Blumer & Associates, CPAs, PC - Certified Public Accountants

That is the phrase recently yelled at me while pulling up to a drive through window: “strip towards the road, sir!”  That was the only greeting I got.  And when I looked at him with a weird look, he said it again, “strip towards the road, sir!”  Assuming he didn’t want me to pull forward and take my clothes off, I looked around for what I should do next….

Then I noticed that there was a credit card machine hanging off of the drive through window.  Now I knew he wanted me to run my credit card, with the “strip towards the road” so that I would run the card correctly the first time (I wonder how many losers ran their card with the strip towards the dumpster?).  As it normally does, all of my interactions outside of my business always turn my eyes towards how I’m treating my own customers. 

A couple of points:

1.  Their whole business was setup so that they did NOT physically touch the customer or have much interaction with the customer.  They fell into the common trap of Efficiency over Effectiveness.  “But what do you expect from a fast food restaurant,” you might say.  But in today’s world, every industry is ripe for disruption.  I feel like EVERYONE needs to address how they have been operating, and they need to know WHY they operate as they do.  Customer touches are important for today’s industries.  People are developing into communities now (social media allows for this), and our industries need to meet and touch our customers inside of those communities.  Tear down barriers that prevent you from touching or spending time with your customer.  Go one step further:  implement actual steps that take you slower through your customer-relationship process.  Purposely implement processes that force touch, slow, scarcity, high-value (thus high price) and strategic selection.  New customers wants this.

2.  Who trained this guy to yell “strip towards the road” at the customers?  I imagine no one told this service provider to yell this phrase at the customers.  He was probably trained to move people through the line quickly.  He came up with the brilliant ‘efficient’ phrase all on his own.  There was probably a ticker machine that reported, in real time, how many customers were served in how many minutes.  Efficiency has always been the name of the game, but that is changing.  Training our team members can now be transformed into “see how much value you can deliver while people are picking up their sandwich in a drive through line.” 

How would you change the drive-through industry? 

How about tearing out the barrier we pull up to, and open it up so the service provider can walk right up to the car?  Less wall, the better! 

Let’s take out the credit card machine hanging off of the window.  We can ask people to hand us their card instead. 

How about shaking hands with everyone that comes through the drive through BEFORE you serve them? 

How about giving every customer something they didn’t order? 

Instead of letting me talk to a big box while ordering, why not have a human stationed where the big box used to be?  Let’s talk to humans.

You might be say, “this will cost more money.”  True, but that is okay.  If you mold your processes to deliver more value, then you get to price your services higher. 

You will basically price higher to deliver something better that everyone wants in the first place.  They may not know they even want it… until YOU deliver it.  Why not be the first to blow up your industry, deliver greater customer touches, train your team to slow down and make more money.  Everyone will win!

I’m not sure we are a Lean Startup, but we’ve been called a startup before.

As a professional CPA firm, its a shock to be called a startup.  But our activities, our attempts at growth and the way we manage our firm is more similar to a startup than a professional firm.  We are laser-focused on customer value, and how to price that interaction.  You get to do what you want in our firm as long as you show results.  There is always change taking place in our firm, and it takes a special person to work here.  We’re a hard firm to work for, honestly.  The implementation and change of new technologies that we rely on to run our processes happens two or three times each year.  It’s pretty disruptive, but a necessary move to stay ahead of the innovation curve.

Now, to be honest, I’m not too worried about the ‘innovation curve’ in our industry.  Sometimes, our profession seems to be running away from innovation instead of becoming leaders of disruptive innovation.  So it’s not too hard to innovate right now.  But that won’t last for long.

There are some new innovative CPAs found in the THRIVEal +CPA Network, a community of CPAs hell-bent on changing our profession.  They are changing stuff, blowing up stuff all the time and attempting to discover what needs to change about our profession.  Billing by the hour slows these firms down, so they ditched it.  Hierarchical management structures just tick off their team members, so they take away titles and let everyone do what they do best (whatever that is). These firms foam at the mouth for new technologies, even if they’ve already implemented two systems this year already.  They run light-footed on top of a foundation of technology focused solely on selling knowledge, not commodities.

Like the firms in the THRIVEal +CPA Network, we are a startup… and I didn’t even realize it until someone called us a Startup.

I don’t want to be a Professional CPA firm anymore.  I want to be an entrepreneurial CPA company.  Bring it.  We’ll see what the future holds.

“A bigger business is like a cruise ship: There are lots of amenities and you can go a lot further, but it’s harder to turn quickly.”

Tony Hsieh of Zappos

They underestimate the real value of social media. Tell the truth. You bought an ad in the yellow pages again, didn’t you? I have to ask, WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT? Last time you needed anything, did you turn to the almighty yellow pages? Neither did I.

When I need new tires or a plumber or a painter, I ask on Facebook or twitter who I should use. Guess where probably 99% of our new business comes from. Maybe even 100%. Referrals or social media…usually referrals THROUGH social media. Someone will tweet that they need a CPA that works with creatives and next thing I know, I’m being tweeted to after one of our current customers answers the original tweeter. Pretty dang cool.

I’m not telling you to go sell yourself all over social media. But you better be there. You can talk about the Super Bowl or Lady Gaga or what you had for dinner. Sooner or later, you are going to see someone needing what you can offer. Social media is about building relationships. And while face to face may be the ideal way to build relationships, social media is faster and more convenient when I can’t sleep at 4am. If you have been building those relationships steadily over time on twitter, when someone needs what you have, he will think of you. Are you ready or are you still hoping your potential customer is letting his fingers do the walking?

“Social media is communication. Technology has changed in ways that allow communication to become more transparent, scalable, and flexible. However, at it’s core it’s still just communication.”

Michael Reynolds, from the Culture RX website