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MANAGEMENT

Nine Ways to Measure Staff Performance on the Path to Partner

They may have skills, but are they the right ones?

By Marc Rosenberg
How to Bring in New Partners

There are many ways to measure the performance of staff on the path to making partner.

MORE: Three Types of Skills You Need to Become a Partner | Six Ways New Partners Differ from Managers | Sixteen Duties of a Partner | Seventeen Basic Expectations of Partners | The Four Essentials for Every New Partner | Five People to Keep Out of Partnership | Nine Ways to Woo a Prospective Partner | Tell Potential Partners What It Takes
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As is my style, I will present far more measures than most firms actually use. But I doubt you’ll perceive any of the methods here as unimportant.

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Three Types of Skills You Need to Become a Partner

Senior businessman mentoring two younger workersWhat is your firm doing to help staff develop these?

By Marc Rosenberg
How to Bring in New Partners

The old-school way of developing staff into partners was very simple:

  • Staff are bountiful. Those with the right stuff move up; we’ll move the others out and hire a new crop to replace them.
  • It’s up to the staff to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and make their mark. Nobody showed us how to make partner. Nobody held our hands.

MORE: Six Ways New Partners Differ from Managers | Sixteen Duties of a Partner | Seventeen Basic Expectations of Partners | The Four Essentials for Every New Partner | Five People to Keep Out of Partnership | Nine Ways to Woo a Prospective Partner | Tell Potential Partners What It Takes
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  • It’s up to the staff to tell us that they want to be partners. Unless and until they show us this ambition, we won’t talk to them about becoming a partner.
  • Bringing in business can’t be taught. You’re either born with it or you’re not.
  • And while we are on the subject of business development, we all know from experience that marketing must be done nights and weekends. Clients are too busy during the day. And we need the days to get our billable hours in. So a partner must commit to working long hours, including nights and weekends, and be willing to sacrifice his or her personal life for the firm.

Not much of a clear or easy path in those days, was there?
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Six Ways New Partners Differ from Managers

Two businessmen talking across a deskBusiness development is a determining factor for some firms.

By Marc Rosenberg
How to Bring in New Partners

This is one of the grayest areas in bringing in new partners. It has perplexed CPA firms for decades.

MORE: Sixteen Duties of a Partner | Seventeen Basic Expectations of Partners | The Four Essentials for Every New Partner | Five People to Keep Out of Partnership | Nine Ways to Woo a Prospective Partner | Tell Potential Partners What It Takes
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Here is the typical scenario. The firm has had one or more managers on board for 10 to 20 years. They have made their mark primarily with their technical skills, doing great work with clients, showing tremendous loyalty and work ethic. They generally lack business development and to a lesser extent, leadership skills, but they have become indispensable to the partners, who rely on them heavily to service their clients. The partners would have heartburn if these managers left the firm.
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Sixteen Duties of a Partner

Green cast iron sign with white 16 painted on itPlus seven things that partners are entitled to … and 12 that they’re not.

By Marc Rosenberg
How to Bring in New Partners

There are a number of realities that go along with being a partner in an accounting firm.

You’re an owner. As such, you get paid based on the firm’s earnings, not as an employee.

MORE: Seventeen Basic Expectations of Partners | The Four Essentials for Every New Partner | Five People to Keep Out of Partnership | Nine Ways to Woo a Prospective Partner | Tell Potential Partners What It Takes
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You pay for your ownership. New owners in any business must pay money to acquire their ownership. At CPA firms, this is called a new partner buy-in. Because CPA firms have a substantial street value, it’s reasonable that new partners should be required to purchase their interest in the firm.
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Seventeen Basic Expectations of Partners

Serious-looking businessman in front of empty conference roomDevelop staff, develop business, develop yourself.

By Marc Rosenberg
How to Bring in New Partners

The following apocryphal vignette plays out at partner retreats on a regular basis: The partners brainstorm what is expected of partners at their firm. They have a spirited, productive discussion that results in a dozen items written on a flipchart.

MORE: The Four Essentials for Every New Partner | Five People to Keep Out of Partnership | Nine Ways to Woo a Prospective Partner | Tell Potential Partners What It TakesGoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

All of a sudden, one of the partners yells, “Oh, no!” The startled partners ask him what’s wrong. He points at the flipchart: “None of us qualify!”

There is not one firm whose policy on what a partner is reads exactly like the list below. This is a collection of what I have seen at many great firms I have had the pleasure of working with.
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