Lessons for Life
10. Be careful of the Three Wise Men.
Don’t let your accountant, lawyer, and banker run your business. Every troubled business has weak advisors. Sometimes they are weak because they just don’t have enough experience. Always try to find the best and the brightest in each field and make sure they stick to giving you advice only in their area of expertise.
Understand, accountants, lawyers, and bankers often think they are businessmen—but they’re not. Your accountant is there to principally help you with tax matters—that’s it. Accountants generally are not great at finance; finance is about predicting the business’s financial needs, while accounting is about tallying about the past flows of the business. It’s about what happened last month or last quarter. Your lawyer is there to give you legal advice—that’s it. Run fast from a lawyer who starts telling you which markets you should enter and exit. Too often, particularly with more senior attorneys, they feel that they are “businessmen” because they’ve drafted so many legal documents—but they’re not. They’re not managing the business, day in and day out, dealing with countless issues that arise. They sit an office, reviewing contracts that were drafted by their juniors. Finally, with regard to your banker, it’s the same as above. Your banker is there to sell you money—that’s it. You borrow from them, they make a profit from you, and the relationship should end there. Of course, you want to make them feel comfortable about your business so you should provide them with a lot of detail. Why? Because the more certain they are, the more they will lend you, if you need it.
Task: Review clear goals and expectations for each Wise Man/Woman. Keep each one of them in their own lane. They can have group meetings but all of them should understand their place in the stakeholder group.