Sometimes our minds are fogged by dollar signs…

In my campaigns class we are reading “The Firm of the Future” by Paul Dunn and Ron Baker. The book focuses on what is really important and how one little sign, ($), can fog brains and make you loose grip of your client and your end result.

One particular point caught my eye because we have discussed it in class a few times in the last week. Passion. One of the authors, Ron Baker, explains that passion in the work place is slowly declining. I believe this is true because of the X generation. We enter the work place power hungry. We expect to receive a lot of responsibility right from the start. In a short period of time, we are proved wrong. This is something that companies and employees constantly struggle with to find a happy medium.

Another point that caught my eye was the analogy that not all customers are good customers. It is important to have loyal customers who are easy to work with. The book gives an example of a director of an accounting agency who gave his employees a list of all of the company’s customers and asked the employees to circle the customers that they did not like. The director then went on to “fire” each customer that was circled. Three months later the company had raised its revenues to almost $3 million. It’s not always about getting more business. Lessoned learned?

Profit should not be the drive of your company. In the past, we have seen companies go under because they are profit driven and all it sees is money signs. Instead, it is important to focus on your loyal customers. I believe that in the systems we have created in the U.S. today, it is important to have solid, loyal relationships with each other, rather than billing hours and worrying how much profit a customer will bring to a company.

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