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Responding to “Why Accounting? Your Clients Want to Know,” Geni Whitehouse comments:
Great article. We’ve been using the WHY with our clients for years and have changed all of our messaging around it. Our CPA firm’s managing partner talks about the ways the WHY discussion has changed our firm in a video on our homepage.
Here’s the video: READ MORE →
A new generation takes over the corner office. Join the survey, get the results.
by Rick Telberg
CPA Trendlines
The same generational shift that has the accounting profession fretting about succession, mergers and millennials is also wreaking havoc in another sector of the firm: the office of managing partner.
By one CPA Trendlines study of a fairly typical global association of firms, roughly 25% of the managing partners now serving have held the job for two years or less. In a business that measures job longevity in decades, two years represents rookie status. Considering the advance of age and consolidation, we estimate that within another five years 80% of today’s firms will be under new management.
This new generation of managing partner is bringing new energy and new ideas to the profession. But that hardly makes up for the lack of executive leadership training and experience of the new class of CEO. Mistakes are sure to follow: making big decisions too quickly, or too slowly; misunderstanding the business drivers or looking at the wrong ones entirely; failing to make the right relationships with the right people, or maintaining bad relationships for too long.
CPA Trendlines is canvassing practitioners across the nation and in firms of all sizes to sift out some of the best advice we can find for the rookie managing partner. Join the survey, get the results.
And so far, we’re getting an earful. READ MORE →
By Rick Telberg As technology moves to the cloud and goes mobile, traditional accounting software sales and support businesses will be left behind by new business models built for subscriptions and high-end services. This could be bad news for the … Continued
Many CPA firms may be on the path to extinction.
By Gale Crosley, CPA
The world’s population is becoming increasingly aware of the importance of sustainability. For several decades we’ve developed an understanding of preserving our planet’s resources. The recent sustainability conversation has amped up the focus among corporate executives on their social responsibility to insure our world’s future.
It’s an especially relevant time, therefore, to discuss the sustainability of our firms. And that’s what this book is about. Managing partners spend significant time pondering their firm’s strategy. One of their greatest challenges is engaging their partners to be as committed as they are.
Adapted from the preface to “How to Engage Partners in the Firm’s Future: The Secrets Every Leader Needs to Know,” by August J. Aquila and Robert J. Lees
There are lots of reasons for the challenge. These include a “nose to the grindstone versus up to the wind” mentality, partners not spending enough time dedicated to the task, abdicating their leadership role, putting their own interests before the firm’s, or just plain apathy. It’s easy for a partner group to sit around a table and discuss their future. But talk is cheap. After the strategic planning is done, leaders actually have to do something. It takes significant effort to develop as a leader, work as a team, subjugate one’s own interests for the greater good, learn new competencies, solve complex problems, and exhibit leadership behaviors. READ MORE →
Four steps when things aren’t turning out the way you dreamed.
By Sandi Smith, CPA
Accountant’s Accelerator
How does your current business look compared to the one you dreamed about before you started your entrepreneurial journey? Do you now have clients you love, a dream team, the financial rewards you are comfortable with, and plenty of free time?
More for soloists and small firms: Two Steps to Easy Cross-sells | The Hot New Tech Product for Automated Data Entry | Five Value-Add Service Areas to Take You Beyond Bookkeeping | Six Money-Making Strategies to Take You Beyond QuickBooks | Proactive Ways to Get More Referrals | The Three Biggest Money Leaks in Your Practice | New Client Opportunities with Mobile Apps | Six Questions to Launch Your Summer Strategy Sessions | What Most Accountants Miss in the Five Simple Steps to Get More Clients | Accountants, Do You Know Your Opportunity Number? | Five Ideas to Reduce Client Price-Sensitivity | Rise to the Top with a Fresh Elevator Speech | Four Ways to Practice Entrepreneurial Perseverance | 5 Mistakes to Avoid When Seeking New Clients | The Top 12 Business Card Blunders Accountants Make | Seven Tips to Keep the Clients You Have | How to Attract Clients Like a Magnet | Eleven Easy Ways to Deliver More Value to Clients
If not, don’t give up. You can still get there, and a little business clarity may help you get there even faster.
Here are four steps: READ MORE →
“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”
By Hitendra Patil
Pransform, Inc.
We are used to getting asked “What do you do for living?” But when someone asks “Why,”we have to dig deeper to answer that question.
Celebrity author Simon Sinek wrote a revolutionary book called “Start With Why.” He says, based on complex research results, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” He further adds – “those who know their why are the ones who lead.”
Question: I am on the board of directors and am treasurer of a not for profit organization. One of the board members is an officer of a commercial bank where we have our accounts. The organization wants to get … Continued
Nine questions CPAs need to ask before hiring a public relations agency.
By Bruce W. Marcus
Professional Services Marketing 3.0
There was a time when all you needed was a roll of nickels and a phone booth, and you were in the PR game. Of course, all clients expected then was that you get their names in the paper. For most of the publicity clients in those days, that was sufficient.
Those days were the late 1920s and 1930s, before PR became Public Relations, and before we were beset with such glorious concepts as image, and positioning, and niche marketing. Today, public relations is infinitely more sophisticated than that, as is the public relations client. The public relations program for any modern corporation is to its publicity ancestor as desktop publishing is to hieroglyphics. And of course, the public relations program for the professional firm is different, too. READ MORE →