Are lawyers brighter than accountants?

Mark Lee Tweeted that he was about to publish a new post:

Just written an article for publication next week: “Are accountants as stupid as lawyers?” Improvement on an old blog: http://bit.ly/Y9cZr

You have to read the whole original piece where Mark is referencing a talk by David Maister but the end section is worth noting:

…if you are like many accountants, and certainly those in larger firms, you will be encouraged to record all time spent with clients as potentially billable. Irrecoverable time costs are frowned upon so best avoided. What behaviour does that approach, that VERY COMMON approach, discourage? In effect it acts as a disincentive to spend time building and developing relationships that could, indeed should, help you to win more valuable and profitable work than your more general and unfocused networking and advertising.

So tell me, are accountants as ’stupid’ as lawyers?

I have no insight into how Mark plans to update the post so I could be wholly wrong – but then your words live forever. Right?

We’re all prone to open generalizations and Mark’s original article certainly has that in spades, failing to point out that there are alternatives to the way you look at your business. For example, why should the billable hour dictate all that we do? The evidence I’ve seen and the experiences I’ve had suggest that the billable hour shackles us from getting things done.

Last week, a colleague was bemoaning the ability to ascribe hours to business development in a meaningful way, largely because they are working on a time based method of recording activity. From this Ivory Tower, that sounds like nonsense. Just how do you figure ROI on biz dev and how do you deal with the costs associated with that activity? Like innovation, I’d suggest you reckon on hitting the ball out the park 1:10 as a conservative starting point and make that the basis for internal discussion on how to win new business. Always remember that no-one ever questions what happened to bring in that top tier client do they? Instead, they forget all the failed attempts elsewhere and concentrate on the prize. That’s human nature. Coincidentally, that 1:10 argument dovetails to Mark’s observations about the effort needed to win new business. What he fails to assess is the value that a new client can bring.

On the other hand, developing new business out of existing is a fine art and not something that can be applied equally. In my case, my original client portfolio was made up of basket cases we nurtured out of difficulty that came to us via bank referral. In the long term, these were some of our most successful clients. They came back to us time and again on everything from buying their next business to the colour of their recently acquired Porsche. One client came to us because we were acting in litigation against them. Another came based on direct industry knowledge and experience. And so it goes. But don’t be fooled; it isn’t as easy as I make it sound.

A couple of weeks ago a partner said to me that clients only let you in so far and that even though you might think you have industry experience based on handling a number of similar cases, you actually only see a slice of what a particular business or industry is about. There is truth in that but I’d equally argue that developing a client relationship is as much about getting your hands dirty as it is about crunching the numbers. I’d always recommend asking a client if you could do something, anything, in their business for a week on a voluntary basis. Fancy serving dinners in a care home? How about holding the silly end of a surveyor’s tape? Or what about wrangling the lights in a theatre production? A week is less than 2% of your whole year but could yield massive rewards. It’s an investment.

My argument would not be: Are accountants as ’stupid’ as lawyers? I think there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. Rather, how willing are you to be different and demonstrate that you want to learn? Of course you could still carry on with those outmoded ad campaigns and clapped out websites.

UPDATE: Mark has now updated his post but my opinion stands. If anything, he seems to be giving muddled ‘tips.’ Although talking about working with existing, his tips are peppered with advice about how you might induce clients to talk to peers, presumably with a view to winning ‘new.’

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Tagged as: Business development, David Maister