SQUIRREL!
.
So here we are, a day after Scaling New Heights! (Well, this article is getting published a little bit late because I got busy and forgot to submit it.) As I write this, I am still suffering from lack of sleep, but on a total QuickBooks high from the conference! I was so tired, I fell asleep watching the shows that my husband recorded for me while I was away. I not only fell asleep in the middle of them, but fell asleep at 7:10 PM. Needless to say, I woke up at 2 AM and couldn’t go back to sleep! At first, I thought that I woke up because my body had gotten enough sleep, but that was not the case at all. I woke up because of all the ideas that were racing through my head! I learned so much from the general sessions and was so inspired from our experience at Scaling New Heights that I needed to fit those ideas into my practice ….now!
I realize that I cannot fit every change into my practice immediately, that would be impractical (and a little cray cray), but I do need to write out what ideas will fit within my practice currently or can help me take my practice where I want to go in the future. By writing out defined goals, dates, and processes on how to do that, I can set out a plan to follow as I develop my practice and my teams.
However, even trying to line these out, it is easy to get distracted, because there are so many things I’d like to implement! Maybe I can open the new division I have been wanting to put into place…*SQUIRREL*…I need to hire another bookkeeper so that I can institute the new fixed pricing…*SQUIRREL*… Maybe reorganizing the team would help streamline… *SQUIRREL!!* Ok, maybe I can just tell everyone what I learned and they can go and start making them happen, it should only take me about 30 minutes to unload everything that I leaned over the last 40 hours of classroom time, right? 30 or 40 minutes should be long enough, (ok, maybe an hour) then my team can make it all happen and then we can get back to our “real” jobs.
So I think we all know that this approach will not work in practice. Let me go back a bit: on Saturday of Scaling New Heights, Joe Woodard spoke about Les McKeown’s methodology, Predictable Success. There are four types of personalities, Visionary, Operator, Processor and Synergist. As we took the test, to find out where we aligned as individuals, a couple of us at the table quietly mumbled to ourselves that the test was going to tell us that we has split personalities. And not shockingly, that is exactly my test results told me. I was close to evenly split between all four of these traits. Until I took Les’ class on Wednesday afternoon (the last class of the conference), I learned that was actually a good thing. I could adapt and move between any role that I needed to, but that also meant to get to Predictable Success that I needed to pick a trait or role and strive to excel within that trajectory. So for four days, between Saturday and Wednesday, I carried around the thought that I was just plain nuts and suffering from a 4 way split personality! Now before any of my colleagues chime in and agree to that statement, shhhhh!
Remember, it’s easy to get distracted by all the shiny things, but it’s important and effective to write out tangible goals and focus on your path!
Until next time!
Robin
Robin Hall
About the author: Robin Hall is the President and Principal Consultant of VARC Solutions in Friendswood, TX specializing in QuickBooks training and consulting, and also QuickBase development. Her specialty is taking small and large business clients to the next level; Robin is also the developer of Solution Provider tools. Robin has been a Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor since 1999 (Advanced Certified since 2007) and an Intuit Premier Reseller since 2006. She is also member of the Intuit Advisory Council and is QuickBase Certified, and a QuickBase Solution Provider. Robin has been an expert presenter at Scaling New Heights, and at the Intuit Premier Reseller Conference to almost 600 of Intuit’s top Solution Providers.