توضیحات ای جی

BEC : Accounting -AJ

Hello, this is AJ. Welcome to my commentary. So if you are an accountant or a financial person, all of this probably sounded very, very easy and simple to you. On the other hand if you’re not, all of this maybe sounded quite complex and maybe not too exciting.

I’m not an accountant or a financial person and have had to learn some of this however just as a business owner, so I do understand people who feel like this stuff is not interesting and they don’t want to deal with it or think about it.

However, I have come to understand how thinking in this way and understanding the real basics of accounting how important that is. It is very, very important. I think the key thing is that you give yourself a huge advantage if you understand kind of the financial side of the business, just the basic ideas of income and expenses, the basic ideas of assets and liabilities of cash flowing in and cash flowing out.

When you understand these things you start to think a little more like a businessperson.

So even if your job is to be a trainer within a company or maybe your job is to be a manager of some small group that’s manufacturing something, you still need to think like a businessperson. That means that you’re focusing on generating and creating more money coming in or cutting expenses so that less money goes out. I mean that’s the super, super basic way to look at it.

It’s surprising, actually, how in so many businesses in so many departments that so many employees don’t think about any of this stuff. The managers typically think about it because they have to. They’re being forced to by their bosses and their boss’s bosses, but a lot of employees in various departments don’t think about this at all. I know I never did in most of my jobs. I never thought about any of this stuff. I was just, you know give me my paycheck. Where’s my paycheck.

I wanted my paycheck and I focused on my job duties, my basic job duties. So if they told me my job was to teach six classes a week and each one was two hours then I focused on doing that and that’s all I ever thought about until later in my career when I started realizing that all the schools I was working for were, in fact, businesses and I figured out aha! Boy, the owners of these schools they really, really, really care about getting more students who are paying money. That is very important to them.

They also care about cutting expense. So as I started to develop my teaching methods I started thinking more like a businessperson too and I realized that an easy way to have job security was to attract more students, more paying students and to keep my expenses low. So don’t add to my expenses and bring in more income. I did that and guess what? I became the favorite teacher of the managers and it was simply because they were happy because my students were happy and enthusiastic and all of that.

What they were really happy about was the fact that my students were happy and they were bringing their friends to the school and that the friends were joining the school also. So I was helping create more income for the school and I didn’t really have expenses other than my salary. I didn’t travel. I didn’t even use textbooks, in fact. That was another thing. I told my boss eventually that I didn’t want to use textbooks, I didn’t need to. I cut that expense. I had my own method. I created my own lessons, my own stories. I didn’t need textbooks. I didn’t want to use them. So, in fact, I reduced my expenses somewhat and I increased the income for the school and therefore became a popular teacher, good job security.

Well, you can do this in any profession. Any job you can think this way. It requires a shift in thinking and the main shift - the main change - is instead of focusing on your duties, your job duties as they are listed in your job description, you just forget all of that and instead you focus on contribution. How can I contribute to my customers, if you’re dealing with customers, or to my team, if you have a team or a department, and then, definitely, to the company. So you think about that.

You think about the big picture --the company. How can I contribute to the company? Well, usually that means how can I help the company by bringing in more money, making more money for the company and/or by cutting expenses, reducing expenses even a little bit? How can I help the team or the department? Again, you can look at expenses, cutting expenses, or if your department actually creates income, deals with customers, then you can look about how can we get more customers? How can we make more money? Another thing you can look at is how can you get more work done without increasing your expenses? That’s a way of kind of creating more money too. So if you’re more productive, meaning you do more work, you do more excellent work for the same or less money, the same or less expenses, that’s also a big benefit to the company and to your team and your department.

You can also look at this in non-financial terms. In terms of contribution how can I contribute to my team? Well, you can also contribute, of course, by being a friendly, helpful, supportive person. When someone on your team is having a tough time you help them, you encourage them. If someone has a lot of work to do then you know maybe you help them. Be careful with that. Some people will use you if you do it and they’ll want you to always help them.

They can kind of suck all the energy out of you so you have to be careful with that, but in general this idea of contribution. Focusing on, how can I help? How can I do more? How can I make the department better? How can I help the company get better? By thinking in that way you will instantly become different than 95% of the other employees.

It’s probably higher than that, it’s probably like 99% or something.

Most people working in any job are only thinking about themselves and their duties.

They’re not thinking about contributing. They’re certainly not thinking about doing extra stuff beyond their duties and they’re almost never thinking about how they can cut expenses, make more money, bring in more customers, make the customers even happier and make their team more efficient and productive.

Most people just don’t do that. I don’t know why. I mean one reason is possibly because they’ve had a history of bad managers who punished them for doing things like that. It does happen, but you’ve just got to keep going forward anyway. Eventually, you’ll jump over that manger if they’re not helpful, if they’re not supportive. Their job depends on those kinds of things, so if they’re not doing a good job of that eventually they’re going to be gone or you can be gone. Go find another job. Find a better job.

So don’t let a bad manager hold you back. Keep trying. Keep thinking in this way. Learn about the financial statements. Look at the budget of your department. Look at the balance sheet for your company. If it’s a public company you can get that easily and, again, just try to find ways to contribute in every possible way. If someone is difficult, if you have a bad manager who doesn’t appreciate this then start using your job search skills that we taught you and start looking for another job. Start looking for a manager who will appreciate that and will understand what you’re doing.

So in terms of really becoming special and different, in terms of really increasing your job security, in terms of really building a fantastic career and moving forward in your career in whatever way you want to, this is the big thing. This is the big shift. This is the big change you must make in your attitude, in your thinking. It means not focusing on your duties, it means instead focusing on contribution, contribution, contribution.

How can I contribute to the company? How can I contribute to my department? How can I contribute to my teammates? How can I make more money for the company? How can I cut expenses? How can I help everyone do a better job? That is the thing to focus on. Do that. By focusing on that big contribution, I guarantee, I guarantee that you will move forward in your career.

The End.