I’ve just returned from the PANALITIX conference, which was held in Bali. While getting to the conference this year proved to be an interesting challenge, with the eruption of Mt Ruang and the cancellation of the majority of flights, this in itself generated some inspiring stories of determination.
The speakers at this annual conference for PANALITIX members always provide some invaluable advice not just for accountants but for anybody running their own business and I thought I’d share a few of my insights.
We heard from Jack Daly, an Amazon best-selling author and speaker on sales management who’s own personal philosophy on life is just as inspirational as his tips for growing your business profitably. The fact that Jack has completed 15 Ironman competitions, including competing for Team USA and, at the age of 66, is still regularly competing in marathons is testament to the spirit, determination and vitality of this man. We could all take inspiration from Jack!
We also got some real nuggets of gold from a number of the other speakers including Daniel Priestley, another best selling author on becoming a Key Person Of Influence; Tamara Trentain showed us the power of automating our marketing and Ric Payne discussed how the technological landscape is changing and the impact this has on our ability to realize our business dreams.
The icing on the cake for me was the Annual Achievement Awards on Thursday evening that saw us win the Best Accounting Firm To Work In for the second year in a row. To say we were thrilled was an understatement!
I was asked numerous times over the course of the evening what we do that differentiates us so much from other accountants. The answer to this is quite simple. We recognize that every single person in the team plays a vital role in the success of the business and instead of individual rewards we set team challenges with a tiered system of rewards that we can all enjoy as a team when we hit our targets.
As Jack taught us, a business is only successful because of its people. Investing in getting this right is one of the best investments you will ever make.