Quarterly Themes

For those of you who came to one of our client days, the concept of theming your business every quarter won’t be new to you. For those of you who missed the client day it may sound crazy! But let’s remind everyone about themes for your business, how they work and how the current implementation is progressing on our own set of experimental guinea pigs (the much valued team wehave at APL Accountants). Yes we experiment with everything in our own business before we unleash it on you.

Theming your business invloves decorating it with all sorts of items that have a connection to your most important goal for the quarter. So if for example your goal is increasing active clients then decorate the entire practice showing people running and doing exercise. And yes it brings the business to a new level of weirdness, but more importantly a newlevel of enjoyment, staff engagement and profitability.

Implementation is easy – we let the team know the theme, the goal and the reward for reaching the goal by the end of the quarter. Every staff member has a $15 budget to buy theme related items. A quarter is also a good time to get people to fall into a habit. Get somebody to do something consistently for 3 months and it becomes second nature.

Why theme each quarter – seems childish, waste of time and money, but realise its a concept used by many successful entrepreneurs so defiitely food for thought (good reason to do it, copy other successful people don’t try reinvent the wheel). At APL we were introduced to themes by Rob Nixon founder of proactive accountants network and president of the Entrepreneurs Organisation Brisbane. It was further re-enforced by reading Harnish Verne’s Mastering the Rockerfeller Habits

Secondly, it engages your team. Everyday they are reminded of the main goal for the quarter. The team becomes aligned and share a common goal. Increase in profit becomes a by product of their engagement.

Lastly, it’s fun! When Venessa came to her interview at our office, we were in ‘showtime’ theme. She saw Broadway pictures on the walls and Broadway bowlerhats at every desk. She told us once we employed her that her first impression was that she really wanted to work at this office!

We just completed oure-fish-encies theme with the team collectively finding $60,000 in savings through improving efficiency (including time saving by having a dish washer!). The office was decorated with fish and fish nets and at the end of the quarter the reward was shutting the office for the afternoon and going to Sanctuary Cove for an upmarket meal of… you guessed it fish!

Now we are in the next quarter – clouds. Goal is to get ALL our software in the cloud by the end of March. The reward is a ‘heavenly’ massage for everyone with a mobile massage service visiting us.

Some of you have embraced the themes concept already-
Doggy tooth fairies have featured in Ipswich with big doggy toys dressed as fairies hanging from the ceiling. Believe it or not dentistry has improved!

We would love you to share your themes with us, or if you haven’t done so then get the ball rolling and tell us about it. Send your photos to admin@aplaccountants.com.au and let’s bring fun and profit into veterinary practice!