Overthinking Prevents Action

For the duration of my career, the accounting profession has preferred collecting information rather than implementing it, studying strategies rather than building them and complaining about clients rather than building relationships of trust with them.

Last Friday, 12 firms with combined revenues in the millions travelled anywhere from hours in the car to hours on planes to spend a day rooted in practical implementation.

The commercial objective of the day was turning a cornucopia of concepts into sustainable solutions for areas of practice development such as:

  1. Building strong client relationships
  2. Creating motivating environments for staff
  3. Increasing profitability without losing the personal touch
  4. Gaining real competitive advantage through positioning, rather than posing, on social media

The day progressed tackling process refinement, choosing the right tech, setting pricing models that stick, you get the general idea.

Here’s the bullet, the profession overthinks. The overthink prevents action. The lack of action prevents growth and development in multiple areas of the firm and career.

Therefore, simplify your thinking and become addicted to Occam’s Razor: https://www.newscientist.com/definition/occams-razor/

The highlight of the day, for me at least, came when I demonstrated a simple double axis graph methodology for segmenting and risk assessing the client base. As the questions flew in from round the table, one firm owner said, ‘You could really disappear down a rabbit hole analysing this couldn’t you?’

Yes, you could, so DON’T!

I’m struggling to think of a profession that’s easier to stand out in than Accountancy, on the whole firms do so little to get noticed, you’re really not up against much.

Don’t get distracted by complexity. The simplest solutions, executed consistently, are the most effective in accountancy because they actually get done, which is more progress than most of your competitors are capable of…because they’re too busy overthinking things.

See what I mean?

Stay sharp.

Use Occam’s Razor.

To your success

Martin Bissett

Picture of Martin Bissett

Martin Bissett

Martin Bissett is the founder of the Bissett Group of companies including data, software and digital communities such as APT, CAS, AIR and PAR.

Previously he established a high six figure consulting firm while serving as a keynote speaker with over 100 one off and repeat engagements to his name, as well as becoming the most published author on his topics of specialism with 14 books including 1 bestseller.

Since 1998, he has played a major part in working with over 2000 accounting firms in over 44 countries. These projects have led to those firms acquiring over £500m of recurring fees (before inflationary increases, referrals and upselling are factored in). He stopped keeping track of this number over 5 years ago.

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