What three words
Richard Brewin • December 12, 2019
Hopefully, you’ve heard of What3words (what3words.com). What3words is a brilliant locator tool. The inventors divided the whole World up into 3 metre squares and gave each a unique three word tag that will never change. Whether you are looking for friends or calling the emergency services to your aid, you simply go onto the App, let GPS pin point the spot and share the three words. Simple, yet lifesaving! If you don’t have it on your phone yet then I recommend that you add it.
It set me thinking about the power of using three words in a much wider sense within our firms. We use three words quite often in training and team exercises to get people to focus their thoughts. “Use three words to describe how you feel right now”. “What three words would you use to describe your firm”. That sort of thing. It’s a technique that can help to clear the fog and lead to more constructive conversations. In the context of what we are talking about here, it helps to pinpoint their thoughts.
So, if three words can help to focus the mind and pinpoint where the firm is, then maybe we should be using this technique in a more organised way.
Imagine a board or graphic in your team room or your client meeting room. Each week you put up the three words that you want to focus minds on for that week. For example:-
in the team room you may put ‘Smile. Communicate. Invoicing.’
in the meeting room you may put ‘Tax. Holiday. Change’.
Whatever it may be that you want the recipients to be focused on for that week, you can use this approach to instigate the conversation in the first instance and to act as a reminder thereafter.
You need to be creative, of course, and you need to make sure that it does change regularly and doesn’t become staid, but you can always involve both your team and clients in the selection process if you want to create greater engagement.
Let me know how you get on.
Look at any accounting firm website and there is a fair chance that the word ‘proactive’ will be prominent. Ask some business owners and taxpayers whether they consider their accountant to be proactive. There is commonly a gap between the two, between the intent of the accountant and the expectations of the client.
The tag ‘Trusted Advisor’ gets bandied around a lot. Without trying to be deliberately contentious, I often challenge its use. Undoubtedly, accountants were once the trusted advisor to their clients. When I came into the profession 44 years ago now, the older partners, especially, were seen by their clients as their trusted advisor, their ‘go to’ person on any issues, business, family or personal, that were troubling them. Without the filing deadlines of today, these clients were with their accountant primarily because they valued the relationship rather than the products.
All accountants are the same! We’ve all heard it said. It’s nonsense, of course, but, when you are asked what it is that your firm does that differentiates it from other accounting firms, it can be a challenge to come up with something tangible. Accounting firms tend to offer similar services, that’s what makes them accounting firms. Differentiating from competitors based upon services provided is therefore an issue.