Simultaneously with my academic studies, which was the subject of my last blog post, I worked either in my employer’s Glasgow office or at the premises of our many clients. So, apart from the double workload, the hardest thing about my life during those six years was that I was almost perpetually in my “Get People to Know, Like and Trust Me” mode.
It wasn’t too bad in the office itself, as there weren’t that many fellow employees, and it wasn’t too long before I had worked with all of them. The fact that I struggled to carry the heavy comptometers and light cups of coffee soon became common knowledge and everybody was very understanding. However, new people joined us every year, and so, as I slowly moved from being a subordinate to being a more senior member of the staff, that proved to require subtly different approaches.
In addition, during my time with the firm, it took part in two amalgamations. Firstly, during my third year, we amalgamated with another small firm, that had offices below ours, which increased the number of partners from 4 to 9 and more than doubled the number of staff. Then, during my sixth and final year, the combined firm was “taken over” by a well-known “International” firm of Chartered Accountants, to become the Glasgow offices of that firm. So, as is written in my C.V., my experience grew concurrently with the size of my employers.
During my third year of employment, including my 9 months full-time at Glasgow University, I was asked to compere the office Christmas party, and that proved to be very successful, which increased my self-confidence immensely.
The more difficult task was the number of clients’ employees I had to get to know and be accepted by. Nobody likes to have their work checked by any stranger, never mind a stranger who has an obvious physical disability, a strained speaking voice, and shaky hands. However, I seemed to have picked up some communication skills from somewhere. It was always a nice feeling when certain clients requested that I return the year after I first visited them.
The work proved to be very varied. From being the junior member of a two-person auditing team, as I described in a previous blog post, to advancing to being the senior member of an auditing team. Interspersed with that, I often produced accounts for small traders whose records amounted to no more than a shoe-box full of receipts and a bundle of bank statements. The variety of industries I had to gain experience in to understand all of the clients’ businesses I audited and/or produced accounts for was immense. I also had to gain knowledge of much larger organizations like local authorities and public utilities.
Although many of our larger clients had rooms full of large banks of computers, no more powerful than the laptop I am using to write this blog post, after I returned from my 9 months at university, the office had acquired some fairly small, pull-the-handle adding machines. They didn’t replace the comptometers used by specialist operators during audits. They helped us when we were producing accounts from “shoe-boxes”. Then either late in my third year or early in my fourth, a colleague from a very well-off family showed off the first calculator I had ever seen. It could only add, subtract, multiply, and divide, but it cost roughly what I earned in 6 months. A few years later, an equivalent calculator was given free in a box of cornflakes.
Around the beginning of my fourth year, I slowly realized something my colleagues probably knew long before I did. My physical difficulties were not the great drawbacks that I had always assumed them to be. In many ways, they were a positive for me. I slowly realized that the fact that I could succeed at such a varied and sometimes difficult job, was recognized and admired by co-workers and clients alike. My way of communicating with others, despite my disability, actually inspired others, which helped them to relax in my presence.
When my communication skills were understood by the partners and managers, I was often asked to be the “forerunner” for new audits. I would go to clients, on my own, to “flowchart” their procedures, before an actual audit team arrived.
Flowcharts depict the movement of documents and information in a business using lines, dotted lines, and various shapes drawn on paper. I had a special plastic template with holes of various shapes which represented things like documents, processes, and files. I had to discuss all aspects of their jobs with everybody in the client’s accounting and related departments. I had to communicate with, and gain the trust of everybody from the most junior clerk to, sometimes, the finance director. I had to alter my interrogation technique as appropriate, as I spoke with each level of staff member.
I would then produce a series of diagrams representing the workings of a client’s accounting and related departments, on which the manager in charge of the audit would prepare what was known as an “audit program” which was based on investigating whether the “internal controls” which my flowcharts had highlighted, were working or not. Or, if my flowcharts indicated that no “internal controls” existed where they should have, this would prompt the audit manager to write a program directing his team to concentrate more of their efforts on these areas.
I truly enjoyed this aspect of my job, as it took me away from actually doing the auditing, whether it was the actual ticking, or the preparation of the audit programs, which I wasn’t very good at, as my poor auditing exam results demonstrated in the last blog post.
So, budding Internet Marketer, what can you learn from my slow progress up the “ladder” of my experience working for a Glaswegian accountancy firm? Well, there are many similarities.
- The Number Of Subjects.
When I first started on my “journey” I naively thought that I only had one thing to learn, “accounting”. I quickly realized that “accounting” was a collective noun for a myriad of subjects and skills. Similarly, most people who decide to “give Internet or Affiliate Marketing a go” quickly realize that many skills are needed before anybody can become a successful Internet or Affiliate Marketer. Chapter 5 of Dean’s book, “The Iceberg Effect”, “The Four Core Areas Of Focus” talks about 4 of them, but, if you want to progress further up “The Perfect Path To 7 Figures (Chapter 7), there are many more skills that are required to succeed.
- Determination.
Whether you are attempting to become a qualified accountant, (or any other career), you have to be dedicated, as you have to be to become a successful Internet Marketer. I worked the equivalent of two jobs, office, and study, for 6 years before I qualified. Then, finally, I could stop, or at least reduce, the study part, although I had to keep up with new developments. I would hazard a guess that 6 years is the average time frame that newbie Internet Marketers need to work two jobs before their Internet Marketing Income becomes sufficiently high and regular that they could stop their “day job” and rely 100% on their Internet income to sustain themselves and their dependents.
- Evolvement.
Just like in the business world, the I.T. world is constantly evolving. During my 6 years in the Glasgow office, Pounds, Shillings, and Pence were replaced by decimal currency. V.A.T. (Sales tax in the US, G.S.T. in Australia) was introduced into the U.K. Tax rules kept changing. During a period of high inflation, accounting for inflation rules were introduced, and then dropped. Mechanical devices started to be introduced, that preceded modern computers (much more about them in future blog posts). And that was only in 6 years. Successful accountants had to deal with all of these changes. Similarly, successful Internet Marketers have to deal with changing algorithms, evolving platforms, the increasing cost of advertising, and so the list goes on and on and on.
- The Gradual Introduction Of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.).
I must mention the latest development that has to be faced by accountants, affiliate marketers, and, indeed, all of society. That is Artificial Intelligence. At the time of writing this blog (early 2025), I am only dipping my toes into the rapidly growing pond, but I know that it is high on my mentor’s list of things he has to understand to stay ahead of the pack. I, as one of his Certified Partners, will be one of the first to benefit from it soon as A.I. develops in the months and years to come. You too could benefit. Before the end of the year, I should be able to offer to my followers, an A.I. generated funnel generator combined with an autoresponder at a very reasonable price.
- Communication.
While A.I. will undoubtedly be one of the most important tools for success in the future, it will not, in my opinion, ever overtake the over-riding skill needed to be a successful affiliate marketer. That over-riding skill is the ability to communicate. As I related to you earlier in this blog post, it was my natural ability to communicate with a wide variety of people that made me so popular as a colleague to my fellow employees and as an external auditor and accountant to my clients. If I refer again to “The For Core Areas Of Focus”, it can be seen that the art of communication forms a greater or lesser part of all 4 core areas. Whether that be by the written word using blogs and emails, or by speech using video, or a combination of both. Communication with prospective customers, be they cold, warm, or hot, is of utmost importance. As the aftermath of a minor stroke I suffered a few years ago, that further weakened my already dodgy voice, I am limited to the written word. but hope that you can be more adventurous and venture into other forms of communication, the most important skill you MUST develop.
Cheers
Phil