What if Jeff Bezos chose the accounting profession instead of starting that little online bookstore so many years ago? Although he may not have a net worth of $181 billion as he does today, the accounting industry would probably never be the same. This is due to two themes in Mr. Bezos’s playbook: focus and long-term planning. The truth is it’s hard to plan for the long haul while putting out today’s fires, especially during “busy season.”
It can be a challenge to introduce advisory or tax planning services when accounting clients increasingly desire more instant gratification. Why do you think short-form video is the fastest growing trend right now with services like YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels and Facebook Stories? Videos can be as short as two seconds. That’s great for goldfish, not so much for accountants.
Mr. Bezos laser focuses on the things that matter in the long term. In his original 1997 letter to shareholders, he stated he would build the “Everything Store.” It was going to stock everything and it was going to be the No. 1 store in the world. He set that focus back then and he stuck to it. He never deviated or wavered from that vision. That’s really what you need to do if you want to be successful in business or in life. You need to find your one thing and focus until you get it done. You have to stick with it for the long term.
Forget about the little things that don’t matter in the long term like posting every day on Facebook or LinkedIn. Or getting your dopamine hit from your dozens of social media alerts per day. Instead, relentlessly focus on creating value for customers at every touchpoint.
Let’s take a crack at this Jeff Bezos-style, starting with his Amazon vision statement: “To be Earth’s most customer-centric company where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online.” Followed by Amazon’s First Core Value: Customer obsession.
Now back to Jeff Bezos, the would-be accountant. Mr. Bezos would be obsessed with figuring out each day how to add more value to his clients. He would be obsessed with how much money he could possibly save his clients and then base his fees on that. The greater the value, the greater the fee. Since Jeff is very analytical he would go a step further and on the first call with his prospect be able to provide an estimate of what he could save them and how much value he could provide. It's no coincidence that we at Bookgel use Amazon AWS’ machine learning platform to do exactly this. This is AI at its best. When I founded Bookgel, Jeff Bezos, Amazon and the subscription economy were actually one of my biggest inspirations.
If Mr. Bezos were an accountant, he would likely set up his practice according to three key tenets. In fact, these perfectly align with the three takeaways I’d like to share from Jeff’s Final Letter to Shareholders back in 2021:
1. Create more than you consume
Your goal should be to create value for everyone you interact with. As an accountant, that means being proactive versus reactive, not settling for your clients dumping their tax filings with you at tax time when it’s too late to be proactive. Rather set those clients up for a monthly subscription to you, think of it as your “Accounting Prime” monthly subscription service, as Mr. Bezos would probably call it. Now you can engage them at the beginning of the year and provide even more value through tax planning, prepayments, bonuses, depreciation, tax credits, retirement and many other proactive opportunities.
2. Coaching = Success
Coaching is one of the biggest factors to success at Amazon. Underperforming employees get coaching, but also those who excel. Mr. Bezos believes that coaching brings out the best in people and that there is a distinct correlation between coaching and achieving success faster. He believes that all employees should be held accountable including himself. As an accountant, you want to be sure that you have someone to hold you accountable as well as access to a group of peers who push you to become a better version of yourself.
3. Differentiation is survival and the universe wants you to be typical
The world is constantly trying to make you normal. In what ways does the world pull at you in an attempt to make you normal? How much work does it take to maintain your distinctiveness, to keep alive the thing or things that make you special? As an accountant, this means stop trying to be everything to everyone. When you go on Amazon, have you noticed how over the years the filtering options on the left are increasing? This is because consumers value choice and as an entrepreneurial accountant, your success is largely determined by what niche and what services you offer. For example, three of the most profitable niches today in accounting are real estate, cannabis and cryptocurrency. If I’m a real estate developer, CBT dispensary or cryptocurrency trader, do you think I would want to work with a general services accountant or one who focuses on my industry, speaks my language and knows my specific pain points?
I’d like to end this with Mr. Bezos’s words from his Final Letter: “To all of you: be kind, be original, create more than you consume, and never, never, never let the universe smooth you into your surroundings. It remains Day 1.”
Hopefully, this has given you the inspiration to focus on that one thing and make yourself stand out from the crowd.
