Ron Baker Back In Australia

Published January 10, 2012 By John

leftleftJust giving you all some advance notice that Ron Baker – founder of The Verasage Institute, economist, author, speaker, value based pricing expert, knowledge worker advocate and one of the world’s foremost thought leaders for professional firms will be returning to Australia in March, 2012. This is Ron’s 8th visit to Australia.

Ron will be presenting full day Firm Of The Future forums in Hobart, Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney plus optional Masterclasses. The full details of dates, times and venues will be announced by the end of January.

These Forums will be primarily based around two of Ron’s best-selling books, The Firm of the Future: A Guide for Accountants, Lawyers, and Other Professional Services (2003) and Implementing Value Pricing-A Radical Business Model for Professional Firms (2011).

Those of you that have heard Ron previously will know what a brilliant, inspiring, entertaining and thought provoking speaker he is. Ron confronts the conventional wisdom embodied in traditional professional firm business models, which operate by leveraging people and hours. This old model works but is suboptimal. There is a much better business model, utlilizing bold, proven strategies for restoring vitality and dynamism to professional firms of all sizes now being practiced by 1000’s of professionals all over the world.

Season’s Greetings from John, Jess & Beth

Published December 19, 2011 By John

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Firms Of The Future & Innovation

Published December 12, 2011 By John

leftFollowing on from my October post, as you know I am all for firms being creative and innovative.

After all you market for growth but innovate for profit.

But lets face it many organizations, especially professional firms, struggle with innovation despite just about every firms website mentioning just how innovative they are.

When I ask some firm leaders to give me examples of what their firm does that is truly innovative either the silence is deafening or the examples provided relate to efficiency gains, are pretty underwhelming and moreover are usually things practiced (often better) by their competitors. This is not to say such examples are bad or a firm should not have them- merely that they are not innovative per se.

Most professional firms like to benchmark themselves against their so called competitors to either feel good about themselves or to establish just how far they still have go to copy those they perceive as leaders, but this is hardly being creative or innovative. The real leading firms, those that are truly innovative, do not waste their energies benchmarking themselves against the more average firms. Most firms also tend to benchmark themselves against others in their profession – despite the fact that competition is increasingly coming from outside. Such benchmarking at best creates a race towards mediocrity.

It’s no longer who you know…

Published November 2, 2011 By Jess

A book review of Michelle Golden’s ‘Social media for professionals and their firms’ by Jessica Hadley

leftHere are two basic observations:

  1. The professional environment emulates near perfect competition- establishing and maintaining relationships remain the primary (if not only) channel by which a professional can differentiate and develop their business.
  2. Increasingly time poor professionals are also (like the rest of society) developing an immunity to the traditional ‘push’ marketing strategies but at the same time are struggling to find the time to maintain their professional relationships let alone form new ones. (There are only so many lunches and coffees one can have and still get work done.)

And, it’s fairly safe to assume that it’s not going to get any less competitive or easier to find the time to maintain relationships. Hence, it does seem strange that there has been a relatively strong reluctance to utilising a tool which is an additional or alternative marketing channel and provides the ability to extend professional relationships beyond a purely physical environment.

Innovation. What if…?

Published October 11, 2011 By John

Been a big few weeks one way or another for exposure to innovation.

In late September in Melbourne we hosted the ALPMA 2011 Summit the theme being “adapt innovate inspire“. We heard from a number of speakers on what this means to them, how this applies to some firms and how some of it could possibly apply to your firm.

It was great to hear from the likes of Patty Keegan, on just how social media has transformed and will continue to transform the way most of us do business and network; John Petty on why quarterly rolling financial forecasting is so much more effective for firms than the old monthly/annual budget scenario; Bruce Ross’s problem and opportunity trees; and Dr Ken Hudson had us all in the speed thinking zone. Not to forget John Dee the founder of Planet Ark and Director of Do Something reminding us all what we can and what we must do to save this planet of ours.

Then last Friday, my wife Karen & I attended for the first time a TEDx event in Melbourne. We have, as I assume many of you have, long been watchers of TED videos (if you are not, can I strongly recommend you subscribe now and watch at your leisure short videos of inspirational and riveting talks by remarkable people free) but this is the first time we had attended a TEDx speaking event live. Again the theme was innovation. It surpassed our expectations with some wonderful “home grown” speakers each of whom are innovators in their own right.