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Implement These Two Daily Rituals

Calm balanced businessman sitting outdoors on bench in Yoga lotus pose meditating, with office building and blue sky in background

BONUS: Lists to help you focus and measure.

By Sandi Leyva
The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms

There’s something special about the word ritual. It sounds sacred, like you wouldn’t dare break it.

It sounds a little mysterious, as if there’s a component you can’t quite control. And it sounds colorful, like something full of character that you would never get bored of.

MORE: Three Ways to Follow Up with Prospects | Are You Throwing Away Profits? | Three Steps to Becoming a Millionaire | How to Use ChatGPT to Create Images | Create a Bad Website in Ten Easy Steps | Leverage Your Strengths to Beat Stress | Are You Crossing Off Your Business Bucket List? | Ten Ways to Make Your Business Irresistible | Five Ways to Target the Low-Hanging Fruit | Are Your Revenue Projections Realistic?
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We don’t think about rituals much when it comes to business, but I think we should. What rituals could you create in your business that will rev up your revenues? Here are two ideas to get your engines started.
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MARKETING & SALES

Bissett Bullet: A.C.C.O.U.N.T.S.

Today’s Bissett Bullet: “A pipeline is essentially a list of people we would like to bring value to, but how can we use it to forecast new business?”

By Martin Bissett

How can you tell which of your potential clients are really looking to work with you and which are wasting your time?

Introducing the A.C.C.O.U.N.T.S system. Grading your prospects using a binary scoring choice – 0 for no, 10 for yes – to each of the following criteria will help you to determine who will want to work with you and who may just be comparing prices.

Answer – Can we solve their problems?
10 = yes, 0 = no

Cash – Can they afford us?
10 = yes, 0 = no

Convince – Do we need to convince anyone else in the business?
10 = yes, 0 = no

Objections – Are there any major objections unresolved?
10 = yes, 0 = no

Undertake – Is this work we actually want?
10 = yes, 0 = no

Necessity – Do THEY feel the need/urgency for change?
10 = yes, 0 = no

Timing – Is the next meeting date in the diary?
10 = yes, 0 = no

Signatory – Does your proposal need someone else to sign it off?
10 = yes, 0 = no

The higher your score, the more likely you will win the work. Got 6 yeses? There’s a 60 percent chance you will win the work. Now, what do you need to do to change the 0s to 10s?

Today’s To-Do:

Start to grade your pipeline against the A.C.C.O.U.N.T.S. system to help you prioritize your efforts and forecast new business in any given week or month.

See more Bissett Bullets here

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MARKETING & SALES

Perception, Even Your Own, Is Reality

young businesswoman looking in mirror

You have to believe in yourself.

By Martin Bissett
 Business Development on a Budget

“No man has the ability to step outside of the shadow of his own character.” – Robespierre

As far as our potential clients are concerned, how they perceive us is how we really are to them, regardless of the truth of the matter.

MORE: Eight Questions That Target Personal Accountability | How to Prepare for Partnership | Five Questions to Help Forecast Your Firm Growth | Do You Deliver on Your Website’s Promises? | Five Questions About Facing Challenges | Be Clear About Your ROI Proposition | It’s Time to Prepare the Next Generation | Who Are You More Committed to, Your Firm or Your Clients? | Nine Checkpoints Before Every Prospect Meeting | Three Questions about Conversion | Six Keys to Turning Prospects into Clients | Don’t Overlook Internal Communication | Four Reasons People Struggle with Communication | Why Firm Culture Matters for Partners
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Because of this, it’s important to realize that when we are meeting a new potential client who has not been referred to us, it does not matter what the reality of our value proposition is; it matters how that potential client perceives our value proposition. Therefore, to be effective in winning work, we must understand how we can positively influence their perception of us at each stage of the relationship-building process.
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MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

Aynsley Damery: Learn the Early Warning Signs That Can Point to Business Failure | The Disruptors

 Scaling models that work for large firms don’t necessarily translate to small businesses.

The complete video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members | Go PRO here
Sponsored by The Balanced Millionaire: The Advisor Edition by Dr. Jackie Meyer | See Today’s Special Offer

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Build a 7-figure firm in just 4 hours a week!

It’s not your fault that scaling advisory hasn’t worked. According to Aynsley Damery, CEO and co-founder of Clarity, the advisory model most accountants have been using was never designed for small businesses. “The model we were given is the same model that was used in the 70s and 80s by Bain and McKinsey,” Damery explains. “It was built for large corporates, and I’m not sure was ever really built for small business owner.”

MORE DISRUPTORS: Oliver: Build a Biz that Runs Without You | Daiber: Use Succession as a Growth Strategy | Cannon: Busy Season is Self-Inflicted | Carroll: When One Person Can Break the Firm |  Rampe: Build a Roadmap Even When the Road’s Not There | Chang: Killing SALY, One Agent at a Time | Vanover: 5-Star Firms Don’t Bill by the Hour | Kless: Profit Is a Result. Flourishing Is the Purpose | Whitman: Build Culture on ‘Progress,’ Not Change | Shein: No PE? No M&A? No Problem | Hood and Weber: Time to RISE | Proctor: Turn Dumb Ideas into Brilliant Solutions | Carter-Gray: How 1 Poor Review Strengthened the Firm | Hartman: Upwork to “40 Under 40” in 3 Years |

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The problem with this model is that it doesn’t scale. “The model we’ve been given is partner-reliant. It’s bespoke. Everything’s ad hoc. It takes a lot of time,” says Damery. In support of this thesis, Damery cites a Xero study in Canada that found that when firms that bolted bespoke advisory onto compliance, their profitability dropped by 30%. Damery’s own benchmarking among Clarity users confirmed this.

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ACCOUNTING ARC

Rachel Farris: The CPA Career Nobody Talks About | ARC

The next generation is blending entrepreneurship, AI, and advisory into careers that barely existed a few years ago.

Sponsored by Radical Pricing by the Radical CPA, Jody Padar | See Today’s Special Offer

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Optimize Profits, Delight Clients, & Build a Top-Value Firm!

Accounting ARC
With Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation

For decades, the accounting profession has followed a familiar script: earn a CPA license, join a firm, climb the ladder and perhaps become a partner.

Rachel Farris, CPA, MBA, is proving there is another way.

After building a highly specialized tax advisory practice serving U.S. citizens relocating to Puerto Rico, Farris launches Tax Stack AI, a company that helps accounting firms implement artificial intelligence securely and strategically.

MORE Accounting ARC: Conference Season Exposes Accounting’s Knowledge Gap | The Feedback Mistake That Costs You Your Best People | Is Your Boss Really the Problem? | Most Accountants Are Missing This AI Shift | AI Can Fix Your Workflow—or Break It in Seconds | Efficiency Is the Wrong Goal for AI | Accounting’s Hidden Talent Risk: The Sandwich Generation | Built Fast. Sold Faster. Broken Later? The Truth About Accounting Tech | Recognize When You Need to Recharge Before You Burn Out | Valuing More Than the Balance Sheet

She has since sold her CPA practice to focus on AI consulting and education, demonstrating that today’s accounting professionals can create careers far beyond traditional public accounting.

In this episode of Accounting ARC, Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, founder and managing director of IntrapriseTechKnowlogies LLC and founder and inspiration architect for the Center for Accounting Transformation, sits down with Farris to explore entrepreneurship, AI, networking and the expanding possibilities available to CPAs willing to embrace change.

Their conversation becomes less about one accountant’s journey and more about the profession’s future.

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