Post Covid – 5 Myths exposed
How much time is wasted at Work?
Was this you before covid?
You get to your desk to find 40 unopened emails and two letters. You start on the emails and the first requires you to open a folder and refresh yourself on some details, but you haven’t got time for that.
You move on to the next, the phone rings, a colleague wants to drop in for a chat, he is concerned about a sensitive issue, you look at the calendar and ask him to pop by in 30 minutes. You go back to your emails and delete a few, then your assistant comes in.
“Do you have a minute?” You like to keep an open door policy, so you chat to your assistant until the telephone rings; your assistant waits while you take the call, and then your secretary comes in with some magazines and post, you glance through the magazines and a press release about a client catches your eye, you add it to the pile on your desk that you fully intend to read later.
If this sounds familiar, you are working in a reactive and not a proactive manner, your business is running you – and you are not running your business.
You are allowing people to interrupt your life with, “Do you have a minute?” meetings, telephone calls and emails that disturb you all day long, leaving you with only your free time to plan and do what you need to do to make and smash your goals. This lack of time management is not only detrimental to your health and home life; it is also stopping you from achieving your goals.
Are you a ‘Sally’?
Sally is a Professional in a Private Office business in Jersey. She is a member of the Society of Trusts and Estate Practitioners. Seven times a year she goes to conferences to be up to date with the latest cases and current thinking. She has more than twenty clients but finds them tricky to deal with: they complain about her fees and try to negotiate them down.
Secretly, she would prefer her job if it didn’t involve clients. She is a Professional and is proud of it.
Post Covid – 19 and lockdown, she needs to ask herself whether she would be happier as a teacher or law lecturer rather than a Professional? Is Sally a round peg in a square hole? She needs to question whether she wants to care for her clients - or whether she could care for students more.
Sally has a Mindset of ID.
She has pride in her knowledge and likes to keep up to date. But her clients are not impressed by her superior knowledge - they expect her to be up to date. They want her to find solutions to their concerns not more problems uncovered by academic arguments and remote case law.
Knowledge is nothing if it is not needed
In the early 1980’s while working at Allen & Overy, I became an expert on Development Land Tax.
On 10 July 1985, Nigel Lawson, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, abolished it. Thereafter there was no need for advice on this tax. My expertise overnight became worthless – I needed to find another area of expertise.
The editor of the Weekend Financial Times asked me to be a contributor on tax and trusts. My first article was in 1985 on the new rules to be introduced in February 1986 on gifts with reservation of benefit for inheritance tax. This was before the internet and there was nothing written on it at all – so I simply had to read the draft legislation and do my best.
I must have written some sort of sense – since none of the newspapers readers wrote in to say I was wrong and so I was invited to continue to write for the newspaper for a further twelve years.
A Culture of Care is learning how to adapt your expertise to the concerns and needs of your clients not to show off your superior knowledge. If you are a Professional, you need to apply what you know to the circumstances of your client in the areas in which they need advice.
For a Professional to define themselves by their area of expertise and knowledge is to miss the point – it is valueless unless a client needs your expertise, is prepared to pay for it and you are able to explain why it is of benefit to them.
Part 4 serialisation of Chapter 1 of my book ‘Winning Business From Private Clients’ post covid will continue next week.
The next meeting of Caroline’s Club is on 7th June 2022 at 14.00BST for one hour, what to expect:
Hear how members have connected since our last meeting
Topic of the month ‘Abolition of Tier 1 visas – what next?’ for quarter of an hour
Discussion on immigration for ten minutes
Split into ‘networking pods’ for each private client professional to share a 3 minute client story
Regroup for feedback and next meeting details
Please let me have your comments and don’t forget to register for Caroline’s Club – it’s FREE to register and you can then learn more about our exclusive award winning club of leading private client professionals who are keen to win business and build trust with clients simply register here