Here’s what you’re looking for: Dom Esposito

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Shape Partner Behavior through Compensation

manager holding up carrots in front of employees

Does your firm have the right mix?

By Domenick J. Esposito
8 Steps to Great

Visualize your partner group fitting into a bell curve.

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In Quartile #1, you have the stallions – the very high performers who produce outstanding contributions to the firm year in and year out. These equity partners want to win and know how to do it.
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Culture Due Diligence Is Real and Necessary

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A six-point road map to follow.

By Domenick J. Esposito
 8 Steps to Great

Over the last several years, there have been over 200 merger, acquisition, alliance and joint venture announcements by the Top 100 and other fast-growing CPA firms. Every indication is that these combinations will continue at a very rapid rate as CPA firms are:

  • Facing an aging partner group that usually includes the most effective relationship and business development partners. Baby boomers have been a home run for CPA firms.
  • Finding organic growth very difficult to attain with little prospect that business is going to dramatically improve in the foreseeable future.
  • Realizing an inability to attract an adequate supply of high-quality talent to help perpetuate the firm.

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CPA firm CEOs and other senior management are very effective at financial and operational due diligence, tracking results and holding partners accountable for hitting timely targets. On its face, an observer would tend to conclude that these 200+ combinations are very accretive to partner profitability after an integration period of 18 to 24 months.
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LEADERSHIP

Tax Season Winds Down and Strategic Planning Season Begins

Coffee cup by napkin with words including "action plans."

Take your firm from good to great.

By Domenick J. Esposito
8 Steps to Great

It is often said that leading a CPA firm is like herding cats (everyone going in different directions), because many firms are very good at talking and planning about their future (it’s in their DNA), but terrible at execution and implementation.  It’s a little like the shoemaker’s shoes. Partners get distracted with client service or low-hanging fruit and give up too quickly in creating change within their own firms.

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If you are ready to take the first big step of moving from a merely good firm to a mid-market sustainable brand, then a strategic plan, with specific implementation tactics and accountability measures, is the absolute first step.  I would encourage you to begin the process with your partners as soon as possible.

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Is Your Non-Billable Time Working for You?

Time is money : clock hands on $100 bills

Make sure that business development is part of your firm DNA.

By Domenick J. Esposito
8 Steps to Great

Today, at many smaller firms, client service partners (defined as partners who devote 100 percent of their time on clients with no firm administration responsibilities), generate, on average, about 1,500 to 1,600 billable hours per annum.

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At most of the Top 100 CPA firms, client service partners generate about 1,200 billable hours per annum. That should be the absolute minimum at the Top 100 firms. Without breaking much of a sweat, client service partner billable hours at the Top 100 could and should easily reach 1,300 to 1,400 billable hours per annum.
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Why an Independent Executive Committee Member Is So Valuable

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Five considerations for bringing in an outside perspective.

By Domenick J. Esposito
8 Steps to Great

Managing partners and other senior management at small and mid-sized CPA firms are known for their entrepreneurial spirit, independent thinking and their desire to call their own shots. At the same time, firm leadership recognizes that they have developed their leadership and management skills from the school of hard knocks and their experiences at firms a good number of them joined directly upon graduation from college.

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While these skills are critically important, they are, in fact, limiting as they draw upon a very narrow knowledge base and don’t draw upon a much broader universe of knowledge that is out there. How often do you hear “I wonder how other firms do this or do that?”
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Fourteen Questions for Weighing Independence vs. Merger

legs-only view of two businesspeople walking up stairs with briefcases in office

Stay independent but keep looking upward.

By Domenick J. Esposito
8 Steps to Great

Your firm was knocking the cover off the ball with a strategy of getting bigger with quality growth, stronger with quality talent, and more profitable but it is increasingly obvious that it has become difficult competing in today’s mid-market space.

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The business environment is anemic and organic growth is hard to come by. Your challenge is exacerbated when you see an insufficient number of young superstars and rainmakers and your senior partners, mostly baby boomers, don’t have an awful lot of “golf course” left to play.
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Quality Work Vs. Quality Service

 

young man in suit staring at laptop screen

They’re not the same thing.

By Domenick J. Esposito
8 Steps to Great

Over the years, I have enjoyed reading and internalizing the insights of David Maister, highly regarded author, speaker and practice management consultant.

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Many years ago (circa 1993), Maister wrote a professional service firms article titled “Quality Work Doesn’t Mean Quality Service.”
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Why Addressing Ineffective Partners Isn’t Optional

Three office workers glaring at camera

How to arrange a “soft landing.”

By Domenick J. Esposito
8 Steps to Great

Most accounting, tax and advisory CPA firm professionals who have demonstrated that they can help perpetuate an organization become partners between the ages of 35 and 42. In many cases, these same professionals retire from their firms as they approach the age of 60, 65 and 70.

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Many emotional and physical changes happen to us humans over the course of 25, 30 or 35 years. Sometimes for the good and sometimes for the bad, our personal lives, energy levels and productivity at the age of 35 usually are different than our personal lives, energy levels and productivity at the age of 65.
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PRICING, FEES & BILLING RATES

Want Better Leaders? Grow Your Own

A development academy might be the answer.

By Domenick J. Esposito
8 Steps to Great

When it’s time to make decisions about new partner admissions, here is what senior leadership at many small and midsized CPA firms often hear:

  • “If Mary doesn’t make audit partner this year, she will leave the firm. We can’t afford to lose her as she gets all the work done at ABC Manufacturing Corporation, who pays us over $300,000 a year. Without Mary, this client will leave the firm” and
  • “We need to make Joe a tax partner this year because he is the only one in the firm who understands ‘C.’ Without him, we will have a big hole in our tax department capabilities. It could put a big hurt on the firm.”

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In their guts, these leaders know that, while both Mary and Joe are solid professionals, there is little chance that either of them will develop beyond client service partners.
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