Invest in the Right Guidance

Hand watering small plant in pot shaped like upward arrow“We never look at the money we’re missing out on.”

By Matt Solomon

There is one final shift you need to get your business kicking into high gear. The cornerstone to building a successful, growing business is shift #5: investing in the right guidance. Growing a sustainable business for the long term requires having the right team of advisors because, to put it simply, you don’t know what you don’t know!

MORE: Tap into Your Gold Mine | Your Secret Weapon for Exponential Profits | Step into the Role of a Business Advisor | Shift Your Practice: Stop Depending on Compliance Work
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Getting the right guidance can be the difference between success and failure, between time spent with family and loved ones and endless hours at the office, between satisfying, high-profit work and low-paying busy work.
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Tap into Your Gold Mine

Woman working on laptop at homeStop making these 7 mistakes.

By Matt Solomon

You don’t have a marketing problem.

I know what you’re thinking. I don’t know you, and I don’t know your business. True, but I do know accountants and accounting firms. And I know that just about every practice doesn’t need more clients to be profitable.

MORE: Your Secret Weapon for Exponential Profits | Step into the Role of a Business Advisor | Shift Your Practice: Stop Depending on Compliance Work | Three Ways to Leverage Today’s Uncertainties for Renewed Growth
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Your best source of new clients is your existing client base. It’s rich with business owners who know, like and trust you. They already pay you – and they’re ready for you to offer them something more.
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Your Secret Weapon for Exponential Profits

Illustration of man pushing "SERVICES" buttonHow to turn your business model upside down and reap the rewards.

By Matt Solomon

Learning to price, sell, and deliver through a simple, proven process streamlines the way you communicate your value and makes it easy for clients to say yes. It’s your secret weapon.

MORE: Shift 2: Step into the Role of a Business Advisor | Shift 1: Stop Depending on Compliance Work | Take the Nine-Point Practice Checkup | Three Ways to Leverage Today’s Uncertainties for Renewed Growth
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With practice, your ability to price, sell and deliver will be as routine as a 1040, but it’s worth a whole lot more: between $36,000 and $180,000 per year, per client.
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Step into the Role of a Business Advisor

Portrait of a cheerful businessman smiling at the cameraAre you proactive or reactive?

By Matt Solomon
The Center for Enlightened Business

Once you’re ready to stop depending on compliance work, you’ve got to move your business into another model. You need to be proactive, charge for your value and leverage your existing knowledge and skill set.

MORE: Shift Your Practice: Stop Depending on Compliance Work | Take the Nine-Point Practice Checkup | Three Ways to Leverage Today’s Uncertainties for Renewed Growth
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The business advisory model is your way out of compliance work! You can charge premium prices, work with better clients and be of greater service – while working fewer hours.
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Shift Your Practice: Stop Depending on Compliance Work

number 5 drawn in sandAre you ready to step off the hamster wheel?

By Matt Solomon
The Center for Enlightened Business

This article is the first in our Five Shifts series, which lays out five key shifts you need to take your business away from a high-volume model with long hours and unfulfilling work and toward monthly engagement of $3,000-$15,000 per client with $500+ hourly realization rates and a better quality of life.

SHIFT 1: Stop Depending on Compliance Work

MORE: Let Go of Beliefs That Hold You Back | Reframe Sales as Communicating Value | 3 Keys to Evolving Your Accounting Practice
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The idea of reducing your dependence on compliance work may be radical for some accountants and familiar to others.

Compliance work is the main source of income for many accountants, but unfortunately, it’s a high volume, low-profit ballgame. In order to be successful, you need to have flawless execution and massive leverage if anything is out of place or goes awry, you won’t get the results you’re hoping for.
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Take the Nine-Point Practice Checkup

Is it time to admit you have a problem?

By Matt Solomon
The Center for Enlightened Business

I’d like to ask you a question: How satisfied are you with the current state of your business?

Many accountants might say their firm is “good” or “doing well.” But in my 13 years of working with accountants on a daily basis, I’ve found that when you dig a little deeper, the truth isn’t quite as “good” as it could be. When I ask them to elaborate, accountants often tell me that they’re not getting paid what they’re worth, their clients don’t value and appreciate them, and they have too many difficult or unpleasant clients on their rosters.

MORE: Let Go of Beliefs That Hold You Back | Reframe Sales as Communicating Value | 3 Keys to Evolving Your Accounting Practice
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

Yet those same accountants continue to carry on, day after day, exactly the same way that they have before. This gets to a major problem in the accounting profession: high standards for your work, but low standards for the enjoyment you get out of that work. You may not be satisfied with the state of your business, but you don’t think it’s reasonable to expect better. You’ve accepted that working too hard and being undervalued and underpaid is just part of the deal. Even worse, you may not believe a better alternative (in terms of profitability, personal fulfillment and value add for your clients) exists.
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Oct. 26-27: The Center for Enlightened Business 16th Annual Symposium

^ Click to play CEO Matt Solomon’s preview of the 2020 symposium

The Virtual Accounting Conference of the Year for Small to Medium-Size Accounting Firm Owners

Hosted by CPA Trendlines expert advisors Matt Solomon and Mike Celada, and founder Rick Solomon.
Monday, Oct. 26, and Tuesday, Oct. 27
16 hours, 16 CPE
Save 85% with the special CPA Trendlines rate

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Three Ways to Leverage Today’s Uncertainties for Renewed Growth

How to embrace disruption to help clients like never before and create the life you’ve always wanted.

By Matt Solomon
The Center for Enlightened Business

I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but there’s a lot going on in the world right now. From a global pandemic and social injustice to economic uncertainty and political unrest, we’re living in an intense, and, arguably, unparalleled time.

So, what’s this got to do with being an accountant? Simply, everything.

As an accountant, you’re sitting in the crosshairs of many of these experiences, navigating new waters with each new day.

While you may have gotten used to it, learned how to navigate your new climate, and perhaps you’ve even embraced the “new normal,” it is not the time to rest on your laurels.

In fact, I strongly suggest the contrary: It’s time to lean in a little more, embrace the discomfit and avoid settling down just yet. READ MORE →