Five Skills that Separate Winners from Losers in the Accounting Business

Super-successful firms are experts at achieving one or more these…

by Marc Rosenberg, CPA
The Rosenberg MAP Survey

If CPA firms did everything “right,” they could easily double or triple their income. Doing things right includes effectively bringing in clients, charging high billing rates, maintaining strong realization, high leverage of staff to partners and keeping expenses down. It’s the rare firm that does well in all of these categories.

More practice management strategy: Compensation Issues for the New Managing Partner | 20 Decisions for Your Firm’s New Partner Compensation Committee | Three Ways to Break Partner Gridlock in an Accounting Firm | What Partners Are Entitled To, and What They’re NOT Entitled To | How to Make Partner? | Why Accounting Firm Partners Are “Popping Prozac like M&M’s” | More…

The path to profitability is different for every firm. But the truly profitable firms are successful at achieving one or more of the following: READ MORE →

Six Reasonable Goals for CPA Firm Marketing

But will your tactics do the job?

by Bruce W. Marcus

Tactics are the most difficult part of a professional firm marketing program, because so much of what must be done depends upon the scarce, non-billable time of partners and professional staff.

More Bruce W. Marcus:  The Tools of Marketing Are Not a Program – They Are Simply Tools   |   Is Your Marketing Program Really a Program?   |   Six Metrics for Marketing ROI   |   How to Formulate the Right Marketing Goals for Your Firm   |   Get Real: 15 Questions for Achievable Growth  |  If You Don’t Know Where You’re Going, How Do You Know How to Get There?   |   Eight Tips for Staying One Step Ahead of the Competition (And Maybe the Client, Too)       Nine Things We Know For Sure about How to Grow an Accounting Firm   |   The CPA’s Castle Is Crumbling   |   My Address in Space: The Dynamics of Change at Accounting Firms   |   Six Quick Reasons Why CPA Firms Will Never Be The Same   |   14 Steps to Find the Right “Value Price”

If the firm management hasn’t made clear that participation by every professional in the firm is an integral part of recognition and growth within the firm, you can scrap the marketing program. It can be helpful if the non-billable hour was renamed the investment hour, because if those hours are spent on marketing, investment hours are exactly what they are. READ MORE →

Why 9% of Firms Flourish Even in Bad Times

A four-pronged approach to weathering any economic storm.

By Sandi Smith, CPA

According to an article published in Harvard Business Review, three scientists, Ranjay Gulati, Nitin Nohria, and Franz Wohlgezogen, conducted a study to discover the strategies that generated the most – and the least – profits in lean times.

More small-firm success tips at CPA Trendlines:   ‘There Is No Such Thing as a Time Problem’    15 Off-the-Hook Ideas for Accountants to Dream Big     3 Money Leaks that May Need Plugging in Your Business    Seven Tips to Keep the Clients You Have How to Attract Clients Like a Magnet Eleven Easy Ways to Deliver More Value to Clients • Five Things Accountants Take for Granted That Costs Them Revenue  • What’s in Your New Client Funnel? • What’s In Your Welcome Kit for New Prospects? • Five Fun and Easy Ways to Wow Your Clients • Six Ways to Give Yourself a Raise • Strategies to Stop Losing Business to Competitors  • Five Tips to Manage Your ‘Overwhelm’ Level • Easy Ideas for a Quick Business Boost • Four New Mega-Trend Marketing Strategies • How to Stop Leaving Money on the Table

First, here’s a list of sure-fire ways to kill your business: READ MORE →

10 Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Decide to Add Financial Services to Your Practice

An easy way to add new revenue? Maybe. Maybe not.

Here at CPA Trendlines, Ed Mendlowitz answers some of the toughest questions practitioners can throw at him. He’s the right one to ask. After more than 40 years in the business – building his own practice, running the firm, and eventually selling it to a major regional firm, WithumSmith+Brown, where he remains a senior partner and consultant to professional services clients – he has the answers. We’re happy to have him at CPA Trendlines. Send your questions for Ed here, or chime in with Comments below.

Meanwhile, browse more from Ed here: Preparing to Sell Your Practice in a Few Years? 13 Things You Need to Know Today     |     What’s a Tax Practice Worth Today?    |   Why Selling Your Practice Is Not a Retirement Strategy   |    When a Partner is Unwilling to Help | Congratulations! You Bought a Tax Practice. Now What? | How Accountants Can Keep the Business When a Client Wants to Sell Theirs | 10 Reasons Clients Don’t Pay, and What To Do about It | 13 Reasons Timesheets Will Never Die |

— Rick Telberg
President / CEO

 

QUESTION: I am thinking of adding financial services to my practice. What are your thoughts? READ MORE →

25 Ways to Grow Your Practice

In a tough economy, many firms go back to basics to find success.

Here’s a list of 25 ideas for growing your practice from management consultant August Aquila.

How many are you currently doing?

  1. Start with current clients. Look at clients that are only using one of your services. For example, a high income individual tax return client who is not using your wealth management services, an audit client that is using any of your consulting services. A client relationship services call is certainly due.
  2. Compile a list of clients by SIC codes and niches (e.g. not-for-profits, construction, manufacturing, professional services firms, etc.) READ MORE →