office and what their personal goals were as they continued to age.
I am happy to report that they have been there 22 years, he has lowered his handicap into single digits, his wife is a regular champion on the ladies state amateur circuit and there is no truth to the rumor that he has the ability to sandbag his handicap to any number he needs before a tournament. (If you know how to play golf, that story will make sense. If you don't, you need to start playing and learn it.)
I had a second client that summed it up for me in one word. I had just started the firm and he was the third referral. "Randy, the first word you are going to have to learn how to say will be the hardest. Do you know what it is?" I, of course, barely knew which end was up in the beginning, much less how to play lawyer-client word games, so I told the truth. "No, I don't," I told him.
"You just said it," the client told me. "You will get tempted by the opportunity to do what you don't know how to do because you want the money. The best thing you can do for yourself is learn to say no."
The best example came when the client wasn't even talking to me or in my office. His offices were down the hall from mine and we often shared an elevator. One day he came out of his office steamed, yelled something at somebody on the other side of the door, slammed the door shut and stormed down the hall to the elevator. I met him there after watching the drama of his exit.
As the elevator started for the first floor, he was looking down stilled steamed about something. Without prompting, he whirled around, looked straight at me and said, "Randy, you know, last year my business built 60 custom houses. For years we built about 60 custom houses. And we survived because I built spectacular systems for building those houses.Â
This year we are on schedule to build 120 houses and you know what? All of those systems aren't worth a S _ for building 120 houses.Â
That has kind of stuck with me on the idea of expansion. What also stuck with me is to listen. you never know where the next good advice will come from.
(If you want to talk about business routines, systems, structures, life goals or estate planning for you, your family or elderly family or relatives, give us a call at 443-270-6305. Better yet, come see us and have a cup of coffee. Business can be chaotic. Life is chaotic at times. Transitions can be painful. I know that all too well. If you need to we can tell you how you can save this, how you can avoid that, how you can protect this over here and how you can take care of someone over there. We don't charge for an initial consultation. If you want to hire us, we'll charge you for the work we do. We can't do anything about the pain, but if you let us, we can help with the chaos.)
Just thank you all for being there and I'll see you when I see you…..
Randy Fisher
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