“The only way to have a friend is to be one”

As people made there way into the auditorium, they didn’t know what to expect from well known motivational speaker and corporate trainer Paddy Spruce. Perhaps they were hoping Paddy could provide them with some inspiration, motivation, energy and optimism during these tough economic times.

As soon as the audience got themselves comfortably seated, Paddy asked the people sitting at the back to find a seat closer to stage. As this happened and people found seats next to strangers, introductions were being made left, right and centre. One of objectives of the session had been achieved! New friendships were being made amongst the CPA revellers!

Paddy began his presentation by outlining some key points on how to make a great first impression and also how to influence people. Although a lot of these points were nothing new to a lot of people, I thought to myself how some of these simple points that Paddy raised could dramatically enhance ones relationships, both personal and business.

Whilst Paddy provided the audience with plenty of useful tips and pointers, some of the key points I took out of the presentation included:

Make a good first impression

• Dress to impress
• Smile
• Firm handshake
• Look the person in the eye
• Remember name
• Look interested

Winning friends

• Become an optimist
• Listen more than you talk
• Don’t complain
• Be loyal and reliable
• Offer help
• Drop your ego

In relation to the last point, “Drop your ego”, Paddy spent some time talking about “ego”. The points that he raised were all valid and I couldn’t help but think of my colleagues, clients and friends who had a big “ego” and whether they were successful at “Winning friends”. And Paddy was right, people with an ego are often too focussed on themselves, they are often controlling, need to be superior, have a false sense of self, they live in the past, likes attention and conflict. How can someone with such traits be optimistic, a good listener, offer help? The key points to “Winning Friends”. Funnily enough, David Gonski’s in his presentation later that afternoon mentioned that he won a lot of business by stroking peoples ego!

At the end of the presentation, whilst I did not feel like I had drunk ten Red Bulls, it did make me think about how I could improve on my personal and business relationships and how to make a good impression! All of this takes time and assessment of yourself…time to turn off the ego!

We hope that our readers find this useful in terms of developing new contacts and forging stronger relationships with staff, clients and industry contacts. Professional services and particularly accounting is very much a relationship business. This was a point raised in the small business enterpreneurship session yesterday as well. It is definently an area we can all continually improve on.

The Taxabull team is attending the CPA Congress as a guest of CPA Australia.

You can follow us on twitter: twitter.com/austax

Cheers,

Taxabull team.

We will do a write up of each of the three days we are attending, including a separate write up of some of the key sessions we were allowed access to. By way of disclosure, we were guest bloggers with media access and given permission to cover certain sessions at the conference.

Our overrall impression was that the conference was really well run. The sessions generally ran on time and they even had a gong lady (i.e. a lady with a huge cymbal) that would signal that some of the sessions were starting! There were tea breaks inbetween and you could congregate in a common tea area for coffee, water, muffins and biscuits. In that area there were also exhibits where you could check out vendor services.

Sessions

There was a variety of different sessions to select from. Participants had to preselect which sessions they were attending, as some of them such as the roundtables had limited capacity. It was the first CPA Congress we have attended, and we actually thought it would have more accounting focus on the sessions but it was more of general business nature.

This year’s theme is “The Way Forward”, which focuses on how business will address the upcoming challenges of the global financial crisis and forge their way ahead. It is a conversation that has dominated business in the past 12 months in the workplace, with clients, suppliers, and within the accounting profession. Overrall, most of the presenters were optimistic about the next 12 months, as the Australian economy did not go into as deep a recession as other economies, and we are recovering a lot faster.

We attended a monster lineup of sessions! Check it out:

• Keynote 1: Challenges and opportunities: The economy in 2009/10
• Business Roundtable: The economy, financial markets and your business – Part A
• Using accounting information to drive strategy
• Business Lunch: Sports Panel – Strategy, leadership, and teamwork
• China/Asian business overview
• Achieve more for less – building a company, building a brand and building a life
• Case Study: NASA – managing risks in complex environments
• Complementary session: Beyond the downturn – getting ahead in small business

As you can see it was quite a lot! We will post a write up of a few of the sessions we attended.

Each session had a moderator and a presenter, and was generally full. The first keynote had approximately 1,000 attendees, possibly more to hear Craig James, Chief Equities Economist of Comsec speak about the state of the economy. Throughout the day the numbers fluctuated and you couldn’t tell how many people were at the conference as people funneled off to their respective sessions. However, by lunch time, everyone gathered for the business lunch, and the place was packed! Nearly every seat was taken. There had to be easily 700 people at that lunch.

We have a lot of great photos from the lunch including one with retired basketball star Andrew Gaze, and new CPA President Alex Malley.  We also took plenty of photos throughout the conference which we will post onto Flickr at a later date, and also within some of the posts.

Roundtables

We accidentally walked into one of the Roundtable sessions. There was a bit of a mix up, but we’re pleased to say that we did attend.  The Roundtables are closed sessions, where there are three big roundtables with an expert on each table. Participants get to ask questions of the expert on their table. As the questions were more of a personal nature for the participants, the media cannot report on the content of those sessions. What we can blog about is the format.  We liked the sessions as they were that it was more of an intimate affair, as people get to ask questions relevant to their business or situation.

It is a striking contrast to the lecture style presentation in the large auditorium where the presenter is talking to a large crowd. Having small groups facilitates greater group discussion. However, to get the most of the session, we encourage particapants to come with pre-prepared questions to kick off the discussion. You will find that one discussion will lead to others jumping in with their points and questions flowing from that. So come prepared!

The venue

We’ve have been to Darling Harbour convention centre several times in the past for conferences. But they have usually been in one place (i.e one auditorium or just the main hall). This was the first time we’d been to a full day session with a lot of different locations.  For someone that spent the whole day there, we were quite confused as to where to go. Eventually we realised we needed the timetable booklet. It had a map inside, but it was too small.

So it was just easier to ask the CPA staff and Sydney convention staff around the place. There were certaintly a lot of them around, so we quickly found out where to go. Perhaps next time they could print a bigger map on an single A4 page. By the end of the day, we knew the whereabouts of the rooms so Day 2 should be a lot smoother for us.

The Taxabull team is attending the CPA Congress as a guest of CPA Australia.

You can follow us on twitter: twitter.com/austax

Cheers,

Taxabull team.