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CLIENT SERVICE OPPORTUNITIES

Get Clients to Bring Tax Docs Early … Yes, EARLY

The secret? Humor, sarcasm and shame.

By Frank Stitely
The Relentless CPA

There are easy ways to get clients to do what we need them to do. In our office, we call the process “training” clients. One of our biggest headaches is the late delivery of tax materials. So, we train our clients to bring their tax documents in early.

MORE: You Train Your Clients, Whether You Mean To or Not | Train Your Clients Before They Train You | Why Time Tracking Still Matters | Business Owners Face One of Three Exits | Don’t Let Clients Dictate Tax Workflow | Make Fewer Mistakes, Increase Revenue and Capacity | How Small Firms Can Win the Talent Wars | Easy Ways to Avoid ‘Done But’ Tax Returns | Six Ways to Create a Millennial-Friendly Firm | Do You Know Your Turnaround Time?
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We accomplish this through a series of e-blasts explaining our deadlines. The e-blasts start in December, and we call them “Countdown to Tax Season.” They cover much more than our deadlines for clients to provide business and personal income tax returns documents.

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ADVISORY & CONSULTING

You Train Your Clients, Whether You Mean To or Not

If you schedule it, they will come. So … stop that now.

By Frank Stitely
The Relentless CPA

As we all know, there is a definite cost involved in not training clients. Let’s look at the training that’s occurring, whether you know it or not. It actually all boils down to timing.

MORE: Train Your Clients Before They Train You | Why Time Tracking Still Matters | Business Owners Face One of Three Exits | Make Fewer Mistakes, Increase Revenue and Capacity | How Small Firms Can Win the Talent Wars | Six Ways to Create a Millennial-Friendly Firm | Do You Know Your Turnaround Time?
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Here is an example of my stupidity.

I met with a client who was a software company executive. He had been a client for a dozen years, and people don’t get much smarter than he is. He drove from Alexandria, Virginia, to Chantilly, Virginia, every year. The drive is 20 miles and might seem like a 30-minute trip, but in northern Virginia, it’s more like an hour.
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ADVISORY & CONSULTING

Train Your Clients Before They Train You

Taking unscheduled phone calls and meetings wrecks your bottom line and theirs.

By Frank Stitely
The Relentless CPA

Many of the behaviors you rationalize as good client service are just desperate measures to avoid losing bad clients.

MORE: Why Time Tracking Still Matters | Business Owners Face One of Three Exits | How Small Firms Can Win the Talent Wars | Six Ways to Create a Millennial-Friendly Firm | Do You Know Your Turnaround Time?
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However, clients are trainable – at least as trainable as Jack Russell Terriers. That is to say they’re somewhat trainable. However, like Jack Russell Terriers, you train clients or they’ll train you. Somebody’s getting trained. Here’s an example of how that works.
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MANAGEMENT

Why Time Tracking Still Matters

If your team dismisses timesheets as old school, you may want to rethink that strategy.

By Frank Stitely
The Relentless CPA

Pen ready to fill in blank timesheet

Because capacity is the denominator in the Lean Six Sigma equation, and employee productivity is a big factor in capacity, employee productivity becomes a big factor in determining turnaround time.

MORE: Business Owners Face One of Three Exits | Don’t Let Clients Dictate Tax Workflow | Make Fewer Mistakes, Increase Revenue and Capacity | How Small Firms Can Win the Talent Wars | Easy Ways to Avoid ‘Done But’ Tax Returns | Six Ways to Create a Millennial-Friendly Firm | Do You Know Your Turnaround Time?
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First, let’s dismiss all the consultants who tell us time tracking and productivity metrics don’t matter. For the most part, these consultants have never managed or owned CPA firms. Rarely have they worked in firms for any length of time. They have never known the struggles of meeting payroll the first pay period in February, when employee hours are up but the tax season money is not rolling in yet.

Here’s an example that shows why time tracking and productivity metrics matter:
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MANAGEMENT

Business Owners Face One of Three Exits

Businessman putting a card with text "Don't resist change, embrace it" in suit pocketExpect to sell your practice? Not if you resist change.

By Frank Stitely
The Relentless CPA

In talking to firms from around the country, I realized there are three types of firms out there:

  1. Firms and practitioners that are sliding into retirement, whether they know it or not
  2. Firms that see the need for change, but don’t know where to start
  3. Firms that see a clear path to the future through better practice management

MORE: Don’t Let Clients Dictate Tax Workflow | Make Fewer Mistakes, Increase Revenue and Capacity | How Small Firms Can Win the Talent Wars | Easy Ways to Avoid ‘Done But’ Tax Returns | Six Ways to Create a Millennial-Friendly Firm | Do You Know Your Turnaround Time?
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

Since publishing my first book and launching my firm’s workflow and collaboration application, I have talked to practitioners from firms of all types and sizes. My CPA firm pursued a few acquisition opportunities. During the process, I learned there are a lot of practitioners who are either incapable of adapting to our profession’s 21st-century changes or unwilling to adapt. That’s okay, if you are making an informed choice to retire and don’t care about realizing much in value by selling your firm.

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