Referring Link: Experiment 1 Lab Report Released
I’m happy and proud to release the official Lab Report for the first experiment conducted by the Thriveal Lab: Business Model Prototyping. In this post on the Thriveal blog, I announce the release, embed a video of webcast we had to release it to the profession, and provide a number of links to download your copy and also to continue the experiment using the tools of the Self-Experiment Initiative. A big day!
Thrivecast: Secret Stash
Each December the Thrivecast releases its “Secret Stash” episodes, which are previously unreleased snippets from all of their guests during the year. As a follow-up from my August 2014 interview, the December Thrivecast contained a secret stash snippet where I talked about the genesis of the value accounting model I was working on.
You can listen to the audio right from the page for Episode 42 with yours truly starting at 1:00:50, and of course catch their podcast in your favorite podcatcher.
Referring Link: Become a Thriveal Lab Partner!
As the Thriveal Lab gained steam and was concluding its first experiment, we reached out to continue to build our base of supporters who were organized in what we called Lab Partners (a nice high school reference). ;)
In this post on the Thriveal blog, we reiterated the mission of the Lab, sounded the call for partners, and listed the special benefits they would receive.
Reflections After 3 Years of Value Pricing
I met Ron Baker in person for the first time in 2011. Before that, I had read his articles online and attended a webinar he presented. But in 2011, I attended the first Thriveal Deeper Weekend, which was a “Firm of the Future” seminar offered by Ron Baker and Ed Kless. That was two days of brain-crushing, mind-altering, future-shifting learning and dialogue.
I immediately started to change things: first with a handful of customers with whom we had strong relationships, then with certain service types, etc. I remember a year later, I’d hardly made the progress I wanted to, and was feeling down wondering if it was ever going to happen. I remember chatting with Ron around that time, and he mentioned in passing that firms usually take three years to fully transition to value pricing. Whew – I was much relieved: I still had time.
Three years later, I look back, and boy, there has been such a change between then and now. I’m happy to say, we’re now completely value priced — I’m still learning (and doubt I’ll ever stop), but I feel so much more freed as a business owner having gone through this process. I was recently reflecting on some of the realizations I’ve had along the way and wanted to share them with you:
CPAs Should Own the Profit Equation
Great things can be accomplished by teams. And the best teams are made up of players who have unique roles that mesh and multiply their teammates.
What is the unique role of the CPA? The thing we bring to the table of business?
I propose that CPAs should own the “profit equation” – that it be our domain.
Be Aware of Your Cognitive Dissonance
As a small business owner, you have one foot in the future and one foot in the the present: building your firm for the future, while serving the needs of the present. The difference between the two worlds is the gap: the space between where you are and where you’ll be. If you let that gap grow too big while your feet are straddling it…well, I think you get the picture. 😉
In some ways, that gap is what defines an entrepreneur. They see the difference between the world how it is and how it can be. It’s an internal cognitive dissonance, a type of itch, that they reach out to scratch.
What can happen nowadays, though, is that so much innovation comes at us, that the volume of cognitive dissonance grows too loud (anyone out there felt it?). There’s a difference between a music level that’s motivating, and a music level that’s inhibiting, or even downright crushing.
Thrivecast: Thriveal Lab
My first Thrivecast appearance was to chat with two great hosts and great friends, Jason Blumer and Greg Kyte, about the newly christened Thriveal Lab and our first experiment on business model prototyping for the accounting profession.
In addition to the genesis and operation of the Lab, we talked about the principles of experimenting, and why accountants can find it hard even though it’s so necessary.
You can listen to the audio right from the page for Episode 38, and definitely be sure to subscribe to the Thrivecast for lots of great information, inspiration, and fun. If you’re an entrepreneurial-minded accountant, the Thriveal CPA Network is also a great way to connect with your tribe and grow - I highly recommend it!
Doodle in the Margins
When I’m reading for content, I’m all about the marginalia: underlines, questions in the borders, even one sided handwritten debates with the author. Which is why I was much relieved that the Kindle allows you to digitally underline text and add notes too — you can even export them to a PDF to save and search, a way cool feature that I’ve taken advantage of many a time.
But what if the text in a book went from edge to edge? No spaces between the lines, no space on either side of the page, none at the top, none at the bottom: a page littered with letters. Hard to read, cramped with lines blurring, and eyes crossing…
Now imagine if that book is our firm’s story: tasks and activities wedged endtoend, no space inbetween, no real breaks, no room in the borders. When all the space is filled, there’s no place to make edit markings. When all our resources are committed, there’s no capacity for change. When the entire page is full, there’s no space to doodle in the margins.
Referring Link: Lab Experiment 1 - Business Model Prototyping
Today I launched the inaugural experiment in the Thriveal Lab with the hypothesis that ‘there will be multiple successful business models for accounting firms of the future’. We discussed the premise and experiment framework, solicited experimental firms to participate, and thanked our founding Lab Partners for supporting the important work of the Lab.
Check out the original post for more!
Referring link: The Phrase That Will Change Your Business's Future
What is the ‘phrase that will change your business’s future?': “I’d like to try an experiment…let’s see if this works.”
In this post on the Thriveal blog, I announced the Self-Experiment Initiative of the Thriveal Lab – a structured way accounting firm owners could think through and design an experiment, and then record their results to a central repository to be shared with other experimenters.
Read more about the initiative and the surrounding tools and concepts in the original post.
How to not be Strategic, Strategically
There’s a balance line somewhere between having everything planned out and having no idea what’s going on.
And the ideal is not ‘having it all figured out.’ There’s no reason to feel bad or punish yourself for not being fully organized. Chaos is a natural part of the picture — you can’t pull order from chaos without a little chaos. Which is why it’s okay to deliberately mess things up now and then. Or as we say in Thriveal parlance: blow things up.
