The Importance of Nurturing Your Relationship with So-Called “Strangers”

I write in my second book, Five Eyes on the Fence, about the importance of protecting your

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social capital. My thesis is that financial capital is a byproduct of four other types of capitals. When human, social, intellectual, and structural capital are well-tended, financial capital flourishes.

Social capital can be summarized in two words: Relationships matter.

The strength of your relationship with clients, potential clients, vendors, employees, and colleagues determines the extent to which these relationships can be accessed as a resource. The stronger the social capital, the more likely your financial capital will benefit.

And the stronger your relationship with strangers, the better your social capital.

I know what you are thinking, “Wait a minute: How can a person have a relationship with a stranger? Isn’t not knowing the person the very definition of a stranger?”

And therein lies the problem. You don’t know what you don’t know. You don’t know whether someone else knows something about you. You don’t know if a so-called “stranger” has an eye on you.

When you walk through life, consider that you are often being observed. If you are being ungrateful, pessimistic, or otherwise unpleasant, “strangers” are noticing. When you post hostile messages on someone’s social media site, “strangers” are reading these messages. When you are rude to the barista, “strangers” are less inclined to engage your conversations.

Those strangers might be people who would have otherwise turned into important components of your social capital network.

This February, I spoke to the students at the University of Southern California’s Leventhal School of Accounting about my book, and how they can use the four other capitals to help their clients strengthen their financial capital.

During our discussion about nurturing relationships with social capital, a student brought this to my attention: The following Friday, a prestigious speaker was visiting their school.

I gave this advice: “Dress like you are going to a job interview.”

One of the students objected: “There are going to be thousands of people at the event. Why would he notice me?”

My response was this: “There are going to be thousands of people at the event. Someone will notice you, and that person might just be your next boss.”

This holds true in life. Of the billions of people out there, you never know who is noticing you. You never know who will be your next boss, your next client, your next employee, or your next vendor. So many relationships are born out of happenstance. Why not give these relationships the best chance at blossoming by going out into the world as the best version of yourself?

The title of this blog is, “What We Should Be Doing.” Let’s choose to do it right, all of the time.

Because you never know …

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Five Eyes on the Fence

Artists are Business People, Too!

Earlier this month, I had the honor of being a guest speaker in my friend John White's class at Otis College.  John teaches in the areas of Advertising Design and Communication Arts, and it was clear the group of students I was spending the afternoon with were a creative, inquisitive bunch.

So they probably wondered why an Accountant was coming in to talk to them -- especially an accountant who had just published a book.  The creative types hire the number crunchers to manage the left brain-stuff, right?   

Fortunately, I know that I don't talk like an Accountant is supposed to talk. And I brought with me a set of values cards for each of them, so that instead of listening to me pontificate on how they must do business when they graduate, they were engaged in identifying what is important to them now.  We then looked, as a group, at how these values impact decision making both in business and in everyday interpersonal relations.

We also defined and discussed human capital, structural capital, social capital, and intellectual capital, and how these things are just as important as your financial bottom line.  If you want to know about all the capitals, I suggest picking up a copy of my new book published by Business Expert Press called Five Eyes on the Fence, Protecting the Five Core Capitals of Your Business (Notice the neatly placed commercial).

The worth of a student or any business is measured in more than money.  I think they could see that they already have considerable assets. One just needs to be aware and intentional about them. 

I really enjoyed spending the afternoon with those students at Otis.  I hope they enjoyed their time with me, too, and left class that day feeling a little richer.

Risks to Avoid When Outsourcing Payroll

Outsourcing your company’s payroll has many of benefits, but many pitfalls as well.   I recently contributed to an article on Business News Daily on avoiding these risks. Read the article here. 

I'd like to thank writer, Brittney Helmrich for including my thoughts in her article.  

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Thinking About Outsourcing Your Company’s Payroll Services?

I recently had the opportunity to chime in on this subject for an article in Business News Daily.   If you’re thinking about outsourcing your company’s payroll this may be helpful. And, as always, we are here to help answer questions you may have.

Credit: Krasimira Nevenova/Shutterstock

Every business, no matter how small, needs to process payroll, and deciding how you want to manage payroll is an important step.

While some small business owners prefer to do their own payroll in-house, there are many benefits to using a payroll service. With so many options to choose from, however, finding the right one can be overwhelming.  >> Read more

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Kolbe Wisdom™ Changes the Game for Rose, Snyder & Jacobs

At Rose, Snyder & Jacobs, we use the Kolbe System to build our team and create our company culture.   This month’s Kolbe Connection highlights our success story – and features yours truly.

When Tony Rose learned about his M.O. it really helped him understand himself. “It permitted me to be me,” he said. At the time, his executive team was struggling to work together. The company was managing alright, growing and making money, but it just wasn’t easy.  Like many other companies, they promoted people to managerial roles without understanding that just because people are great at their job doesn’t mean they would be great managing people who do that job.

Read more >>

Be sure to visit Kolbe.com and follow @Kolbe_Corp on Twitter to learn more about how the Kolbe System may benefit your company.

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Five Eyes On The Fence

Some of you might know that I am in the process of finishing up a manuscript for my second book.

Manuscript. I like saying that word. It sounds prestigious and dignified. And the truth is that this book is the culmination of close to seven years of reflection. This book represents the challenges I try to solve when consulting with our business clients. You see, many of my partners and I don't solely give accounting and tax advice. Often, a simple tax question can turn into a complex discussion of the intricacies of doing business, so we help our clients with all five of their business’s capitals, not just their financial capital and tax-planning needs.

