The Noticer: A Help with Awareness

It was at a CPAFMA conference several years ago – the speaker was best-selling author Andy Andrews – and his topic was his book The Noticer. The tagline for his book (and presentation) was “All a person needs is a little perspective to receive the gift of noticing things that other people miss.” This presentation stood out to me, not only because I added to my Useless Facts Collection i.e. how monkeys open up a banana compared to most humans, but it helped me with the awareness to notice things that others probably don’t. Well, here is something I’ve noticed.

Having been a member of CPAFMA for over twenty years now, it’s fair to say I’m an old timer. Going from thoughts of being alone in the profession to the discovery of an association of peers – that was a defining moment in my career. It was satisfying to know there were others that also wore many hats at their firm.

In all of those years, I’ve learned quite a bit from those peers – far more than any college course ever taught. Those connections plus life and work lessons helped me arrive in the position and firm I’m at today. As you and your firm grow together, you both become more focused. All the experience you receive helps mold you, then you take that and refine it to the areas that you enjoy most and are most passionate about. The pinnacle of a career – work that feels like play. This analogy is one I’ve often shared with young accountants starting their career – “you won’t be doing simple 1040 prep your whole career – there is far more exotic and exciting client work in your future!”

All that being said, here is what I noticed. I noticed less repeat customers at our gatherings – whether local chapter or national events – and I’m going to make an assumption why. Do people think we are just doing the same old thing over and over – kind of like the movie Groundhog Day? We always had an incredibly high percentage of “first timers” at our events. Do they come once and get turned off? This was my thought until I noticed many conferences had similar percentages. The most recent being attendance to our UltiPro Connections conference (HRIS software) in Las Vegas last week. Of 2,900 attendees, about 60% were first timers!

Whatever the reason may be to go to a conference, make sure you get value from not just the host, but the attendees. You will learn the most from those people connections to bring value back to your firm. There is and will continue to be lots of new things in our profession. I’ll be one of the first to admit that several of our new initiatives are only bought into if there are other firms already doing it successfully over a period of time.

Let’s break this stigma together, let’s try something new that no one else in our industry has done. Start by joining us for the topic “75 Innovative Ideas in 75 Minutes” at our conference in Fort Worth in June!

Hope to see you then.