What’s Working, What’s Not in Accounting Marketing Today
Accountants pinpoint winning strategies and bottom-line results. Join the survey; get the topline results. by Rick Telberg New CPA Trendlines research conducted [...]
Firms at Strategy Session Find Their ‘Rock Stars’
CPA firm decision-makers hammer out the best clues to identify partner-potential professionals and how best to recruit, develop and retain them at a strategy session in Milwaukee.
Hint: It’s not about how smart they are or hard they work.
By Rick Telberg
How do you spot the hidden rock stars on your staff?
And what do up-and-coming tax, accounting and finance professionals need to know to get ahead in today’s profession?
Rick Telberg leading the strategy session
These aren’t idle questions. Many firms and individuals are struggling with these issues right now. But don’t take it from me. Just listen to the decision-makers from a dozen firms I met with in a Milwaukee hotel recently. The mission: Learn how to deal with a looming new staff shortage. Some took away solid action plans. “Our firm,” said one, “is trying to develop our rock stars and this showed me we need to be doing more.” Another said, “Excellent! It gave us the details and the ‘how-to.’”
Green Team's top talent indicators notes
Interestingly, the Milwaukee group’s conclusions and recommendations closely parallel our related research findings. So we can be fairly certain that we’ve obtained some of the profession’s favorite strategies.
You could probably adapt one of our methods for your firm. In Milwaukee, we divided the group into two teams, the Green Team and the Blue Team. After some preliminary coaching, each team hammered out a list of the top five talent indicators – the clues in an employee’s behaviors and attitudes that demonstrate the highest likelihood of the best ROI for a firm’s time, energy, and money in training, coaching and mentoring. Then the group filled several flip chart pages with their lists and hashed them out with each other. After identifying the key indicators, we moved on to identifying the best strategies for recruiting, grooming and retaining top talent.
Blue Team's top talent indicators notes
By far, the top predictive indicator across all firms is the trait, “They are always trying to improve.” It comes in a few flavors or variations. For instance, the Green Team at the Milwaukee strategy meeting favored a passion for “continuous learning.” The Blue Team preferred, “They do ‘extra credit’ – things that the partners wouldn’t normally expect from someone at their level.” But they add up to the same thing.
In a CPA Trendlines online survey, Darrell Hillis at Hillis & Clark CPAs in Nashville might be thinking along the same lines when he tells us that, in his opinion, the single best predictive indicator is “Someone who enjoys their work and always looking for ways to learn.”
Likewise, Anthony Aleta at WD Tax Services in Thousand Oaks, Calif., tells us he would look for “someone who regularly improves themselves, others around them and the firm as a whole.” Survey participants are eligible to receive free top-line findings. Click here to join the survey; get the results.
Anthony Aleta EA
Based on the CPA Trendlines survey, it now seems clear that the five top talent predictive indicators are:
- “They are always trying to improve.”
- “They understand the importance of bringing in new business.”
- “People listen to them.”
- “Clients say good things about them.”
- “They increasingly handle the relationship with the client.”
These are good clues for hiring managers and job-seekers alike.
Sandra Wiley
Among our panel of experts, Sandra Wiley, of Boomer Consulting and one of the profession’s leading performance management advisors tells us to look for employees who are “are constantly asking the question, ‘how can I get better, and can I try… (fill in the blank)?” In addition, she says, they take “personal responsibility for their own career advancement.”
Peyton Burch, an Arthur Andersen alum now at Intacct software, looks for one critical item: “Passion.”
Surprisingly, good grades and long hours may be essential to getting started in this business. But grades and hours fall to the bottom of the list for winning new opportunities and winning advancement.
Joe Eckelkamp
“A high level of technical competency and a strong work ethic are givens and not differentiators,” says Joe Eckelkamp at The E&A CFO Group in St. Louis, and another one of our go-to people for expert advice. “You cannot succeed without them,” he says, adding, “But the ability to understand the importance of business relationships and to see opportunities where others see obstacles is what sets a person apart.”
Survey participants are eligible to receive free top-line findings. Join the survey; get the results.
A&A Update: Terms of Engagement [PODCAST]
Listen free to Dr. Tom Ratcliffe’s audio summary
Click here to start the podcast
Also: AU-C Section 200 and Private Company Audits.
by Dr. Tom Ratcliffe, Ph.D, CPA
Plain-English Accounting
Ratcliffe
AU-C Section 210: Terms of Engagement
The clarified and converged auditing technical literature includes responsibilities that need to be addressed by practitioners in agreeing upon terms of the audit engagement with management and, where appropriate, those charged with governance.