That’s right: A business has five capitals. Take RSJ, for instance. My first book, Say Hello to the Elephants, is an element of RSJ’s Intellectual Capital. The book explained our quadrant planning-process, which is a Structural Capital that we use to help our clients solve problems. Speaking of our clients, our network of clients, colleagues and associates represents a portion of the Social Capital of our company. And this sequential-step process (quadrant planning) helps us live up to the refer-ability standards that are part of the values defined by our Human Capital.

Buy Five Eyes on the Fence now

Intellectual, Structural, Social, and Human Capital: These are four of the five capitals that constitute a business, with Financial Capital being the fifth. It is one of my core beliefs that the effectiveness of business planning increases exponentially when an owner and her advisors keep an eye on each of these capitals—when they keep a total of five eyes on the fence, guarding their business.

I have read snippets about the different capitals. A number of authors, for example, have written about the importance of defining a family-owned business’s values (which are part of a company’s Human Capital). Tech company executives know that protecting Intellectual Capital is paramount. Yet, I’ve never read a book in which the author has integrated all five of the capitals in one place. This represents a huge gap in how advisors counsel their clients. And this is why seven years ago, I started to think about and actively seek guidance on how to deploy more effective planning.

You see, without an integrated system for evaluating a business’s five capitals, there are bound to be gaps. Opportunities will slip through these holes in the fence, so to speak.

Fast forward to today. I am much further along in understanding the integrated planning system that needs to be implemented if a business wants to grab a hold of its opportunities.The more I researched the book and worked through what each individual capital represented, the more I came to realize that each capital is complexly linked to the other. Like the links of a chain link fence, the five capitals are connected to one another and each is only as strong as the links that hold it together.

There are many good business consultants and I am certain that they, consciously or unconsciously, consider all five of the capitals when serving their clients. I am also certain that those advisors who fail to consider the effect of their counsel on each of the capitals can cause more damage than they can ever calculate. If a business increases its rates to improve its Financial Capital, but it fails to effectively communicate this rate-increase to the clients, its efforts will backfire as clients jump ship.

Need proof? Just consider the impact Netflix’s $6 rate increase back in 2011 had on the company. Surely, many of the customers who jumped ship—and according to several reports, the number was about one million more than Netflix intended—could have afforded the $6 rate increase. Judging from the slew of complaints that circled the social media world, many customers simply felt devalued, unappreciated, and … well, frankly, they had hurt feelings. The canceled their subscriptions on principle.

And who can blame them? If Netflix had focused as much on its Social Capital as it did on its bottom line, perhaps its Financial Capital would not have been so severely impacted back in 2011. Perhaps it could have communicated with its clients before the rate increase, showing paying customers that Netflix appreciated and honored them. Perhaps the company could have implemented the rate increase and lost only those customers who truly could not afford or did not value Netflix enough to pay the new rate.

You bet that this more-than-money approach makes planning more complex, difficult and sometimes even more costly. With equal amounts of certainly, I know that it also creates a higher probability of success because a business isn’t just money. It is the people, the values, the ideas, and the process within a business.

In writings to come, I intend to share with you some of my thoughts concerning each of the capitals. And when my book is published, you will have a  detailed look at each of the capitals, how they work together and what we are doing at RSJ to keep five eyes on your fence.

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What’s YOUR Pixie Dust?

My kids are all grown up now (gulp), so it’s been a while since I read Peter Pan, but I have to say:  I always loved the story.  The thought that you could sprinkle a little pixie dust on something and it would magically work, always intrigued me.

I thought about this the other day when I was on my way to lunch with Jake, one of my partners, because I swear that one of our supervisors has pixie dust.

Jake was wondering what it was that made it possible for this great supervisor, let’s call her Sue, to leverage her abilities so that multiple folks, working all at the same time on different assignments, always get their jobs done and done right.

While we were talking, I realized that Sue and her team could produce an incredible volume of work with really very little time involvement on Sue’s part.  Others, in her same position, have been unable to be this effective.  

So what’s the difference?

Pixie dust.

Sue sprinkles pixie dust on everything that she touches.  Just like Tinkerbelle leaves a trail of pixie dust behind her, Sue leaves a comment here, a compliment there, a suggestion here, and by spreading her pixie dust as she goes, her subordinates can fly.

Her ability to approach her team in ways that inspire them to get the job done is her pixie dust.

Dan Sullivan of The Strategic Coach coined the term “Unique Ability” many years ago to describe the one thing everyone has that allows them to be incredibly productive, energizing and impactful on the world around them.  

I write about Unique Ability in my book, Say Hello to the Elephants.

Well, now that I’m old and soft (except for my physique, which is now svelte like a rock star), I prefer to call this “pixie dust.” Emotionally, pixie dust is the phrase that really describes just how special your Unique Ability is.

I believe that we all have pixie dust. If you think about your day, where do you shine?  What can you do that produces superior results and impacts people in a way that others cannot replicate?

This is probably your pixie dust.  

I know that you have pixie dust, and you have to find it if you want to leverage that unique thing to make yourself happier and more prosperous.  

Successful people have identified what their pixie dust is and have used it to help them in their vocations.  

I have my own pixie dust, and it has helped me live a life that is magical.  Not to be cheesy (okay, I’m going to be cheesy), but pixie dust has allowed me to fly.

Pixie dust is your unique, intellectual capital. It represents the confluence of what you know and deploy in a way that others cannot.

So how do you find your pixie dust? Here’s step one…

Sit down where it is quiet and list all the things that you do.  Separate these things into four categories:

Things I do well.

Thinks I’m okay at.

Things I do very well...and...

OMG! I’m so good at this it would make your head explode!

That fourth column is where you will find 
your pixie dust.

If you need more help finding your pixie dust, check out the Unique Ability chapter in Say Hello to the Elephants.

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