Mergis Group: Accounting and Finance Confidence Rebounds
Confidence Index jumps 5.7 points to 48.0.
Why You Can’t Trust Your Career to Your Boss
What accountants need to know about performance reviews.
Next question: How’s your job? Join the survey; see the results.
by Rick Telberg
If you’re waiting for your next performance appraisal to see how you’re doing, it’s already too late.
It’s too late because if you don’t know, you’re already behind the curve. It’s too late because if you need to ask, your boss probably doesn’t want to tell you. And if your boss doesn’t want to tell you, then you probably won’t like what you hear. It’s too late because if your company or firm isn’t keeping you apprised, then it’s probably a company or firm that’s falling behind
the competition.
According to the Society for Human Resource Management, 90 percent of HR professionals say their companies under-utilize or misuse performance appraisals. So if the annual performance review process at your accounting firm or finance department feels like a waste of time you’re probably right. But that doesn’t relieve you of the responsibility to know how you’re doing. It just it makes it more difficult.
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How hard are CPAs working today? Join the survey. Get the results. (Free. Confidential) |
CPAs Worry about Nation’s Economy
But they’re a little more hopeful about their own firms and families.
CPA Trendlines survey for AICPA
As shown by the bright red areas, CPAs are most concerned about the outlook for the nation, their industry and their region.
We’ve been asking, “What’s your best advice?” Here some of the comments we’ve been getting: READ MORE →
Is Your Company Headed for a Flameout?
The five steps to failure and three warning signs CPAs cannot ignore. How are CPAs handling the new economic realities? Join the survey; get the answers.
by Rick Telberg
At Large
Collins
If there were only three financial metrics you needed to look at, what would they be?
Revenues? Profits? Growth? Market share? ROI?
Maybe, but none are as predictive of a good company headed for flameout than the three that bestselling author Jim Collins has found for CPAs and finance managers.
In “How the Mighty Fall,” best-selling author Jim Collins revisits several companies that went from good to great to the brink of failure. The lessons for CPAs and finance managers are stark and simple.
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How are CPAs handling the new economic reality? Sound off here: Join the survey; get the results. (Free. Confidential.) |
Thinking about Leadership vs. Management
This sums it up, from an accountant, in new research I’m poring over today:
“Management is great… cash management, budgeting, hiring, scheduling, etc. However, leadership is nonexistant. No vision, no communication, no partner retreats, no strategic plans, no marketing, no website”
Sound like your firm, too? We’ll be discussing this in the webinar on Tuesday. More here.
Help Wanted: AICPA seeks to hire “social media specialist”
Getting serious about new community-building strategies.
The AICPA is looking for a social media specialist, according to a new job listing on CareerBuilder. Based on the ad, you can expect the AICPA to be building it’s social media presence geometrically from here. See what an degree in English is good for? More details, here.
Social Media Specialist
Please respond via our website at www.aicpa.org/careers and post your resume directly online with us.
Purpose: Serve as internal expert on social media and its application for communications and other disciplines (conferences, media relations, marketing, etc) READ MORE →
NEW WEBINAR: “Leadership: New Rules for the New Normal” – Tuesday July 14
Notice to Readers:
Because you’ve shown an interest in our research reports in the past, I thought you’d want to know about the special webinar we’re presenting this upcoming Tuesday, July 14, on leadership and management strategies in an accounting firm.
In “Leadership: New Rules for the New Normal,” we’ll reveal:
- Essential Qualities for Accounting Firm Leaders in Today’s Economy
- How to Be a Leader if “Leader” Isn’t in Your Job Title
- Key Skills Every Accounting Firm Employee Needs to Know
- Bridging the Generation Gap in Today’s Workplace
- Why Teams Don’t Work, and How to Fix Them
- What’s Wrong with Every Firm’s Compensation System
Click here to register for the one-hour webinar on Leadership, July 14, at 1 pm Eastern. Only $79; or $449 for the entire seven-part series, a 20% savings.
If you’d like to learn more about our findings, you can click here to download the 12-page PDF, “The Seven Keys to Success in CPA Firm Management.” (No charge, no obligation.)
Thank you again for your continued interest and support.
Sincerely,
Rick Telberg
9 Ways to Use LinkedIn for Your Career
How young CPAs can make the leap from Facebook
Tom Hood, head of the Maryland CPA association and a social media evangelist, showed a lucky handful of young CPAs at the AICPA Leadership Academy in Chicago this week how to leverage social media for their careers.
He segued from talking about the role of Twitter in Iran to how young CPAs could use LinkedIn in everyday life.
Here are his eight tips for using LinkedIn to further your career:
- Find out where people with your backgrounds are working.
- Find out where people at a company came from.
- Check if a company is still hiring.
- Find out where people from a go next.
- Get the the hiring manager.
- Get to the right HR person.
- Find out the secret job requirements.
- Find startups to join.
- Build your network before you need it.
Here’s the slide deck. You’ll find more details on the LinkedIn tips starting on slide 31.
Leadership & Social Media Aicpa Leadership Academy
View more presentations from Tom Hood.
Bay Street Group research for the AICPA begins at slide 34.
Good stuff on social media risk at slide 49.
SURVEY: 40% of small business owners say their CPA provides little or no help
Huge market opportunity for CPAs, consultants who can boost profits, efficiency.
A new survey of 1,000 small business owners across the United States by management consulting firm George S. May International finds that 45 percent of respondents said their businesses are not profitable.
The survey also showed that 45 percent noted their accountant as the primary professional advisor they consulted for business help, while 20 percent noted “other” without specifying, 18 percent cited their attorney and 17 percent noted a management consultant.
But it’s alarming that only 60 percent said they are satisfied with their accountant’s help in making their business profitable, even though a majority of them are not profitable. In fact, 65 percent said their business is worse off this year than in 2008.
Sixty percent of all respondents cited the economy as the number one reason they are not profitable or as profitable as they could be.
“Many business owners feel that the recession is to blame for all of their woes, but that’s simply not the case and is actually part of a bigger problem,” said Paul Rauseo, managing director of the George S. May International Company. “There are plenty of small businesses making money in this economy because they are taking care of the business side of the business “controlling costs and increasing productivity.”
Aside from the economy, 29 percent of respondents cited competition within their industry as the one number reason they are not profitable; while 10 percent cited company inefficiencies in sales, finance, operations or labor; and one percent cited management.
Are you asking the right questions?
Some of the best start with “Why…?”
… as in this list of 15 from Mike Schultz, author of “Professional Services Marketing,” and president of the Wellesley Hills Group:
- Why didn’t we reach our revenue goals?
- Why is our marketing budget set at its current level?
- Why haven’t we been able to implement (insert tactic or initiative here) even though we keep saying it’s a priority?
- Why hasn’t (insert tactic or initiative here) worked as well for us as we might have liked?
- Why haven’t we tried anything new or innovative in our marketing?
- Why aren’t our marketplace messages resonating?
- Why are we (or aren’t we) launching new practice areas, geographies, industry specialties, etc.?
- Why don’t more of our partners develop business and bring in new clients?
- Why don’t we have a culture of business success?
- Why haven’t we been able to build a brand as we believe we can and should?
- Why are our competitors outmaneuvering us in the market?
- Why can’t we increase our fees?
- Why do our clients pressure our fees?
- Why have some practice areas of our firm grown so well while others haven’t?
- Why haven’t we improved our repeat business rate?