When asked the question, “What does your firm want to be when it grows up,” it’s okay to say, “I don’t know.” Discovery really best happens from the side rather than head-on. You really can’t plan “a-ha” moments, or else it’s not really a discovery. Discovery is, by nature, unexpected. All you can do is put yourself in different places or situations where it might occur and remain open to it happening, without compulsion. A little trust in Providence doesn’t hurt either.
The Customer is the Product
Those of you tracking the Thriveal blog for a while may have noticed one of the themes I’ve been exploring over time through my posts is: where is the practice of accounting headed? Entries on that topic include: A Profession In Search of an Identity, The Firm(s) of the Future(s), Accounting Is Not the Language of Business, and the most recent: Accounting For What. In that post, I came right up to, but didn’t take, the last leap in the hopscotch of the thought process, which is what I’d like to share now: “The customer is the product.”
I first heard that phrase uttered by good friend and Verasage founder, Ron Baker, at a conference last fall and it caused me to do a full stop in my tracks. I realized I can be focused on what we’re selling, and changing our offerings, and marketing our products and services, and on and on. But the truth of the matter is, it’s the customer that’s the product. And what I do is best measured by how it changes their lives.
What we do is best measured by how it changes our customers’ lives.
Trough of Disillusionment
It’s coming. But somehow it helps to know it’s coming.
There’s always the initial excitement, and the expansive vision of new possibilities. Then reality sets in.
The key is to recognize it’s part of the process: One does not reach the “plateau of productivity” without walking through the “trough of disillusionment.” The trough is where the idea is purified, distilled, crystallized — stripped of its misconceptions, to see what truly lays inside.
You do not reach the “plateau of productivity” without walking through the “trough of disillusionment.”
This is true of so many different scenarios.
Referring Link: Bunsen Burner Chat Recap
On January 29 I hosted a “Bunsen Burner Chat” with accounting firm owners from different parts of the globe to talk about experimentation in the accounting industry as part of the Thriveal Lab.
See the original post for highlights from the online gathering plus updates on the Thriveal Lab’s activities.
Accounting For What?
When the inevitable question comes up in social interactions: “What do you do?” one of my favored replies is, “I help people account for things…usually it’s their money, but not always.”
What is accounting really?
Once I was giving a presentation to accounting students and posed this question to them. We learn debits, credits, generally accepted accounting principles, Internal Revenue Code, cash, accrual, other comprehensive basis of accounting, and the list goes on. But what is it really all about?
Referring Link: The Thriveal Lab - A Quick Sketch
On December 10, 2013, Thriveal announced the creation of a laboratory for the accounting profession, and I headed up the effort as Director of the Lab.
But what does that actually mean? In this posted hosted on the Thriveal blog, I present a short “sketch” video to share the inspiration for and operation of, the Thriveal Lab.
Check out The Thriveal Lab - A Quick Sketch.
The Power of Nothing
The four dimensions of time are: past, present, future, and nothing. Everything comes from nothing.
The past is already set: it’s not going to change (though how we understand it certainly can change). The present is really the result of the past: what was set in motion then becomes today’s now. And the future will be the result of what we do today. At first glance, it seems like a closed system: at one level at least, everything’s predetermined. The action-reaction chain has already begun, and it’s simply playing out.
How, then, can one change the time sequence? From the fourth dimension. Something has to come from outside the normal time system to alter its course. That something, I propose, is nothing.
Leading Our Customers
Leadership is scary business. Both for ourselves, and our customers. It means moving from where we are now, to some place new, some place unfamiliar, some place unexplored. Leadership is personal — you cannot lead a crowd, you can only lead persons, individual people. Business is scary leadership.
In Choosing Your Surfing Style, we chatted about changing value propositions. The “wave” we looked at there (a wave comprised of successive adoption curves) charts a path of ups and downs as new value propositions move in, through, and out, of a market. Many companies participate in part of that movement. Few companies navigate it entirely. Changing value propositions is simply another way of saying leading our customers. We can lead our customers along the path of the wave as it moves through the market.
But leadership is hard. How can you help someone understand something they haven’t experienced before? How can you help them choose what you know will be helpful? How can you lead them to a better place?
Pricing Power Interview
Steve Major has a great podcast that’s part of his organization Pricing Power, and I was happy to join him to chat about value pricing, changing value propositions, technology’s impact on our psychology, and other topics in this interview.
Check out the audio embedded on the page for Episode 13, and/or subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or other podcatchers (additional links available on the episode page).
And definitely swing by Pricing Power’s website for services, resources, and insights on business models, measuring what matters, and the art of pricing.
Choosing Your Surfing Style
I have to admit: I’d love to learn how to surf. I sorta imagine it’d be something like skateboarding (which I’ve tried a couple times, and happy to report no major accidents) or like snowboarding (which I haven’t tried yet, but maybe soon). Surfing involves mounting a wave, finding your position, then holding and adjusting that position as the water flows under you, supporting you with its force.
Let’s take a look at the anatomy of a wave:
Okay, so this isn’t the type of wave you’ll see at the beach – only the one you’ll find in the oceans of business. There, one adoption curve after another ripples through time: first the innovators begin the momentum, then the early adopters take up the flow. Next the early majority makes it their own, after which it moves into the late majority camp, and lastly the laggards begrudgingly accept it.
We all have our preference: some of us are itchy and are stirred to push onto something no one else has tried yet. Others would like to see at least a few go ahead before they follow. Then there are those who need to see it proved before they’ll make their move, followed by those who finally catch the drift, and in the back, those who only come because someone made them.