One of my favorite books is the Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. It’s about timeless lessons in personal finance and investing. It’s worth the read.
Housel has a new book out titled, Same As Ever. The premise is if you want to understand the changing world, start with what stays the same. This applies to the accounting profession.
Same As Ever starts with a story about a guy, Jim, who is close to Warren Buffet:
Jim was chatting with Warren in 2009 about the downturn in the economy and said to Warren, “It’s so bad right now. How does the economy every bounce back from this?” Warren said, “Jim, do you know what the best-selling candy bar was in 1962? Jim replied “No”, and Warren said “Snickers.” Then Warren asked Jim again, “do you know what the best-selling candy bar is today?” Jim said “No.” and Warren replied, “Snickers.” Then silence, end of conversation.
There is a lesson for accountants and accounting firms here.
I joined the profession in the early 90’s and here were some of trends in the headlines.
- “Compliance is dead.”
- “Staffing is the #1 issue.”
- “Flat tax will eradicate the need for tax professionals.”
- “Firms that don’t offer advisory will fail.”
- “Technology will eliminate the need for accountants.”
Sound familiar?
Here what is NOT going to change:
- Humans will needs to pay tax.
- Human will want to minimize tax (google it).
- Humans will need advice from other humans on how to minimize tax.
- Business will need a clean set up of books to help them make good decisions.
- Business owners will want advice from a human on how to run their business.
- Software including AI is NOT going to replace humans.
If you want a better firm and life focus on what we at Renew call Tier 1 issues: what services are you going to provide, to whom, at what price and know what you want your firm to be. These are timeless questions and will not change.
The window of opportunity is now. We have seen countless firms at this time of the year say, ‘enough is enough’, commit to making the changes they know they need to make and be genuinely amazed at how much they can achieve in just a few weeks by focusing on what is not going to change.
Say NO to the fear mongering and change addiction.
History will tell you a lot more about the future than someone trying to predict it.
About Renew Group
Shannon Vincent and Colin Dunn created Renew Group to create a better model and better lives for accounting firms. Our Firm Transformation Framework is the blueprint to a better model and a better life. Through education and training, templates, tools, and resources, coaching and community, our framework delivers life-changing results.
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