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05/14/2013

Fun Facts on Fraud

Fraud is awesome. Because if nobody committed fraud, we would never get to find fraud. And finding fraud is the sexiest part of accounting. Sure, that’s like saying the sexiest part of Steve Buscemi is his forearm¹. But at least there’s some part of our job that’s materially sexier than sales tax compliance ².

Unfortunately, we suck at being sexy. It’s embarrassing how seldom we find fraud. Depending on which report you look at, only two to nine percent of fraud is discovered by the external auditor. And all of those studies have a margin of error of two to nine percent. Read more

Category:: Fraud
Comments:: 0

04/08/2013

A Great Idea, the Experience Economy, & a Horrible Name for a Business

I recently had an Oprah-quality million-dollar idea.

And this million-dollar idea is way better than my Johnny Jump Up Multi-Room Integrated Track System¹ idea. The JJUMRITS might’ve made someone a million bucks, but it also might’ve been extremely unsafe for babies which – turns out – is horrible for PR. And for babies.

I also had a million-dollar idea for a biometric attendance-taker machine for high schools and junior highs³. That idea is like a million dollars of lunch money in a nerd’s pocket, just waiting for someone to punch it out of its zip-lock sandwich bag⁴ and into someone’s bank account. Read more

Category:: CPA firm, Innovation
Comments:: 1

03/11/2013

The Experience Economy: Lessons From A Gym

How do you take a service offering that can be easily commoditized and transform it into a highly sought-after experience that customers will pay a premium for?

Great question.

You can read about how to do it in Joe Pine and James Gilmore’s book The Experience Economy, you can listen to Episode 19 of the THRIVEcast, or you can expose yourself directly to the experience economy by visiting your local CrossFit Gym.

This month I recorded a video blog where I worked out with the CrossFit fanatics to see what they’re doing right, and to try to glean some lessons that we can apply to our CPA firms. Read more

Category:: Community, CPA firm
Comments:: 5

02/11/2013

Great Negotiators Aren’t All Soulless Monsters. Some Are Heartless Bastards.

Everyone wishes they had better negotiation skills. Sort of. We want to be amazing negotiators, but we don’t want to be sleazy A-holes, and it’s hard to be the former without (intentionally or unintentionally) becoming the latter. Regardless, it’s fun to watch people with questionable morals use their Jedi mind tricks to con people out of money (and maybe we can learn something along the way).

Consider the following sleazy A-holes¹.

Read more

Category:: Management and Operations
Comments:: 1

01/14/2013

The American Dream is Dead…If You’re A Wussie

Lately I’ve been hearing this kind of crap:

“The American Dream is a myth.”

“The American Dream is dead.”

“The American Dream never really existed. It was a marketing scam.”

I call BS. The American Dream is not dead; its bastardized, mutant, entitled misinterpretation is.

First, let’s make sure we know what the hell we’re talking about. The American Dream (that’s not dead) is the idea that if you’re really smart and really hard working, the life you lead in the future can be dramatically better than the life you had in the past. The American Dream says that opportunities exist; if you find them quicker and leverage them better than the next guy, you’ll make some money and your dad might finally be proud of you. The American Dream says that the employee can become the boss, the tenant can become the landlord, and the janitor can become the head custodian.

Category:: Innovation
Comments:: 7

12/10/2012

A Crappy Restaurant in Vegas Taught Me a Lot About Branding (So Did Tim Williams)

In business school, you learned Michael Porter’s generic business strategies: cost leadership, differentiation, and market segmentation. And cost leadership is stupid¹. My brain conflates differentiation and market segmentation into what I call – for lack of a better word - differegmentation².

In the November THRIVEcast, Tim Williams said that differegmentation is not enough. According to Tim, you need to hyperspecialize, ultra-differentiate, and uber-brand.

Category:: Business, Innovation
Comments:: 4

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