Focus In on Every Client, Issue or Matter

Focus In on Every Client, Issue or Matter

What you do, you do.  Who you do it for, needs it… and they need it done right and on time.

Don’t shortchange your customers, clients or staff by not paying attention or focusing in on what you are doing. “Focusing in” means that you give the matter at hand your complete, undivided attention.  You concentrate on it.  You think about it.  You analyze it. You make sure it’s done right. You make sure it’s done as well as it can be done.  You make sure you cover every angle and find every loophole.  You make sure it is acceptable by the highest standards.  You treat it as if it is the single most important thing you ever have to do, because the customer or client will apply that feeling when he or she receives and reviews what you are doing.

One of my clients once told me that he was using my firm primarily because of my creative abilities.  He continued by saying that he would get full value of that if, once every three months, I would close my office door, hold my telephone calls, and do nothing but think about what I could do for him.  He felt confident that if I did that, I would come up with enough game-winning home runs for him to get more value than what he was paying for. I now do this at least quarterly for every client, project and activity in which I am involved.  And it works!

People who engage you to do something do so because they not only think you will do it well, but that you will treat it with proper care and will look out for their best interests.  Don’t neglect your job by having your mind on other matters.

Think for a moment how you feel when you have stomach cramps.  You feel terrible.  Right?  You feel like the cramps will never go away.  Right?  You wish the cramps would go away.  Right?  You don’t want to bother with anything, or speak to anybody, or do anything.  Right?  Well, at this very moment while you are reading this, you don’t have any cramps.  Right?  And are you grateful and appreciative that you don’t have them?  Probably not until you read this and are now fully aware that you don’t have the cramps.  However, you were feeling fine a few seconds ago but didn’t pay any mind to it because you didn’t focus in on it or pay attention to it, like you are right now.  That’s what I mean by focusing in.  Give it your full concentration and thoughts.

IBM’s slogan was “THINK!”  What was the thinking when the decision was made in the 1970s to go ahead with a personal computer and to outsource the chip to Intel and the operating system to Microsoft?  No one seemed to be focusing in on what was really going to happen.

I once saw a bumper sticker that said “Don’t get too attached to your bumper sticker—the car might break down!”  Be flexible in your thinking, and leave yourself room to maneuver.  However, focus in carefully and fully on what you are doing.

The most successful people are those with a single idea, for which they fully exhaust every possibility.  Many times if that idea is not successful, they then go on to the next idea.  But, they are deeply concentrating on one idea at a time. They are focused on the task at hand.

Focusing goes hand-in-hand with thoroughness.  Don’t give up without a fight.  And don’t give your work a 90 percent effort. Work painstakingly and completely at your trusted position.

The focus of a business is to make money by making its customers happy.  Everything should strive toward that focus.

It’s the petty things that rob us of our time, not the big things. You must arm yourself against the small minds of people who refuse to focus in on the issues at hand. Examples abound at meetings, but it also happens in one-on-one confrontations.  Ask yourself if what you are doing is what you are supposed to be doing at that moment.

Reprinted from Power Bites: Short and to the Point Management, Leadership and Lifestyle Advice I Give My Clients! by Edward Mendlowitz, CPA © 2010.   Available for sale at www.bn.com and www.Amazon.com