Barbara Walters Price

Your 2011 "To-Don't" List

This short piece was written for the American Society of Appraiser's BV E-Letter.  It appeared in Issue 14-50 on December 22, 2010.  I hope you not only enjoy it but find it useful.  I know of at least one reader who took the advice to heart.  I hope you do too.

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Do you make New Year’s resolutions?  I don’t.  For me, they are a waste of time to develop and just make me feel guilty when I don’t keep them.  Maybe I do it wrong because my resolutions usually result in more things to do (lose weight, write 10 articles, remember birthdays without fail, etc.), rather than fewer.

But all that will change in 2011.  Instead of a standard “to-do” list of resolutions, I have resolved to create a “to-don’t” list.  Why don’t you join me?

What is a “to-don’t” list?  It is self-explanatory.  Your “to-don’t” list is all the stuff you will stop doing.  It is the stuff that wastes your time; that steals your energy; that provides no return.  

Because this is a practice development article, your “to-don’t” list is any activity that doesn’t produce business now and will likely never produce business.  It is those things that you’ve done forever – just because you’ve done them forever – but with little to show for it.  It is the mistakes you make when marketing yourself or your firm that you know you shouldn’t make, but you consistently make them anyway. 

Examples of practice development items for your “to-don’t” list might include:

• Speaking to groups that will likely not need your services.  You know you’ve done this.  
• Continuing to use speaking engagements as a marketing tool even though you know you’re not gifted here and you can’t (won’t) take the time to improve.  If this is you, use another marketing tactic to further your goals.  
• Doing business with unappreciative (and unprofitable) referral sources and/or clients. Why do we hang on to these relationships?  Letting these people find other service providers might be the most liberating thing we can do for ourselves and our practice. 
• Chasing business we wouldn’t normally want.  When we get nervous about the economy, we can fool ourselves into believing that any business is good business.  This is a mistake.  Enhance your value to your best clients and referral sources instead. 

Picture your professional and personal life as a desktop.  Is yours too often full of clutter?  I don’t know about you, but adding something new to it makes me tired and frustrated.  The thought of shortening my already long to-do list gives me energy.  Like an uncluttered desk, it feels full of possibilities.

“No” is a complete sentence.  Remember that.  Instead of focusing on your to-do list, spend some time compiling your personal and professional “to-don’t” list – and then follow through.  It can be one of the most powerful things you do for the new year. 

Happy holidays!    

Happy Monday after Christmas

 

A Christmas Poem

There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.

For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.

Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.

A child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost---how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky's dome.

This world is wild as an old wife's tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.

To an open house in the evening
Home shall all men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.

A CHRISTMAS POEM  by G. K. Chesterton

 

Speaking Engagements Work

Tom Kane writes the Legal Marketing Blog. He has been blogging for years and provides consistently solid marketing and business development content for attorneys, yet his advice is applicable to CPAs and business appraisers as well.

A recent post - Speaking Engagements REALLY Work, If You Work At It! - caught my eye. Speaking engagements made Tom's top 10 list of best marketing practices.  He is right. Speaking engagements do work if you are strategic in choosing the right venues, deliver a winning speech, and most importantly, follow up. 

Read Tom's post here as well as a recent article of mine entitled "How to Get Started Speaking" if you need inspiration to begin using speaking engagements in your marketing mix. 

Happy Monday