Pleasure or Pain Print E-mail
pain.jpg What is the motivation for you to make changes in your small business that you know you must?

Reducing pain or gaining pleasure?
  •   If the pleasure created by solving the pain is greater than the current pain then you may change
  •   If the pain in attaining the please is worth the desired pleasure then you may change
  •   If there is not enough pain or you don't seek enough pleasure then you may not change.
It is most simple ... the more pain you have or the more pleasure you want the more you will be prepared to change.

Do you need to change and what is driving this ... pleasure or pain?

I would suggest that your industry has been around for some time and that things haven't changed much during that time in the way businesses operate.

The accounting profession has an outdated unwritten rule of thirds ... 1/3 for salaries, 1/3 for overheads and 1/3 for profit. Who came up with such a model and why is it still applied by many accounting firms?

The vast majority of professional service businesses are reactive. The client brings in the work and you do the work. The client calls you up and you deal with the issue/crisis. The client asks what information they need to bring with them when they come in and they bring 80% of what you told them.
 
Who's the dog and who's the tail?
Having recently conducted an interview process with some core clients on behalf of a professional client I asked those people what they liked about dealing with this business, what they did not like and what they would like to see improved or added as a service that wasn't being offered.

  I want them to be more proactive with us.

Obviously they want more help; they know you know more than they get and when you say "they are not prepared to pay for it" my response is ... you need to clearly articulate the value you deliver as a part of your marketing process.

What this also reflects is the reality that there is so much value being left out of many business relationships along with many frustrations because of the focus on dollars not outcomes.

Is your business relationships are based on dollars not value?

If so then chances are both you and your customers will be dissatisfied and frustrated and what are you going to "do"as a result?
 

directedfocus offers business owners a platform for moving toward a bigger future, even when their business is in turmoil. For more information, please contact us at 03 53180250, or learn more about the Business Challenge Network here