Expense? Or Investment?

My friend and speaking colleague Mark Gasparotto, former Canadian army colonel, puts it bluntly: “Leadership training is an investment, not an expense.” Having led troops “outside the wire” in Afghanistan, he knows whereof he speaks.

He could not be more correct about leadership training, in fact about any developmental exercise which enhances the value and strength of your team. Or yourself, personally, for that matter. Yet professional firms spend more money on the Christmas party than on investment in tomorrow.

Consider this: most professional firms lay out serious money for search engine optimization (SEO) to ensure that their home page shows up high on the first page of search, earnestly divining the Google tea leaves and writing awkward content to ensure that search engines will like them, and that clients will come to their website.

And once the visitor is lured to the pretty website, what will they find? Paeans of self-praise and Hollywood style headshots, exactly like that of every competitor. And for this exercise in “Me too!”, the firm has laid out tens of thousands of dollars to consultants and web developers. What, you’re looking for clients because they think you’re pretty? Seriously?

For the sake of analysis, put the shoe on the other foot. When you personally are in a pickle, or have a mission-critical need, or are about to lay out a significant chunk of money and time for a once-in-a-lifetime project, how much do you care about pretty websites? Banners in the hockey arena? Jingles on the radio? Let’s be serious– that stuff is for hamburger chains, not professional firms*.

When you’re diagnosed with a mortal illness, the only thing you care about is your doctor’s reputation for success. If you’re charged with a serious indictable offense, you don’t want the guy with the prettiest website, you want the one known for beating these charges. When I’m setting out to build my lifetime net-zero home by the lake, I want an architect known for excellence in such work. I just need to know that when my accountant does my taxes, I win and the taxman loses.

In other words, at the top end of the market, the key driver of success is reputation. All the glitz and signage and banners and websites are just noise. Leave that stuff for Burger King. What you need is one thing, and one thing only: reputation for excellence.

The problem is that most of us don’t have an intuitive sense of how to develop, grow, polish, and protect a professional reputation, although really the answer is fairly obvious. Whatever you focus on, whatever you discipline yourself on, whatever you truly care about, will be what grows. And none of that happens without serious investment of time and effort, and usually some money.

Growing the professional reputation of a firm is tightly linked to character and leadership, and none of these things happen by magic. They all require attention to detail, discipline, and mostly a clear-eyed understanding of how these happen.

But here’s the catch: most professional firms are so busy with “today” that they spend little or no time thinking about “tomorrow”. Thinking about “tomorrow” is what leaders are supposed to do, and if the leaders aren’t doing that, they need help. Strengthen your leadership and you’ll grow your reputation. Build your reputation and strong leadership will evidence itself. But too-busy professionals and entrepreneurs usually need someone to guide them.

This is what Mark Gasparotto’s team (https://gasparotto.co/) does. They literally apply the lessons of the battlefield to business, corporate, and professional leadership, the understanding that the best prepared are the ones who are going to win. And reputation follows.

This is what I do, taking the hard lessons of thirty-seven years in law practice to help professionals burnish and protect the only thing that really matters in a professional career: reputation.

An expense is something you pay today for today, hoping that tomorrow will take care of itself. An investment is something you pay today to make sure that tomorrow is a better day. What’s your priority?

*With the exception of personal injury firms, who advertise all over the place. Want to know why? Send me an email and I’ll tell you.