are you ready to say yes?
by ed mendlowitz
call me before you do anything: the art of accounting
i certainly have been fortunate in my career to become involved in a wide range of activities including interesting clients, great staff and partners, appearing on television, writing articles and books and presenting speeches. people always ask me what i did to get started. my answer is simple: “i never passed up an opportunity that came my way.”
more: when to say no to pro bono work | large clients we landed from quickbooks consulting | 26 value-added benefits clients need to know | how an out-of-work tax preparer ‘saved’ our lives | i always want to be ’the other guy’s accountant’
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i have seen many accountants and others pass by – literally kicking aside – opportunities immediately in their path, and then they wonder when they will get their “big break.” what a shame for them.
a great deal of my success has not been caused by aggressiveness to seek out opportunities, but an aggressiveness to take advantage of what was handed to me. many times i tried and wasn’t able to succeed, only to then have something pop up in front of me. other times i was asked if i could do something i never imagined i would ever be able to do, but i tried it or learned to do it.
everything has a story. i’ve given examples of large clients we got from our ads for quickbooks consulting, how i saved a company and how i got a referral from an adversary. meeting bill hagaman and our subsequent merger into withumsmith+brown was fortuitous because we went to lunch, even though we had no intentions of merging but kept an open mind (and knew we would get a great lunch at an expensive restaurant). the anecdote about lenny “saving our lives” also happened by accident but depended on a long-term relationship that developed from inviting him to our in-house cpe, and so on.
the point is opportunities abound all over, but you need to be alert to them and then pounce. carpe diem (seize the day)!
one response to “don’t pass up opportunities”
erin kidd
when someone focuses on helping people and sharing their talents, everyone wins. and taking on much needed tasks in an organization and completing them timely, on budget, and pleasantly will open more doors than most realize.
“opportunity is often dressed in overalls and looks like work.”