The NOW leader
I meet and speak to Accountants every day of my professional life. I have been doing that for 22 years straight. It seems everyone I speak to wants to grow their firm in some way. They want grow their client base, their revenue and of course their profit.
There are hundreds of strategies available for you to grow. I want to narrow it down to 8 (and a bonus one at the end) key areas. Specifically, 8 key leadership areas.
You see, to be a leader of a dynamic growing firm that is focused on the future but operating in the NOW will require new skills and new focus. Let’s call it NOW leadership.
You have to think about the people you’re leading who are often much younger than you. You have to know what are the right strategies to implement and of course how to implement them.
Here are the 8 key leadership areas that a NOW leader needs to focus on.
- Purpose leadership: You have your ‘WHY’ totally nailed. It’s front and centre in everything you do and then entire team know it, live it and breath it.
- Cloud leadership: You have lead your firm into the cloud and you have lead your clients to the cloud as well. You are connecting your clients to your firm and becoming the real time Accountant using real time data – not redundant data.
- Value leadership: You realise that time based billing is not a method to value intellect. You have lead your firm away from that archaic system or pricing
- Client leadership: You have lead your client service team into a position where all clients (that you want to keep) are buying all services they need that helps them achieve their goals.
- Efficiency leadership: You have your entire team focussed on reducing client time not increasing it.
- Marketing leadership: You know that to grow your firm you must market your firm. You have created culture of marketing. You use automated content marketing, social media and social proof to promote the firm.
- Culture leadership: It’s been said that ‘the fish rots from the head down’. The NOW leader knows that they are the beacon of the culture. You have created service & culture standards that the entire team live by. You have designed the culture.
- Impact leadership: The NOW leader understands that you are the trusted advisor and your clients and the community look up to you. You have a strong sense of giving back and doing business for good.
Here is the bonus one. YOU!
The pace of the business will never outpace the development of the leader. You see, if you want to run a better business, you must first become a better business person. You are leading team members and leading clients. Maybe your personal leadership skills need an upgrade – not just the strategy of the business. In my experience, there is no right or wrong leadership methodology to follow.
You need to develop your own style. You need to find people who you admire (who have built businesses bigger than yours) who you can learn from. Maybe you need to bury your head in new material and attend new seminars that focus on the person and not the strategy.
On a personal note I was very fortunate not to have any formal education. So I took it upon myself to systematically learn from others since the age of 17. Since then I have been reading at least 16 business books a year for 29 years and attending at least 15 days of ‘non-technical’ seminars a year for the same period. I have a deep thirst for learning.
The NOW leader is leading a Firm of NOW that makes a difference in people’s lives. They are creating businesses that matter.
About Rob Nixon
Rob has forged a niche to be the world’s foremost authority on how Accounting firms can achieve peak performance. Rob believes that Accountants are the natural trusted advisor to business. He believes that Accountants make a massive difference to their client's condition. Since 1994 he has been running businesses that specialise in helping Accountants run better, more profitable businesses. His speaking work has taken him around the world where he has spoken to in excess of 150,000 accountants. He is the author of 2 bestselling books “Accounting Practices Don’t Add Up – why they don’t and what to do about it” AND “Remaining Relevant – the future of the Accounting profession”. Both have received rave reviews from Accountants and industry professionals from around the world. His blog site is www.robnixon.com or you can find him on LinkedIN, Facebook or Twitter.