My accountant is stressing me out

This is the time of year when my accountant always stresses me out.

I load him up with spreadsheets and data files and government-required hardcopy forms and he just says vaguely, “Okay, I’ll take it from here.”

And then I don’t hear from him for weeks. And I know that it’s his busy season so I try to give him some space, but April 15 is looming and I’ve gotta get this return filed and I’ve gotta know how much tax I need to pay so I don’t get a penalty!

And then it gets to be April 12 (two days ago) and I’m thinking, “How is he even going to have enough time to finish my return?”

And then I get an email from him with a couple questions and then within a couple hours the entire return is done. And it turns out he’s found and corrected some teensy errors in the reports I gave him. Plus he’s identified some additional deductions we can take and caught some that we shouldn’t take.

I’m always baffled at how he can do it all so fast when it would take me a full week even using TurboTax to go through all this. And I actually don’t know how long it takes him – I don’t care. I pay him for the result of knowing that my tax return is completed correctly and that I’m paying the correct amount. And after I calm down, I don’t even care that he doesn’t keep me posted along the way.

That’s a good model for how we should ultimately deliver our unique value to the marketplace and how we should be compensated for it.

Somehow over the years I’ve developed the ability to look at a media pitch on a topic that’s entirely new to me and immediately come up with two or three ways to tune it up. And I’ve figured out a business model that allows me to share that unique ability with as many people as possible – the Smart PR Inner Circle.

You might not be there yet – you might still be getting paid based on an hourly billable rate or essentially for showing up at work. But it doesn’t have to always be that way, and you don’t even need to start your own business to get there.

Start by identifying the business results that you are uniquely capable of achieving – those results that seem to come easier to you than other people.

Then, over time, reframe the way that other people within your organization (or your clients) view you. Position yourself not as the person they pay to respond to their emails quickly or the person they pay to be in the office Monday through Friday, but instead the person they pay to get those business results.

Once that happens, the stuff on the periphery – like the hours you work and whether you work in the office or not – loses importance to them.

One of my Inner Circle members runs an office for her PR agency and works from home once or twice a week and leaves at four on the days she does go to the office.

Another more junior member had to go through a formal process, but was approved to leave work at 3:30 every Wednesday. Then he earned more success and decided to leave for an organization that was more interested in acquiring his talent than when and where he worked.

We open the Inner Circle only twice a year – the next enrollment is in May, and the slots usually sell out quickly. Get more info by registering for a free Inner Circle Preview Pass.