This is what was said to a Dublin Accountant this week.

The fellow was complaining of the money he had lost on a property investment that he went into with his eyes wide open. He didn’t see the crash coming and was blaming the resort developer, Bobby Ginn.

Coincidentally, I was with an old friend this week who used to be the contractor for the same Bobby Ginn. Charlie is now in his 60’s and thought back over the past 10 years. With the benefit of hindsight, he was able to say that the Ginn people did not go out to lose people money but they were caught in the same decline that everyone else was.

Charle asked the accountant, “when you signed on the dotted line, did anyone put a gun to your head?” The sheepish man answered “No”. His wife chimed in “I told you so”.

The moral of the tale is that everyone makes mistakes, but playing the blame game will only last so long. Eventually, someone will say “did anyone put a gun to your head

Here at Barry Accountants if there is one thing we have learned in the past 5 years is that to have business growth, you have to focus on what you are good at. There is so much distraction these days from mobile phones, staff, walk in’s, unsolicited phone calls, meetings, faxes, tv, radio that it’s hard to think straight, never mind perform.

You know what to do, You’re Just not doing it!  (Title of upcoming book by Jeffrey Gitomer)

To remind you of what you already know, but have temporarily forgotten then do the following.

1. Take emails off your mobile phone
2. Only check them at a predefined time in the late afternoon (e.g. 2 pm)
3. Answer them all the same afternoon
4. Write your ” To Do” List for the next day and attack it from the morning on

This way, you aren’t being diverted from what you plan to do. There is an industry built around Time management courses, but you already know what to do.

Prioritise and eliminate distractions.

It’s the only way for business growth to have any chance of success.

I attended an AIB  breakfast briefing recently on new procedures being brought into play by the nationalised Irish bank.  The starting 1/2 hour was all about themselves and the economy, not about the customer and immediately lost the attention of the audience. The breakfast kept everyone awake as we prayed for the “economy improving” speech to end.

When that did mercifully end, and 2 of the 15 people had left, it was a pity because now the real information was forthcoming.

The local manager, (a good man)  revealed that they don’t want to see you in the branch anymore, they would prefer you contacted them with your query and they would come out to visit you at your place of business and go through the details there?

What?

This was a bombshell. And a welcome one.

The bank are now interested in understanding business owners and entrepreneurs and not just sitting and waiting for reams of paper to arrive in that they can write letters back about. The new heads of AIB have now trained and communicated to their team that phoning up and “can you make a lodgment” requests eventually lead to the house of cards falling, as it always ignored other essential debts like, vat, electricity, repairs and food.

In business, you have got to be out there physically on a routine basis, shaking hands and kissing babies and finding out what is happening on the ground.

Well done AIB, you may yet rise again with this approach.

On a recent visit to Florida, and I was seated on the Aer Lingus plane beside a group of people who were visiting New York and Philadelphia to promote their on the QVC shopping channel.

• Killarney Crystal,

• Killronan sweaters,

• Belleek Pottery among many others.

Except for I was in the company of these people I wouldn’t have been aware of this shopping channel medium. I took the liberty of tuning in at the appointed time and was highly impressed at the skills of the presenter, Jennifer Coffey and that of the Irish entrepreneurs selling their wares. Nevin Maguire represented Belleek and was by far the most experienced. Yet all the other people were very competent with a lot less experience.

It was so skilfully done and it was a wake-up call as to the huge  market that is the USA. Virtually everybody there speaks English and the ease with which one Channel covers the entire country meant that the potential for enormous  sales is right there. Many of the businesses sold everything they had. The prices were affordable and payment terms were excellent (three easy payments).

The rest of us would be well advised to check this out for future.