Knowing what really makes you come alive, fills your cup…that can be hard to tell sometimes.
After all, things can feel a bit heavy at times. Things with clients, with team members, with family members, with yourself. Grey and cloudy and rainy weather. Prices going up, up, up everywhere you look (even in your own firm). A muddled mind. Projects you were so excited about which didn’t work out, or are taking longer.
So you get a little spark here and there, but part of you might figure, “This is just how it goes sometimes.” You aren’t always going to be at peak performance or doing everything you love.
Which is true: you’re not. Life doesn’t work that way.
But to figure out what fills your cup, start small.
What’s your highlight of the past week?
It’s Friday. If you look back to Monday, what stands out more than anything else?
Your highlight – of the day, of the week – shows you what you love to do. What you would do even if you didn’t need to.
If you’re like me, your challenge might be that some weeks, you have multiple highlights. And other weeks, you have very few. It’s good to push yourself to pick one – and if there are many, pick the very, very top one.
I’m going to choose mine from a previous week, because I’m writing this note in advance. (All being well I’ve just returned from sunny Arizona while you’re reading this!)
This highlight was right at the end of a Momentum Coaching call. These coaching calls are there for any accountant who wants to make progress – build momentum! – with a particular project or area. One accountant has a service he really wants to promote, so we’re focusing on that service alone. Another wants to create more videos and increase subscribers to his YouTube channel. Another wants to build his coaching service.
This particular one was new, so we were doing the onboarding call. We dug into the service, going beyond how much it costs and what they technically get: and we talked about how the potential client would feel. Their emotions, their worries and fears. The reasons they might think, “This might not work.”
I could literally see the light bulb going on over this accountant’s head as we dug into this. We used PF’s Campaign Planner template (free to download by the way! Here you go), and asked some of these questions and dug deeper and did everything we could to put ourselves in the mind of his potential buyer.
And he realised the most important fear for them was, “This seems too good to be true.” This opportunity to save tax could sound like a scam, a trick. So we dug into that further, and agreed the messaging of his website page needed to address that directly. “You might be thinking this sounds like a trick, or a scam. I understand that. Here’s all the detail about this tax law, and where it comes from. Here’s why I know about it, and here’s the checklist we use to determine your eligibility. And here’s a story about a client I worked with who saved $x in tax because of it.”
When we got to the end of our session I asked, “How are you feeling about this now?”
He said: “I’m motivated. I wish I didn’t have other stuff to do today!”
Which I love to hear. And then he added, “You’re really good. You just hone in on the most important messaging so fast.”
It wasn’t like I needed someone to tell me I’m experienced at this. True humility doesn’t put itself down: you’re not humble if someone gratefully recognises your experience and you say “Oh, no, I’m no good really, actually quite awful”. That’s not humility: it’s self deprecation. Or a lack of knowing your own worth. True humility says “I know what I’m good at, and I know where I’m not so good”. I’ve got a significant list of things I’m not so great at. But I know accountants, and I know how to get to the root issue their clients face.
Hearing my client tell me that was a highlight because it reminded me of something I needed to hear this week. I know accountants. I really, really love working with accountants, and this client was no exception. He knew his clients, but it was all swirled together in his mind and needed to be drawn out. That’s what I do. It’s what my team do. It’s something we’re good at.
And when a client recognises that, it’s a reminder we’re on the right track with how we’re serving them.
That’s literally our vision: “We inspire ambitious accountants to understand and enjoy marketing, so they get to work with clients they love.”
And in the process we get to work with clients we love, too.
What’s your highlight of the week?