AU-C Section 200: Overall Auditor Objectives
Before diving into the specific requirements within the clarified auditing standards, it is important for practitioners to understand their overall objectives when they are performing financial statement audits to comply with U.S. generally accepted auditing standards.
Private Company Audits: “Scaling” Authoritative Literature Guidance
When auditors are attempting to apply the authoritative literature in audits of smaller private companies, they might be able to take advantage of “scaling” the requirements in the auditing literature to fit the needs of each particular engagement.
PLAIN-ENGLISH MEMBERS: Today’s complete discussion materials
are now available through your Plain-English subscription.
The next quarterly webcast is scheduled for Tuesday, August 7, 2012 from 2:00 – 4:00pm Eastern. Join today through CPA Trendlines, save 10% on your annual firm-wide subscription and get the webcast for free.
NON-MEMBERS: Click here to save 10% on a full year subscription to Plain-English Accounting when you mention CPA Trendlines.
What’s In Your Welcome Kit for New Prospects?
Eight must-have’s and 10 more new ideas.
Sandi Smith, Accountant's Accelerator
By Sandi Smith, CPA
Accountant’s Accelerator
If you’ve spent any time at all in business talking with prospects on the phone or in person, then you probably have a list of benefits or advantages that you like to mention about your company to every prospect. You may have a very structured way of going about this, and you may not.
In any case, building a prospect kit will help you become even more consistent in the presentation of your company’s strong points to prospects. And, it’s absolutely essential as you move into larger and larger business deals.
A prospect kit is a sales tool that you can use to communicate information about your business to prospects.
Here’s a list of the most basic items that can go in an initial prospect kit: READ MORE →
How to Balance the Six Jobs of Managing Partner
Gary Adamson, Adamson Advisory
You run the job, or it runs you over.
by Gary Adamson
Adamson Advisory
Most of us are thrust into the managing partner role in our firms with little or no training or coaching. Who teaches you to be an effective MP? How do you know if you’re performing well?
Your partners won’t tell you. If you’re new to the job, do you just do it the same way as your predecessor? Is that the best approach for the firm? Who will mentor you?
As I can attest from experience in running my firm for over 20 years, it is a thankless job. I just took a deep breath and jumped in. The best feedback that most of us get is from other managing partners and from benchmarking ourselves against other firms. There are not too many places to turn for help.
More by Gary Adamson for CPA Trendines PRO members
(Log in or Go PRO here)
How CPA Firms Make Money in Turbulent Times and
The Partner Compensation Checklist
Whether you are new at the job or a veteran, here is an approach to organizing the job into six buckets that will help you. It is how I approached the responsibilities and it lends itself to dividing and conquering with the ability to delegate some responsibilities.
Here are my six buckets: READ MORE →
Is ‘Rounds’ the Next Big Thing in Video Chat?
Rounds on Facebook
If Facebook has a say, maybe yes. Four things your firm needs to know.
by Becky Livingston
Royal Apple Marketing
If your firm has a Facebook page with any number of followers, a new app could easily replace other conference video chats and webinar platforms for learning and development, content, development projects, and more.
How to Spot Top Talent
What’s partner material at your firm?
Click here to join the survey; get the results.
The CPA Trendlines Top Talent Survey 2012
by Rick Telberg
CPA Trendlines
Early returns from the new CPA Trendlines survey into identifying and managing high-potential professionals suggests that, beyond ability, firms are more intent than ever on finding well-rounded individuals capable of taking initiative and developing new business.
Above is a word picture of some of the verbatim responses we’re capturing. What are the traits you look for in new hires? Here are a few of the more interesting answers: READ MORE →
13 Reasons Timesheets Will Never Die
Ed Mendlowitz
Nor should they.
by Edward Mendlowitz, CPA
Partner, WithumSmith+Brown
Time sheets are an essential part of any professional services organization. Some people contend that they should not be maintained since they should not be the basis of any pricing – that fees should be solely based on the value to the client. I disagree.
Editor’s note: Timesheets, billing, cost accounting, value and pricing strike at the core of the accounting firm business model. For more on the topic, see:
> 14 Steps to Find the Right “Value Price,” by Bruce W. Marcus
> You May Be Value-Billing but Don’t Know It, video with Terry Putney
> Why the Next Boom Could be the Worst Thing that Ever Happens to Accountants, with Ron Baker
In this week’s RESEARCH UPDATE Newsletter:
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