What's on your menu?

Last night's dinner menu featured "freshly dug carrot salad." Since I'm not a California native, this is not the kind of thing I am used to ordering, or even seeing on a menu. I'm not sure that much information would even fit on the label at the Shoney's breakfast buffet in Greenville, SC. 

But a funny thing happened. That little piece of extraneous information got me thinking. As I considered the rest of the menu I started wondering about the way they talk about food out here in California. You have your Kobe beef, your Arbuckle grits, (yes even the grits have brand names), and your Meyer lemons. At any given meal, you might be served pork cheeks or Himalayan sea salt. When you get ready to order, you better allow at least 15 minutes for the poor waiter to try to run through all of the details of every ingredient right down to the color of the pepper flakes.

I think these restaurant folks are on to something. They make even the most mundane of items, the lowly carrot for example, sound interesting, and even exotic. And by telling me they are "freshly dug" they are making me question every other carrot salad I order from any other restaurant. The bar has been raised. From now on, if I don't see "freshly dug" next to my carrot raisin salad at the S&S cafeteria, I'm going to order something else. 

How can we take this same idea and apply it to professional services? The accounting profession needs to move from the buffet line of tax compliance and basic accounting services to the fine dining menu by offering unique and highly prized services that can aid people in making their dreams come true. We have the skills to be master chefs, but as a profession, we CPAs often settle for a role as a short order cook. 

We need to share a unique angle when we describe our services.

• We don't just file tax returns, we take the pain out of tax filings.
• We help people turn chaos into order, make sense out of their numbers, and read the story of their business.
• We are financial wizards, trained to interpret the myriad rules and regulations that impact today's businesses. 
• We need to really appreciate the difference we make in people's lives and communicate it. 

Let's get rid of plain, boring descriptions, unless you happen to work for this firm (UPDATE: sadly this amazing firm used to have an entire marketing campaign based on boring, now they are just talking about being different) and start raising our client's expectations about the real value of the insight we accountants provide. 

Now how about some freshly researched tax planning ideas? 

Photo via Colorline, Flickr