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Today's Features
How to Bring Core Values into Your Accounting Firm
Plus eight tips for hiring and growing a team.
By Jackie Meyer
We’ve touched on core values quite a bit, and for good reason: they are the North Star for your firm’s culture and decision-making. Especially as you hire, incorporating core values into your team practices ensures you don’t lose the essence of what makes your firm special. Let’s delve a little deeper into identifying and integrating those values with your team.
MORE: Ten Key Guidelines for Accounting Staff | Hiring Strategies for Your Dream Team | Streamline Your Operations with Systems and Processes | From Compliance to Advisory: Shifting the Value Proposition | How I Became an Accidental Entrepreneur | Build a Seven-Figure Firm in Four Hours a Week
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.
If you haven’t formally defined five to seven core values for your practice yet, now’s the time. This isn’t just corporate fluff – done right, it’s a strategic compass. Some tips to pin them down:
- Reflect on Your Beliefs: Think about the principles most important to you in how you conduct business and life. Is it integrity? Family? Innovation? Helping others? These are usually one-word or short-phrase concepts that resonate deeply.
Is Your Firm Culture an Asset or a Liability?
Leadership must drive it.
By Anthony Zecca
Leading from the Edge
“Culture is like the wind. It is invisible; yet its effect can be seen and felt.” – Bryan Walker, partner and managing director, Ideo
Edge leaders are magnificent creators and stewards of a winning culture. I use the concept of “creating” because, regardless of what process is used to develop the culture of the firm, it is the firm leader who either gives life to it or modifies it through action and communication.
MORE by Anthony Zecca
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.
Edge leaders reflect the firm culture in all their actions, and they focus on ensuring that the firm’s performance is achieved within the culture and roadmap (strategy) that creates a standout, high-performing firm.
READ MORE →
Bissett Bullet: Objections are Opportunities
Today’s Bissett Bullet: “If a prospective client objects to something in our proposal, that’s exciting. Objections show that they care and are considering using us.”
By Martin Bissett
Let’s redefine terms. Let’s say that an objection being raised is actually better phrased as a concern being raised, and that we are in the business of resolving concerns to the satisfaction of the potential client.
When viewed in those terms, objections do not seem so scary. We can return to the true job of talking with another professional (in the form of our prospective client) to reach an agreement as to whether we should work together or not.
Speak. Fly. Repeat: The Jet-Set Life of Leaders | ARC
Find your voice and share it on stage.
Sponsored by “It’s NOT Just the Numbers: How to Move Beyond the Numbers and Deliver REAL Value for Your Clients.”
by Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead. See Today’s Special Offer
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Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason and Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation
Forget the clichés of accountants buried in spreadsheets. Today’s most innovative CPAs are more likely to be found keynoting tech conferences, moderating panels on firm transformation, or networking at rooftop receptions in Toronto, Tokyo, or Denver.
In this episode of Accounting ARC, hosts Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, and Liz Mason, CPA, peel back the curtain on how speaking and travel are helping redefine the accounting profession.
MORE Accounting ARC: Students Challenge Accounting’s Traditional Career Path | True Grit: Recognizing Struggles That Shape Our Successes | More Admins, Fewer Students, No Plan | What Career Advice Gets Wrong for Gen Z – And How to Fix It |Your Identity is Not a Liability | What Happens in Vegas… Gets Reported on a Tax Return | Burnout, Be Gone: Accounting Needs a Boundary Breakthrough | The Ultimate Business Hack You’re Probably Ignoring | Resilience, Real Talk, and the Road to Mental Wellness | Blockchain Could Still Reshape Accounting | What Gen Z Wants from Business | Firm Differentiation Depends Upon Client Service
“I used to think the only reason CPAs traveled was for audits,” says Shimamoto, founder and managing director of IntrapriseTechKnowlogies LLC and founder and inspiration architect for the Center for Accounting Transformation. “Now, speaking has taken me to 35 states and across the globe.”