Donna Genie recounts a personal story about collaborating with accounting colleagues and encourages viewing peers as collaborators rather than competitors. She describes how advising colleagues to specialize in an industry niche led them to a better lifestyle (extensive travel and different life outcomes), illustrating the benefits of focused specialization and peer information-sharing.
We've talked a lot before about your competition and how they're really not your competition. And I want to tell you a little story about a personal situation that I've been involved in. I have worked with a couple of other accounting friends, groups, colleagues, where we share information. We try to make each other's practices. Look at your competition as your best buds. These are people doing the same things you are. You have so much in common with them. Join in. One of our good friends that I have known is another couple, wife is a CPA and my husband works in the practice as well and does sales and marketing. And we had a conversation the other day. We catch up at so often and see what's going on and any new finds that we have. And he said to me, I want to thank you. He said, we've been on the road traveling for five weeks straight now. They were on three back to back cruises and also spent a week in the Puerto Rico. He said, I have to thank you from the bottom of my heart because you told us many years ago that we should specialize in a particular industry niche and really dive deeply in rather than just spreading general knowledge around. And that has caused us to have a different life than I ever expected.
