Years ago I attended a retirement party in London for the FD of a top company during which, after no doubt a few glasses of wine, he made this observation to me in terms of career advice. I was struggling with the words that evening but worked it out the next day.
More than twenty years later, a few months ago we re-branded to make really clear how very focussed we are. I hope we've succeeded. Over the twenty years we have aimed to follow his advice. Now we have two services but they don't interfere with each other. Our Main Thing is bookkeeping with management accounts.
We look around at the closest we can find as our competitors and invariably they offer far more services. We're very comfortable with this but perhaps I shouldn't say so. Of course it goes beyond branding into doing, so that needs a check from time to time. What's your Main Thing and is it the Main Thing?
Anthony Pilkington
MD, BookCheck Ltd